In my last journal I wrote that I had made a long hike in Bukit Kiara with a group of hikers. I joined their Whatsapp group and they know about my interest in waterfalls. Last week a message was posted in this Whatsapp group with a link to  Paradise Malaysia Waterfalls . Of course I was interested and I opened the link. Surprise!   Hey, it is about me!  Here is the opening page (click to enlarge).

The website belongs to the Big Blue Taxi Services and this article has been added to the site in August last year, by ‘bigblue’.

But I have never had any contact with this company, I have never used a Blue Taxi in KL and when I read this: Avoid Blue taxis in KL at ALL cost! , I never will in future, LOL. So, how is it possible that I appear on this site?

Time for some investigative  Google search… 🙂 As I suspected copycatting, I did a search for “Dutch enthusiast Jan Stuivenberg” and got this:

Bingo! Big Blue Taxi Services is there, but top of the list is a STAR article “Our Best Waterfalls” dating back to 2009. And yes, that rings a bell…:-)

In 2009 my friend Joe Yap was very active with her Waterfall Survivors group, drawing attention from a STAR reporter, Louisa Lim, resulting in an article about the activities of the WS group titled  Fighting for the Falls .Joe told her about me, that I was her “sifu”,  I got an email from Louisa and in the same STAR issue a second article was published: Our Best Waterfalls

When you compare the two texts you will see that they are identical, except for one small, but telling detail: in the Big Blue article  the word “five“  is omitted, and the title mentions “Top 8 Must Visit Waterfalls” . And indeed, in the Big Blue article 3 more waterfalls have been added.

There are more differences. In the Big Blue article the description of the waterfalls is much more elaborate than in the original STAR article.

For example, about the Jerangkang Falls in Pahang.

Here is the STAR description. Not my words, by the way, they were written by the STAR reporter …:-)

And here is Big Blue (click to enlarge)

The first paragraph is identical. The rest of the text is mine! Copied from the Jerangkang page  in my Waterfalls in Malaysia website. Double copycatting..:-). Ok, the pictures are different.

Did Big Blue do all this? No, it is more complicated.

In the Google search there is another hit, the website Holidays in Malaysia . In May 2010, almost five years ago, and six months after the STAR article, a certain Kenny published an article Best Waterfalls In Malaysia on this website. He added one more waterfall to “my” five…:-). The Geruntum fall in Perak. The rest of the text is identical with the STAR article, but he adds a few pictures. Here is Jerangkang again, including a picture

And the Geruntum fall links to a separate page: Splashing Time At The Ulu Geruntum Waterfall , published by Kenny in July 2010. Fair enough, for this article he mentions  the STAR as source. It did not take me long to find out that he had copied the content, lock, stock and barrel from Having a splashing time , written for the STAR in 2009 by my waterfall and birding friend Chan Ah Lak !

Do you still follow me…:-)? Because we are not yet there…:-).

The Google Search has another, more recent hit: My Travel Journey September 2012  This is a blog, written by “John” . Here is the opening page

And here is the part about Jerangkang on his site. The first two paragraphs are from the STAR article, the purple part has been copied from my Waterfalls of Malaysia site.

For this waterfall no pictures have been copied, which makes the sentence: “These pictures cover the falls until step 15, so there is still work to be done…!” rather meaningless.

For other waterfalls he copies the pictures too, actually just linking to the pictures on my website (which is considered impolite in Cyberspace!) Here is a part of Lata Kinjang, first as shown on my site

And here is the same part of Lata Kinjang on John’s site. When I check the source code of the page, I see that the whole page has been extracted (using MsOffice Word?)  from my site, even including the table structure, leading to misalignment of the lats picture…:-)

In this blog two more waterfalls are added, bringing the total to 8. Why the Bukit Larut (Perak) fall  and the Giam Klimau fall (Sarawak!) are selected from my site, is unclear to me. They are not that special.

Far enough, at the end of the page, he writes: For more info can go to http://www.waterfallsofmalaysia.com/index.php……….  But of course it is still copycatting.

