Post 3 of 3 - The Millionaire Club | The Telang Usan Tableland Exploration

I get up from my hammock at 6 am sharp. The rain hasn't stopped, still drizzling a bit. I went to the guide rest hut to prepare breakfast. I am very hungry because I skipped dinner last night. I cooked two packages of instant noodles (again) and drank a cup of hot milo. I had some discussions with my guide and my researcher friends. First, it was still raining. Second, we need to cross two big rivers to reach Eastern. My guide was concerned that if we are stuck in between two rivers and ran out of food, it will be life-threatening by then. The two researchers agreed to skip the hike to Eastern Julan for safety concerns and start the hike back to the trailhead.

When it comes to hiking, I am more of a thrill seeker and if I have the chance to explore, I will normally go for it. But then again, this is a team effort, not a single-man game, so we go back today. But before that, I ask my guide to bring me to the top of the plateau. I wanted to see the abandoned Millionaire Club. The Millionaires Club of the Usun Apau is a planned luxury mountain lodge that was started in the 1980s but ran into financial difficulties just before it was completed. The project was initiated by Dato Jacob Sagan, the originator of the Millionaire Club project. I read about this a lot on the internet and wanted to see it with my own eyes.

We start the hike at 10 am and reach the plateau edge at noon, about 2km from campsite no.2.

We venture into a zone with many big boulders covered by moss. The ferns are bigger than my arms and look like the vegetation that can only be found during Jurassic time. It is extremely humid, and the number of leeches here are two to three times more than I encountered yesterday. With every check, I can find leeches on my leg, or inside my shirt. The leeches here are desperate for blood.

During our hike, I heard dogs barking. Then I thought, why is there a dog in the middle of the highlands here? My guide told me it was a deer, so we detoured to trace the deer. The guide had sharp eyes. While we were hiking, he stopped me and pointed to the direction in front of me, asking me to look at it. Nothing?!!! I said. 

But it was the deer, a big size deer, and it ran away. The same deer that sounded like a dog barking. With the deer out of our sight, we continued to the millionaire club home.

I keep pouring the minyak kapak on my ankle; the leech has just lace on my ankle. We are hiking up the ridge, a very steep ridge. I checked on my GPS, and the summit is just above this ridge wall, but it was too steep at almost 90'. 

We hike in a spiral direction instead of straight up; it will take a longer time but is safer and easier for us to get a grip to go up. Just right when we reach a point where I can feel the breeze, my instinct told me we are at the top of Usun Apau. I checked on my GPS and I am right.

The rain comes and goes, there is a very thick fog in front, and thin tall trees are everywhere with moss covering the trunk and bark. There is a trail, we follow the trail to hike further into the jungle. I inspect the rocks on the floor and notice they don’t look and feel like sandstone, or solid rocks, maybe these are volcanic rocks?

Not long after my hike, we manage to see a piece of abandoned machinery. After a close inspection, it is a sawmill machine made in the USA. There is also an oil drum and a stack of zink. 

We hike further in toward the opening of the plateau, it is very wide the surroundings were covered with tall ferns leaf. We reached a viewpoint but unfortunately, all the view was covered by thick fog.  And this is where the millionaire clubhouse was, now all being claimed back by nature.

At this point, I had been attacked by more than 20 leeches. I have leech bites around my legs and arms. I shared the stories about the millionaire with my guide, and also told him about Bukit Selidang, Bukit Batu Mabun and Bukit Kanawang. These are the remnants of former volcanoes, according to the information I get. There is a 1.5km wide volcanic crater which reached 1433 meter above sea level. And this will be a good place to explore in my next adventure at Usun Apau.

This concludes my exploration trip to witness the mighty western Julan waterfall, retrace the millionaire club, and also future plan to search the volcanic crater in Usun Apau. I hope you enjoy reading my story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I will see you guys on my next adventure, till then stay safe and never stop exploring. Bye. 

