I guess it has to take a heartbreak in order for you to move your ass around and finally doing the things that makes you excited. I was keep talking about going hiking to everybody that I know. How nice it is to be in nature and surrounded by trees and greenery?! Most people unfortunately do not understand this. Probably because it takes a lot of effort to climb up and getting sweaty and aching muscles as a result.

I was keep telling my ex that I wanted to go for jungle trekking, to which he kept failing to fulfill with the excuse of busy working schedule. Finally after being single back, my cousin came to rescue me. When you are going through heartbreak, you need to keep yourself busy. Avoid thinking about past. Avoid going back to the very person who don’t deserve you. It is very tough for a person like me. Once I get attached, it takes super long time for me to heal and finally let go of that person.

So thanks to my dear cousin, Hemz who invited me to go to Broga. She is also a nature lover like me who loves hiking. At the back of my mind, I was bombarded with questions. “Am I fit to actually climb up? It has been more than 2 years since I last went for jungle trekking. How if I get dizzy half way?” While my memory recalled how there was once I couldn’t climb up due to not enough energy (I didn’t eat anything heavy, so half way I started to feel dizzy).

But I was more excited than feeling fear. I told myself I’m going. Nobody going to stop me. So my cousin reached my house around 5.30am in the morning. My mum managed to prepare some breakfast for us. We left the house around 6am. By the time we reach Broga, it was about 6.45am.

It was still dark at the time. I saw cars were queuing up to enter carpark, it was a bit jammed in the morning. So I decided to park along the roadside. Thinking I don’t have to pay for parking. But a chinese lady stopped us and asked us to pay RM1 while we were passing the carpark area. We thought it is the entry ticket, hence paid for it and started walking. There were some who were using torchlight. I was glad we only reached at this time because we didn’t bring torchlight. We could still see the path and followed the other people who were going in front of us. After about 10 – 15 minutes, there was another chinese lady collecting money. We thought we could just show our ticket and we will be allowed to go in. But no. This is another RM1. Apparently we are paying for farm. But there isn’t any farm nearby. I asked the lady what is the difference with the payment near the carpark. The lady pretended not to hear my questions and continued collecting money from the people who were queuing up. Having no clear understanding, since it was mentioned by another blogger that they too paid twice and since it was a minimum amount which is just RM1, they paid and hence we too paid. Everybody was paying. Then we continued climbing.

The path was dry and slippery. We had to use our hands to hold some of the trees as we climbed up. There were a lot of rocks along the way and in some places there were ropes to help you to climb up. Since I had low stamina and not fit enough, there were moments I had to sit down to catch my breath. As I was scared that I would start to feel dizzy just like last time. There were others who were also resting like me. After resting about 3 – 5 minutes, I would continue my climb up using the easiest path that we can find.

Then we came to a huge rock that will require one person to lift you up. My cousin is thin and small in size, she managed to push herself through a small hole in between the rock and climbed up. She couldn’t lift me up as I’m bigger than her. Not knowing how to go up and there were already a queue behind me and they all shouting “You can do it, climb up!” It is impossible as I don’t strength in my hand to lift my own weight. Then a Malay guy climbed up on his own and helped another girl who was with him. By this time, one Malay guy came down from up. I told this guy that I need help to climb up. So he grasped my hand and pulled me up. Relieved. I thanked him and continue to climb as he continued to help others to climb up. There is another huge rock but this rock comes with a rope. You need to hold this rope to climb up which also required a lot of strength.

Here also we had a Malay girl to help us. She already climbed up and was sitting on the rock. While my cousin and myself try to climb up, she pulled the rope to make it easy for us to climb. I was thankful again. What a tough lady! We reached a few nice spot to take nice pictures. You have to wait for your turn as people will be busy taking selfies and group photos with different angles and styles.

Looking around, there were a lot of people climbing up and down. Definitely will not feel lonely. In few spots, we stopped to take a sip of water and then continued. Along the way, there were a lot of friendly hikers. You can see Malays, Chinese and Indians. Some will motivate you, some will sing song, some will be joking around. Some will wish you good morning while passing by.

After much hassle, with thoughts to stop at second peak as we were getting tired, then we saw the final route to the top of broga. The view at this point looked so refreshing with light green color with long grasses. We took few pictures here before climbing up to the final peak. There were a lot of people up here. You have to queue to take pictures with the peak sign here. We managed to click a picture before deciding to go down as we wanted to avoid hot sun. Broga is not dense with trees, so high chances for you to get burned after 10am. By the time we reach peak, I think it was about 8.30am.

Since climbing up the rock was a nightmare, we decided to take another route to go down. This route was tough as well as it was dry and slippery. We had to sit down and slide the way down to avoid falling. Both the palm of my hand looked red and felt as if it is going to be bruised due to the friction against the sand to control myself sliding down. Because I was uncontrollably sliding down and unable to stop if not because of my hand trying to grasp something at the harsh and dry surface. There were no branches to hold on also. You can be assured there were a lot of screaming episodes happened during this phase going down the hill. Actually it was fun. 😀

I started to think, next time I should bring gloves to protect my hand. While we were going down, we realized there were much less people using this route. There were a few Indian girls and boys behind us. Then we came to a point where there were one route going down, another going to the right. The route to the right looks like less travelled compared to the one going down. So my cousin and myself decided to slide down again. Only to realize the path coming to bushes, the path not clear, looks like not many people used this way. This doesn’t look like hiking trail. We couldn’t really see the path going down and it is surrounded by a lot of trees. We saw two chinese boys were running this way and went into the bush and disappeared. We looked at each other. Definitely we didn’t feel good going this route as we can’t see any other hikers apart from us, the few indians and the two chinese boys who just disappeared into the bush. We climbed up again and took the other route and continued straight. Then we bumped into other hikers, we found the main route where everybody was using to go down. Relieved and feeling safe, we continued down.

I can assure you both our hands and legs started to feel so much pain. My toes were hurting. I was carefully and slowly putting one by one leg forward. We were so tired. Then we came to a small stall by the same chinese lady who didn’t respond to our questions earlier. She was selling coconuts here. We wanted to buy but she was facing the hikers who were coming down. She couldn’t hear us calling at the back, then after few minutes waiting, we decided we will just buy from the small shop near the entrance.

We bought the most tastiest coconut water ever. It was without any added sugar. It was fresh and the price is very reasonable. It was the most refreshing drinks ever. We were really hungry. Both of us were vegetarians so we could not find any vegetarian food nearby broga. We thought we would eat in Seremban town. So we drove back. It took us about 40 minutes drive to reach Seremban. We wanted to try a new vegetarian restaurant in town but was disappointed as it was closed on Sunday. So we decided to eat at a restaurant just opposite the road. Since we both were very hungry, we decided to take early lunch. We took mix rice (rice, curry and some vege). To our surprise, the food was super tasty. We were wondering if the food was tasty because it is really tasty or is it because we were too hungry.

After having a feast, finally we went back home. The cost for both of us was only about RM9.00. It was cheap and delicious. Basically we both successfully completed our first broga hiking experience. It was worth it and pain followed us after. For the next two days, I could not lift both of my hands. I was having difficulty to walk properly. On the third day, my big toe was hurting so badly that I couldn’t wear cover shoe to work. On the fifth day, everything went back to normal. No more pain.

This hiking happened before movement control was announced due to Covid 19. Now I can only sit at home and watch movies. Hmmm…hopefully can continue hiking again soon.