Caving Adventure at Gua Wang Burma, Perlis State Park

Caving Adventure at Gua Wang Burma, Perlis State Park

I never did caving before in my life. Due to my size, I am not agile so I had history of injuries due to slipping and falling. This has created a fear in my life.

Well, somehow I overcome the fear with the help of many friends. End of last year, I joined a group of media friends for a caving adventure at Gua Wang Burma in Perlis.

The interesting part of this cave is it actually links to Thailand as the mountain is shared by two countries, Malaysia and Thailand. With the wealth of the untouched rainforest, I was astonished by the beauty of the nature and also the darkness of the cave.

To access to Gua Wang Burma, you need to travel to Taman Negeri Perlis (Perlis State Park). Make an appointment with the ranger (fees applied) and they will guide you to the cave (Gua Wang Burma). The department falls under the National Forestry department. Check out their details at the below. There are a few rare species of animals in this forest so if you intend to find them, ask the rangers.

We need to hike for half an hour before we reached the entrance of the cave. While hiking, you will be pampered with fresh air and also the nature of rainforest. If you lucky enough, you might get leeches for free.

There are steel platforms at the entrance and some part of the caves. There are no lights in the cave so we are very dependent on our torch lights.

As we carefully step into the cave, we bumped on to a little dweller. It is a small cave toad (no idea on its name or species).

We are aware that there are snakes in the cave as well. There are sightings of white snakes in the cave and we spotted two long snake’s skin on the wall of the cave. We didn’t enough to bump to the owner of the skin though.

Caves are often homes to native bats.

Don’t be surprise if the ceiling of the cave is full of bats. Beware of the droppings if you are below them.

Stalagmites and stalactites formation are some of the beautiful landscapes inside the cave.

These are formed slowly with time and some might take centuries to this state. There are not touching yet, probably they need another 100 years to do so.

The interesting part of this cave the steel platforms only cover the entrance of the cave, the journey within the cave is still unknown.

Again, we met another cave dweller, this beautiful little insect.

They keep on coming, is this a spider?

When we go deeper, it will be just casual walking. There is a few sections that we need some teamwork.

Some of these cave openings are just marginally bigger than my size. With my huge camera bag, moving around in the cave is a tough task for me.

There are also hidden chambers and it was too small for a big group like us. I doubt that I am able to squeeze through the small hole though.

We were in the middle of nowhere inside of the cave for more than an hour. Trust me, we had fun!

We stumbled upon a few Thai writings on the wall. We are unsure what are the writings and when are this written. This could stretch back to the World War 2 era hiding to save themselves from the Japanese. Hence, this cave tunnels can lead to Thailand too as I mentioned earlier.

The journey gets wetter as we need to crawl into small passages. I have no longer has the strength to carry my heavy DSLR anymore and there are also some passages filled with knee high water level.

It was tougher than I can imagine as many because I was carrying my huge camera bag. I should have left the bag in the van as it was a huge burden for me. Anyhow, it was a memorable experience and we spent more than 2 hours in the dark cave.

Look at the size of this tree trunk!
Exiting the cave on the other side of the mountain was treated with fresh air and lush green thick rainforest.

Hey it’s mushroom!

There are wooden platforms in the jungle but they need some urgent maintenance. However that doesn’t hinder the beauty of nature surrounding us.

How to reward myself after the sweat and tears in the cave? How about a beautiful waterfall in the middle of nowhere?

What do I learn from my first caving experience?

Three hours of fun and adventure. I loved the part that we need to walk through a section with knee high water level and I saw a few fishes swimming in there. It was not a very extreme task for Gua Wang Burma but it was an enjoyable one. I am glad I did not get bitten by any bugs or leeches while the girls were not that lucky. Caving at Gua Wang Burma was definitely an eye opener.

Gua Wang Burma Contact, Details and Tel:

Jabatan Perhutanan Negeri Perlis

Kilometer 2, Jalan Kaki Bukit

01000 Kangar

PERLIS

Tel: +604-9765966

Fax: +604-9767901

www.forestry.gov.my

Wilson Ng