Telang Usan Tableland Exploration:

Post 1 of 3 - The Journey  

Post 2 of 3 - The Mighty Julan

Post 3 of 3 - The Millionaire Club

Post 2 of 3 - The Mighty Julan | The Telang Usan Tableland Exploration

Because of my backpack weight issue, I did not bring my sleeping bag with me and I carry everything myself. First I don’t want to add weight to the porter, because the porters are already heavily laden with food, and their camping gear to support my team. Second I can also train my endurance to get stronger.

I can feel the chill breeze blowing toward my hammock, and the base feels so so cold. My socks are soggy, only one pair, can't use that for sleeping. So because of no sleeping bag, then I used my quick-dry tower as a blanket to warp both of my feet to keep them warm 😖

I did not have a proper sleep last night. checked the temperature is around 22'C so cold, just because of the rain.

Waited until 5.30 am, I then get off of my hammock, and it was still dark, and wet. I was thinking I should have gotten a cooker here so I can boil some water for a hot drink.

At 6 am, my guide is awake. They start to cut new firewood and cooked rice for our lunch later. I cooked two packs of instant noodles and drank a big mug of hot milo as breakfast.

Looking at the trail in front of me, it was where we came from yesterday and now it was all covered with fog. I hope no more rain today, please give us good weather.

My breakfast, curry Maggie instant noodles, and Milo hot drink

After my breakfast, I wear my hiking clothes, pants and socks. And starts to pack all my stuff into my backpack again. It is difficult to pack when the surrounding is wet. And I can feel my backpack is heavier than yesterday.

Spiders web and the morning dew

The 2^nd-day trek covered an estimate of 6km, with 6 hours and 20 mins of moving time. We trek from the abandoned logging road, and then move into the jungle along the mountain range. 

In the jungle trail is where the leeches came and embrace me with open arms, or should I say open mouths. I have leech bite now and then, is it because they have never seen humans before, so it got so active? My belly, my arms, my neck, my tie, ankle, and feet (yes they penetrate over my socks), all have leech bites. I normally use the "minyak kapak" the ack oil to let them taste the power of the mint! 

While hiking, me and my team will check on our GPS devices to get an update on our current location. My guide on the other way used their instinct, their brain is the GPS. These hunters are so used to the jungle, they can easily recognize the marks in the jungle. 

At one point when I was following in behind, he stops and showed me the footprint of deer, wild boar, dead animal skulls, old markings from hunters, and animal dropping. Okay, I am impressed 😁

I remember when we hike to a point, we manage to get a glips of the western Julan waterfall. And can hear it roaring from a very far distance. I am extremely excited to be able to see western fall from far away, after all these years of thinking of her, wanted to meet with her face to face. Aduhh duhhhh... I just want to go meet up with her as soon as possible. It lifted my spirit that time, and I look back at my research team and motivate them for a while, then continue with our hike.

The route was a steady uphill hike along the ridge, it was very hard going through a tangle of fallen rotten trees, a big patch of fern vegetation, thorns plants and other delights of the jungle. I am constantly being attacked by leeches and horseflies to suck blood from me. However, this for me will be the joy of exploration, the experience I gain I will cherish forever, cause I am doing something that I have a passion for.

From this point onward, I can see more and more streams. My friend also stops to refill their water, and for a quick break. It is always very pleasing whenever I take off my heavy backpack on the ground and break for a while. This trail is like a never-ending trail, I can hear the waterfall sound getting loud and loader, and this also means we are nearer.

After hours of trekking, we finally reached Camp no.2 and without wasting any time, we put down our heavy loads and proceed to the western waterfall. This will be another 2 hours to get there. The weather doesn’t look good, I am praying inside me in hope that PuSa will bless me with good weather. But regardless good or bad, I must go!

