Caving @ Gua Tempurung, Kampar.

Last Saturday, I went on an outing organised by the cell-group that I attended at FGA. The outing was entitled Friendship Avenue, and about 11 males & 7 females (above the age of 26-40 participated).

We headed down to Kampar for a 2 nights & 3 days stay, with the activity of caving at "Gua Tempurung" in Kampar, Perak as the main event for the entire trip. The town of Kampar was mostly predominantly cantonese-speaking for the chinese residents, with a lot of GuangDong origin cantonese, similar to HK.

The caving trip itself was RM22 per person (with minimum 8 pax in a group). - less than AUD7. You could say it was a bit scary. Not exactly the safest of all activities (having not much of quality control, if made in comparison to Australia) but it sure was fun!

Among the thrills of Gua Tempurung included climbing through knee length to should level water level, sliding down a rock without any safety gear and be caught by someone on the bottom, and literally crawling on the ground of the cave with a ceiling of less than 3 feet high!

I can't actually provide any photos, as we had to climb through water, and didn't feel safe about bringing my camera in such an expedition! Not to mention the fact that my satchel wasn't of waterproof material. Some of my mates broke their shoes soles (and totally had no shoes to wear after the caving...!)

It was unfortunate that I had not brought a long a torchlight, or long pants. But one of my friends, Jess loaned me hers. Apparently it was useful when i had to do some crawling on the ground as the ceiling was jst too low...! The entire journey took about 3-4 hours... with the first half of the journey being dry, and the other half being wet (the crawling through water, and sliding down (literally!) a huge rock!

In total, the entire trip was RM150 (about AUD50) for the hotel stay for two nights and three days at the Grand Kampar Hotel (we were given a good discounted rate as my group co-ordinator, Katy, was acquainted with the owner).

Anyways, the objective of our group in heading there was to provide an avenue for both males & females to get to interact in neutral & supervised manner. Hence, many ice-breaking activities were created to encourage the atmosphere.

First, the males & females were assigned differently to the different cars, to encourage interaction among those we were not acquainted to before. Later, upon arrival in Kampar, we played The Amazing "Kampar" Race. Through the game, I was assigned to a group with two males and me (being the only female).. and we had to go around Kampar collecting pictures.

Through the game, I now literally know my way around Kampar now, having sampled all its local delicacies, like the ones listed below. The game would have been better, if the weather in Malaysia wasn't so hot!!! It was so hot, I could barely talk!

Among the specialities of Kampar include:
  • ais-kacang (peanut shaved ice) abt RM3 (AUD1),
  • lotus seeds (the type in the typical chinese sweet soup- lin chi kang, and the mooncakes ) a bunch of three for RM 1 (about AUD 0.30),
  • the Kampar specialty: chicken baked in bread
  • "lou-shue fun" (mouse-tailed-like wet rice noodle).
I havent done ANY outdoor activities in a long time... upon hearing of my caving experience, my cousin, Agnes, suggested white water rafting. I am quite interested... . i don't really like rock-climbing, and all that, but white water rafting seems adequately tempting. It costs RM120 per person in a raft at Gua Tempurung (about AUD40). I remember paying NZD80 when i went white water rafting in North Island in NZ last year in January.

So there ends this entry to Gua Tempurung during the last week.

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