Adventure page

A dream come true!

A few years ago one of my waterfall friends sent me a picture of a spectacular waterfall in the Bintang range, taken from a helicopter! It was supposed to be the Upper Tebing Tinggi fall. The (lower) Tebing Tinggi fall is easily accessible from the road that crosses the Bintang range from Lenggong to Bagan Serai.
This upper fall is clearly visible on Google Earth, not more than about 1 km from the road, but... is it accessible? From the lower fall there is no trail and the slopes are forbiddingly steep.

From that moment I had a dream...:-) I wanted to see this fall with my own eyes.

My friend Siang Hui had noticed that from the parking near the bridge a water pipeline went steep upwards. Could that be a possible approach? Last month I did a recce with Paul and Rahim, and we managed to follow the pipeline, scramble up the steep slope and reach an old logging road that led us to the river. Click here for a detailed report. It definitely seemed possible to reach the fall!

This was the plan of action: I would go with a group of friends, Aric, Siang Hui, Teoh and Rani, we would leave early on Saturday March 30, visit a waterfall on our way to Lenggong where we would spend the night in the Rest House, after a sumptuous dinner in one of the famous Lenggong fish restaurants. The next day we would try to reach the Upper Tebing Tinggi, have lunch and then back to KL.

Upper Tebing Tinggi

Aerial view of (lower) Tebing Tinggi

The recce with Paul and Rahim

A map of the region

Breakfast in Damansara Perdana

This Ikan Bakar restaurant is very popular

Start of our hike to Bayas and Payong

On our way

The Bayas waterfall

It is about a three hour drive to Lenggong, so we decided to have lunch first before visiting the waterfalls. We chose the popular Ikan Bakar restaurant at Tasik Raban. Nice food, although not cheap anymore (Tilapia for RM 30-40/kg. And it was a heavy lunch, not really a suitable preparation for a waterfall hike...:-). The weather was sunny and hot, and we had to cross orchards without much shade before we reached the jungle. However, the waterfalls were rewarding and cooling. There are three waterfalls in this river, we first visited Bayas and then Payong. Here are short video clips of Bayas and Payong. The third one we left for a next visit..:-) At Payong we had a relaxing time and it was already 5 pm when we arrived in the Lenggong RH.

Teoh refreshes himself

Climbing up

Time for a short rest

The Payong fall

Quite impressive

Perfect place for a shower

Siang Hui taking a shower

Fun time

Aric

Man and nature

Siang Hui caught a lizard

Asking directions for thwe third fall

After a few hours rest we went out for dinner. Nancy, a friend of Aric, having returned to her kampung because of Cheng Meng, joined us with her sister. Delicious food, nice company. She asked us if we were interested to visit a Thai temple not far away. We followed her to this Sala Luang Phu Tuat temple, located in the middle of nowhere. The link gives more details. On our way back to the RH, we had coffee in a charming Chinese village, Ayer Kala. According to Nancy there was a good fish restaurant in this village, only known to the locals.

Back through the orchards

The Lenggong Rumah Rehat

The two fish restaurants

The fish menu. We had Tengalan

Waiting for our food

Siang Hui as waiter

Our food

Enjoy your meal!

The Thai Shrine

The rubber tree

Devotees at the shrine..:-)

Relaxed Ayer Kala

Coffee time

Breakfast in Lenggong

with half-boiled eggs

Preparing for the hike

One for the album

The pipeline

The next morning, after breakfast, we went to Tebing Tinggi, parked our car and prepared ourselves for the main target of this trip. First we followed the pipeline up, until it turned to the river. From there we scrambled up the slope. Siang Hui and Rani had to do a lot of chopping, going was tough. After about three hours we reached our destination. Actually we reached the Upper Tebing Tinggi halfway, we had to scramble down to reach the base of the fall. What a reward to see the waterfall with our own eyes. A tall fall, with my hypsometer I found a height of ~ 100 meter. Of course pristine and unspoiled. Slippery rocks we had to be careful. Only a pity that there were many sweat bees, my friends were all the time keeping an eye on me, but still I felt a little bit stressed.Here is a video clip of Upper Tebing Tinggi

Some rest halfway

Easy part of the hike

Nice spider and its web

Ginger flowers

There is the waterfall!

Walking down to the base

Upper Tebing Tinggi

Middle part of the fall

Lower part

Using my LifeStraw

A happy bunch. We did it!

As is often the case, we found an easier way down, following the river closely until we reached the cascade, where Paul, Rahim and I had ended our recce a few weeks earlier. Altogether after 6 hours we were back at the car, very tired but also very satisfied. Mission accomplished!

For our (late) lunch we went back to Ayer Kala, the Sun Kong restaurant, suggested by Nancy. Not bad.
And after that the long way back. Cheng Meng and the end of the school holidays plus an accident on the highway near Tapah: it took us six hours. Around 11pm we reached home, dead tired. I needed the next day to recover.

But very happy that my dream came true. Thanks to Siang Hui, Teoh, Rani and Aric for their support!