The Walk of Life

I was from Kampar, a small tin mining town located in the Kinta Valley, Perak State in Malaysia. I left my home-town since 1965 and never returned there except for occasional visits over the years.

Lately there were two tragic incidents from Kampar. One was the collapsed of a newly constructed hanging bridge, and three students fell into the river and were swept away by the strong currents and they drowned. Yesterday, another three University students were swept away and were drowned at the Kampar Waterfall by flash floods. The fourth lucky student was pulled out of the rapids by local people who saw the tragedy.

When we were young, the Kampar Waterfall was a local favourite for picnics and camping. There were in total about three big pools and several smaller ones. The above picture was taken there around 1970's while were were all at College. Can you recognize me? Through the years many people drowned there either due to mishaps or people getting caught by sudden gush of water pouring down from the highlands. Although water falls are usually safe places but in Malaysia, these harmless water falls can turn into death traps if you happened to be there and there is heavy down pour somewhere up in the hills. These gush of water can be very powerful and even the best swimmers can get into trouble.

Once when we were camping at the Kampar Waterfall, one of the students fell into a churning pool and the Scout Master jumped in to pull him out. We watched it happen and the boy just could not get out himself and we saw his body rolling over and over under the swirling currents! What a scary life experiences for all of us.

Here in Malaysia, we have horrendous rain falls especially during the Monsoon season. To the Westerners they have never seen how frighteningly powerful are our thunder storms! In Sarawak which is part of Borneo, many people were drowned due to flash floods and most of them were caught by surprise. It seems that one could hear the waters coming and it sounded like a mighty roaring and the advise by the local natives is to climb a tree as fast as you can. Well, one bit of personal advise is not to go camping in our local forests during the Monsoon period! Any heavy down pour can be dangerous to campers or swimmers in rivers or waterfalls. These down pours may occurred some miles away from the camp site and that's why they are so dangerous because you just do not know until you hear the roaring waters coming your way!