Now we are almost there, finally…:-) When I compare this My Travel Journey version with the Big Blue one, I find only minor differences. Big Blue does not link to my Waterfalls of Malaysia pictures. They have edited (and improved) the layout of the page and made some textual changes. At the end they mention the Waterfalls of Malaysia site, and also that they used My Travel Journey as their source.

But it still is copycatting, copycatting and copycatting…:-) My Waterfalls of Malaysia site has a contact option and the least they could have done, is to contact me and ask my permission.

Final copycatting reconstruction:

STAR article (2009)  > Holidays in Malaysia (2010) > My Travel Journey (2012 > Big Blue Taxi Services (2014)

And one last remark. On all these sites I am introduced as the  “Dutch enthusiast Jan Stuivenberg, who has paid a visit to more than 110 of the nation’s 130 waterfalls”

What utterly nonsense about “the nation’s 130 waterfalls“, LOL. When the STAR reporter wrote her article, there were 130 waterfalls described on the Waterfalls of Malaysia site! When you visit the site now, you will see that the present count is 183. And there are hundreds, maybe even thousands more in Malaysia.

For the third time in a few months, I have visited the Kanching waterfalls, the pleasure park of Kuala Lumpur as it is called on my Waterfalls of Malaysia website.  This time with Edwin, Alice, Chadel and Jerry. We started with breakfast, near FRIM

During weekends Kanching is crowded, but we went on a weekday and it was quiet.  We noticed new signboards, warning for snatch thieves. Apparently human ones, not the ubiquitous monkeys looking for food. Alice and Edwin had fun enacting a snatch theft.

There are seven waterfall tiers at Kanching, Here are the first four, not always easy to determine where one fall ends and another one starts…:-). The third fall, Kapor is the most popular one. As it was the rainy season, there was quite a lot of water.

Cemented steps continue until the fourth fall. After that there is a (sometimes steep) trail up the slope. There is work in progress to fence this part off, but  we could still continue to what is actually the most impressive part of Kanching.

Here is a video clip of the tall nr 6 fall/cascade

Fall nr 5 is my favourite. We used it for a short photo session. When I am in pictures, I always try to hide my tummy..haha. Good idea or not? Comments (friendly please) welcome.

Actually, after fall nr 7, there are two more remote falls, so we decided to continue. No trail, river trekking, lots of leeches. Especially Alice enjoyed them and they liked her too!  Worried about afternoon rain, we turned back halfway, river trekking is nice but a slow process. Time to take nice nature pictures.

Coming back to fall nr 7, we had time to relax, take a bath and frolic around. I inspected the geocache I have  placed here, more than ten(!) years ago. Still in good condition. I took a “travelbug” from the cache, which I will put back in my Bukit Kiara geocache. Click on the links, if you want to know more about the interesting geocaching game..:-)

Here is the travelbug I took from my geocache. The owner hopes it will come back to Germany. If it is not retrieved before my next trip back to Holland, I will take it there myself.,

Then it was time to go back, scrambling down before the rain came. We had taken a sensible decision, the rain started just when we reached our cars!

Of course were were hungry after a long day, so we ended our hike with a well-deserved late lunch in Aman Puri

A very satisfactory trip with nice company!

As there is often confusion about Kanching and the nearby Templer’s Park, here a topo map of the region. In red the trunk road nr 1 from KL to Rawang. I have indicated the location of Kanching and Templer’s in blue. What is very confusing, is that the Kanching falls are located in the Kanching forest, but the name of the river with the 7 waterfalls is Sg Chul Tinggi!. The actual Sg Kanching is located in Templer’s Park. It has also a waterfall but less interesting than the Kanching falls.

In my last Journal I mentioned an unsuccessful hike to a remote waterfall, where we went back because I felt “discomfort”. After my cardiologist had given me a clean bill of health, of course I wanted to go back and give this Batangsi waterfall another try..:-) This time with Aric, Edwin, Janine, Nick and Siang Hui as our guide. We met at Sg Long for breakfast, after which we bought our lunch at the lively pasar pagi.

Before I start the report about our hike, it may be useful to explain first why we are so interested in the mysterious Batangsi waterfall…:-) Here is a Google Map of the region (click to enlarge). At the top you see part of the Semenyih reservoir. The green marker gives the location of the well-known Nirwana Memorial Park and to the right you see the border between Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. And in the middle of nowhere there is a marker for the Batangsi Falls!

