Stuif's Adventures
| Waterfall adventure 8-7-2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Climbing Gunung Nuang, starting from Pangsun, is a popular hike and a good preparation for Gunung Tahan. Many people will camp overnight at Lolo camp, near the Lolo waterfall. The start of the hike is an easy walk from the Pangsun Ranger station and after a few km you will hear the sound of the Pansom river. This river has a few more waterfalls, besides Lolo. Access is not so easy, as this river has eroded deep gorges. In January 2012, my waterfall friends Siang Hui and Teoh guided me to one of these waterfalls. We followed the yellow track in the GE screenshot. Quite a scary scramble down precariously steep slopes to reach the impressive fall. So, when I went again, this time guiding my friend Rani, we were well prepared with parang and ropes. A few hundred meter before reaching the trail used by SH, we noticed a trail going down to the river and decided to follow it. It brought us to two small attractive waterfalls (green track) after which we came near the main fall. However, there was a deep pool we had to cross, with steep walls on both sides. Rani tried if it was possible to scramble along the steep wall. Impossible. So the only option was to swim. Luckily I had brought a wetbag in which we could put our cameras. Climbing the slippery boulders at the end was a bit difficult, but we managed, so we reached the main fall. Mission accomplished! We sat down to admire the waterfall and take pictures. Then disaster struck. While opening my wetbag to get out the cameras, I was suddenly hit with a big sound on my head. Then I felt something warm on my shoulders. I looked and saw a stream of blood flowing down. Jan, shouted Rani, what happened? Apparently a piece of rock had fallen down from the top of the gorge (20 m high?), and hit my head. Luckily the back of my head and not the frontal part! According to Rani it had broken in three parts and one of the parts had also caused a deep gash in my thumb, almost until the bone. So there was blood everywhere and later Rani told me that he can easily faint when seeing blood. But not this time, he managed to improvise a bandage for my head using my sarong, which at least diminished the bleeding. I was a bit worried about a concussion, so we decided that we would go back immediately. The first part was not easy, swimming back to our backpacks, then climbing up the steep slope until we reached the main trail. Wow, we were really relieved, so we took some time to have our lunch. Rani crushed some leaves of the plant with the blue berries, to stop the bleeding of my thumb. And he rearranged my sarong in a handsome way...:-) After that we had to walk the long way back to the car, but fortunately I had no dizzy spells and no vomiting. Of course we had to go to a clinic, but it was a Sunday afternoon. Friendly locals told Rani that there was a government clinic in Ulu Langat, which would open in case of emergency. We went there, there was a signboard with emergency numbers, Rani called the paramedic on duty, who arrived within ten minutes! The next hour(!) this friendly and competent guy cleaned the wounds and started stitching, nine for my head, six for my thumb. He gave me antibiotics and other medication and told me to go to my GP to remove the stitches one week later. When everything was over, I asked him how much I had to pay. He smiled, looked at the second paramedic who had arrived a bit later, shrugged his shoulders, and said, nothing, it is free. Malaysia Boleh! The first 24 hours I have been looking for signs of concussion, it seems that everything is fine. This was a freak accident, so it will not keep me back from future adventures...:-) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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