Steve and Emma's Travel Tales

After a very unhealthy weekend last week, a bit of a party at our gaff, it was time to get out and about doing some exercise and seeing something more of Malaysia than the view of KL from our balcony. We decided to head to Fraser’s Hill to do a bit of jungle trekking.

It has been a while since we’ve ventured up to Fraser’s Hill, as it is a complete pain to get to by public transport despite being only 100 km north of KL. Plus, we have always preferred the Cameron Highlands due to the more extensive trail network. However, a recent search on the tinterweb showed that the longest trail, to Pine Tree Hill was now accessible. When we visited years ago it was only recommended with a local guide, so we decided to give Bukit Fraser another go.

Now getting there was also supposed to be a lot easier as KTM (the Malaysian, government owned rail company – imagine British Rail in the seventies but without the stale pork pies, for obvious reasons, and you have the picture of the incompetence of the organization) claim that their Kommuter train now went to Kuala Kubu Bharu (KKB), the nearest town to Fraser’s Hill. In addition, the new high-speed shuttle service from KL to Ipoh also stops in KKB, so we were laughing – not. The early shuttle train doesn’t run at the weekend so we arrived at KL Sentral station ready for the 6.55 am Kommuter train, not to KKB but to Rawang as the Kommuter train doesn’t actually go as far as KKB, so you have to change. For once the Rawang train was only 5 minutes late and we pulled into Rawang station about 40 minutes later. Unfortunately, the KKB train is only hourly so we had a 45 minute wait. Not to worry, we stepped out of the station for a brew at the local Kedai kopi. The train to KKB only took another 30 minutes or so and we thought we had cracked it when we disembarked at KKB station at 9.15 am – plenty of time to get to Fraser’s Hill and do our trek. Not quite, the station at KKB was in the middle of nowhere but luckily there was one taxi driver waiting and he would gladly take us to our destination. But not now, as the road from ‘The Gap’ up the hill was closing in 30 mins and therefore there wasn’t enough time to get to the gap before it closed. The road to Fraser’s Hill is only single track, so traffic is allowed up for a 40 minute period starting at o’clock on the odd hours and you can travel down at the even hours! This meant that we couldn’t ascend the hill until 11.00 am! Remember that we had actually left the flat at 6.30 this morning! What to do? Emma was all for heading for the gap straight away and walking up the 8km road, now that would have been fine but would we have the time or the inclination to then do our jungle trek?  Our very helpful taxi driver Apu, suggested that we head into KKB for some breakfast and he will pick us up in time to reach the gap at 11.00 am. I was able to dissuade Emma from storming up the hill with the mention of roti canai, so off into KKB we set.

KKB seems like a pleasant little town and Apu dropped us off at an Indian mammak joint and we had a lovely roti canai and teh tarik. Due to his word Apu’s battered old taxi turned up and we were heading off towards Fraser’s Hill past the recently built dam and the trail to Chilling Waterfall, we even spotted a macaque on the way. We arrived at the gap just before 11 bells and the gate soon opened and we were twisting and twining our way up the hill. To be fair to Emma, she would probably have been quicker! Apu dropped us off at The Jelai Highland Resort at around 11.30. We realized at this point that if we had got the 8 o’clock bus to the Cameron Highlands we would only have arrived 30 minutes later! On first impressions Fraser’s Hill looked like it had been done up since our last visit. I remember a scruffy little town but now all the mock-tudor buildings and clock tower have had a lick of paint and it looks quite pleasant if not at all like the small English village that the tourist brochures would have you believe. Unfortunately, The Jelai Highland Resort was not in on the ‘Lets improve Fraser’s Hill’ campaign, as it had last seen a lick of paint when the British actually ruled these parts! A bit over-priced despite the 10 Ringgit discount for living in KL, but it wasn’t too bad and we did have a balcony with a tree view. Anyway, we were here to trek and not sit in the room so time to get walking.

We really did need to get going as time was getting on, we asked the guy at the hotel where the start of the Pine Tree Hill trail was, however, he had never heard of it but kindly suggested we try the information centre back in the town square. After a 10 minute walk into ‘town’ we had secured a map and found out it was back up the hill, yes the way we had just come! Eventually we found the trail head which was marked by a big gateway and information board.  This told us that it was a 5.5 km trek to the top and a round trip of 7 hours. Seeing as it had gone 12 bells already we had to get our skates on in order to get back in daylight, so we set off into the jungle at a fair lick.