Could there really be a waterfall there, or is it just a mistake of the map maker? On the topo map of the region there is no mention of a waterfall.

Intrigued by this mysterious fall, we have been exploring the region several times during the last ten (!) years. We found the Batangsi river with a few cascades and small waterfalls. It resulted in a webpage Batangsi Fall on my Waterfalls of Malaysia website. Here are two of the small waterfalls/cascades we found.

Were there more waterfalls upstream? In 2008 I joined Aurelius and his friends, we followed a farm road until the end. From there we river trekked upstream for about three hours. Nice hike but no waterfalls.

Here is a Google Map with our hike. Black is the farm road, blue the river trekking.

In 2012 Siang Hui and Harry (†) did another hike, following the river much further. Coming to a split in the river, they decided to follow the right branch and finally found a real waterfall…:-)

During this hike they had come to a split of the Batangsi river and decided to follow the right branch. Could there be another waterfall in the left branch? Studying the contour lines of the topo maps, Siang Hui thought there might be one.

When you look at the first map picture in this blog, you will notice that there are two farm roads leading inland and for our next recce we took the other one. It ends at a temple, from where a clear trail starts. Unfortunately I did not feel well after about one hour hiking , so we turned back. Here is a Google Maps screenshot. The possible waterfall is marked with a red star.

The yellow marker indicates the location of the temple. As you see our hike (green track) brings us quite deep into the interior! On our way back we went down to the river for a bath (brown line)

After this “longish” introduction, here is the report about our latest hike. Again we followed the farmroad, passing flower and vegetable farms, until we reached the impressive Buddhist temple.

We started our hike from the temple at 9:15 am and were back at 5pm. It was an interesting, tough hike, but we did not reach the waterfall! However, we have now a clear idea how to proceed on our next, and hopefully final hike…:-). Here is our hike (in green) on Google Earth, only the main part is shown  (click to enlarge) and I have numbered a few points of interest. The coloring is a bit different, dark blue is my trip with Aurelius, light blue the hike of Siang Hui and Harry and red our aborted hike.

From the temple it took us about one hour plus to reach point (1) where I went back during our last recce. Until there the trail was well kept so we were expecting that from there it would continue. But after another half hour hiking, the trail disappeared (2). We backtracked  to see if we had missed the trail, but it was really gone.

From that point Saing Hui had to do a lot of chopping. After a while we reached a small stream (3) and we decided to follow it back to the Batangsi river. In retrospect that was a mistake, as we were only about 400 meter away from the river split we wanted to reach. After we reached the river (4), we trekked upstream to a small waterfall where we had lunch and a bath (5).

It was already getting late and we decided not to continue, but river trek back. River trekking is fun, but also slow, so when we reached a run-down biker camp (6) near the river, with a trail going uphill, we decided to take that trail.

Also here we lost the trail and it took us quite a long time, after even going in a completely wrong direction (7) for a while, to reach the logging road (8)!

We were very lucky with the weather during this trip. It was only a few hundred meters before reaching the temple that a downpour started. And a real downpour it was…:-)

Siang Hui and Nick had to go back home early, so it was only the four of us who could enjoy a delicious seafood dinner in Semenyih.

A memorable trip. We are thinking about a (hopefully) final attempt. After reaching the small stream (3) not following it but chopping our way to the confluence. From there river trekking. Then basically the same way back. The black line in the map below.

In 2009 my friends Siang Hui and Harry (†) discovered beautiful waterfalls in the Dipang river. A few months later I visited these falls myself, here is a report. During this trip I met Jinnah, a friendly Semai from Pos Dipang. He told me that that were more waterfalls upstream. Within a period of a few months, I came back three times. The last time Jinnah took my friend Rani and me to the very remote upper falls. The report can be found in Three times Dipang.

That was four years ago.Time to go back, with a group of friends. A camping weekend. We met as usual at the mamak near my condo for breakfast. From left to right Aric, Janine, Edwin, Teoh and Nick.

