Took my family to Taiping on the 4th day of the Chinese New Year. Visited the Taiping Zoo in the afternoon and when back to Legend Inn to check-in and have a short rest before heading to Bukit Larut or Maxwell Hill for a jungle hike. That's where our unexpected adventure began.
We were told that the hike up to the peak of the hill would take approximately 45 minutes hence we started ascending at 5pm thinking we would reach the peak latest by 6pm. There were two jungle trails up.
One was very much steeper than the other but was actually the shorter way. But we didn't know that. We took the easier and less steep trail but that turn out to be the much longer way.
The trail was not very clear. We could hardly see the pathway due to fallen trees and overgrown lalang that made it hard for trackers. But we knew we were on the right track as we could see small pieces of plastic wrapped around trees from time to time.
Nevertheless, there weren't anyone around besides the four of us and we knew that it was going to get dark soon. Our imaginations started to run wild. Visions of us stranded in the middle of the jungle in total darkness full of mosquitoes, insects, spiders, centipedes without food and flash light started filling our minds.
We were very tired but couldn't take a break as we knew darkness was impending. The idea of feeling our way through the jungle in total darkness was enough to cause my alarm bells ringing.
We kept pushing one step at a time looking up hoping to see any sign of the peak but our destination was nowhere in sight. To our surprise, both me and my wives mobile phones had reception! So she called the hotel for the emergency phones numbers of the hill rangers. Suddenly we heard shouts from my children who were already ahead of us that they heard some human voices. And to our huge relief, we finally saw an opening to a tar road where two joggers greeted us.
After a short rest, we started to descend via the tar road. It got dark mid-way down. There weren't any street lamps along the way but we knew that we were safe as we were out of the jungle! Be sure to check out my video report above : )
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