The trail was well signed with information about the flora and fauna and we came upon the first rest hut after 40 metres! Emma said we must carry on despite my pleas for a break. We had assumed that the trail would be the usual steep trudge up to the summit but the first section of the trail was mainly steeply down with some ups. Always a worry to start going down! In fact the trail undulated a lot but there were ropes and steps for any really steep bits. It was pretty tough going and I knew we should have had a cup of tea after we got back from the pub last night instead of opening a bottle of wine – healthy weekend hey!

After 1500m we passed the 4^th rest hut – now fallen down and we didn’t expect any more markers or info as the board at the start stated that the information only went as far as here. However, we soon saw more markers telling us how far we had gone – not sure about the accuracy as we seemed to be making quite quick progress according to the signs and some older wooden signposts weren’t in line with the new laminated ones. We were enjoying the trek and I remarked sarcastically that the trail was ‘packed with trekkers’ having not seen a soul since hitting the track. Typical, we went round the next bend and bumped into a group pf 20 westerners coming back from the top! They reckoned it wasn’t too far now and that we should have plenty of time. The trail flattened out for a while and it was quite a nice stroll, but as is the case in the jungle every now and then there were fallen trees to clamber over or under which do make it quite a tough workout. Eventually we came to a group of Malaysian trekkers who had set up camp for lunch at the base of an extremely steep section. They said they weren’t going any further as they had been up many times before. But onwards and upwards for us intrepid explorers. It really was a steep and slippy rock face but luckily there were plenty of tree roots and some ropes to help with the climb. It wasn’t a great distance and we soon came upon the ‘100m to go’ marker – could that be right? Well we were soon on the top of Pine Tree Hill. You could see back towards Fraser’s Hill from the top and you could see that we were about the same altitude, 1500m but you could clearly see the many hills we had traversed to get here. The view wasn’t great as the clouds were starting to gather. It had only taken 1 hour 50 mins to get here,  so we had made good time and we could relax and have our sandwiches as it was coming up to 2 o’clock. We spent half an hour on the top having our picnic and admiring the flowers and the view. We could now hear thunder rumbling in the distance so made preparations to head down – didn’t fancy the slippy rock face in the rain.

It was a tad unnerving  looking down,  but what goes up must come down, I slipped and stumbled my way down, holding onto the rope for dear life worrying that Emma will do a Stok Kangri and come crashing down on top of me, but fortunately we both made it down safely. Only a few metres into the return trek the rain eventually came. Looked like we could beat the dark but not the rain, so on with the rain coats. It wasn’t too bad at first and you have to expect some rain when you visit the Malaysian highlands and we made our way back through the soggy forest. About halfway back the real rain started and soon we were soaked, luckily we hadn’t encountered any of our blood sucking friends! The cloud had really come down now and it was almost pitch black in the forest but we still made good time and were back at the trail head at 4.45pm. Yep, checked the board it really did say that it should be 7 hours, 4 hours for Emma’s little legs! It was a really good trek, pretty tough with lots of ups and downs both ways with some clambering over obstacles so I guess you have to be up for it and have some level of fitness for this one, but very doable.

It had stopped raining by now but Fraser’s Hill was enshrouded in a real pea-souper and it was a tad chilly, perhaps this is what they meant by little England. It had been a little disappointing to not see any wildlife on the trek, especially as I had seen a beautiful 6 metre reticulated python on my morning Bangsar cycle ride only 2 days previously. However, when we got back to the hotel there were a group of langurs frolicking about on the hotel roof. They turned out to be the only other guests in the whole place. They were pale grey with a white front and we didn’t think we had seen this type before. It turned out, upon looking them up in our animal books when we returned to KL, that they were Banded Langurs, definitely a new species for us. We quickly had a shower – hot water yessss! and headed out in search of food and drink before it started raining again. Considering Fraser’s Hill has a lot of accommodation there is little in the way of restaurants.  We found a Chinese place called ‘Hill View’ (not in this weather mate) close to the main square next to the old Tavern, an English style pub which had been done up but  sadly closed down since our last visit. Never mind, Hill View had Mr. C Berg in the fridge, no not Chris De (although death by freezer is a just punishment for him) but his mate from Denmark and they rustled up some decent run of the mill Chinese fare. Well fed and watered we headed back to our digs for an early night. As we were walking up the road 2 wild boar came rushing past us and dived into the forest, then as we were just about reaching the hotel, a small animal ran across the road into the bush. Steve- “What was it?  Emma - “A mouse deer” Steve - “No, it looked bigger than a mouse, dear!” Amazing – these are the smallest deer in the world and it was great to get even a fleeting glimpse. Fraser’s Hill really is a good spot for wildlife, last time we came we saw a group of yellow-throated Marten (a stoat type creature) down near the waterfall.

