Caving in SE Asia: Gua Tambun overnight trip 2009

16 August 2009

Gua Tambun overnight trip 2009

In Jan 2009 I went to Gua Tambun rock paintings to see Noel's erection Gua Tambun scaffolding. August 14-15 he was spending 24 hours at the site to do some data recordings, so I joined him along with Law Siak Hong, Juliana Rahim and her husband Ikmail.

Noel was there from around 9am on Fri morning, and I arrived at 1pm, having had a nice lunch in Ipoh, whereas Noel was heating his chunky soup and instant couscous on a brand new stove.

The others arrived during the late afternoon and time passed quickly as we chatted and had a look around. The pondok at the base of the steps has been constructed since my last visit in Jan, though the info board is still empty, and the roof tiles are already covered in moss or algae.

Noel was taking readings of temperature, humidity and luminosity every hour.

Surprising the site was quite dry as the humidity was around 60% during the afternoon, compared to much higher readings of 90+ in other places such as Penang. The temperature only once reached 33C in the afternoon. The meters were positioned on the cliff face. It was quite hazy and the views to Keledang hills were disappointing.

We had set up tents on the stony floor.

It was the first time I had used my tent since I was in Madagascar in 1999 - luckily it hadn't rotted. Hong put up a hammock on the steps, so we declared him our guard dog. Incidentally there were no signs of the dog family we had seen in Jan. At the end of the cliff area, some people have scattered a lot of textbooks (English and Chinese). We couldn't understand why people would carry books up to this site and then destroy them there.

By 10pm we had all gone to bed, but it was too hot to sleep inside the tent. There was no need for a fly sheet as we were protected from any rain being under the huge overhang of the cliff. At 11pm our peace was shatterd as the soldier boys in the army camp directly below us started karaoke. It was BAD. Really bad. Absolutely awful. It lasted about 2 hours, then after that, there was still noise as stragglers returned to the army camp in cars and noisy bikes.

Also the floodlights from the army camp remained on all night except for one hour. These lights were so bright that we hardly needed torches depsite there being no moon. Part of the cliff face was really illuminated, but luckily not the main area where the paintings are.

Even then it was not a peaceful night as the birds were calling the whole night. I think they are swifts. Why do they spend the night calling when they should be sleeping. I wondered if it was because of the floodlights. Noel had set his alarm for every hour on the hour. Then we heard the loud crunching of his footsteps on the stones as he went to read the 2 meters. So I didn't get much sleep.

We got up around 7am, and the last reading was taken at 9am. We said our goodbyes to the paintings, then left and went to town for breakfast and durians.