Camping Templers park

I have wanted to start spending more time in Malaysia’s outdoors. Since I had a couple of days off Sunday thru Tuesday, and hoped it would be less crowded than usual. I’m still waiting for my car to repaired so I asked my girlfriend to drop me off and pick me up on Tuesday evening.
We left Saturday late afternoon, I’d originally planned to return to Commonwealth park and use the campground as a jump off or base camp and follow the stream up into the jungle. Well we arrived a bit later than I’d anticipated so it was dark when we got to the campground. Upon arrival we found the place packed with local scouts…hmmm, now what? I asked one of the leaders if they were using the entire camp? Yes they were.
So plan B. We drove to Templers, I have never been to the falls, and I’d heard there was space to camp there so we stopped to check it out. We saw a map showing the distances and I decided it was too far to blunder about in the dark so I’d come back in the morning.


  I got started and walked up the paved path to the “swimming pool “  past that, up some stairs to the trail. I passed a reservoir, to the first zig zag concrete bridge.

Most of Malaysia’s parks and outdoor places have great little covered rest stops along trails and walkways so when the inevitable rains come you have a place to shelter.

This was the first of many along the trail, you can see my pack where I stopped to get some photos. I continued on and so far I seem to be alone on a Sunday morning, well it is late November and the start of the monsoon season so I guess I’m the only one brave (read silly) enough to be out here.

So far the trail is easy and well used and the scenery is great, really a pleasant walk.




I did run into a few places where the trail was blocked by some deadfalls and had to navigate around, under or over them. I did lose the trail once and had to do a bit of backtracking to find it. But it wasn’t too bad.

 

This one I had to crawl under… And a few had to be scrambled over, but the trail gets enough use it is relatively easy. I continued on the the falls, being passed once by a couple day hiking. I had originally planned to camp near the falls, but when I got there the trash left piled up near the provided trash can and near one of the shelters kinda put me off. The trail is supposed to be a loop but it was pretty much blocked past the falls so I spent some time resting and picking off the leeches I’d acquired along the trail. Speaking of leeches I hadn’t noticed any on the way, I brought leech socks but hadn’t put them on, so I had a few on my legs near the ankle, also one had gotten under my shirt on my lower back. I got the leech socks on and tucked in my shirt to and prepared to back track and find a place to camp.
Of course now I started noticing the leeches and would knock them off when I saw them. I went back to a clearing on the opposite side of the stream, where someone had built a bamboo platform which looked like a good spot to camp.



Here are a couple of poor shots of the falls.





                                                                                                                                                                                       Here’s the platform someone had built



I set up my hammock and changed out of my wet clothes and socks. I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring and staying out of the rain sitting in my hammock.

The clearing was good, however finding trees to hang my bed was a bit hard but I managed. Since it’s mostly damp, and dry wood is hard to find, I decided to wait till evening to start a fire. I planned to try cooking rice in bamboo, and heating some curry in a large piece of split bamboo but as luck would have it once I did get the fire going it started raining and put out the fire… So what did I learn? Well, bring a second tarp to rig above a cooking area. I did have my stove so I could cook the rice but it wasn’t as fun as the bamboo I wanted to try. I also spent some time purifying  water.
I saw quite a few ants and some of them were huge! I have read about bullet ant and don’t know if that’s what they were and didn’t let them near enough to find out if they’d bite me. There were a few leeches around and I had to be careful as they’d work their way up the socks to just below my knee and find bare skin to attach to. I had read the some of the Orang asli (native people) will make “tea” from tobacco which will deter the leeches, I tried it but I’m not sure… I found I leech in my boot (I was sockless) but it wasn’t eating me, so I’m not sure if it was already full and looking for a way out or if it didn’t like the tobacco. I’ll have to test it further.
 
