A Breath of Fresh Air

Now that we had Kem Botak all to ourselves...not to sound selfish but our neighbours were just too inconsiderate and frankly Ahmad's Twelve did not take kindly to their bad campsite etiquette.

The gas burners were being fired and water was being boiled for a nice hot cuppa Nescafe, Alicafe or even Milo. Imagine if you will...a nice cold morning with a hot cuppa coffee in hand and standing at the edge of a 130 million year old mountainside and watching the mist rise from the forest floor and flooding the valley below. Trust me...a more magnificent sight you will never see. Take a deep breath and hold it in and one will experience the purest and cleanest air on planet earth...polluted only by the potent concoction of arabica nuts and hot water and of course one can't ignore the smell of Maggi!

This is the stream that we filled our drinking bottles and take our cooking water from not to mention having a well and much needed bath with. One would not understand or appreciate the importance of water till one treks Tahan...at least it is true for me. Water will become scarce till the next campsite.

Significance of this little hill...well with all that we have put into our stomach it's bound to come out sometime. This is after all a 130 million year old forest and this is our toilet. We were more conscious and considerate of course, we did not do our business next to the water source like our "neighbours" did, we dug our own pits to shit in and then buried them for hygienic purposes. That was the other use of my Coleman collapsible spade. Meow and i would do our business together so we can watch out for each other.

Ahh peace and quiet.