2D1N sg. lembing trip...

last weekend, N and i joined the community group MyTravelKaki for a 2d1n trip to sg. lembing...

the trip began officially at 12.01am on 12 Sept, with a briefing at ampang before departing by carpool for the sg. lembing via the karak highway.

N and i synchronizing the time on our cameras during briefing time.

this conversation took place not too long ago:

me: eeeeeeee... very mang-zhang (canto for "frustrating"), u know!
N: what happened?
me: every time i try consolidate the photos from both our cameras, our time is always not in-sync. so can't auto-arrange the photos according to time taken. need to arrange and rename it one-by-one. next time can u set ur time to follow mine before we start taking photos?
N: y must follow urs? y can't u follow mine?
me: coz my time is the correct time...
N: mine also correct mar... it's just 15 minutes faster only!
me: =_='''

we were about the first few cars to arrive at the kuantan toll at about 3.40am. but had to wait
for the rest of the convoy because most of the drivers do not know how to get to sg. lembing...
in case u're wondering what i was doing, i was actually asking N
if it'll be better to take photo with the toll booth as our background.

anyway, tried as i may, i just couldn't fall asleep in the entire journey. so was actually quite tired by now. after abt an 1/2 hour wait, we set off again, for another 1 hour's drive along the trunk road to sg. lembing...

5.00am - arrived in the literally sleepy town of sg. lembing...
not a soul stirred, save for a stray dog or two that came to investigate
what strangers have arrived at their town in the dead of the night...

facts abt sg. lembing (copied from wikipedia):

Sungai Lembing is a tin mining town 42 km northwest of Kuantan in Pahang, Malaysia. Lembing is Malay for spear, and "sungai" means river. Per local legend, the local ruler saw a vision of a spear in the nearby river and thus named his town after this vision.

Until the 1970s, Sungai Lembing was a major producer of underground tin. Sungai Lembing town developed in the 1880's when the British set up the tin mining industry, although the history of mining in this area extends much further back. From 1891, the Pahang Consolidated Company Limited, (PCCL), which was under British control, had a 77-year lease to mine the area. PCCL managed the mine from 1906 until its liquidation in 1986 when world tin prices collapsed.

The pit mines were closed in 1986 due to high operational costs and low yields, but during their heyday they were among the largest and deepest in the world. The total tunnel length is 322 km, with a depth of between 610 m and 700 m. A museum highlighting the tin mining industry was opened in 2003. The museum is housed in an old bungalow once used by the mine manager. The museum houses a collection of mining artifacts.

Today the town of Sg Lembing is in decline although it was once the richest town in Pahang, known as El Dorado of the East. In the 1940's about 1400 people worked in the mine. Today many of the wooden shoplots are closed and people are moving away. The town straddles the river, and the main street on the right bank is split by an avenue of majestic trees. At the end, an old wooden building overlooks the padang where games of cricket and other social activities were held.

our trek up to the Rainbow Waterfall will only start at 6.30am. so with nothing else to do,
we hung around in the food court waiting for the food stalls to open for a bite of breakfast...

after a light breakfast of toast and nescafe (the rest had the famous
sg. lembing yong tau foo), we got ready for the first hike of our trip...

the twins who carpooled together with us, and their cousin...

it was a bumpy ride all the way at the back of a pick-up truck! not forgetting
getting whipped and lashed at by tree branches and leaves along the way...

a short stop over at one of the more picturesque site for some photography...

these pillar were once for one of the many hanging bridges in sg. lembing,
which has been swept away by the river water...

the back of the trucks were lined with these plank 'benches',
which were a torture to our butts in the rough off-roads!
N: "i wonder if they have backside massage in town..."

on the way again...

7.59am - another pit stop, for toilet breaks...

the photo i was taking in the photo above...

this is how the toilets looked like... kinda put u off, huh?
N badly needed to go, but chose not to...

8.11am - after a bumpy one n a half hour ride at the back of the pick-up truck,
we were let off to cross the stream on the way to the Rainbow Waterfall...


no, we're not there yet... still need to trek thru a bit of jungle...

...and some rocky dried up river bed. here's me trying to keep my shoes from getting wet...

N and i were the last ones, because we were just
walking along so selamba and bz taking photos...

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12 Sept '09, 7.59am - another pit stop, for toilet breaks...

but we were not worried... we continued to take photos and walked along
at our own sweet pace, even after we've lost sight of the group in front...

9.04am - finally, after trekking uphill for abt 1 hour, we've arrived at the waterfall!

the reason it's called the Rainbow Waterfall...
but where's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow??


we did not get into the water... not a big fan of waterfall anyway...


the water from above... quite high up, but not really a rapid fall...

got a bit bored staring at the rainbow...

the rainbow got lower and lower as the sun progressed higher...

with nothing else to do, we played with our shadows...

N's impersonation of the swan, using my head as its body!

10.00am - rainbow nearly disappearing into the water...

