Hi people!

I only managed to write this after a lapse of 3 months. Wow, I've been really busy, eh? Anyway, the Gua Tempurung trip should not be left unwritten. It was definitely a well spent weekend.

I still remember during the busy period while working in Carlsberg and also conducting the workshop for Motorola, I had to find time to organize this trip. I haven't been to the cave before but with a few colleagues encouraged to go on this trip, I decided, what the heck, just do it.

And the event somehow generated about 36 people! They consist of my colleagues friends, and friends' friends.

The first part of the tour was handled by the caving authority. This tour took us into the "front" part of the caves which was well developed with staircases, iron grills and well lit paths. Our guide, at first gave some informational insights of the formation of the caves. However, after a while, he was giving stories of all the formations which was a bit too much because they were just made up.

The start of the second part of the tour was truly frustrating. Already feeling slightly "cheated" as I thought that the maximum number of people per guide is 25 but our group of 36 still with 1 guide, we were led by another guide who was totally inexperienced in handling a group tour.

There was no clear instructions from him during our journey and although he asked us to be cautious, he didn't do the necessary precautions a leader might take. For example, he should stationed a person or two to point out the dangerous parts.

The walk into the caves was interesting but not very exciting as we were expecting crawling and getting ourselves dirty. When we reached the other end of the cave, we held a discussion whether to take the dangerous route or the same path in which we came in to get out from the cave. Many of us voted for the daring route, else we felt disappointed. The guide again cautioned that it could be very dangerous. I was also feeling torned due to feeling responsibility to the group as well as making sure that they had their money's worth. I decided to go for it telling the guide that we will backtrack if we came to a really dangerous point.

It was a gamble that paid off. The climb through the cave was more exciting with slightly dangerous points where there were narrow paths to walk. Felt a bit like Indiana Jones here. Then, there was also the part where we had to get down on all fours to crawl through the caves. What added to the excitement was that we had to crawl with knee deep water!

We came out safely and almost everyone was saying that they got their money's worth. However, Mei, one of my colleagues felt strongly that the management of the cave trip did very wrongly in appointing the inexperienced tour guide as well as charging us for a fee that we felt was not justified in term of service and safety. I too felt this way and we went to the administration office to make our complaint. Our intention was to highlight the seriousness in safeguarding the safety of the tour members as well as asking for a refund.

Of course, one of the authority (the same guide for the first part of the tour) fought that they did no wrong as they thought the guide was claiming he had experience. Only then did I discover the scenario behind the second guide's appointment. He was actually one of my colleague's friend. He had been to the cave a few times and felt that he was able to handle it. Then he and his friends volunteered to take us there (since there was a large crowd and not enough guides) for free. This made me more annoyed because they should have disclosed this to us in the beginning.

Anyhow, he gave a refund so that we could end the argument. Our trip which was supposed to cost us $18 became only $7.50.

Whew! What a day! Excitement, frustration, danger all rolled into one. Like I said, a day well spent.

Take care.

Regards,
Li Li