Monday, May 07, 2007

Mt. Inas (30th April - 1st May 07)

Hai Poh went to Gunung Inas 5 years ago and had described Gunung Inas as the 2nd beauty of Banjaran Bintang. So, 14 of us signed up for the Gunung Inas hiking trip during the Labour day. I went to Gunung Bintang at June 2005 which also located in Banjaran Bintang and I had seen the most beautiful sunrise at Gunung Bintang. So, I had put the high expectation on Gunung Inas. Higher expectation leads to greater disappointment. Gunung Inas – “too beautiful” which made me never ever think of want to visit her again.

We separated into 3 cars and headed to Ipoh at 29th April. We spent the night at Dee’s house. The next day, we started our journey to Lawin at 6 o’clock early in the morning. I slept in the car all the way and when I opened my eyes, the signboard of “Selamat Datang Ke Lawin, Perak” came into sight. We passed by a secondary school and a police station, stopped at the Malay stall beside the road to have our breakfast. Hai Poh went into a shop to buy something. A Malay told Hai Poh that he recognized him and asked whether he came here to climb Gunung Inas. We felt a bit unbelievable but later we found out that he’s a friend of the tour guide that Hai Poh hired at his previous climb. He saw the photos of Hai Poh before. His name is Salim and turned out to be our guide this time.

After breakfast, we parked the cars at Salim’s house and started our journey. We bypassed the rubber estate and walked into the palm oil plantation. After an hour walking, we reached the starting point of the trek. Gunung Inas is about 1800m and half of the trek is the logging trail. Fern grow wildly along the trail. Our guide was in front to make the way for us by removing the fern. Hai Poh, Tack, Kok Yuen and Ming also took turn to chop down those fern. Guide hiring is the spontaneous decision and we are glad that we have a guide with us. Without Salim, most probably we will get lost in this forest.

Rain started to pour around 12pm.Leeches had become extremely active in the rainy day. They attacked us aggressively and wouldn’t lose any opportunity to suck out our blood. We stopped to check and remove the leeches. This activity had become more frequent from time to time. Imagine that you will find leeches on you every 5 minutes walk, then you will able to understand why leeches is our nightmare at Gunung Inas. Salim kept on telling us that campsite is not far away, only about 2 hours journey. “Dekat saja, 2 jam” and the problem was he had been telling us this since 2 hours ago. We only reached the campsite at 5.30pm. It’s 8 hours journey.

The campsite is located beside the river but it’s not the nice campsite, a lot of sand fly. The river at this campsite is the last water point. If we would like to camp at the summit, we need to carry the water from here and all the way up to summit. We are afraid that we might be able to descend and go out the forest before night fall if we camp at the summit. So, we decided to hike up to summit the next day and come back to this campsite for overnight. The next day at 9.30am, we slowly trekked towards summit and reached the top 4 hours later. The surrounding was covered by clouds, couldn’t see any scenery. There was nothing at the top except the pine trees. We teased among ourselves again for spending the holiday in this terrible place. We descended back to the campsite around 2pm and reached campsite at 6pm.

1st May – Labour day, we packed all our things and desperate to go out from this mountain. We were ready to battle with the leeches again. Maybe because of not raining, the leeches are not as much as 2 days ago. But still consider a lot comparing to other mountains.

At last, we had left Gunung Inas at 4pm. The only thing that I remember of Inas is leeches. I can still clearly remember the scene that everybody busy to remove the leeches and kill them with yokoyoko and “minyak angin”. Chee Yong had prepared a small bottle of salt water and put the leeches inside. He said this was the spa that he prepared for the leeches. Phew! I am so glad that this nightmare had finally ended.

9 comments:

  1. Yeah... really a nightmare for all of us.. I like your blog very much, not lengthy but descriptive... While reading it, it brings me back to the actual scene..(of course no need to check for leech anymore.. Hahaha) Keep it up!!!

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  2. Look like you guys meet with an unscheduled blood donation at Mt.Inas.

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  3. I dun want to come back again...nightmare...

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  4. JingYee, u know wat, I just read the mail from my Malay gang forum, they also went Mt Inas during labour day, and put the title as "Trans Inas Siksaan yang Suksess diHari Buruh"...wah..panjang cerita..all abt fighting with leeches..hahaha...

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  5. Lai, maybe your malay frens is the group that Salim mentioned that went up via another route. But seems cannot escape from the leeches attack also...hahaha....

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  6. Yalor, I think so, but they r depart from Kg Belukar Hantu, anywhere we all having the same fate la..ar..hahaha...

    Herewith some interesting experiance from "ShahabatGunung" to share with u...oh..luv it..SYOIK la...:

    Jalan2 punya jalan hari makin mendung dan hujan turun dengan lebat. Jam ketika itu pukul 12.30tgh.. Memang syok jalan dalam hujan..PACAT??%#&$* @ memang banyak tak hingat...

    Sib baik aku ok jer tapi kawan2 yg lain dah mula menampakkan bosan ngan pacat... Aku teruk gak diserang almaklumlah pakai Sandal jer... Cam biasa la pacat tak kasi can!!

    Pacat semakin rakus menyerang... sampai ada yang sanggup bediri dalam anak sungai semata2 taknak pacat menyerang... Namun pacat kat sini ada lesen skuba diving he he he... buleh berenang sesenang hati woooo..

    Aku dah selalu sangat jalan malam nie.. Tapi kali nie aku surender.. Sebolehnya memang taknak sebab nak naik kepuncak Inas nie die punyer trek...

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  7. But now I can understand WHY HaiPoh keep saying that Mt Inas is the second Beauty, he wanna come back again and insists to bring us here...coz the writer of "SahabatGunung" has the same thought too...

    Day 4 1May 2007
    8.00pagi aku dikejutkan dengan suara kawan2 yang riuh rendah melayan view.. aku pun bangun.. Hmmm menarik tertarik... awanan putih umpama disikat di celahan banjaran Kledang dan Banjaran Bintang. Dikejauhan samar2 kelihatan banjaran Titiwangsa.. Namun tiada gunung yang dapat aku cam/kenal..
    Penang?? jelas kelihatan termasuk Banggunan Komtar. Hari ni malas2 sikit bebudak nie nak turun.. Aku tanya mali
    "Mali, pukul berapa biasanya buleh sampai kat Lata Lawin biasanya??"
    "Pukul 5-6ptg selalunya dah buleh sampai.."jawabnya

    ......

    He he he... aku teringin sangat nak pergi kali kedua lak Kalu buleh aku nak menganjurkan sekali lagi, memang puas hati.. kali nie aku akan lebih bersedia!!
    Pada kawan2 yg lain, jgn lupa!! Trans Inas... Akhirnya aku tamat pengajian dan sampai jugak hajat 12tahun aku.

    Aku ingat lagi 12 tahun dulu aku pergi kerumah member aku..
    "Fuh, lawa gambar nie Shah!! Abang hang panjat gunung mana nie??" tanya aku.
    "Tuu la, aku ajak korang panjat gunung ni. Ini gunung Inas, amacam? cun tak??" Kata Shah pada aku..

    Itu la kali pertama aku menatap gambar Gunung Inas disamping view sekitarnya. Mulai dari saat itu aku memasang niat untuk ke Gunung Inas jugak suatu hari nanti.
    Memang saje tulis panjang2 nak kasi kawan2 teruja untuk ke Trans Inas.

    Pada aku pengajian panjat2 gunung nie tak lengkap kalau tak ke TransInas.

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  8. Do you have the GPS trail for Gunung Inas?

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  9. sorry, I don't have the GPS trail.

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