Gua Tambun Rock Paintings

Gua Tambun rock paintings?

No, never heard of it either - despite proudly proclaiming to be a true Ipoh boy.

So when I first read about it in a magazine a couple of weeks back, I made it a point to make it up there.

So, last Sunday, armed with nothing but my smartphone, I decided to explore Gua Tambun. Being a first timer, I relied on these kind people's blogs for directions:
Ersatz Expat
Tennyson Lee

Anyway, if anyone out there is interested, I recommend parking your vehicle here.

Firstly, the signboard that was supposed to point us to the direction of Gua Tambun is no longer up. In fact, we couldn't even see the toilet landmark that was mentioned in Tennyson's blog. The toilet has been completely overrun by foliage.

What you need to be looking for are a set of playground steps. Beyond the steps you can see a brick wall.

Go past the brick wall and down into the polo club (I'll be honest I was having serious doubts about the place when I was here)

This is the polo club.

Keep to the left. Follow the stream/drain on the left.

You will eventually come across this rickety old bridge. And this is actually where you'll see the first sign of Gua Tambun.

The gate was closed but I asked one of the people who worked at the polo club workers who told me it was okay to head in. It's mentioned in one of the blogs above that they startled a monitor lizard here. They'll be glad to know it's still alive because we startled one too. It was massive!

Once you get past the gate, you may or may not see horses grazing around. The horses will not disturb you if you do not disturb them (so said the polo club guy). I wasn't keen on testing his theory. Anyway, this whole stretch skirts the military base on the right, so it sort of feels like you're trespassing Area 51.

About 50m ahead, you will come across this. If you enlarge the picture, you will see a little trail to the left heading towards a hut. You're almost there. The hut marks the start of the staircase leading up towards Gua Tambun.

And these are the steps. They look slightly intimidating but my 55-year old mother made it up and down without any great difficulty, so I don't suppose it's that bad. The staircase is horribly maintained though and may be overrun by creepers in some parts.

And you will eventually reach a cliff. You have arrived. You get a pretty good panoramic view of Ipoh from here.

The entire place is filled with graffiti.

 

And these are the paintings. They are not as clear as the pictures in the other blogs anymore. I fear they may soon be completely lost.

There are a couple more paintings but I neglected to take photos of them. Instead, here's a photo of all the people I dragged up with me. As you can see, they all look like they're wondering why the hell I bothered brought them up here in the first place (these people don't appreciate history, haha!).

By the way I concur with the views of the bloggers who led me here. Gua Tambun is in a really pathetic state, which is disappointing as it is supposedly one of the "most important prehistoric rock art sites in Malaysia" (to borrow the phrase of the laminated A4 paper below). The amount of graffiti (and junk) up on that cliff is just terribly sad. 

So please, if you do choose to head up there, be a kind soul and refrain from adding to the eyesore.