Five girlfriends and a jungle trekking adventure

One weekend, five girlfriends decided to “be one” with nature. The aim: jungle trek to Monkey Beach and then hike up to the Muka Head Lighthouse located 242 metres (794 ft) above sea level.

These girls were quite an “active” bunch: one could and WOULD sleep at anytime of the day, at ANY place; the other, is a self-confessed couch potato whose idea of exercising includes watching E-News and Keeping Up with the Kardashians; one is a bookworm whose friends are mostly characters from books; another is called Miss-I-Like-All-Things-Weird; while the other spends her free time chauffeuring her mum.

So on one Sunday morning, with all of us appropriately attired and adequately protected from the sun (i.e. sun-block: checked, hat: checked, water: checked) we stood at the entrance of the Penang National Park, all gung-ho ready for our adventure!

Having set 60 minutes as our time limit to reach Monkey Beach (the estimated time proposed by the park is roughly 105 minutes), we were ecstatic when we “reached” Monkey Beach in under 60 minutes! We all commented on how easy the trek was and that we must be in really good shape to have trekked that fast. Imagine our horror and embarrassment when we found out that we had only reached the Teluk Ailing Beach which was where the USM Research Station is located. We were not yet on Monkey Beach! Suppressing our glee, we marched on, this time at a slower pace as the trail was a fairly narrow path through the jungle with a number of headlands that went up and down. When we first started, it felt like were we on an Indiana Jones’ adventure. But as time passed, we began to feel as though we were in the series Lost. Needless to say, the chatter and laughter that accompanied us from the beginning soon deserted us as the true colours of our stamina began to show. Other people soon began to overtake us as we slowed down. There were of course some “accidents” where two of us slipped down a slope but no harm was done. In fact, it brought back some laughter and “excitement”.

Finally, as we were about to give up (not that we would have turned back), we reached Monkey Beach! We quickly spread our beach cloth down and proceeded to rest our legs and quench our thirst with fresh coconut juice. Needless to say, selfies (or wefies) were next on the agenda. Once that was done, we asked a stall operator how far and how long it would take us to get to the light house. The lady whom we asked generously told us that it would take us at least 40 minutes to get to the light house (this was after she looked at all of us from head to toe. I have to admit that we all looked like typical city girls who were dumped into the “jungle” to fend for ourselves). She also emphasized that it was 40 minutes ONE WAY.

After the resting, we started our hike up to the light house. As soon as we began our journey up the trail, we realized the mistake we made in resting our legs. As we hiked up the hill which was mainly stairs (!!), our legs felt as though they were fitted prosthetic legs made out of lead. Every step of the way up was simply torturous. We made new friends on the way up and by the way we looked, I think they felt like they had to encourage and cheer us on; embarrassingly, two of them even stayed back to help us maneuver ourselves at certain parts of the trail. There were numerous times when each of the five of us was on the verge of giving up, but we persevered, psyching ourselves by humming the song “Eye of the Tiger” despite us not knowing the full song!

Just as we really thought that we could not go on, we turned a corner and there it was…the LIGHTHOUSE! We made it! We were all smiles and laughter as we made our way up to the viewing deck…only to be disappointed by what we saw. The beautiful view that we all thought would greet us was missing! What we got was a clouded view of the sea and its surrounding. We had been cheated by the haze! Swallowing our disappointment, we maintained the positivity that enabled us to fulfill our aim: Five island girls had jungle trekked and hiked their way up a hill. They had indeed been “one with nature”.  We even made new friends! After the obligatory selfies/wefies, we headed back to the beach for more photographs, and then we took a leisurely boat ride back to reality.