Gua Tempurung, Perak

On the 3rd day of Church Camp, about 40-50 of us went to Gua Tempurung. Originally, we wanted to take the 1.5 hours route but there wers just so many people and we were afraid that accident might happen. So we went for the 45 minute hike - which was really "so-so" only.

Gua Tempurung is an intricate system of caves forming into a tunnel of wondrous and endless rock formations that runs from west to east for nearly 2km under the limestone Hills of Gunung Tempurung and Gunung Gajah.

These caves are actually a breathtaking gallery of stalagmites and stalacities and rock structures which are superb speleogical wonders found only in this part of the world. A subteranean river flows underneath the caves providing visitors a unique experience of an underground journey through rock formations.

We had to climb a lot of steps. I didn't pant much thanks to the many hours of training for my Mt. Kinabalu climb for the past few months.

I expected it to be hot and humid and smelly but to my surprise, I enjoyed the entire journey - it was like going into the center of the earth. I perspired, of course, even though it was cooling inside. I think they must've cleared all the bats' droppings because there was no fowl smell when we entered the cave. In fact, I didn't see any bats at all.

We had a tour guide explaining the different sections of the cave. He stopped many times, point to one part of the cave and said, "Can you see the shape of an elephant there?" There were so many animals "living" in the cave ... including a turtle, a cat, a tiger. I didn't get to see all of them because I was too busy taking pictures.

Natural sunlight streaming in through the big hole.

Were they scared???? Nah! They are just good actors who immediately looked scared when Aunty Chris asked them to.

Some of the youths ..... having a fun time (I think)

We posed for a group picture in the middle of the cave.

Our 45 minute tour came to an end in such a short time. We went back the way we came in. Sigh! I was hoping that we would stumble upon some lost treasure while we were exploring the cave. Or maybe a distant moan of a kidnapped child echoing in the cave.... okok .. just my imagination running wild, or rather, all the Enid Blyton books I read in the past is all coming back to me :)

Ice-cream!!! Rajen spent everyone ice-cream :)

There was a playground nearby and Rajen upon sitting on the see saw, was immediately flocked by other youths, who wanted to test the strength of the see-saw.