Spelunked.

To set the record straight, while volunteering in Malaysia has been an adventure, it’s no pleasure cruise on most days. Don’t feel sorry for us, we signed up for this and we are happy as clams to be here, but you’d laugh at the absurdity of some of the work we’ve been asked to do – And we are learning patience and tolerance and laughing along the way too. So believe you me when I say we truly treasure, we cherish, we bask in the glory of the lovely days we get to take a break from our chores and explore this beautiful country. Our little expeditions out are a drink of water at high noon in July, you know [Shout-out to Rachel Reppert, my dear Ugandan adventure queen]. Anyway, we know you’re not here to read about how many toilets we've cleaned, curtains we’ve hung, blades of grass we've mowed, weeds we have pulled or bugs that have bitten us. You’re here for the goods. So let’s get to it. Our caving trip.

Brian and I are roughly half-way through our volunteer work in Malaysia. We’ve been here for just over three weeks and soon we’ll be flying into Thailand for a little more adventure, a little less scrubbing. Harvest Haven is really starting to get busy – a revolving door of guests. We’ve started to see how fast time is passing here and feel an urgency to take advantage of our surroundings before we leave. Yesterday we had the opportunity to travel into the mountains in nearby Gopeng to explore the Gua Tempurung caves – the largest in peninsular Malaysia. For the extra lovely price of $22 ringgits, or $8 U.S., we paid for two tickets for the Level Three tour.

We followed our Chinese speaking guide into the side of the mountains on a raised catwalk that traversed up and back into the caves. We got grouped in with a class field trip… about 45 Malaysian pre-teens in front of us, all in matching uniforms. One of the first times I have felt significantly out of place in Malaysia… not to mention I was wearing a giant pink headlamp that I picked up at the market. May have left my real one at home, but this $2 wonder got the job done. As we wound up and down, back and forth over a mile of cat walk through the cave we ended up a sandstone slide that we had to “ride” down to get to the beginning of the true cave exploration – and luckily we were able to jump in front of the huge group of students. Essentially, there was a sandy floor at the bottom of the slide with a person-size hole right in the middle. Down we went. 

For the remainder of the tour we ducked and rolled and army crawled through a river that flowed through the caves. At times we could stand up completely, but other times I was genuinely worried my butt was going to get deflated by a stalactite as I shimmied my way under and through some tight spaces. About two and half hours and a few miles later, we emerged back into the daylight in the middle of the jungle. The end was surreal, the way it feels like you were definitely the first person to explore that cave and POP you’re back up top again to continue your rugged trek through the wild and untamed jungles of southern Asia… right to the parking lot. And so the adventure continues -- stay tuned.