I didn't expect to be going on such an adventure so soon. A month ago, my trek buddies jio-ed me out for a simple 3D2N hike in Malaysia, it was anything BUT simple. I had heard of Mount/Gunung Korbu and Gayong years ago when I was searching for Malaysian mountains to hike, back then, I thought this was an easy trip seeing that it was only 3D2N. But boy was I wrong. We had just gone through the Covid-19 pandemic and this was my and many of our first trip out of Singapore. We came on this trip underprepared and overpacked, but we managed to conquer it nonetheless! Do give this page a read if you're interested in our Korbu Gayong Journey!
Content List
Intro to Gunung Korbu & Gunung Gayong
Korbu (G2) and Gayong (G4) are part of the G7 mountains in Malaysia. The G7 are the seven highest mountains in the Malaysian Peninsular. The full list of G7 are:
G1 Gunung Tahan – 2187m
G2 Gunung Korbu – 2183m
G3 Gunung Yong Belar – 2181m
G4 Gunung Gayong – 2173m
G5 Gunung Chamah – 2171m
G6 Gunung Yong Yap – 2168m
G7 Gunung Ulu Sepat – 2161m
You might notice that the elevation of the mountains are quite low when compared to other more well-known ones in the area like Kinabalu (4095m) or Fansipan (3143m). But do not be fooled by the elevation of these mountains. Each one of these is a beast of a mountain to be conquered more difficult than many 3000ers or even 4000ers. The reason is because of terrain and pack load. The terrain in Malaysian mountains are full of leech-infested rivers, dense jungles and steep, slippery faces to scale. Not only that, the weather is hot and humid and is by no means a comfortable climate to hike in. The second reason is pack load, usually (for me at least) when you hike in Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, there will be porters helping you with your load. Tents, food and water are usually carried by these porters and you just have to carry your own clothes and some water. But when hiking in these parts, porters are very expensive to come by. All the items mentioned before you will have to bear on your own and it can easily amount up to 15+kg for a 3D2N trek.
Day 0
We met at 830 to buy some groceries from giants. Snacks, energy bars, and water mainly. after that, we walked towards The Plaza where we were supposed to board our bus at 10 pm. At the very last minute, our trip leader (Jia Ling) realised that she forgot to bring her passport and got us all in a panic! She quickly rushed home to find her passport while the rest of us got ready to board the bus. In the end, she never found it... and didn't join us on the trip. Sigh... JL.
The trip to KL was quite smooth, which was surprising as this was a long 4 day weekend (Labour day + Hari Raya). we got to KL in about 4 hrs then We chilled for a bit at TBS bus station while waiting for our guide to pick us up. we had a quick breakfast on our way to Ipoh where the trek started.
Day 1
We were supposed to start our trek at about 830am. SUPPOSED TO. But we got caught in a jam that stretched for hrs! shortly after leaving KL, the jam started all the way until we were near Ipoh already. The Jam was due to the long Hari Raya weekend, everyone was on their way home from KL. In the end, we reached the trailhead and started hiking at about 1230.
Before we started, they actually had us fill up some forms to declare how many of each item we were bringing in. Things like the number of shirts, shorts, shoes, slippers, batteries, headlamps etc... The strictness of the checks depends much on where you are at. I remember in 2018 at Gunung Tahan park office, they had us take out all our items from our bags like a "stand by universe", and they would count our items 1 by 1. At Tahan, wet tissues were strictly not allowed as they contained chemicals and are not biodegradable. Luckily, they did not check so strictly at Korbu Gayong.
From the park office, we drove in another 15 mins to reach the official starting point where we had a short briefing, then started our trek at around 1230pm.
What was supposed to be a 3/4 hour trek turned out for us to be a 5 hour one. 2 years without trekking had softened our skills. Many of us were unprepared for the kind of terrain that Malaysian mountains had in store for us. But there was one thing that got us way more than the terrain did. THE LEECHES. the leeches there were insane! they were literally EVERYWHERE. at some points, with every step you take you see a leech swirling around in search of hot blood. They were sometimes on the leaves that you brush across, so your upper body isn't safe as well. The first day has 5 rivers to cross, which explains the abundance of leeches everywhere. leeches love the water and when there's a river, there's bound to be leeches for miles around them. I gave up clearing the leeches after about the 3rd river crossing. I think the best attire to prevent the leeches are long thick socks with short pants. The long socks can help to protect your legs somewhat. Make sure that it's thick though, they bit through many of our army socks and tights. Short pants may seem counterintuitive, but it lets you find the leeches and clear them. I had long pants on the first day and they managed to crawl up my legs and thighs without me even noticing until it was too late.
