During my recent visit to Taiping, I went on a daytrip with my friends Henry and Soon Lay. In 2019, before the COVID pandemic started, we made a similar trip: Two Caves and a Waterfall. This time Henry had selected a number of interesting locations around Ipoh and Kampar. Too much for one day, especially as Henry’s favourite expression is “Take your time”

After picking me me up from my hotel at 7 am, we drove to Ipoh, where we had breakfast at Roti Canai Pak Syeikh, considered to be one of the best Roti Canai in Ipoh.

Our first destination was the Gua Wu Ji Ngam temple. Gunung Rapat has many Chinese cave temples, in 2018 I have visited several of them, here is my report Gunung Rapat Cave Temples. This temple is not very well known and it took us some time to find it. First we took a wrong sideroad and ended up near the Mirror Lake, which now has become a commercial tourist attraction (entrance fee RM 5).

Nearby is another temple , the Da Seng Ngan temple , already visited by me in 2018, so I only took a few pictures this time. The interesting story about this more than 100 year old temple, is that in 1974 a flash flood and a resulting mudslide completely covered the temple. It was only in 2006 that the temple was excavated and restored.

The Gua Wu Ji Ngam temple is located less than 100 meter away. The only information we could find about this temple is on Google Maps. When we arrived , only the friendly caretaker was there, who gave us permission to explore the temple.

Soon a group of devotees arrive for a prayer session..

The caretaker was willing to take pictures of us and of course we took a picture of him as well.

The temple is attractive and has two interesting features. The murals are one of them, rock paintings of deities.

The other one was the structure of the cave. Using metal stairs we could climb to the upper level where erosion (by seawater?) had hollowed the limestone rock. There were two levels of erosion. Must have taken millions of years.

Easy walking on the lower eroded level, with a nice view of the temple below..

The next temple we visited is also not well known. Again we could only find it on Google Maps. Not even sure about the correct name, probably it is Wat Dhammamonkon. Anyway, it is a Buddhist temple in Thai style, with two magnificent Naga’s guarding the entrance.

;;A beautiful tree stands at the entrance of the temple. Despite the warning not to carve into the holy tree, people have done that in typical Malaysian style: carving four numbers, hoping it will bring luck in the popular 4D lottery.

Actually this temple was not our destination. We were looking for the the Big Coral Cave, about 200 meter away from the temple. Again, only information in Google Maps

Henry at the entrance of the cave.

It is also a temple. Quite interesting. Many statues.

The same layered structure as in the Gua Wu Ji Ngam

Interesting stalactites and other limestone formations.

Exploring the cave, we came to another exit.

There must be many more interesting features in this cave complex. Henry tried to reach the opening in the picture below, but the rocks were slippery and we were not equipped for real cave exploring, so we have to come back another time.

Our next destination was the Istana Raja Billah in Papan, but first it was time for lunch.. Restaurant Meng Fuong in Pusing would have been a suitable choice, I had enjoyed their “puppy duck” and their freshwater prawns several times. But on our way Henry spotted a food outlet “in the middle of nowhere”, part of a coffee factory. We decided to give it a try

The name of the outlet is Cascada by Magical Beans. It was surprisingly popular, but we found a free table.

I had a Rosemary Chicken Chop that was was quite nice. Soon Lay had Cheese Baked Rice and Henry ordered a Burger.

The Istana Raja Billah is a mansion in Papan, built in 1896 for a Mandailing nobleman.

Unfortunately not open to the public, we could only walk around it.

I found one window, where the blinds had a small gap, just wide enough for my smartphone to take a picture of the interior.

More details.

While we were walking around, a family arrived, we chatted a bit and discovered that they were living in Sri Damansara, very close to Damansara Perdana where we are living. Characteristic for Malaysia, in my experience, you will find easily a connection when meeting strangers 😉

Although it was not in Henry’s to-do list, we had of course to visit Papan, one of my favourite locations in Malaysia. I have several times brought friends to this ruined village, see for example my blog Tour Guide! .

I had read in the news that recently Papan has been made a tourist attraction, but I was still shocked a bit how different the atmosphere had become. Look at all the signs. But for a first-time visitor it must still be a fascinating experience.

Two new galleries have been opened in Papan, one about its heritage and the other one about the history of New Villages in Malaysia. I am very interested in New Villages, Taiping has two (Pokok Assam and Aulong), so I was quite surprised to read on one of the poster boards: In some cases, 22-hour curfews were placed upon the populations of New Villages, such were the case in Tanjong Malim, Pusing and Papan. Papan a New Village, how can that be?

We decided to visit one more place on Henry’s list and chose the Vine Garden, another location with limestone formations, only found on Google Maps. Not far from the “mysterious” temple which Aric and I had visited recently, see my report .A Nice Outing.

A few pictures of this temple. Henry and I at the entrance gate.

Part of the collection of deities left behind by devotees.

