THE LOST WORLD

My Guiness Explorer Award winning article published

in the June 1999 issue of Rod and Line Magazine.

      "Why are you walking like a duck?" asked one of my colleagues last Monday afternoon. "Oh! I had being to the Lost World." was my reply. He gave me one of those "Mr. Bean look" which made me laugh and told him it was a long story.

      When I first heard about The Lost World, I was in standard five, Clifford Primary School, Kuala Kangsar. It was a book I got from the school library. This Lost World was a plateau isolated from the outside world. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle really wrote a winner there.

     The second time was the sequel to director Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. This Lost World was hidden from the outside world by vertical cliffs on all sides. It being an island isolates it further. Access was only by helicopter.

     Therefore, last Sunday when I was standing at the edge of the pond, which was surrounded by sheer vertical limestone hills in Perak, my first thought was, "God, this must be The Lost World."

Wong Kai said the leaves from
 this climber can be made
into lengkong drink.

      My friend, Wong Kai, was the first to tell me about his place. Being crazy about herbal medicine, he goes round climbing hills and trekking through jungles looking for them. The picture he painted of this place was very mystifying and exciting. All of a sudden I was extra nice to him (Some people call it jacking). It took me three days of pestering before he finally agreed to take me along.

     A trip was arranged and I was told to bring the barest minimum. Different people have different standards. Barest minimum to me was a tackle box full of all sundries including panadols, Band Aids and even safety pins. The horror on Wong's face was enough for me to start throwing everything away. Finally I did indeed settled on the barest minimum of two spinner baits, three hooks, a bottle of 100 plus and a piece of bread. Of course the indispensable light rod and reel. Not forgetting my SLR camera too.

Watch out for poisonous creatures
 like his cobra.

     We all parked our bikes under a tree at our designated meeting place at 7.00a.m. The walk of three kilometres to the foot of the hill was very educational as Wong Kai was showing us medicinal herbs along the way. Sure there were the usual streams to cross, leeches, holes and poisonous snakes to avoid, but these were all part and parcel of hiking.

      At last we reached the foot of the hill where we were supposed to climb. One look at the sheer face of the limestone hill is enough to turn my face pale. My concern must have shown for when I turned around there were three smirking faces grinning from ears to ears. This reminds me to be more selective on who to put on my friends' name list. My pragmatic side told me to go home as my wife is still young and I still have two school going children. My Kiasu side admonished me for being a chicken, and be sure not to jatuh muka in front of everybody. In the end, the "want face" half of me won and I shouted with false bravado, "Let's go!"

This is one of the
 easier part of the climb.

      Ah Ngien led the way, with me following. Coming from the rear was Ah Koo and Wong Kai. Ah Nien was giving me advice and warning on where not to put my feet. I had to hold on to tree roots, tiny shrubs and rock crevices to pull myself up. Certain stretches were relatively easy. Easy in the sense that there were many steps cut into the rock and I could get quite a good foothold. Others were just like the movie "Cliffhanger" where I had to pull myself up, jamming my feet into crevices to get some leverage. Most of the rocks were slippery, as they were damp and covered with moss. All my friends were giving advices and encouragement to me. At one point, the 30 meter-mark, maybe, my feet began to have a mind of their own. Messages from the brain didn't seem to be getting across. My lungs were on fire and tongue was hanging out like a panting dog. Luckily I had my camera with me. Sitting down, and meddling with my camera was my way of getting a breather without losing face. With shaking hands I shot off a few frames. My friends refused to move on without me, even though I protested as I was slowing them down (Not bad friends after all.).

      Slowly I began to get use to the climb. Just tackle the next obstacle without looking anxiously to the top will ease the pain a lot. I didn't know how but I managed to reach the top. Summit was just a two-meter wide ledge. Drops of water were pattering on the dried leaves around me. Oh no! It must be raining. Raining yes, but not water but salty, smelly sweat. My sweat! Half of my 1.5 litre bottle of 100 plus was gone. Real teruk man!

Ah Ngien with his king-size
tilapia which are aplenty
in this wonderland.

My bujuk taken
 on spinnerbait.

      Going down the other side after a short rest was like eating tow foo fah when compared with the ascent. Of course, care must be taken if you want to delay meeting the Emperor of Hades. At the bottom of the hill was a piece of flat land no bigger than a basketball court. Here was more like the tropical rain forest, very shady, because of the trees. Unloading my haversack and dropping on the ground, I just couldn't move, but laid on the ground panting. What do you expect lah? 100 meters of dragging my overweight body and haversack up and another 100 meters of going down is no picnic. Only after half an hour of gasping and heart pounding before my body could really regain itself.

Rain drops keep
falling on my feet.

Not a bad haul.
Those in good shape
were released later in the
spirit of Guiness Explorer.

