Travelholic: Perlis | Kelam Cave or Gua Kelam

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

Perlis | Kelam Cave or Gua Kelam

Proud of myself

I walked the whole 3.8km of Kelam Cave 2. It is said to be the 2nd longest cave in Peninsular Malaysia.

Background

This is a limestone caves of Nakawan Range and is located within the Mu Forest Reserve. Kelam Cave is estimated to be 100 million years old and is used to be an alluvial tin mining cave back in 1930s, alluvial tin is the purest tin ore. The cave is located at Kaki Bukit village, Perlis. Kelam means dark or darkness, and gua means cave (obviously). There are 3 entrance to Gua Kelam and I took Gua Kelam 2 and came out via Gua Kelam 1 as both caves will meet at a secret garden where there’s a clear pool for you to swim and enjoy a good picnic.

Gua Kelam 1, it is all boardwalk till the secret garden, no steps/climbing at all. Some areas in both caves has stream/river flowing underneath. As for Gua Kelam 2, it is cemented and with proper steps, so worry not. You will also get to see rails for ore trucks as well as paved cemented paths for tin miners back in those days. My biggest concern was on leeches, bats and etc. Errr… Didn’t bump into any. Not sure whether is it because I am lucky or maybe there isn’t one (mungkin ada kot but tak meriah jer and depa dok diam-diam tak kacau orang). And both caves are very very very clean tau.

We were told that some of the scratches or marks were due to the dynamite explosion. I personally finds it interesting interesting. You canview the video HERE on my Instagram.

Other interesting thing was on the so called ‘door’. Apparently at some section on intersection you can see rocks resembling door and when asked, I was told that its function is similar to current told gate, if one company was to go thru another company territory/land, then the tin miner (or their company) is required to pay the ‘toll’ or ‘tax’ to the territory/land owner.

We also learnt that huts with buckets were built and placed near the underground mining tunnel, this is for the ‘guard’ or ‘jaga’ to inform the miners (those covering deeper ground) if there might be a possibility of flood due to heavy rainfall outside (as they have no clue of day and night, nor rain and shine). If there’s water dripping into the bucket means it is raining outside, and if the drip gets faster and/or more, it means heavy downpour that might lead to flood, landslide and etc. Smart kan.