{"id":11132,"date":"2017-03-06T21:46:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T13:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/?p=11132"},"modified":"2017-03-06T21:47:52","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T13:47:52","slug":"a-new-waterfall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stuif.com\/blog\/?p=11132","title":{"rendered":"A new waterfall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently some of my friends joined a “hashwalk”\u00a0to Bukit Lentang in the Karak region. On their way they passed a nice waterfall. Knowing about my interest in (Malaysian) waterfalls, they gave me the GPS-data and suggested that I should visit the fall myself. Of course that was a challenge I could not resist. They warned me\u00a0that heavy\u00a0“development” was taking place in the area, with a lot of forest clearing in preparation for plantations.<\/p>\n

I checked the historical imagery of Google Earth. Here is the situation in\u00a0January 2013. A\u00a0minor road (white line)\u00a0starts from the main road and leads to a Taoist sanctuary, where the trail starts. \u00a0Notice the palm oil plantations in the upper right part of the image. The rest is still forest.<\/p>\n

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Here is the situation in June 2016. Quite a shocking difference. It’s called progress :-(.<\/p>\n

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My friends Paul, Rahim and Fahmi joined me on this waterfall hike. It was no problem to reach the “Chinese temple”, where we parked \u00a0our car. Quite a\u00a0large building, not really a temple, nobody around. We walked back about 100 meter, and passed a gate into a banana plantation.<\/p>\n

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Here is a detailed GE map. The red track is the track of my hashwalk friends. Our way in is in yellow, our way out in green. Click the map to enlarge. I have numbered the locations where I have taken pictures.<\/p>\n

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It looks like this part of the hike was still in the forest. But no, more recent than in the GE-map, additional clearing\u00a0has taken place, everywhere we saw \u00a0scarred, burnt trees…:-( We took several wrong turns, until Rahim, with his orang asli sense of direction, guided us down\u00a0the slope to the right trail. Notice that on our way back we found an easier trail (green).<\/p>\n\n\t\t