A ride into the jungle… and beyond
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Last week Teh and I went exploring on our mountain bikes on a four-wheel drive trail that seemed to go on forever into the heart of the Ulu Langat Reserve. We turned back 5 km into the trail, as Teh was feeling a twinge in her knee, the result of an old motorcycle injury. On the way back we more or less stuck together on the descent. About 500m from the car, I popped along ahead because I knew we were close to where we started and because I wanted to grab a photo of Teh as she sped past.
She took longer than expected, because soon after I had sped on ahead, she came across a empty, shuttered wooden house on stilts on the trail. she stopped to have a look. Now, without wanting to sound immodest, I believe that I am an observant person, especially when it comes to trails. I can remember details of a trail months after having ridden it, despite only having done so once. But I didn't see any house on the trail. Not on our way in, nor on our way out.
Returning to Teh, she pondered the house for a while, and continued on her way. But she only travelled another 50 metres before she encountered a fork on the trail. This again I did not see, although I must have passed the same path mere seconds previously. She was slightly confused because she did not remember having seen a fork on the way up, but reasoned that this must have been because of the oblique angle in which the two trails met, making it difficult for a rider to notice the junction.
She pondered the choice before her. Right or left? Right or wrong?
Something suggested to her that left was the right way back to the car. Later, she told me that she had felt that this was the right option to take, but somehow her reasoning and logic told her that the right fork was the one that led to the car. The left trail looked more overgrown, she would tell me later, and so her rational thinking told her that right was right, because she did not remember any junctions nor making any turns on the climb, over an hour previously.
Since then, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between "thinking" and "feeling", and have so far not been able to discern any, at least in my own mind. Perhaps, her instincts told her to take the left turn, but when she examined the merits of this proposition with the cold incisive blade of logical thought, the proposition did not make sense.
At that point, anxiety began to well in her. A flush seemed to pass over her, swelling from her stomach, and breaking like a wave over her face, followed instantly by a cold sweat.
There are two verses from the Quran that are sometimes recited to repel the influence of evil. She recited both, and made up her mind to take the right fork. She remembered that shortly before I had sped ahead, I told her that, according to the GPS unit I had on me, the car was only about 1.2km away. And surely, she thought to herself, she had travelled at least 500m since then, meaning that the car was only another 500m or so away. If after 500m she did not find the car, she could always turn back to try the left fork.
As she continued down the trail, everything seemed unfamiliar. And the trail seemed to go on and on, far longer than just 500m. All the while that she was descending, the same nagging feeling kept playing in her mind: the left fork leads to the car, turn back, turn back.
Suddenly, she burst out of the dark, shaded trail into the sunlit clearing in which the car was parked. I had been waiting at the side of the trail, camera at the ready. I caught her tentative posture: fingers on brakes and an expression that seemed to me to be neutral, not a face that one adopts when blasting downhill on a mountain bike.
I shouted to her, "Faster, fasterrrr!!", to further my own futile search for photographic perfection. I reeled off 3 exposures before she rolls to a stop beside me.
"You OK?"
"Yeah. Did you see the house?", she asked casually, masking her earlier anxiety.
"What house?" I replied.
"There was a house by the trail".
"Nope. Good thing you didn't stop then. Sometimes you'll see houses but they're not really there..."
Logistics
Check the trail out for yourself. Tell me if you see a house on the trail. The trail is located off the Semenyih - Genting Peras road, just South of the Semenyih reservoir.To get there, proceed to heart of Kajang by your favourite method. Re-set trip meter at the traffic lights adjacent to the Kajang Police station, also notable for its proximity to the Kajang Stadium. Proceed East towards Semenyih via Route 1. If you are on the right track you will pass Kajang Hospital on your left after 500m. At about 8km you will enter Semenyih; at about 8.8km you will pass a sign for Genting Peras/Kuala Klawang/Sg Lalang; at 9.0km turn left at the traffic lights and proceed North. After passing the Nirvana cemetery on your left, look out for a turning on the right signposted "Teratak Tekala". Turn into this gravel road, following it until you reach a bunch of fishing ponds. Proceed directly across the bank in between the ponds, going straight until you hit the jungle. The trail starts here.
More Photos
Click on thumbnails to enlarge and for comments.
Technical details: Nikon F70, AFD20mm f2.8, Fuji Reala
