In March, 2006, we were in Malaysia and, one day, a friend and colleague of my husband suggested we go to a waterfall. It was some 162 Km from Kuala Lumpur where we lived. We had a nice drive in our Volvo and, after a little more than 2 hours, we were there.
It is located in the state of Perak, near Chenderiang and is one of the best known and tallest( over 800 feet tall) waterfalls in Malaysia. They say it can be clearly seen from the N-S highway but we didn’t see it so far as I remember. It is not very crowded and that is, perhaps, because the access road is not convenient. Or it might have been a weekday.
From KL via the N-S highway, take the Tapah exit and continue north on the trunk road no 1. Follow the signboards to Chenderiang. After that you will find the road to the falls. At the end of that road, there are hawkers and the car park.
Apparently, at the base, there is a small Malay village, a confluences of two rivers and a tiny rubber estate.
We reached a pretty deserted looking town and a little after that we arrived at the waterfall.
It was one of the best times in my life. There were no huge crowds as we find in India. Some families were having picnics at the foot of the climb to the waterfall. Some cement steps lead you to suspension bridge where the main cascade begins.
We remained at the easy part of the waterfall. There is a way climb up, but it is too steep. However, those who have courage can be proud and delighted as they are at the top of Lata Kinjang, and below is a vertical fall.
Soon we were at a place where some youngsters were quietly enjoying in the water. We also joined in and I learned to slide from rock to rock in a sitting position due to the flowing water. We spent a long time enjoying the place.
After a while we decided to head back but we had to have lunch first. So we stopped at the little town on the way. It still looked quite deserted. Soon we saw a restaurant-in fact, two side by side. We went into one and found out that they had some 3 kinds of noodles as only options and all had to be got from outside. We tried the other place and it was the same. So finally we settled on one of the places and had a plate each of the 3 types of noodles.
On the drive back we also had some Pisang Goreng, bananas dipped in batter and deep fried.
It was a memorable day!
Of course, to be very frank, it is not really a tourist spot and more like the places around Pune which are nice to visit but do not have facilities. That may be a downside but I assure you it will be worth your while if you love nature and are into trekking.
On the plus side, there is also a limestone cave nearby but we did not visit it.
If life takes me to Malaysia again I would probably not visit it again because there are many other places that I have not seen but, if there’s plenty of time, I would go there out of nostalgia for I enjoyed that outing.
However, it is not a place for a fancy outing-more like a trek in the wilderness.