After an early night we were up early and sitting on the balcony watching a huge variety of bird life fluttering about. Fraser’s Hill is famous amongst twitchers, and they even have an international bird watching race! How does that work? You trek around and spot birds and tick them off on a list. Why not just stay in the pub, check, that’s an ostrich by the juke box, oh is that, a dodo in the snug by any chance? How do they know if you have really spotted them? Beats me. Anyway, after checking off more roti canai on our breakfast list we decided to have a short walk on some of the other trails. Now all the trails except Pine Tree Hill are very short, even less than the distance marked on the signs, but they do give you a chance to see some interesting flora and to spot an array of birds. We set off on the Hemmant trail and saw loads of birds, sorry no clue as to what they were, so don’t think I’ll be a twitching champion any time soon. We looped back to the hotel via the Mager trail to pick up our bags and head down the gap.

We had arranged to meet Apu at 1 o’clock so he could take us back to KKB. It was really nice walking down the road, there is little traffic except for the 5 mins after the gate opens and we enjoyed strolling in the sunshine drying our clothes out and taking in the extensive views. About halfway down we heard an almighty racket coming from the jungle. Sounded like primates but you can often be fooled by birds pretending to be monkeys. But surely not, this was way too loud and it sounded really close. We stopped to have a look but couldn’t see anything. After a few minutes the noise finished and there was movement in the trees. We could see some black shapes in the foliage; from the way they were moving they had to be gibbons. Yes, we got a better look as four gibbons swung towards us. We followed them further down the road and came across another group of 4 playing in the canopy right above our heads. We got a clear look at these fantastic creatures as they moved gracefully along the branches. These boys were quite big and all of them were fully black in colour, usually gibbons, even of the same species are various colours. We watched them for a while and there was movement in the tress across the valley and we could see another huge gibbon making its way across to join the group. What an amazing and lucky sight. Funnily enough we had bumped into a couple of friends while out in Bangsar the previous evening and they said they had heard there were gibbons around Fraser’s Hill, well they were right. As it turned out, after looking through the animal books, they were actually Siamangs, the biggest of the gibbon species, and all of a uniform black colour. They also make much more noise than other gibbons, due to their large pouch under the chin; we can vouch for the noise levels. Just to add to their list of claims to fame they are only found in Peninsular Malaysia and on Sumatra. We watched them for a good 20 minutes before heading down to the gap where Apu was waiting for us.

On the way back we dissected the gibbon encounter and we were soon closing in on KKB. Apu said we could make the 2.00pm train but we planned on getting the 2.56 direct train from Ipoh. Therefore, we asked Apu to drop us at our favourite (and only) KKB restaurant and had a big Sunday lunch of rice and curry. Apu came back at 2.30 and took to the station for no extra cost, what a gent; he is my man in KKB. We bought tickets for KL and noticed that the direct train was only 5 mins late, not bad. The tannoy soon announced that the KL train was arriving and we got ready to board. It pulled in but as we tried to board the guards starting shouting at us, saying we couldn’t get on! Train stopped, going to KL, on the timetable, what’s the problem? No idea, but they made us get the next train to Rawang instead, as I had obviously asked for the ‘please can I wait at Rawang station for an hour ticket’, rather than the ‘direct to KL 1 hour’ ticket. We made it Rawang to find the station full of exasperated passengers and the info board said the next train was at 10.25, my instincts told me something was up. I inquired at the office as to when the next train was going and was told it would be in 55 minutes – not bad for a service that is every 20 mins on the timetable!  Much to Emma’s surprise I had a wee rant about the situation but Emma pointed out that it didn’t matter that much and we were back in KL only an hour later than expected. We’d had a great walk in Fraser’s Hill and an incredible wildlife encounter, beats a weekend partying and lounging on the sofa, or does it?

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