Thaipusam Recce, 07 February 2001

It was a talk. We never exactly meant to do it during the Thaipusam festival. It is because the Thaipusam also coincides with the 15th Day of the First Lunar month, a day which my mom normally takes it seriously. Chap Goh Meh lah. It is also my lunar birthday. So, happy lunar birthday for myself...:) My mom did not tell me a day before she was gonna need to use my car. So when I got up in the morning, guess what happen? Man, I nearly fainted because I kept my wallet in my Daihatsu. I called Azmi to tell him that I could not do it anymore cause I did not have my driving license with me. Of course, they did not let me go off-hook that easy. Instead, Azmi offered to give me a ride to the trailhead!

Four of us, Azmi, Julian, ST and yours truly decided to do this recce thing this morning. The place we were planning to recce is a logging trail in a tiny town called Karangan. If you have no idea where the hell is Karangan, go check the Kedah map. It will show how tiny and rural the town is! But one thing, they serve the best roti canai we have tried! We must be an eye opener to the locals when we changed to our flashy jersey and fixed our machines up. Normally, we only stopped by to have breakfast. This time, we decided to pay this town a visit!

A few queries to the locals turned out that there were three trails nearby. One was a hunting trail that cutting through kampungs, forest reserves, rubber and oil palm estates and coming out at Sedim. The second is also a hunting trail but started at Sungai Kob. Also came out at Sedim. And the third trail is a nice singletrack going into Gunung Bongsu Forest Reserve. Nobody knows where would the trail come out. Sound interesting? We would like to do the hunting trail that cut through kampungs and rubber estate one. Unfortunately, the guy who knows the trail was not around. The Sungai Kob hunting trail is far away. The only choice we had was the Gunung Bongsu singletrack. We headed to the trail after we asked for direction from a guy at the "ayam percik" store.

We did not realize that we were actually heading to the Ulu Paip trail until we hit the junction. A signboard told me that we were indeed riding on this sandy doubletrack! Of four of us, Julian was the only rider that had never been to the trail before. It was kind of disappointing. We thought we would ride in some place new. Instead, we came to the trail we have ridden for couple of times. Since we were already there, we decided to finish the unfinished business we were having with Ulu Paip!

This is a sandy trail with moderate climb. We had no problem to complete the stretch in a short while. Since four of us were almost more or less in the same level of physical fitness, we had no problem keep ourselves in a close pack. When we reached the end of the trail. We were surprise to see that actually there was a continuation of the trail. We decided to check it out! It was steep uphill slope at the end. It was apparent that it was very new, judging from the fresh sharp edges of the cut tree brunches. We managed to climb for about 100 meters, and then we all had to push our bikes due to the steep gradient of the slope. Also there was a bump stopping us from continuing. We went in very far. We were hit by a dead end after a five minutes climb. Coming down from the slope was quite a fun. Luckily, all of us had the skill to do that!

We decided to check the trail across the stream. For anyone who have been to the Ulu Paip before, you should know there is a trail at the opposite side of the stream. We ended up having no luck with that trail as well. But we did not wish to give up easily. There is still a third trail that we wish to visit in Ulu Paip. There is this laterite trail that is going up somewhere in the Gunung Bongsu Forest Reserve. I myself have visited the same trail thrice. None of the visits are successful to complete the whole trail because every time I come to Ulu Paip, the sky would become nasty and the laterite trail becomes very slippery and muddy. Judging from the good weather today, we all had a feeling that we are going to make it!

The slope had become not ride-able due to erosion. It is apparent that the trail has not been used for some time. We still could not stay on saddle to complete the climb. It took us about five minutes to finish the whole section, which was about one kilometer. Fast climb? I don't know! What I know is my heart was panting like it was going to jump out from my mouth! We did not stop to catch some breath because of the open space and under the hot scotching sun. We continue the journey by proceeding to the section that we never had chance to visit.

It turns out that we hit a jackpot. It was a well shaded trail with cooling breeze. The trail was flat and climb was moderate. I have a feeling that there used to be logging activity going on here. It was a track. A 4x4 vehicle like Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero would have no problem to go through the trail at all. One thing, some riders might be putting off by the presence of leeches! Though they were not as large as what we had encountered in Sungai Sedim Forest Reserve, it was a nuisance. We had to take off our shoes regularly to check if there were any of this blood sucker trying to take a sip at our life sustaining fluid!

Again, the trail led to no end! The trail was cut off by a land slide. We could not go further since there was no detour to connect to the opposite trail. We decided to turn back as the time was also running late.

I wouldn't say it was a disappointing ride since we did not manage to "discover" any trail. At least we all enjoyed the ride. The most important thing this ride had fulfilled my wish to complete the Ulu Paip trail! We ended our ride at the lunch stop in Pelita Restaurant, Chai Leng Park. You guys should try their beef and chicken curry. I highly recommend it!

Stay tuned!