Kanching rainforest waterfall is about a 30min drive from KL center on a traffic free weekend morning. My kids, the not so active girls agreed on doing this hike, which was quiet surprising and wonderful. Kanching is quite popular for jungle trekking, camping, swimming and barbecuing. Being the weekend we saw a packed pool at the first level. From level 1 to level 4 it’s an easy walk up with concrete steps, except for a few places where the earth had created it’s own steps.
The previous night, I had looked up Kanching waterfall and came across mentions of aggressive monkeys in a few articles. But I assumed unless we bothered them they wouldn’t bother us. We did see a few monkeys having a good time stealing food from the picnickers, while they had a nice dip in the cold water. The monkeys were having there own party.
Though Kanching waterfall has 7 levels, most visitors don’t go beyond level five, but we (being the adventurers we were) decided to go up to the 7th level and kept on moving.
I have always wondered where waterfalls begin, from where do all that water come from and how would it be? Is it a big river, or a narrow stream?
Once we reached level six I tried to convince my girls to go up, but, it did look challenging and I wasn’t able to convince them to climb to the next level. Sadly I had to leave without reaching the summit.
From Kanching we detoured to the Batu caves to climb the 272 steps to enter the 400 million years old caves. Surrounded by monkeys we walked up the steps into the caves to witness a lot of ongoing construction work.
It didn’t feel complete as I had not climbed up to the summit of Kanching waterfall. My good old Malaysian friend Radzi suggested that we go back again.
A week later we were back at Kanching waterfall forest.
As we left home it started to rain so we went prepared with raincoats.
The route felt familiar, already traced. The challenge began at level 6. Clad in our raincoats we kept on climbing. The rocks were slippery and steep. It might not have been the wisest thing to do to on a rainy day, but we had already started. So, we kept on moving up.
After nearly 30 min from level 7, we reached the top, finally! It was a very narrow stream with a little pool of water.
I knew the hardest part would be the climb down. The rain made the already steep trail more challenging.
The proverb “look before you leap” made a lot of sense on that day. Before letting go of one foot I had to identify a rock where I would place my other foot. I had to check the roots and branches if they were strong enough to hold my weight.
It was not easy, and again, doing this on a rainy day was definitely not the smartest thing to do. But it was all worth the experience. As my dear friend Radzi kept on saying; “it was fun”.
Life is about challenges, facing them and overcoming them.
Interested to trace my trail…
Trace a Trail 