On our way to Pos Dipang we picked up Eddie at Tanjung Malim. After we arrived in the Orang Asli kampung, we asked for Jinnah, as I had not been able to contact him earlier. It was nice to meet him after four years, but at first it did not look good, because somebody had died recently in the kampung and he was not sure if he could guide us into the jungle. We went with him to the penghulu to ask permission to camp.

That was no problem, but the penghulu asked us to report at the police. While Edwin went to the police station, we went already to the campsite where Rani and I had camped four years ago. At first Jinnah was not happy with the location (too close to the river) and suggested a location a bit further upstream.

But after some discussion we decided it was better to camp at this spot. Hurriedly we put up our tents, as the sky was darkening.

We had to provide extra rain cover. I had none for the tent borrowed from us byTeoh and Nick. That was not a success, it turned into a swimming pool…:-(

We had planned to explore the nearby falls in the afternoon, but we had to take shelter in our tents. Fortunately the rain stopped around 5 pm, so we had a relaxed evening.

The plan was that everybody would take care of his own food, but on the spot we decided to have a shared meal. With a pre-dinner drink and a glass of wine. That is what I call luxury camping…:-)

Jinnah came to tell us that he would guide us to the upper falls. That was good news, I had GPS tracks taken during my visit four years ago, but I expected the trail to be overgrown, as Jinnah told us that almost nobody ever visited these remote falls.

Here we are, the next morning, ready for a long hike…:-)

Jinnah guided us on a different route, because after my last visit a logging road had been opened. A steep climb, but very fast compared with the old route. Nice views of the surrounding jungle.

When we entered the jungle, we first followed a rather clear trail to a pettai garden. After that, our two guides had to do a lot of chopping until we reached the river. There were legions of leeches, Jinnah used tobacco as protection. River trekking is fun, but also slow.

After 2.5 hours hiking we reached the bottom of what I had called fall nr 4. The real name is Lata Cheroh. During my 2010 trip I had seen this waterfall only from the top, so this was a new fall for me. Very impressive, but my pleasure was spoiled by the large number of bees…:-( So we took only a few pictures before we continued.

To reach our final destination, we had to scramble up a really steep slope until we arrived at the top of this waterfall. From there it was an easy, short  river trek to the bottom of Lata Merjur (fall nr 5). Because of the rainy season the water flow was spectacular. What a waterfall!

But also here there the bees were all over the place. Because it was the flowering season, Jinnah explained. Almost everybody in our group was stung one or two times. Instead of frolicking around, I kept myself mostly submerged in the water. Hardly took pictures, here are a few , taken by Aric and Janine

Here is a video of the fall.

Because of the bees we did not stay long at the fall. As the weather was still good, Jinnah decided to go back the same way, river trekking. With (heavy) rain, that would have been too risky. In that case the best way back would have been a jungle trail with a lot of chopping. Now we were back around 3 pm.

We were very lucky with the weather, it became cloudy and a bit threatening, but no rain until we had reached our cars. Beautiful landscape

After saying goodbye to Jinnah and the penghulu, we drove back to Kampar for a very late lunch (more like an early dinner). Kampar is famous for its Roti Ayam . During our meal, there was a huge downpour, probably our tents would not have survived the strong winds…:-)

It was a wonderful trip, with a very pleasant group. Pity that there were so many bees. These falls are very remote, if anything happens, you really have a problem. Actually, although I had not noticed it, I must have been stung, as both my left cheek and right foot were swollen when I came out of the jungle.  Maybe it is time for me, at my age, to slow down a bit..:-)

On this GE screenshot you can see how remote the location of the waterfalls is.

It has become a nice tradition: to visit an “unknown” waterfall during CNY with a few of my waterfall friends. In 2012 we have explored Lata Naga Air and last year we hiked  to the Ulu Licin falls, near Beruas. This time Siang Hui, who probably knows dozen if not hundreds of unexplored waterfalls in Malaysia, suggested a waterfall in the Gopeng region, upstream of the Damak waterfall. He had done a recce to this fall a few years ago, could already hear the sound of falling water, but returned because there might be a “Big Cat” around!

The Ulu Geroh region is famous for the Rafflesia flowers that can be found in the region and for the large concentration of Rajah Brooke butterflies. Since a number of years the Semai Orang Asli community has been actively involved in the protection of these natural treasures. Guides will bring you to the Rafflesia and Rajah Brooke locations, or to the Damak waterfall. A good initiative to give the community some income and make them aware of the importance of preserving the natural habitat.