At some point after the 5th river crossing, we came to a big waterfall to rest. here you can take a dip and shower in the cool river waters. Fast running waters like these are usually free from leeches, but they are still all around the area regardless. After this, we continued hiking and finally reached our campsite at around 530 pm. As night was coming, we wasted no time in setting up our campsite and cooked food for dinner!
Although we were tired from the trek, there was no compromise for dinner! we whipped up some delicious gourmet shit as you can see here on the right >
Shortly after, we went to bed as we had a Loooong day ahead tomorrow.
Day 2
On the second day, we woke up at 4 am to freshen up ourselves. We began the hike u at 430am. Given our poor pace on the first day, we decided to split into 2 teams, the back team which would summit mount Korbu and the forward team which would go to Korbu and then move on to summit Gayong as well. the forward team had to keep up with a faster pace to be able to make it back to the campsite on time. I joined to forward team. The intended timeline for us was: 0430 - 0630: reach Kem Kijang
0630 - 0900: reach Botak false peak
0900 - 1100: reach Korbu
1100 - 1300: reach Gayong
1300 - 1800: back to campsite
We started off quite well. from our campsite, Kem Seroja, to Kem Kijang to were even slightly ahead of time, reaching slightly pas 6 am. from Kijang onwards, It was all uphill trekking from there. we took an hour plus to reach the last water point which was basically a small stream which allowed us to fill our bottles for the last time. after that, it became a lot steeper. many sections, we had to use our hands to climb onto roots and branches. and there were even ladders laid out along the way for the extra steep sections.
Luckily, we only had to carry our daypacks with us for this day. The steepness and the length of the steep sections make it incredibly difficult to do with a fully loaded backpack, but for the trans-titiwangsa route, they do this with a full pack which makes it one of the toughest treks in Malaysia. The trans-titiwangsa is a trek that will take you through Korbu, Gayong, Yong Yap, Yong Belar, Bubu. we managed to reach Botak at around 10 am and were greeted by a magnificent view of the surrounding landscape.
At this point, we were still on schedule. We didn't want to waste any time, so all our breaks were nothing more than 10 mins. Continuing up from here was as steep as before, more ladders awaited us as we crossed two other false peaks before finally reaching Gunung Korbu. Unfortunately, the view at Korbu was nothing spectacular. there were trees and bushes surrounding the area which blocked any views that there were. Regardless, we were really happy that we made it this far! However, the journey is not even halfway through as we had yet to visit our final peak, Gayong. We had a longer break here to snack on nuts and biscuits to regain our energy.
After a 20 minute break, we left for Gayong. The journey to Gayong was Beautiful, yet psychologically torturous. The path from Korbu to Gayong had a very peaceful type of mossy forest. For those that don't know, the mossy forest terrain is common in Malaysian mountains where it is cooling and where the surroundings are all covered by a smooth carpet of moss. In this type of terrain, the flora and fauna are very different from what you would find in lower parts. There were many pitcher plants in this area. Feel free to browse the gallery below to see what the mossy forest looks like. It was truly beautiful. The torturous part is in knowing that we had to go back on the same long path. You see, Korbu is the highest peak around the neighbouring mountains, which meant that to get to Gayong, we had to hike a long way downhill, all the while knowing that on the way back we would again have to hike uphill to go back to our campsite. Not only that, the number of false peaks on the way to Gayong was countless. Many times we thought we were about to reach the second summit, only to see that there was another downhill climb after that.
Eventually, after almost 3 hours, we made it to Gayong. at this point, we knew we were going to be late going back to our campsite. Our pace had significantly slowed from the start of the day, and we were behind time. We reached Gayong at around 2 pm.
We took a while to relish in our achievement, but we all felt the great dread of the journey back. Here we had a short lunch consisting of energy bars, biscuits and sugar peanuts. The sugar peanuts were GOOD. At this point, there were 6 of us in our group + the guide which made 7 of us at Gayong. Three of the faster members of our group went back first, to try and catch up with the back team which by now are returning to camp from Korbu peak. the other 3 of us ( me, ann ying, CK) would slowly make our way back with Elsa (the guide) at our own pace.
Going back was no easier than before. Korbu was the higher peak, which meant most of the journey was still uphill. To make matters worst, it began to rain heavily halfway through our journey to Korbu. the rain really put a damper on our spirits. the temperature was about 16 degrees up in the mountains, which doesn't seem like much, but when you're drenched from head to toe with strong rains blowing at you wearing only shirt and shorts, it became unbearably cold. Not wanting to catch hypothermia, we trekked faster than our normal pace in order to produce body heat to keep us warm. After what felt like forever, we reached Korbu peak again. The rain stopped right before we reached Korbu. were we quickly snacked on some biscuits to make up for the energy we lost to the cold. Not 5 minutes later, we were on the trail again.
