By Cheong Jing Wen

Upon completing my last assignment in this trimester, I decided to call it a day. I was then sleeping soundly when a phone call reached me.

“Let’s go to Green Ridge!” said my friend.

Without knowing the exact condition as well as location of the place, I brought nothing but my camera. Also, I wore short pants and slipper as I thought it might be somewhere like Tronoh Mines where we only need to buy a ticket to visit.

When we arrived, to my surprise, I could see there were no buildings but only hills in that particular direction! I finally realised why my friends were doubtful of attire. I was convinced that they were also not aware of the exact location of Green Ridge as I noticed two of them were wearing slipper too.

When we finally brought our shock to an end, we started to make our way into the jungle. We called each other by nicknames due to the superstition that spirits in the jungle might harm us if they knew our names.

A clear pathway could be seen stretching towards the end of the jungle. It was a better one compared to the jungle that needs us to break our own fresh path.

As time went on, the path became harder and harder to walk through, the plants beneath were often grown with thorns and left us with bruises while the twigs that block our way made the journey difficult. I regreted for not wearing long pants.

We came across several slopes leading uphill and painstakingly climbed them, yet there was no sign of anyone.

To add salt to injury, one of our friends had damaged his slipper. We looked into each other’s eyes and discovered that we had the same idea of leaving the jungle by that moment as all those sign reminded us that day was the 15th day of seventh lunar month in Chinese calendar. It was said that ghost and spirit will come out from lower realm to earth during this period and cause accidents and deaths.

Thus, we decided to make our way back and pay visit to Green Ridge on the next day, at least when we were well-prepared and did some online research.

After getting out from the jungle, we found something strange upon seeing the bleeding leg of one of our friends. Leeches had sucked his blood and it was probably more than satisfied as it was no longer attached to his leg.

Worried, we started checking our legs to see if any leeches attached on us as the saliva of leeches were like anesthetic that will numb the bites. One of our friends found a leech between his toes. With our help, he managed to forcibly detached it from his skin, but to our dismay, blood was continuously surging out from his wound.

In fact, we had used the wrong method to remove the leeches. forcibly removing it may cause its mouth to be stucked on skin, making the wound septic. The proper method would be to sprinkle some salts; apply vinegar, alcohol or lemon juice onto the leeches’ body for them to come off by itself. Other ways would be to apply a dried residue of bath soap onto legs, squeeze tobacco leaves in between toes or spray some insect repellent onto the shoes.

Undettered, we made another visit to Green Ridge the next day. This time, we were all well-prepared by wearing track suit and sport shoes, applying some balms onto our feet to prevent leeches.

Since we did not manage to find further pathway during our last journey, we decided to enter the jungle through other way. We climbed up the huge drain which led us to a closer view of the “Green Ridge” signboard. Then, we found a flat ground with a monument after the drain. The monument commemorated those killed in the Battle of Kampar and it was in its process of completion.

The Battle lasted for four days during 30 Dec 1941 until 2 Jan 1942 which 3000 British soldiers defeated 6000 Japanese soldiers. The site had became the first and only defeat of Japanese army in its Malayan campaign. It is preserved as war memorial park in present time.

We were delighted to discover the hidden staircases nearby the memorial park. We missed them earlier as they were covered by bushes. By following the staircases, we entered the jungle. However, the soils looked different from previous land, they seemed to be more loosened and most of the surfaces were covered by dry leaves. Stepping on those soils, it made me feel scary of any possibility of falling into traps.

Along our journey, we could see some trees were being tied by white clothes. It had shown the sign of human presence in this jungle. However, we did not manage to find some forts or tunnels as we expected to be left in the battle. We were only able to approach some trenches and a well. Among which, we had once mistaken a large trenches as a river that had been dry up. It was actually used by the soldiers to hide themselves and defend from their enemy.

Moreover, the well was believed to supply water to the soldiers during the battle time. However, when we looked into the well, we could see there was no water inside.

According to some superstition, ones should throw a stone into the well before looking into it. It is to make sure the inverted image of people in water will be dispersed by the stone so that the spirit beneath could not see the people’s image clearly.

There are some other superstitions while walking in the jungle such as forbidding the party to curse anyone, or superstition has it, they will come true or one should not cry to avoide disturbing the spirits. Nicknames for wild animals should also be used, for example, Maybank for tiger as it is believed that calling their names would result in a real attack.

Those superstitions sound quite ridiculous and we are often reminded by the older generations to bear them in mind while walking in jungle.

From what I had learned in this journey, I think it is better to have a local guide to lead us to Green Ridge, to avoid the dilemma of having to choose the different pathways when they diverge, but the unknown is an adventurous experience.

Battle of Kampar site was believed to have more historical remains other than just trenches and well. It is a significant historical site where we could recall the hardship of defending our country from the Japanese occupation. We could also experience the excitement from the adventure. It is certainly worth to visit!