The trail condition, now the surface has more loose rocks, muddy. Multiple streams flowing down. This side of the hill has so much more water compared to the one where we set up our camp no.1 with one wrong step, one might fall hard and get a serious injury. Even though I am eager to reach the western Julan waterfall, safety is still my priority. I constantly checking myself, but the damn leeches somehow still manage to find a way to bite me, errrrrrr.....is very annoying!!! 

The last stretch is a huge valley, full of mossy plants crawling all over the trees. The droplets of the waterfall make this into a mossy forest. Everywhere looks the same, it is not because of the roaring sound from the waterfall, it will be hard for me to get a sense of direction in this kind of jungle. The trail is muddy and slippery, with many big boulders that I need to carefully crawl over using my arms.

After two hours of hiking from camp no.2, we had finally reached the western Julan waterfall. There she is just right in front of me. After all these years of just reading books, looking at pictures, and watching clips on the internet. She is now in front of me!!! I can't express how happy I am, this feeling is simply amazing.

The size of the Western Julan waterfall is something I cannot imagine by just looking at pictures. It is huge, and the water that flows down from the top of the waterfall, when it gets impact into another tier, some of it becomes mist, the force is so strong that it created a force and blew the mist many meters away. I cannot believe what I witness with my own eyes in front of me. Why on earth can there be something so strong? The water is RANGING water, flowing constantly down the river!!!

A better scale on how big the waterfall is

 Slowly and steadily I descend to the base of the waterfall. The force of the breeze is extremely strong, I am constantly being blasted by water mist from the waterfall, it is really fun! I sat at one of the rocks, scoping the water to wash my face, woooowwww, it is really cold. And then I take off my rubber shoes, opss I found two leeches on the right and one more on the left. I then soak both of my feet in the water, what a good way to relax my leg muscle. After that, I keep on taking videos and photos of the waterfall to try to keep this memory.

I saw some of my friends and guide are still at the edge of the ridge, also slowly coming down to the waterfall base. We all had a wonderful time enjoying the strong breeze of water mist there.

The time then was about 4 pm, and I can hear my guide calling me time to go back to camp no.2 (2 hours) while still having daylight. Shit! I just remember I did not bring a headlight, and my mobile battery just left about 20%. Guess this is it... I slowly stand up, wear back my rubber shoes, and climb up.

Once I am in the jungle again, it was dark, one weather is not good, two the day was almost coming to an end. I then turn on my turbo 4WD mood and hike very fast I manage to catch up with the guide, and my friends, and reached camp no.2 first to set up my hammock.

That night, it did not rain. I went to the river nearby to clean up myself. My guide cooked dinner but I don’t know why I don’t feel hungry, so I skipped dinner that night (maybe too happy seeing the western Julan waterfall). My researcher friend also manages to get a lot of flora samples along the way and recorded them with his camera. He even showed me a red shell carb, it was a land crab. For me, I am glad to see that every one of us manages to achieve our objective.

Not long after our dinner, it starts to pour rain again :S This is not good, as our initial plan was to hike to the Eastern side of Usun Apau, and camp on top of the Eastern Julan waterfall. We will need to cross two rivers from the western and eastern Julan waterfall, but if heavy rain and the water level rise, it will be very dangerous for us to do so. Especially in the middle of the rainforest with dense vegetation.

That night is the same as the first night. I sleep for a while, awake, and sleep back again. Can't sleep properly, so I just keep on constantly checking on the fly sheet to make sure that it has no rainwater leak into my hammock. I also checked the temperature again, and it was around 20'C that night. Suddenly I felt something bite my toe, I quickly switch on my headlight again to check, and to no surprise, it was a stupid leech, and thanks to that fella my toe is now bleeding. So I have to crawl out from my hammock (while still raining) where is already so cold and look for my first aid to clean the wound and stop the bleeding. 

This is how day two of the exploration ends..

Telang Usan Tableland Exploration:

Post 1 of 3 - The Journey  

Post 2 of 3 - The Mighty Julan

Post 3 of 3 - The Millionaire Club