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