Adventure page

Rainbow Fall (28-29)-06-2008

For a long time already I wanted to visit the Rainbow Fall, near Sg Lembing in Pahang. Access not easy, 4WD needed.
So, when friends told me they were planning to visit this fall, and if I liked to join, I immediately agreed. Unfortunately I got a bad cold,a few days before departure, with a sore throat, running nose and a fever. What to do? I decided to try my luck.

With the new East-West highway it takes only a few hours to reach Sg Lembing. Time enough to visit first the Berkelah waterfalls. It was many years ago that I had visited this magnificent series of falls for the last time.
The waterfalls are still impressive, but the pollution near the campsites is awful.

Halfway on our trek I realised that I was weaker than expected. Actually I almost collapsed! So I stopped near a nice pool and told my friends to continue to the top fall. That gave me time to recover. I learned my lesson: don't go jungle trekking when you are not 100% fit!

It was already late when we reached Sg Lembing. Once this was a thriving mining town, now it is a charming, sleepy village. With hardly any accommodation, as we soon found out. The few rooms in the only (basic) hotel were already taken. A helpful guy took us first to a substandard backpacker place. Only one room available. Then to a resort, also fully booked. We had almost decided to track back to Kuantan, when he finally suggested us that we could have two rooms in his family restaurant. But we should take dinner first, because the rooms had to be cleaned.

So we had a nice Tom Yam first and then crossed the road looking for our 'guesthouse'. Our first try was wrong, we ended up in the kitchen of a private home, where the owner, not at all surprised by our unexpected arrival, showed us proudly the Roast Pork and the Char Siew, ready for sale the next morning. Yummy!
He told us that we should go to the neighbor. And yes, there two rooms had be prepared for us. My cosy room, with posters, clearly belonged to the daughter. I wonder where she has passed the night.

The next morning, after breakfast (with Sg Lembing Yong Tau Foo), we met our guide and started our trek to the Pelangi (=Rainbow) Fall. It begins as a tar road but soon becomes 4WD. A river crossing and some muddy patches would have been a problem for my Kembara.
After about 1.5 hour we parked the car and continued on foot for another 45 minutes. Arriving at the fall, it was clear that we were not the only visitors! A big crowd was watching the rainbow.

The water flow was quite small and there were some clouds, so we had to wait sometimes for favorable conditions. But when the rainbow appeared, it was fascinating.
It became clear at once why you have to be here before ~ 10 am. Because as the sun rises, the rainbow is going down. Click here for an explanation.
After a while we took a bath in the pool. The waterfall is so tall (more than 100 m?) that the falling water becomes a mist of water droplets.

Then it was time to go back to the village, for lunch and a visit of the Mine Museum (the former residence of the mine manager). Sg Lembing was the most productive tin mine in Malaysia, with a total tunnel lenght of more than 300 km. It was closed down in 1986. The museum has an interesting collection of memorabilia., but the tunnels are no longer accessible.

A nice weekend.