      Looking at the pond from the edge, I could see big tilapias nesting everywhere. My aim was to go for wild haruans, bujuks and sebaraus. After torturing myself this far I was not going to waste my time on tilapias. Climbing on to a fallen log, I began to cast my spinner bait to some dead tree trunks. At the third cast a dark torpedo rushed out. Maybe it was because of the crystal clear water for it turned back without hitting. Another one followed Wong Kai's spinner cum frog for some distance before turning away. On the fourth cast, it followed as expected, but this time it rushed forward and grabbed the frog. Everything happened like those documentaries in slow motion. The haruan jumped and shook its head. Water droplets were spraying everywhere. Very interesting! It was very unceremoniously hoisted up to the log after three short runs. Nothing to shout about though, a haruan of only 1.5 kilos. I was casting along the log where we were standing, when a dark shadow grabbed my spinner bait. A bujuk of about 0.9 kilos was the culprit. Wong Kai moved over to the end of the log and started casting near some overhanging bushes when he was connected to another fish. I nearly lost my balance when he shouted excitedly that he got a big lam koh (marble goby). On looking closer, it was another bujuk. Some people just refused to wear glasses.The other two guys managed to catch four tilapias between them. Not too bad, as the average weight was about 1.5 kilos each. All in all we caught three haruans, four huge tilapias, a baung and eight bujuks.

Wong and his bujuk
 on spinner com frog.

      While having my long deserved rest, I noticed a few whopper grass carps cruising nonchalantly at the far end of the pond. Wow, bigger than my thighs! I noticed too that the bottom of the pond was covered by some aquatic weeds, half submerged in about 1.5 meter of water. Most of the fish were hiding underneath the weeds, except for some big nesting tilapias. The pond itself was about the size of three football fields. Fishing was only confined to a small patch of land at the bottom of the climb. The other areas can only be accessible by small inflatable. Maybe we will bring along some tents and a cheap inflatable so as to cover the other areas. The main problem is how to lug all those equipment over the ridge?

      The tranquillity of this place was really therapeutic for the nerves. Once in a while, it was broken by loud splashes of giants chasing after their preys from the other end of the pond. Troops of monkeys were heard making raucous noises, and jungle birds were serenading us with their melodious songs. If this Lost World is not Shangri-La, I don't know what is.

      Soon we could see dark clouds above. As the rocks will be very slippery when wet, we decided to pack for home. The way back was even worst than coming in as the climb was more vertical. Thanks God we all reached firm ground safely.

      On seeing that I was walking with a funny gait, Wong Kai gave me a bottle of his own concoction to rub on my tired muscles. The herbal ointment must have worked wonders for I only walked like a duck on Monday. By Tuesday evening the pain had subsided. I even played ping-pong for one hour non-stop! Okay, okay, I lost all my games......And very badly too.

Note: I am rather sad as my friend Wong Kai has left this world a few years back.

ANGLERS' ITCH (A day trip to Dinding Estuary)

My fishing article featured
 in May 1999 issue of Rod & Line
 fishing magazine.

      Mankind suffers from many types of itches. The usual kind is caused by tiny insects or bugs. Those ungrateful fellows not only get a free meal from you, but spread some incurable diseases like J E too.
Another type of itch is mainly confined to the males. It comes in periodic cycles of of the seventh or fortieth year of a marriage. Be careful of this one as it can cause untold miseries. Do avoid eating shellfish, seafood, tongkat ali, ginseng or Viagra.

      The type of itch that we are concerned here is the anglers' itch. It usually starts on Tuesday every week and grow in intensity until satiated during the weekend fishing trip. Should there be any reason that caused the trip to be cancelled then the itch can temporary be eased by cleaning or servicing your reels, rods or even just meddling with your tackle box. Yakking at the anglers' favourite haunt do sometimes help a little.
Of late our weekly yakking sessions seemed to have increased as we could not get enough people to hire a boat to Pulau Jarak. Should we go without getting enough kakis to spread out the cost, our bank managers will be calling us up about negative balance in our accounts. Your see, most of us are just poor wage earners. After a few weeks of yakking, without any relief from our intensifying itch, three of us itchy guys decided to do something about it. If we could not afford deep-sea we go shallow-sea.

Unloading our gears
 at Ah Seng's jetty where
 plenty of boats are available
 for hire.  The camera lens flare
could be caused by Foong's head.

      Sunday14/3/99, saw us (James, Foong and I) unloading our equipment into a 22-footer fiberglass boat powered by a 30hp Suzuki outboard at Ah Seng's place in Kampong Sitiawan, Lumut. (Ah Seng has a lot of boats for hire. (Refer to Rod &Line angling directory). Our target was the famed sar choi or Malaysian Whitings of the Dinding River Estuary. The white flesh of the whiting is very tasty if fried or steamed. Though small (biggest is about 300gm), it will give a good account of itself on ultra-light tackles. Some snobs will smirk and say, "Where got thrill lah?" "Going all the way for tom thumbs." Well nobody ask you to shoot burung pipit with an elephant gun. Furthermore fishing is not just catching big fish, but rather a combination of the art of catching fish, the breeze, sunshine and right company to ease the stress of the rat race.