Remember when I said the road to Korbu was extremely steep up? Now it's the opposite way around. Hiking up a mountain is a matter of strength and endurance, if you have both, you can hike up quickly. But hiking down a mountain, strength plays a smaller part, and dexterity becomes more important. Instead of opposing you, gravity becomes a friend when hiking down. If you know how to use gravity to your advantage, going down becomes a breeze and can often be done in half the time it takes to hike up. However, if you cant fully make use of the downwards momentum, it becomes a burden instead.
For us, it was a burden. going downhill was very tough on our thighs and knees, every steep drop meant another bumpy shock to our legs. But we learn along the way and slowly pick up the correct way to descend. We managed to reach the last water point at about 7 pm where we caught the last glimpse of the sun.
From this point onwards, our morale took a nosedive. It's incredible how much a little sunlight can help lift your spirits even if you're not aware of it. After dark, the whole journey just seems like a dread, a nightmare. Because we have to use headlamps to navigate in the dark, or vision becomes tunnelled to a small angle, small sounds startle us easily in the dark and the mind plays tricks on you. The sense of time is also somewhat lost when trekking in the dark as all your surroundings look exactly the same as 5 minutes ago or 2 hours ago. We were supposed to meet our friends Yi Kang and Joel who went down ahead from Gayong. They stopped to wait for us at Kem Kijang as the way back is not obvious and it's dangerous to go without a guide. many times, I thought I heard their voices or shouting from afar, only to realise it was my mind playing tricks again. Even though tired from hiking for almost 15 hours already, we went slowly but surely. Eventually, I saw a flicker of light in front of me and I just shouted instinctively as if I had been waiting for this moment for ages. Not a second later, Yi Kang and Joel shouted back at us in long-awaited elation! We suddenly felt a great feeling of hope as we met up with them at Kem Kijang! we rested at Kem kijang for a few minutes to recuperate from the long hike down. We knew that there was still 2-3 hours of hiking in the darkness, But the worst was over. Once we caught our breath, we started again. It wasn't long until the darkness caught up with our short-lived feeling of hope, once again we were brought to our low morale. It wasn't the first time I had experienced something like this. A few years ago in 2018 when we were hiking down Gunung Tahan, I had a similar experience where the group was supposed to reach the campsite by 5 pm, but we had an injured member which resulted in us reaching way past nightfall at around 10 pm. The feeling of neverending walking was the same. I knew that we just had to be strong mentally and keep pushing forward, it would end eventually. 2-3 hours passed and finally, we returned to our campsite where we joined the rest of our group, the back team. They had already settled in and had their dinner and helped us with unloading. It felt so good to be back. And even better when we had a nice warm meal.
We reached past 11 pm that night, the back group reached about 9+ as they had lost their way on the way back from Kem Kijang to Kam Seroja.
Day 3
This day was like a walk in the park compared to the day before. With the sun up in the sky, we were in good spirits. It was nothing like the night before. Although we did feel it in our thighs and legs, the lactic acid from 18 hrs of trekking the previous day. The leeches were as abundant as ever, but this was nothing new to us at this point. we slowly made our way back to the trailhead in abt 4.5 hrs. At the trailhead, we took a quick rinse by the river to freshen up and then went on our way back to the city!
Final Thoughts
Was this trek tough? Definitely. I think this would be at least an intermediate level trek. It should not be the first mountain you have been to before. You should have a good level of fitness before attempting this trek, if not you might not be able to reach the summits.
Was Gunung Korbu and Gayong Harder than Gunung Tahan? I personally feel that it was not harder. 2 things made Tahan (Merapoh route) harder than this trek. Firstly, Tahan was longer, with 4D3N of trekking. This changes the logistics and planning of the trek entirely as more food needs to be brought along, and the tents also need to be carried along to the second campsite. Secondly, the long trekking days on Tahan are done with full pack load with tents and food. This alone made Tahan such an arduous trek as there are full 12 hr days of trekking through steep terrain with full pack load. Having said that, Korbu Gayong was still a huge accomplishment comparable to Gunung Tahan, which is G1.
What's next? I always tell myself after trekking a Malaysian mountain: Never again. But somehow I always end up in this foresty place a few months/years later. Maybe I'll come back to conquer the rest of the G7s next time!
