N and his colleagues organised a trip to Ulu Kemensah (near Zoo Negara) on last Sunday, deep inside a malay kampung, on Sunday morning. The place was so remote, that we had thought we lost our way. But with the reassurance of a Malay pakcik, our car was the first to arrive. We had to parked at the road side, so the earlier you arrived, the better you are to get a nice parking spot.
Before we started to ride the All Terrain Vehicle (ATV), the instructor demonstrated to us how to operate the vehicle ie. to start the machine, shifting the 3 gears (Reverse, Neutral, Forward), the handbreaks etc. Then he gave us some safety tips and we had few rounds of practice around the base station. We learnt how to navigate left/right, and going uphill, and downhill.
I had a minor accident during the practice session, I was trying to avoid a boulder going downhill, but I didn't manage to steer away in time, and the ATV toppled to the right. It was lucky that it toppled slowly, so I had time to put a leg down to stabilise myself. Before you panic, I was quite ok from the mishap. No bruises, no cuts, just minor muscle sprain and scared me a little. But I quickly recovered from the experience.
Believe me, steering it was hard! Turning left/right is not as easy as you think, the steering is just too hard to turn. I had to use my upper body to push left/right.
We broke up into two groups, with a guide each leading us into the jungle area. I forgot to time how long we took to drive in, anyway, it was an adventure driving in. Much better than hiking and sweating all the way. Our destination was the Sofea Jane waterfall. After a hard ride, we relaxed ourselves in the cool waters of the waterfall, and had a small picnic of nasi lemak bungkus, mangosteens, duku langsat and cool plain mineral water. The ride back to base station was a different experience, with more downhills compared to uphills on the way in. However, we're much faster on the return ride as we're already more experienced navigating the terrain.
I very much enjoyed the adventure, however driving the ATV was not a really good experience for me. Not because I fell off the ATV, but I found it very hard to steer the left/right direction and trying to stabilise my ATV when going up/downhill. Even grabbing the handbreaks kills me! I was unlucky to get a ATV with very tight brakes, so my hand sort of got numb and cramped after the whole ride. (The brakes are similar to your bicycle brakes). Having a guide riding behind me helped alot. He was much stronger and more experienced in handling the ATV, so he navigated some of the slopes, and helped me applied the brakes while I enjoyed the breeze :P
For those of you are who interested, you can make bookings via this ATV Malaysia website. Our package was RM150/person. I must say the map on the website is poor, the distance from Zoo Negara to the ATV base station is very far, and there was no roadsigns until you are very deep inside the malay kampungs.
Finally, I'll let the pictures speaks for themselves. More photos at my flickr page.
