Mount Ledang + Muar River Cruise!

How are you my fellow Malaysians? I hope you are not striving to stay indoors as much as I am right now. I hate being indoors but I don’t have much choice this week as the Air Pollutant Index (API) is advising me to do so. You can also check them out on a hourly basis over here.

Apparently, it is NOT advisable to do any normal outdoor activities like jogging, running or even walking. You don’t want to inhale or breathe in more of these pollutants which could be dangerous to your lungs. So stay indoors and stay safe. Take safety precautions whenever necessary especially for those who are suffering from asthma, the elderly and the young children. Even where I live, the reading is now over 100 and I’m already experiencing some sneezing, coughing and eye irritation symptoms all due to the haze.

Last week, before the haze got worse, we had a 3 day holiday weekend in conjunction with Malaysia Day that falls on 16 September every year. Surprisingly, my girlfriends were in town as well. So we decided to do something unusual than what we normally do. We drove all the way to Mount Ledang or a.k.a Gunung Ledang among us the locals.

To enter, you have to pay RM2.10 per car and RM1.05 per person. It used to be free when I was here during my adolescent age. Now they have a resort, a shopping area and food stalls.

Mount Ledang is one of the most popular hiking destinations in the country. I’ve never tried hiking here but it is definitely on my bucketlist because of everything I’ve heard about it.

Since it was a holiday weekend, the place was bombarded with locals having picnics and enjoying their baths further downstream from the waterfalls.

Well, this place is not only famous for hiking but also snakes. Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any but we did manage to spot one monitor lizard scavenging for food.

The place had been developed so much that they even have a golf club of their own. They do say it’s a private property so we didn’t get to explore much around there. Even though we did drove in a little bit to see what was up there.

Then we headed to Gunung Ledang Johor National Park. The main entrance to the park, which is also known as Taman Hutan Lagenda is also a great place to less strenuous activities such as a picnic or camping trip by the river.

We loved how empty the road was and we actually stopped for some silly pictures. Watch out for more pictures and videos on my Instagram later this week.

They even organized a run over there a day before we got there like that’s how popular this place is.

So after being denied into the park because they were closed to haze that day, we decided to head to Muar since it’s only 30km away.

After lunch, we headed to the Muar River Cruise. Do not compare this cruise to any luxurious cruise that you could think of. It’s called a river cruise for a reason but it was fun since it was our first time.