A cooperative husband and wife team.
 The wife controls the boat and the husband
 catches the live baits for their fishing.

      Foong being a mechanic was our captain at the outboard. James wanted to be in charge of the anchor, leaving me at the centre. (The Tuan need not do anything). As we moved slowly down river the tide was just coming in. We passed a couple, the wife controlling the engine and the hubby casting the net for live baits. If more couples could be like them, a lot oaf marriage counsellors and divorce lawyers can seriously start thinking about changing jobs.

      James and I started to troll at the deeper part of the river without much success. Suddenly there was a loud clanking sound coming from the outboard before it stopped. Fearing for the worst, Foong lifted the outboard to discover an old crab trap entangled round the propeller. Muttering to himself while removing the trap, I overheard something about Rod & Line educating people on "Love our rivers campaign."

      We decided not to troll anymore and headed straight for the Malaysian Flour Mill Jetty to catch the incoming tide siakaps. On the way, Foong was grumbling about the boat not being able to achieve planing speed. All the blames were heaped on the worn propeller being too small to be efficient.

      Live prawns were drifted out after securing our boat to the jetty. As usual I couldn't sit and wait. Casts after casts were made with my rapalas without any hits. When the tide had peaked we moved over to Pangkor Island area for whitings. Using ultra-light tackles, we pulled up many trigger fish, which really can fight. Our targeted fish seemed to have gone off on holidays. It is the same, no matter where we anchored and I can tell you we really changed many places. Actually the best time to go for whitings is the 1st and 15th of the Chinese Lunar Calendar. But there are always exceptions. We anglers are an optimistic lot. When the itch is unbearable we are willing to try out luck against overwhelming odds. All of us kept on pulling up and throwing back unwanted fishes. James and Foong nearly overturned the boat, laughing, when I hooked the smallest fish of my life (smaller than my little finger).

The smallest fish caught by me.
 Look at the way Foong was laughing.

James Wong and his flounder.

      No matter how optimistic, there will come a time when you have to admit defeat. So we headed to some fish farms. Here James managed to catch three jenahaks of about 1.5kg and a flounder. Foong again grumbled about the propeller being not efficient as we were down to our last 30 out of 50 litres of fuel. The idea of rowing the 22 footer against the tide and wind for 5 km dampened all our enthusiasm to go any further. Heading back to the flour mill jetty was the best decision we made. The moment we maneuvered our boat underneath the jetty, the sky opened up, pouring catfish, dogfish, jellyfish and the kitchen sinks. Luckily we were not caught out in the open as the rain was real heavy.

Fishing underneath the
Malaysian Flour Mill Jetty.

      There were two other boats here too. Most of the anglers were up on those concrete beams happily pulling up gelamas after gelamas. Well, adaptability is our strong point. Out came our ultra-lights and we were in business. Anything less than 6 inches were thrown back.

      On the whole anglers are a very friendly lot. We began chatting and laughing with our new found friends and learnt that they were using sand worms as baits. These worms could last and last while our prawn baits got taken quite fast. Of course, we practised the helping and sharing concept (translated, it meant thick-face begging). In no time we were also using the worms too. Out of the blue, James mentioned that he read in the paper about a guy using similar worms to fry bean sprouts. It was quite tasty according to him. Aaag!
Maybe it is God's way of reprimanding him for spoiling every one's mood. James head hit a metal beam when he stood up. Blood was running down his face, which scared the daylight out of us. On closer examination, it was only a light laceration of the skin. The bleeding stopped after pressure was applied to the wound.

      Action continued without respite except for short intervals of a few minutes. Surely the gelamas were having their annual convention down there. Actually gelamas travel in school of thousands. If you hit one there will be many more. As a dish they are quite tasty if well prepared, but most people prefer to make salt-fish out of them. Beware of nose cancer.

We were wondering why the boat
 cannot achieve planing speed.

      The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started and we decided to leave for home. As he was wounded, James was relieved off his duty at the front. It was getting late too. So Foong really let go on the throttle. The boat was flying on the water surface like a flying fish. Boy, was it thrilling! Did I mention flying? All of a sudden it dawned on Foong and me as to why the boat was not planing earlier. (No prize for guessing correctly). Reaching the dock was a cinch and in no time we were driving home, happy and contented with itch relieved. Well.....at least until the next Tuesday.

Note: It is with deep regret that my friend and fishing partner, James Wong, has passed away some years ago.