10.10am - finally disappeared completely...

after a few rounds of changing to a different spot to sit (due to the movement of the sun, which always managed to find us!), N and i finally got enough of this place and decided to suggest to the group that we go back. the tour operators were quite reluctant... they kept asking us to wait for a while more. but we were really bored that we asked the rest of the group if anyone would like to go back as well. nearly everyone wanted to go!

so we made our way back the same way we came... down the rocky river bed, wade back the same stream and got whipped and slapped by the same trees and branches from the same truck.

we got back to town at about 2pm. as N and i did not eat any of the mee-in-the-cup that the tour operators prepared while at the top of Rainbow Waterfall (coz they used water from the falls!), we were famished! so the first thing we did when we reached town was to look for food! by then, most of the stalls were already closed, so we just ordered whatever was available...

after lunch, we checked into our guesthouse, took a much needed bath and just crawled into our sleeping bags! we were dead tired!

actually the organiser had planned a trip to the sg. lembing museum, the charas cave and then dinner in kuantan. but N and i decided sleep in more important, and skipped this.

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12 Sept '09, 7.59am - another pit stop, for toilet breaks...

6.15pm - after a 3 hours plus of nap, we woke up to a refreshing evening shower...

just sitting around on the balcony of our guesthouse,
waiting for the rain to stop and thinking of what to have for dinner...

not a soul in sight...

quaint little town... this is officially the town centre.
only 1 in 10 shops remains open...

after the rain stopped, we asked the lady who ran the guesthouse where can we find some nice food and she pointed us to a restaurant (more like a coffee shop really, but served 'dai-chao' food) just a mere 5 minutes walk away. actually come to think of it, i think it's the ONLY makan place open for dinner that day.

after dinner, we just hang around the living area of the guesthouse till abt 10pm, and then called it a night. y so early, u may ask? well, for one thing, there isn't much to do. and for another, we had to wake up very early the next day to hike up Panorama Hill.

someone's alarm rang at 4.30am and one of my room mates (N and i were sharing our quad room with 2 other girls) got up to get ready. the other 3 of us just rolled over and continued sleeping. but we got up 15 minutes later and trudged down to the communal guesthouse toilet to get ready for our 2nd hike of our trip.

panorama hill is just behind sg. lembing, a popular place to watch the sunrise. we took abt 1 hour hiking up the hill, along a track what was half concrete stairs and half dirt path. halfway up the hill, it started to rain and i think abt half our group turned back. the rest of us who brought ponchos or were not afraid of getting soaked pressed on in the dark. those who did not bring a torchlight or headlamp would walk in between us who brought.

6.10am - arrived at the peak of panorama hill exhausted! it's still pitch dark...

the west side of the hill... can't make out anything
of the town below, just can see some specks of lights...

6.40am - first light. we're finally able to make out the shapes of the surrounding mountains and also the sg. lembing river snaking across the town...

east side of the hill... but due to the rain,
we were not able to see the full glory of the sunrise...

6.50am...

the 'directional post' at the peak...

7.15am - mist started to rise, enveloping everything below in a white cottony blanket...

7.23am - decided we've had enough of the view, so we descended from Panorama Hill
and went to have a breakfast of their famous sg. lembing yong tau foo...

9.15am - fresh after shower, decided to join the group for a tour to the tin museum... that's the morning market behind me. our guesthouse is on Market Street

standing in the middle of the road as if my grandfather owns it...
i'm not looking at the camera, coz i'm watching out for cars! :P

9.33am - arrived at the site of the tin mine that made sg. lembing famous as one of the major producer of underground tin... N is pointing at the traces of the rail tracks that carried the tin from one of the tunnels to the open...

abandoned and in ruins...

we saw 2 ostriches in an enclosure near the abandoned tin mine...

9.59am - our carpool driver volunteered to be our impromptu tour guide
and brought us to this hanging bridge...

on the hanging bridge...

does this remind u of sungai melaka?

10.15am - arrived at the tin museum...

a mock tin shaft...


11.02am - back to town. buying the famous coconut biscuits
of sg. lembing as requested by mom...

the external view of our guesthouse... it's newly opened
and quite nicely done up... and most important thing is, it's clean!

as the schedule said we were to check-out at 12.00pm, we quickly went to grab a bite of lunch. when we arrived back to our guesthouse, most of the members of our group had already checked-out. so we started packing up as well and got out of the guesthouse at 12.00pm.

thinking we're the last ones, N and i quickly loaded our stuff into the car and settled down to a long drive ahead... and we waited for the twins and driver to get into the car. and we waited some more... but they were still dilly-dallying outside. after sweating buckets in the stuffy car, N and i can't take it anymore, so we asked them what are they waiting for. turned out, we were the first to get ready to depart. the rest had gone for lunch after checking-out! what the...???

in the end, we only departed from sg. lembing at abt 1.30pm. but before we leave for KL, we made detour to the Pandan Waterfalls...

1.48pm - arrived at Pandan Waterfalls...

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13 Sept '09, 7.23am - decided we've had enough of the view, we descended from Panorama Hill

departed from Pandan Waterfalls at about 3pm...

arrived at ampang at about 7pm, after an eventful journey that involved a speed trap and getting stopped by the police in a toyota evo (2 separate incidents)!