My leech socks…

I did have a problem with my boots. I have read on some websites that a lot of shoes or hiking boots don’t last very long in the jungle. Well I have a pair of REI (made by Merrell I think) boot which I’d used in the US for about a year that I brought with me. They lasted one day… The sole separated from the boot that evening, I couldn’t even fix it with duct tape, too wet so I tied them on with the laces.
Other than the soles falling off the boots are in great shape… so I’ll have them re-glued and see if that’ll last at all… So if you bring footwear to the Malaysian jungle make sure they’re stitched!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    



I had arranged to be picked up the next evening so that afternoon I packed up and headed out the the parking area. It was a great trip and each time I go out I learn a little more. I plan on trying to get on a jungle coarse here or go out with some locals.

Camping at Commonwealth Park (Taman Komanwel)

I was an avid camper in the US and I'd planned to camp here in Malaysia. I even shipped over some of my gear like, a REI 6 man tent, an two man tent, and some backpacking stuff.
After being here for a few years I finally went! Well, this was the second trip I went once to Kuala Kubu Baru on my own for 1 night but this was the first "full scale" trip.
My friend's kids (10 and 7) wanted to, camp for the first time, have a campfire, and fish as well. Commonwealth near Rawang was near enough if a disaster occurred we could be home quickly. I loaded the gear and the dog in the car and we set out.
I took the 6 man tent for all of us, sleeping pads, and cooking equipment.
When we arrived the dog promptly threw up in the car. Now I know she has a history of car sickness but I thought I’d dodged the bullet when we pulled off the road and she’d been fine the entire trip, but alas no… So we parked, cleaned up as best as we could, and started looking for a campsite. It was Hari Raya weekend here (a celebration ending Ramadan the Islamic fasting month) so I figured the place would be deserted, so I was surprised to see multiple tents set up. I turned out to be a group of young guys from a local church.

Once we picked a spot we had to lug the gear and get camp set up. I started with the tent so if the daily rain started we’d have a refuge. The sites all have raised “beds” for tents which are filled with sandy soil for easy drainage, they have metal rails to tie up to... and trip over.  There are concrete benches and some tables, and a covered cooking area with a BBQ, some one had built a table of bamboo near the cooking area.
After the tent was set up, I had the kids collecting wood for “their” campfire. That’s always fun getting a fire lit in the jungle as the wood is always damp.
After the fire was started and the initial wow wore off they wanted to fish… ok, so I dig out the tackle and tie it to stick as we didn’t have rods. They didn’t have much patients, the bait was barely wet before they yanked it out to check for fish or move to a better spot, so needless to say the fish were safe and none were caught.
That night the full effect of the fire could be enjoyed, even with the lack of roast able edibles i.e. marshmallows. I have solemnly swore we’ll bring them next time. The campground is fairly clean and the sites had rubbish bins (trash cans for us Americans) which is nice even if the monkeys and cats drag it out again. That’s assuming the trash makes it in the can in the first place, Malaysians have a penchant for dropping their trash wherever they happen to be standing. The facilities are pretty well maintained, again by Malaysian standards there are restrooms and piped water as well as a group cooking area.
We were fortunate it didn’t rain the two days we were there, although we didn’t see any wildlife we could hear monkeys and birds…oh and leeches I forgot to mention them. They are everywhere so pulling leeches off was a constant chore, not too many mosquitoes though.
I did see a firefly later that night and there are some huge ants but they didn’t seem too interested in us so that was alright.
Lucy our dog had a great time in spite of being tied up a lot, I did let her off her leash since I didn’t see any Muslims and she was minding… mostly. She did tear off and start barking at a couple of the boys camping next to us so the freedom was short lived. But she had a blast while it lasted.

We kept it to one night, so the old adage of “leave them wanting more” is true as the kids want to go again. So the next one will be a two niter. Along with the marshmallows we’ll add hot dogs or other campfire roast able foods.
I’d recommend this place for families, bring fire starters and maybe some dry wood. We didn’t have to pay but I’ve read they usually charge RM5 a night.