Venturing deep into the limestone complex of northern Peninsular Malaysia, HYMEIR KAMARUDIN explores the old passageway between the Gua Baba and Gua Lo Po Sang caves, long since abandoned after the tin mining bust.

Written by Hymeir Kamarudin on 17 May 2003 with 1 comment. Contribute!

Gua Baba and Gua Lo Po Sang are both located within the Wang Mu Forest Reserve of Perlis State Park at the northern tip of Peninsular Malaysia. The caves of the area was previously mined for tin which was found in the alluvium on the cave floor, These caves were all abandoned in the 1980s due to the low tin prices.

At precisely 11:05pm, Friday 16 April 1999, Gua Baba and Gua Lo Po Sang was formally connected again resulting in a system of about 2.9km long. This system was named the Wang Mu Streamway. The connecting passages was surveyed to 223m and during the same trip, another 233m of passage was surveyed south from Lo Po Sang. The total surveyed length of this system now stands at 2,934m. These are caves found in the Perlis State Park.

Gua Baba was previously surveyed to about 1.4km long while Gua Lo Po Sang to a little over 1km. Having taken their entrance position with the help of a handheld GPS unit, we were able to place their location precisely on a map and noted that their passages come to about 150m from each other. A connection was certainly possible. Both are known to connect as ex-tin miners would tell us during conversations with them.

The entrance to Gua Lo Po Sang is located in the hills after a tough 2 hour uphill trek. The first part of the cave is practically vertical. Several pitches had to be negotiated. Old wooden ladders, remnants of the mining days are still found on some pitches. They proved useful, for every pitch with a ladder still in good condition means one less rope to haul and rig. Where the ladders have rotted away, ropes were used to descend. The longest of these pitches is a 14m pitch with a waterfall. An active stream is encountered at 70m underground and it continues the rest of the way. According to the survey, the vertical distance of this cave is about 135m.

After the last pitch, the cave is rather flat with passages generally heading Southeast. It later joins another passage with passages going north - south. The stream at this point flows north. Passages were found to have developed along the strike and joints generally heading Northeast before turning east. We had to stop at a point were there was deep water. Time was running out. It was about 5pm on our forth trip to Gua Lo Po Sang and we had a long way to go just to get out. It was 3am before we reached our car.

Gua Baba on the other hand is a relatively flat cave with several flooded chambers. These chambers were once kept dry by miners using pumps allowing them to work the bottom. After these caves were abandoned, the chambers flooded. Old wooden walkways were found in some of these chambers that were built right across them. It must have been quite perilous walking on these walkways when these chambers were dry. Falling off them would certainly kill a person. We much prefer to having the water!

Where the walkways had rotted away, we had to swim across. Some passages required us to walk balanced precariously on old wooden beams which we hope wouldn't break under our weight. Some did! A beautiful stream passage with short waterfalls was encountered next. Here a dry higher-level bypass was found. A useful passage should the stream rise in flood. The stream passage continues till a place called "long bridge". Here, another wooden walkway was built across larger and longer flooded chambers. A steel gate was found just beyond and our exploration stopped. We were out of time, we were tired and cold and didn't relish getting wet again swimming through another flooded passage.

At about 7 pm on 16 April 1999, we entered Gua Baba determined to connect Gua Lo Po Sang and Gua Baba. We arrived at the "gate" near the last point of our survey at about 9pm. We continued our survey in the water half swimming and half clambering over rickety wooden beams. We came to a point where we could neither swim due to debris in the water nor could we walk on the old rotten walkway. We practically crawled over what is left of the walkway. Finally we arrived on solid ground near a junction. The right passage with a stream was small and didn't seem to be a major passage so we elected to take the left passage although we knew that this passage was heading to wrong way if it were to connect to Lo Po Sang. We were hoping it would start turning west soon.

The passage continued south and we were rather pleased to see that the main passage did start to head west. We were more excited when we noticed the passage taking the character of the passage at the last point of our survey in Gua Lo Po Sang. There was an old wooden walkway above deep water. At this point, I saw several features beyond which looks exactly like what I remembered from Gua Lo Po Sang. I shouted for joy but my buddy wasn't as sure as I was. He thought I was going crazy. We surveyed hurriedly and I scrambled still balancing on the wooden beam till I got to solid ground again. I rushed forward and on the left was, as I expected, a flowstone with a calcited ladder that confirmed we were already in Lo Po Sang. The celebration started! Drinks were out. The cold water from our drinking bottle was as good as champagne! The raisins tasted like caviar! We had chocolates and muesli bars to top it up.

The caves of the area were previously mined for tin which was found in the alluvium on the cave floor. These caves were all abandoned sometine in the 1980s due to the low tin prices. There are many more caves in the area and the objective of our work here is to systematically explore and survey the caves for a better understanding of the mining history and to uncover what we suspect is the longest cave system in Peninsular Malaysia and among the longest in region. Both Gua Lo Po Sang and Gua Baba have many side passages that await exploration.

muhammad hamka

Guest

Tuesday, 02 February 2010 at 11:51 AM:

sorry..

I wanted to come to malaysia to perform searches in the cave Perlis and in dire need of contour maps.
I want to ask how to get this map or you have a map of the area.
Please help.
this my email address "me_advent@yahoo.com"

thanks

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