During our trip we didn’t have the coordinates of this vine garden. We expected a trail, but there was not really one. We noticed a gate, Henry explored a bit, but found nothing. Our second attempt meant entering a palm oil plantation. Soon we found that it was water logged, so we decided to turn back. We may try again after the end of the rainy season, because we were very close to the Vine Garden, less than 100 meters!

Our drive back to Taping took longer than expected, because of big traffic jam. Henry and Soon Lay dropped me at my hotel to refresh and rest a bit.

Later they picked me up again for dinner. They suggested the Raintree Kitchen Restaurant and that was a good choice. Both local and fusion food.

I had smoked duck spaghetti and ambra as a drink. Henry and Soon Lay had the Nasi Ulam set and the Tomyam Fried Beehoon. A place to keep in mind.

It was a wonderful trip, thanks to Henry and Soon Lay

A few weeks ago friends told us about an interesting jungle resort, called The Sticks, between Kuala Kubu Bharu and Fraser’s Hill. Accommodation in so-called tendoks (a cross between a tent and a pondok). We decided to give it a try, stay overnight and visit the next day the nearby Chiling waterfall.

We stopped for lunch in KKB as Kuala Kubu Bharu is commonly called. KKB is a charming little town with many eateries. We went to Xin Yuen Kee, where we had Loh Mee, Fish Cakes and delicious Stewed Chicken Feet.

We had left KL with sunny weather, but when we walked back to our car after lunch, we felt the first raindrops, which soon became a heavy downpour. I had just time enough to take some pictures of the mural art, which is mushrooming all over Malaysia these days. It is not Zacharevic standard here in KKB, rather primitive, but with a certain charm.

The downpour became so heavy, that we skipped our plan to take some drone video at the Selangor Dam. Instead we continued to the Sticks parking, where our host Rubin was already waiting for us with umbrellas (we had messaged him from KKB about our arrival time). It was a short, romantic footpath to the resort, crossing the Selangor river on a sturdy hanging bridge.

We received a hearty welcome from our hostess Michelle and were shown our tendok. Named the Riverside tendok, because it is located almost above the river…:-). Attached bathroom, hot shower, fan, mosquito nets, very private location, surrounded by jungle.

After the rain stopped, we explored  the surroundings. The hanging bridge is close by, from there you could see how strong the water flow was after the heavy rain. From our tendok a few cemented steps led down to the river. A nice place to take a bath, but it was a bit too chilly after the rain.

We had a few hours to spend before dinner. No wifi, no computer! Finally I could finish Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind. Ok, I had it as an iBook on my iPad…:-).

When the evening came,  clouds and mist made the surrounding landscape even more romantic

Dinner was served in the community hall, where we met a few more guests. It was a barbecue dinner , served on banana leaf. A variety of fish, chicken, beef and lamb, attractively presented.

We went to bed early, but woke up around 11 pm because it started to rain again. Not just rain, a huge downpour with thunder and lightning. The sound of the rain drops on the roof of our tendok was so loud, that we could not hear the sound of the river anymore and it was almost impossible to talk to each other. Fortunately our tendok turned out to be 100% rainproof. But when we woke up the next morning, the water level in the river was still high and the colour brownish.

To reach the Chiling waterfall you have to cross another river (a tributary of the Selangor river) many times. Also the weather did not look very stable. And we felt lazy. We decided to skip the waterfall and instead to relax in the resort until checkout time.

The service at The Sticks is personal and friendly. The night before, after dinner, Michelle had asked us how we liked our breakfast. Omelet, fried eggs or half-boiled eggs? Beef or chicken sausage?  Ham ? Beans? Tea or coffee? There were cereals, toast, jam, butter. So we had a full English breakfast in the jungle! The only thing that was missing was a glass of orange juice…:-) And of course it was halal.

After our breakfast we enjoyed our tendok, walked around to take pictures and I talked with Rubin about the history of the place. The resort is not old, in the past there was tin mining at this location and later a (failed) fish farm project. The present owners have done a good job, replanting trees and landscaping the terrain. Here is a picture of the community hall. The tendoks (7 at the moment) are in the jungle behind the hall

Some pictures of flowers, a harmless millipede and an old water pipe, dating back to the tin mining period. According to Rubin,  remains from that period can still be found in the jungle, but access is not easy.

Then it was time to leave our temporary home and cross the bridge back to the main road.

The main reason to visit Chiling this time (I have visited the waterfall 15 times already during the past 14 years!), was to take a drone video of the fall. Pity that we could not do that, we must come back another time.

Instead, on our way back passing the Selangor dam, we stopped at the visitor center to take a video there. But soon a friendly girl came to warn us that droning was not allowed there. So we drove up to kampung Gerachi uphill, from where you have a nice view of the reservoir and the spillway. The reservoir was full and the spillway was impressive, an artificial waterfall.  It is nice to see everything from the air.

Here is a short video of the spillway

On our way back we stopped in Serendah for lunch. A nameless Thai restaurant on a slip road beside the trunk road has a reputation for its Tom Yam. Very tasty, we combined it with refreshing Leng Chee Kang

The Google Earth image shows the location of KKB and the Sticks resort