Lata Tampit (Tampit Falls)

Location : Janda Baik, Pahang, Malaysia

Coordinates : N 03 18.63 E101 50.73

Accessibility : Trekking

The idea of a get together between my college mates have always been around teh tarik, breaking of fast during Ramadhan, Eidul-Fitri open houses or anything that gravitates towards food.

However, towards the end of 2010, we’ve decided to challenge ourselves and go for a camping instead. Surprisingly, there were quite a number of takers for the camping beside  waterfall get together and we’ve gathered 11 of our batch mates for this outing in Lata Tampit (Tampit Falls). Situated about 45 minutes from KL and easily accessible through the East Coast highway exiting at Genting Sempah R&R, it’s a perfect pilot project should we gonna do this again in the future.

After a lengthy planning and execution process (we’re all scattered around Peninsular Malaysia), we arrived at the entry point at Latta Charok  chalet in the heart of Janda Baik.

As you can see in the photos, it was obvious that most of us are still rookies when it comes to jungle survival. You can clearly see us carrying our stuff in duffel and plastic bags! But that was the honesty of it all. We’re all willing to brave the ‘hardship’ just to get together with some old friends.

The journey took about 45 minutes, and it was almost dark when we arrived and start to erect the tents. Since its already dark, the first thing that we automatically did was to prepare dinner. I can’t say it was a simple jungle menu, for we  had a scrumptious dishes like grilled chicken, sardines in ketchup, salted fish, omelettes and many more. That was a good way to replenish all the energy gone trekking to the waterfall. So we thought.

We did not retire early after all the jungle food. Instead, we started a jungle casino rightly after that. We had a card game named ‘Slam’,  where no money was involved, only pride was at stake. We had so much fun that night playing cards, a round of instant noodles and ‘kopi kaw’ . The one thing that kept us wide awake was when we reminisced our college days 18 years ago until the wee hours of morning.

Dawn was greeted with loud snores of overweight sleepers, but some of us have already enjoying the wonderful sight of the ice cold waterfall just a few metres from where we sleep.

Fishing was very interesting as Tengas or Copper Mahseer fish was abundant. As we’re still full from dinner last night, those fish were then released back to their habitat. If not, they would have ended up as deep fried or smothered in sweet sour sauce. Yummy.

To cap it all off, it was simply a perfect camping trip, away from the concrete jungle of KL. Here, we rekindled the long friendship we had while enjoying mother nature’s treasure. Old friendship reborn, new wonders discovered.

Coming up next, the long and laborious hike to Lata Medang (Medang Falls).

-klurbanadventurer-