Trans Murud 0404 (Pa'debpur Shelter to Pa'lungan

With Hiking Passion Adventure group

Leech Bite Counts: ZERO! 🤣🤣
Trail Conditions: Dry for about 5 to 6km, but upon entering pristine forest trail again, kinda slippery. After that, swampy, muddy, leech-infested trail, all over again

Final Day! Damn. Kinda sad that it had to end.
Anyway, so, we started back on the old logging road, for about an hour. Basically, Nordic walking. Passed by a junction that leads to the old shelter, Long Repun, that we thought originally we'll be staying the night before in. Kinda tweaked my curiosity in seeing how dilapidated it is now. But, remembering that it'll take an extra 2km one-way, once you take that junction, nah... Forget it.
We came to the end of the logging road, after a few mildly steep ascents, facing a wall of trees, literally. Noticed that there's a trail leading into the pristine forest, and remembered, dang! Based on our itinerary, here's where a very steep, 80° to 85° climb/ascents, starts. Dang! This gonna be fun, I was thinking😅🤣
At the same time, in the back of my mind, I was wondering. Why in hell you have a logging road, that ends so abruptly? Why don't you just go on ahead and build a tunnel, or cut through the mountains, like you always do? Well, as we reached the top of the ascent, to an unnamed summit, we soon found out why. Apparently, these lands we've been hiking, belongs to the Kelabits (Kelabits Highland). And this particular unnamed summit, is their ancestral burial ground. So what the Kelabits did was to fight tooth and nails to not have their lands, especially their ancestral burial ground, be encroached by greedy-politician's-backed, so-called "development". So thus, the logging road, which was intended to be turned into a highway, stops abruptly into nowhere. And also, the forest trail we're walking on, all along the side of it is burial grounds, which looks like atypical mounds that you'd see on any trails. Kinda give me the chills, for a bit. The Kelabits of the olden days, has a very interesting burial practice. Instead of burning/burying, or whatever we've been doing nowadays, they would hang their dead loved ones on a tree, to have all their bodily fluids slowly drained. And then, what they do is to place the body into an urn, into a crouching position, with holes at the bottom, like how'd you see a regular planting pots. They then would bury the urns, into the top of any mountains designated as a burial ground, in which case, where we're currently hiking on. They would also place all the deceased's jewellery, ornaments, and valuables, befitting the deceased's status in their community, into the same urn. This burial practice was considered so unique, they were awarded a UNESCO Heritage Site's recognition. Sadly, none of these urns, nor their reported broken pieces, were seen while we were there. Neither does our guide, knew what happened to all those pieces of history. Nonetheless, it gave me a deep and profound appreciation, to where I've been hiking all these while. Every piece of dirt we're on, used/could've been a burial ground, one time or the other. We would've no idea. It's not just a piece of landscape, that just materializes, over time. We've been walking on the same paths as these people did, in the ancient times, and there's no way for us to know it.
Well, enough ranting. So, the further i trudge along, I came to another long-ass swampy sections, and numerous false peaks. When you thought you've hit dry lands, and no more swampy trail, and BOOM! Another one. And another, and another😭. At one point, I got slightly demotivated, and bored, I stopped, light up a kretek, peed, and fired-up a firecracker! Sometimes, you just gotta find your way of having fun, and push, to continue. But of course, i was ready. Not bothered with wasting my energy on trying to avoid the inevitable, I would just go through the muddy trails. But of course, at the same time, doing my bloody best in ensuring that no leeches will ever be able to suck on our blood🤣. I must've gone through my whole two 150ml spray bottles, filled with undiluted Dettol, the past 4 days, battling these leeches. Yes. They're that many.
Of course, the trail is so pristine. Everywhere is slippery. But, at the same time, I can't wait to finally reach an area where our itinerary mentioned that we need to be extra careful of. A clear-water swamp, with above-your-head high tall grasses. Not forgetting, leeches, snakes and whatever else lives in abundance, in this 30 meters-wide swamp. There is, however, a trail of submerged wooden planks, along with row of sticks, to help you to not getting yourself fallen in to the swamp's waist-deep waters, and to cross, safely to the other side. When I finally reached it, being the idiot I was, of course I needed to test, how deep the swamp goes. So I went back, to right in the middle of the swamp, where I think it's the deepest. Yup, waist-deep, at the deepest part. There's pictures of it, proving my experiment 😅🤣🤣🤣.
Once clearing the swamp, the last mild ascents, before reaching Pa'lungan village. Here, it's a bit hard to navigate, since it's open, plantation area. Hard to see for any marked trees and such, so, be careful.
And of course, finally, I've reached the end of this trans trip, Pu'un Homestay, Pa'lungan.

Here is my personal itinerary for Day 04, the final day of Trans Murud;

08:14 Hiking Commences
09:21 Logging road ends
10:03 Kelabits Ancestral Burial Grounds 1313m
11:06 Swampy Section
12:15 False Peak
12:57 Snakes, Leeches and whatever-else Infested Clear-Water, Waist-Deep Swamp
13:07 Check-in @ Pu'un Homestay, Pa'lungan