So, we did not mind taking a guide to this virtually unknown upper Damak fall. But we were shocked when they told us that we to had to pay per pax. That is very unusual for guides! Of course when your group is big, you may need more than one guide. We had a long discussion, they showed us the official price list (!). Finally we agreed to pay RM 75 for two guides. Very reasonable

It was very useful to have guides, as they took a better route to the fall, than explored by Siang Hui a few years ago. We followed more or less the river, only vague trails, a lot of chopping needed. It took us about 1.5 hour to reach the Upper Damak fall. The rock face is visible on Google Earth.

As it had not rained for quite a few days, the water flow was not very big. Halfway up there was a nice pool, where we took a rest. The guides explained that the name of the fall was Lata Seli, where Seli means Cobra in the Semai language. And that the Damak fall should be called Lata  Jemon, while the name of the river is actually Sg Kundur. Here are some pictures taken during our hike.

On our way back we took the logging road used by Siang Hui during his recce. Hot, no shade, so it was nice that we could take a refreshing bath in the river before going back to Gopeng. Here is a GPS track of our hike.

I also took a short video of the waterfall

Quite a few times, on my waterfall hikes, I have met Eddie Yap, a nature guide. We became friendly, exchanged emails and agreed that we should try to make a trip together. But it never happened, until last week. It was a nice meeting, although the actual reason was not a happy one. Recently a nature guide drowned at a remote waterfall near Bentong, after he had first saved the life of one of his clients.

We had both visited this waterfall and did not really understand why it could be dangerous. So we decided to make Lata Hammers the target of our trip. Aric joined, as I have made it a rule now, to have at least three people on jungle hikes. Here is the upper fall, where the tragic accident happened.

As you see, the water flow was huge, because there had been heavy rain the night before. At the trail head you have to cross the Perting Pandak river, and that was NOT easy. After that it is an easy, although muddy logging road, leading in about 45 minutes to the fall. Here you have to cross the river again, and it was good that a “bridge” consisting of trees had been constructed, otherwise crossing would have been very problematic. The waterfall was intimidating, turbulent waters, strong currents, we thought it wise not to swim. It is only a short walk to the upper fall, equally strong and turbulent. Here is a short video clip of the upper fall.

Although the target of this trip was a sad one, it was really a pleasure to finally make a trip with Eddie. We had a lot to talk about, and a lot in common, for example that we both like skinny dipping, haha. And good food, on our way back we stopped in Bukit Tinggi and had a delicious lunch at the 126 restaurant . Value for money too, we paid only RM 26 for the three of us!  Here are more pictures. Looking forward to a next meeting.

I took a few more videos at Lata Hammers. Here are the links: Crossing the tree bridge , The lower fall (notice the turbulence and the currents) and one more of the Upper fall

A few days later I went again to a waterfall. This time with my friends Richard and Gabriel, to the Chiling waterfall, near Kuala Kubu Baharu. This waterfall, the most popular in Malaysia, is only open to the public during weekends, you will not be the only visitor. As it is the rainy season now, I was expecting a large flow of water, so I had taken a rope for the (several) river crossings. But it had not been raining the night before, the crossings were passable, with some care. Here is the main fall , impressive, with a thunderous roar and a mist of water.

It takes about 45 minutes from the ranger station (Chiling is a fish sanctuary) to the main fall. But first we climbed up to the upper fall, where it was quiet. Here is a video of the upper fall.

As the weather looked good, we decided to go the top fall, which I had explored in 2010 , We found the trail, it looked good, but unfortunately  it petered out halfway and as we were not in the mood to chop our way, we returned and went down to the main fall. We were surprised to find no visitors there, which caused Richard and Gabriel to do a joyful little dance.

Later new hikers arrived, but still it was not the crowd I had expected…:-) We had our lunch before we hiked back. I have visited this waterfall numerous times, it never gets boring! Here are more pictures.

Let me end this blog the same way as the waterfall pages on my website end:

Waterfalls can be dangerous ! Always take care about your safety