Pelepah falls at Kota Tinggi

I went with a few old friends to a trekking trip last month to Pelepah falls at Kota Tinggi. This was the location where I was supposed to visit 3 years ago when I planned for my 1st betta and cryptocoryne hunting trip to Peninsula Malaysia. However our guide fell sick the day before we set off, resulting in me landing up in Air Hitam where I met my explorer friend!

This time round, we set off early at 0630hrs in the morning and had breakfast at a Chinese tim sum shop in Johor Bahru first since it was Ramadan period (i.e. fasting) and all the Muslim food stalls were closed.

Pelepah falls seemed to be a rather popular trekking place for avid trekkers in Singapore and some people mentioned on the Internet that the trek is reasonably easy but I don't think so personally after going through it. The falls is stated to have 12 tiers and from the map, it seemed to be located in the valley of 2 hills. The water flows down the multi-tiered waterfall and discharge into Sungei Pelepah Kiri flowing through an oil palm plantation below. We entered the plantation and trek along the river upstream to reach the forest behind to start our ascend up the waterfall.

As I was climbing out of the stream into the oil palm plantation with my friend, we suddenly heard a foreign loud noise. I raised my head to see what was the sound source and was shocked to see an adult black spitting cobra (Naja sumatrana) with its hood opened and head raised sliding passed our path merely less than 5m away. Only then did I realised that what I had heard was the loud hissing noise from the cobra threatening and warning us. We were frozen still until the cobra slided into a heap of dead oil palm leaves and did not had a chance to take any photographs. Be extra careful when you travel in oil palm plantations in the future!

We crossed the plantation land and reached the forest edge where we commenced our ascend up the river. I managed to take photograph of a frog which I believed should be a rhinoceros frog (Limnonectes plicatellus), please correct me if I am wrong.

We followed the general direction of trekking up along the river edge, sometimes having to make a detour or cross the river to walk along an easier path. Soon we reached the 1st tier of the waterfall.

There were many bi-colour piptospatha growing on the rock surfaces.

As it was drizzling the entire morning, the entire path was wet and very slippery, especially since most rocks and logs were covered with mosses or algae. We had to slowly take one step at a time to test whether the ground was slippery and many a times, we had to go down on all fours to ensure that we do not accidentally slip.

When we reached a tier of waterfall where we could not climb up which usually was the case (extremely slippery algae covered rocks with water gushing down and having no foothold), we had to flank the waterfall on either sides and this sometimes involved climbing up vertical steep slopes. Luckily there were ropes left behind by previous trekkers to help other inexperience and ill-prepared trekkers like us :-p

As usual, I received a love bite from my friend, the leech.

There was one particular section of the trek which was rather dangerous. The rocky sides of the waterfall closed up vertically to form a deep valley which was difficult to flank since we did not managed to find any ropes which signified a previous path used by other trekkers. We had to wade through the river in stomach to chest high water to reach the next tier of waterfall. I am sure that during heavy rain, the water level in this rocky valley probably would increase by a few meters rapidly (i.e. flash flood) so do not trek this path in heavy rain!

The top few tiers of waterfalls were quite beautiful. As we had been trekking for about 3 hours already by then, I was quite exhausted physically (from all the climbing) and mentally (from the constant focusing to ensure each step taken was safe). We decided to stop at the tier which supposedly was the main waterfall with water flowing down a long stretch of 45 degree rocky slope. We would leave the last tier of waterfall till the next visit when we bring some camping equipment to stay overnight at the top of the hill which supposed had a white sandy base.

I remembered that someone told me that the shrimps caught at the top of the waterfall were sweet and delicious so I decided to give it a try, errr, no comments...

What goes up must come down. The downstream journey was relatively easier and thus we managed to climb down all the rocky paths which we passed by earlier in less than 2 hours. In total we took about 5 to 6 hours to complete the above stated trek. We went back to Kota Tinggi town for a late lunch of Bah Kut Teh (pork rib soup with rice) before heading back to Singapore.

This was the souvenir I collected, the leech bite with a T shape marking formed by blood flowing down 3 sides of the foot.

No cryptocorynes were found.

C. nurii 'white ring'

I was given a specimen of C. nurii collected from Central Pahang by my explorer friend last year with a spathe attached. The spathe opened a few days later (refer to the photograph below). The purple coloured limb edge had a regular thin white band around it (i.e. the purple colour did not extend right to the edge of the limb).

The C. nurii found near Mersing had a red limb with a thin white band around the limb edge too.

Earlier this year, my friend found a few shockingly beautiful variations of C. nurii limbs in the wild, see the link here:
http://cryptoandbetta.blogspot.com/search/label/C.%20nurii, 
http://cryptoandbetta.blogspot.com/2009/10/c-cf-nurii-and-nurii-bukit-ibam.html,
http://cryptoandbetta.blogspot.com/2009/10/c-cfnuriibicolor-details.html,
http://cryptoandbetta.blogspot.com/2009/10/c-nurii-bicolor-bukit-ibam.html.
Those spathes had reddish limbs but the white colour around the edge had mutated so much that the red colour was concentrated only around the collar area. My friend conveniently termed them as C. nurii 'white ring'.
Recently, my friend collected a specimen of C. nurii 'white ring' with an attached unopened spathe. It bloomed in my tank a few days later (see photograph below).

The limb was reddish in colour. However, the white edge was not as wildly mutated as seen in the wild but the lower left base lobe of the limb seemed to show some signs. What was the environmental conditions in the wild which could trigger such beautiful mutation?

C. sp. 'Yellow Ring, Pahang 7, Bukit Ibam'

As usual, I had the great fortune to be brought though a maze of complex roads to this remote river in Pahang near Bukit Ibam area by my explorer friend where he found cryptocoryne with spathes with bright yellow bullate wide limbs and raised collar. He termed them as C. sp. 'Yellow Ring' first, leaving it to the experts to conclude whether they are new species, hybrid or just another variety.

From what I saw, all the specimens were in submersed form. The base of the river was sandy.

The leaves were greenish on the upper side with some faint markings and slightly reddish on the under side, nothing really spectacular.

However, the spathe is so beautiful and striking that I will leave you to enjoy the below photographs by yourself and ponder over what they should be.

C. sp. 'Pahang 6, Tasik Chini'

Tasik Chini (lake Chini) is the 2nd largest freshwater lake in Malay Peninsula. According to the Internet information, it is formed by damming up a river valley and has a river which flows into the Pahang river. My explorer friend found cryptocorynes growing around this region and brought me over to the habitat to take a look.

It was a river where submersed cryptocorynes were growing therein. At the side of the river, there was a forest with a small stream filled with cryptocorynes.

The leaves of the cryptocorynes were dark green in colour on the upper side and reddish on the under side.

Below are photographs of the submersed specimens found in the larger clay bed river.

reflection of heaven

And as usual, no flowers were found to confirm the identity of the species, I shall leave it to be termed as C. sp. 'Tasik Chini' first. Pahang is really quite an interesting state to be further explored.