Hiking—After a While
At the “pondok”. Exhausted, but happy.
I’m not a morning person. The only time I was willing to wake up at around 5 AM was either to catch a morning flight or was when I was working an early morning shift of 7 AM—two years ago. I’m not a hiker either. I can count the number of hikes I have done in my four-and-a-half-year in Malaysia with just one hand—three; and the last solid hiking trip that I did was, again, two years ago, in September 2021.
So when the WeCare Team announced that their hiking trip initiative finally turned into reality, I knew I had to register myself even though I knew I would have to wake up very early for it. I didn’t care if I would be the only one from my team who would be participating, I just knew that I had to join. Because, as I had said to one of the coaches, “If I don’t join the trip, I know I will not be exercising moving my body.”
There was a bit of time where the lazy part of me was telling to just cancel it la, but luckily the diligent one is more resilient, so I stick to my plan and I went for the hikes; and… guess what? I made the right decision and I was so happy I did it.
The trip was planned to be on 15 Sep 2023 at 6:30 AM in Bukit Kembara, Ampang, Selangor. I’ve never been there, of course, as my last and only three hikes I did were all at Bukit Gasing, Bukit Gasing, and Bukit Broga. It is pretty far from my place, though. But again, I convinced myself to go, no matter how much Grab fare it cost. Luckily there are some office-mates staying nearby who also joined. So we could share the Grab. Off we went.
The Lake
There was a bit of a hindrance where some people were late and some were not confirming whether they would be coming or not, so the first step that we took—after we all were sure that everyone was there—was delayed by 45 minutes. If there is one thing that I would be giving as a non-five-star feedback from me, and some of us who arrived on time, it would this:
For the next trip—if any, it is best to give all of us the expectation of the waiting time. We think that 15-20 minutes of time buffer should be enough. After the time is up, we should start the hike. Because otherwise it would feel a bit unfair for those who put the extra effort and time to arrive on time or even early at the meeting point.
Other than that, the whole trip was one hell of an experience and I couldn’t thank the WeCare Team enough for this. So thank you for planning and eventually realising this trip. We all love it.
Pitcher plants.
Back to the hike again. I don’t like spoiler so I’m not gonna go with too many details about it. The hike starts with a steep angle with various inclinations before reaching the peak of Bukit Kembara. From there, we all go down to the lake, where there is a small pondok where we can take picture(s) in it. After that, we can either track back our previous route and climb back up before climbing down to the trailhead; OR, we can circle the lake before passing through the same route again. We did the later and we were not disappointed. I hope that was not too detailed.
After we were all back at the trailhead, each of us were allowed to go home—of course. Some of the colleagues were not even on their off day so they need to go back ASAP because they still had to work that day. As for me, since it was my off day, I decided to join Yona, a fellow Indonesian, and Moonie, our new Vietnamese friend, to have a brunch at a restaurant nearby our place.
Last, but not least, something that maybe you guys want to take note from Bukit Kembara trail is that the trek is not that difficult. Even for me who is not a hiker, it was still bearable okay. Some informations on Google also says that the difficulty level is easy to moderate. So, if you think of hiking as your next weekend activity after reading this post, maybe you can consider this trail as one of the options. You’re welcome.
