Natural Water Color

Only now I realised that I have gone underground earlier. I thought I have only passed through a cave, kind of a tunnel. To my opinion, it should be the emergence from underground, the synonym of chrysalis, that let me discover more new but interesting experiences, although these always happen only when I was sitting in front of my notebook to review those pictures of the day.

For this case, I did actually focus at taking some pictures of little fish found in the creek at valley of Wang Tangga . My experience told me this was not an easy task because the shadows of trees, sky, sunlight as well as ripples would make the fish insignificant. But finding Nemo alike drove me to follow tight on them. I snapped many and hopefully to get a few to hit the mark.

I did not see neither fish nor Nemo in all my pictures. Instead their swift activities drew a perfect water colour painting in return to my faithfulness to them.

Alice must be happy enough to appreciate this water colour drew solely by fish. Hopefully you are as well. Otherwise, this is a bonus to you who follow my blog so sincerely: one of my favourite pictures on bridge in the valley.

Not an Ugly Duckling

I remember a commercial showed an excellent scenery of hill side with Pine trees at Fraser's Hill, Pahang State, many years back. I could not resist the temptation and I drove all the way to the place located 400km away just to check on this fascinating view.

I tried to align my eyeballs with the reference of the picture in my memory, I had my focal point on the exact spot, unfortunately, I did not rediscover the experience that I had earlier at home in front of TV screen. I knew I should be having a distorted perception by a professional shooting.

Today, I am going to pretend myself as a professional as well.

With the configuration of leaves, water, shadows of trees and blue sky, the scene may be a little static, the accidentally captured ripples have made the picture more lively. Am I talking like a pro?

I have a feeling that at a glimpse, the combination of leaves at the center right side of the picture seems like a butterfly playing on the water. The ripples were created while the butterfly was drinking water. (Do you know any butterfly that drinks water? It must be only mine).

This is the overall view of the place. The zoom in and zoom out effect change our perspective. The change of focus on the camera shifts our standpoint from agree to disagree or vice versa. Just like some of my pictures in which rubbish or unpleasant items have intentionally been omitted.

Same applies to our media, same answers to what our honourable politicians have done.

Mysterious tracks

When came out from the cave, I spent my first minute to scout around the valley. I have discovered two mysterious places.

I overheard that there was a water fall about 20 minutes walking distance from here. It sounded quite interesting since the fall was a big one. When I walked to the gate, a couple greeted me. They confirmed the waterfall. And they added that I must be careful since there might be tigers wandering around in the jungle. Yes, your are not mistaken, they mentioned tigers. In order to soothe me, they explained there might be no more tigers because they were not seen for a long time. What kind of advice it is. Was I going to toss a coin to decide go no go? I penetrated for a distance of 50m, and analysed what they said about there were no others inside there now. I was not a real adventurer. I surrendered and retreated. I did not want a search team to look for me after my family waited for my return in vain.

The rusty gate opened in a such a unfriendly way, I murmured. I did not see the couple waiting for my come back and clarified that was just a joke.

There was another mysterious site beside the exit out from the cave. I discovered it when I thought of leaving the valley.

There was a slope on the left side of the cave. I followed the staircase for the way up. Not too far up, I met monkeys chatting and jumping off from tree to tree. I made a left turn along the quite trail, then I saw a ladder was built to connect the trek to a mysterious end.

It was a simple shaky ladder. There was no "No Trespass" signboard. It was not barricaded. Nobody was around to be consulted on the purpose and the way it led to.

The decision was easier to be made this time than the previous one. I was not here to try this.

I waited for a while, nobody appeared either from the higher end or from the valley, except the noises made by the monkeys and the branches of trees.

That's all, curiosity kills the cat.

MyJourney will share with you some interested pictures in the next post. See you then.

The Cave of Darkness, Episode 2

Further exploration to the interior of the cave I realised that the real adventure was not over here.

The suspension wooden bridge was not shaky as the one in my memory back to 70's, during which the family of my aunt bicycled from the mouth of the stream at Kak Bukit (FootHills) to the valley of Wang Tangga on the other side of the hill where they planted gingers. By that time, the cave was not brightened up by any spotlights for us to appreciate the detailed stalactite artworks.

I could not detected any squeaking bats inside the cave, they might be belonged to the past time when there was less disturbances. The voices of subterranean dark stream lured me to take a few shot on it. I managed with the reflection of spotlight that showed its position. But I decided not to show them because I could not avoid all the empty bottles that was floating around; it was sad to tell.

I loved this, the feeling of water dripping from the top. There should be creeks up there which penetrated through the stalagmites and stalactites and dropped down in the form of lines.

Someone asked me how long further to take to reach the other end on my way back to the entrance. His kids might feel eerie, I thought, or he might be eagerly wanted to enjoy the greenery with bright sun shine at the valley.

He might be right later, but he should miss what he was having right now.

Anyhow, there are more to come for you at the valley.

The Cave of Darkness, Episode 1

The Cave of Darkness, it may sound a little bit of spooky and mysterious by its name.

I could see a dinosaur looking down at me from top of the hill. The unfriendly look position had been there for centuries, yet seemed that the dinosaur wanted to carry on for another centuries.

Viewed from the outside at the other angles, it was actually a limestone cave surrounded by hill side with tarnished black wall.

I remembered when I was a kid, we needed to carry torch lights to brighten our cave walk from one end to a different end for a distance of 370m.

When we talked, there were weak echo coupled with the sound of a swirling dark subterranean stream and intermittent sound of dripping water from the stalactites, this really created some horrified atmosphere. It was further reinforced by the haunted sound purposely produced by the elders.

During raining season, the sound of music by the dark stream roared like a rock and roll concert beneath the suspension wooden bridge.

By this long time ago, I still remembered we had to watch our steps as there were some missing planks here and there.

To add further mystery to my story, this was once the home of Stone Age men.

This put in a lot of fun to my trekking adventure which needed a very adventurous heart and mind. I am a trekker who once sprinted away very quickly when a tree started to talk. Yet to see what I had done on this trip.

I'll continue in next post. See you next time.