Bukit Tabur : Things you need to know about Tabur

Updated 24 Jan 2014 :

VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE ON BUKIT TABUR:

Due to several life threatening incidents occuring at Bukit Tabur, currently you:

- MUST get a PERMIT from Pejabat Hutan Daerah Selangor Tengah, Cheras before entering Bukit Tabur.
- Visiting hour is only ALLOWED on Saturday & Sunday from 7am-5pm.
- A fee of RM 5 per person is incurred.
- You will be considered as trespassing if permit is not obtained.
- Some people has managed to get a monthly pass to enter Bukit Tabur, so that’s good news.

* For more updates and info, it’s advisable to join this FB PAGE : The Trekkers

http://www.facebook.com/groups/bukittabur/

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THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BUKIT TABUR

Finally, I got the chance to hike up Bukit Tabur and many thanks to our hiking 'kakis' (inclusive of meeting 2 readers from this blog)  and  guides for making it possible.  No doubt the hike will be nearly impossible if I were to just go alone with my partner, FF like how we used to do go hiking just the two of us at Broga Hill. If you are a first timer to Bukit Tabur or simply Tabur, there are a few important things you may need to know about this hike. Whatever listed below is subjected solely to my own personal opinion and my first time experience at Bukit Tabur.

[caption id="attachment_1896" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Bukit Tabur lake view. Looking a bit hazy no?[/caption]

Here goes the list of things that you need to know about Bukit Tabur / Tabur :

- Bukit Tabur is located at Taman Melawati and if you don't know your way like all first timers, you are for sure to get lost. Haha. Don't bother asking the people near the little town of Taman Melawati for directions because most of them will be plain clueless about the place. Oh wait, if you ask the wrong type of people, probably they just don't know about a quartz hill somewhere in Melawati.

- Get your exact directions checked with people who have been to Bukit Tabur before to avoid getting lost. You have to go through the hilly housing area with big houses and coming down to a narrow path to get to this place. Puncak Niaga should be a good landmark to ask around for directions from the locals.

- Bukit Tabur is a combination of a short uphill hike from the start and then the rock climbing sections and a little bit of relaxing hike (nothing really crazy uphill hike like Broga Hill) to get you to the peak with the Malaysian flag. I lost count of the number of peaks you have to go through but it is kinda a LOT! About 4 at least.

- Bukit Tabur is NOT a suitable and safe training ground if you are thinking to train for Mt.Kinabalu. It gets a little bit dangerous when you are climbing the rocks at Tabur and in case you don't know this, Mt.Kinabalu does not need rock climbing abilities to get you to the top. It is funny to claim that, a couple of us were thinking that Bukit Tabur is way tougher than climbing Mt.Kinabalu ( we went up Mt. Kinabalu last year). Haha.

- If you are a shortie (like yours truly) you may have a bit of trouble descending with the rope at the rocks. The reason being :  you can't see the next landing point ( a safe rocky surface to land your feet)while you are descending and you need people from below to guide on your steps , since you can't really reach your feet further down - the next best thing to do is to lower down your body by hanging on the rope with both hands and lower your body to reach the next step at the rocks. This part of the descent can be challenging ( only for short people, haha) because you have to trust yourself that you can hang on to the rope strong enough and of course trust on the rope too! Take your time during these rocky downhill descent with the ropes, stay focus and don't even think about panicking. :)

- The lake view at the top of the rocks should be really beautiful and it is a great place to fiddle around with your cameras  if and only if, you depart from the starting point really early. Let say depart while it is still dark so that you can catch the sunrise. In our case, we departed while most people have already left. Ouch!

- The returning route was fairly easy. We went through a downhill track towards the durian orchard. Don't worry, there will be no more rocks to ascend and descend on this route if you have been totally traumatized by the whole rock climbing experience earlier. As of the basic rule of any hiking, bring a lot of water, food and drink a lot of them water. If you are experiencing cramps and light headed, it is a sign that you need to drink more water. I would say a good 1.5liter of water is what you need to be carrying for this hike.

- The whole gang clocked a pretty good timing about 3.5 hours (is that good timing?) for the whole hike (up and down) but I'm pretty sure it will take longer time if we decided to come down the same way the came up ( the rocky hills) or continue forward towards the East side ( I think it is East, I may be wrong about this).

In conclusion, I'm saying Yay! I've done Bukit Tabur and will I go there again? I need to think about that first. I would like to think that I can upped my endurance and stamina with a safer training ground on other hills instead. Whatever the verdict is, Bukit Tabur is definitely challenging thanks to the rock climbing experience and it is something different from what you will expect from a typical hill jungle trekking.