How to Hike Gunung Stong

We had an absolute blast spending a weekend on the highest mountain in Kelantan, Malaysia! However, pretty much all of the extremely minute information we were able to find online before hand was outdated and incorrect, so let me hit ya with some details. Gunung Stong is pretty accessible from Kota Bharu if you have a car for a 2 hour drive, or there is rumor of a four ringgit train--but again, the only trains we could find were more expensive online and few and far between. We opted for car, and by routing to the resort at the mountains feet, found it easily. The app Waze generally works more reliably here than Google Maps if you rent a car and go yourself!

Once there, however, we found out that you can only access the mountain if you have a guide for safety reasons (as of March 2017 if you're reading this sometime in the distant future). Honestly, our guide ended up making our trip: I got food poisoning halfway up the insanely steep trek up the mountain (travel tip: don't trust street curry chicken feet) and our guide saved my life then (being patient as I slowly died, helping me carry my things) and again and again when we hit the slippery portions of our waterfall treks. He also fed us. So guide = actually a good thing sometimes.

But anyway, you must have a guide and you have to have said guide booked in advance. So...hit up our guide (Tiger Man) or his company via What's App, or check out the website or Facebook below to get in contact with a guide ahead of time! Tours apparently fill up pretty quickly.

Serendipitously, as a travel friend would say, after sitting with the park's employee for over thirty minutes trying to figure out how to get out of our predicament, we decided to grab lunch in town (AVOID CURRY CHICKEN FEET) and ran into a teacher at one of my friend's schools! This teacher and his friends were headed up the mountain with the guide they booked (in advance) in just a few minutes, so we were able to tag along. I would recommend going in a small group if you can (see those details below) since the trek really is strenuous, steep and a little dangerous so it's nice to have any help you can get, and be able to stick close to your friends.

The hike up was through rivers, fields, bamboo forests and lengths of new vertical hills where you pull ropes up, but was only 1.5 kilometers in actually distance (just straight up). It took us over 2 hours, but that was my bad.

Once up, camping will be another 5RM each ($1), for a great spot! We strung up our hammocks and were extremely comfortable (but for the love of God pack a blanket, it's chilly up that high!).

The campsite is right by the main lookout point--and it's breathtaking. It reminded me of the view from the top of Table Rock in SC, but also on the top of the tallest waterfall in SE Asia! We read from a fellow blogger that this view is actually better than the view from the summit, and I could believe it. To hike to the summit you need an additional 8 hours, so we were not able to; you would need a 3 day 2 night tour to get to the top.

Also only a minute or two walk from the camp site is another large waterfall that you can swim in. Remember you are still in Kelantan, Malaysia... no bikinis.

This was another great benefit of having a guide: he pulled us up via a rope to slide down the waterfall relatively safety!

(You can see people sliding in the background! Check my insta for our slide video's and my friend's hilarious commentary). Being so close to the lookout point was great for seeing both the sunset and sunrise the next morning, with a nice night of sleep in between and chilling by the fire at night!

The sunrise was magical: being up so high that the sun peeked out over a layer of clouds you'd usually only see from an airplane.

We were able to go on another strenuous, awesome hike in the morning: climbing and jumping barefoot over miles of river rocks to get to even more beautiful waterfalls! This weekend was GoPro heaven.

The trip down was much quicker: only about an hour, even counting leech removal time :P It was an absolute blast! The guide only charged us 50RM each, the equivalent of 10USD-- and he was probably the coolest person we have ever met. Send a message his way, check out the company's facebook or book however you like, just don't show up without a guide!

Man Tiger: 014-5119946 Company's Facebook Page: Persatuan Malim Gunung Kelantan

Website: http://gunungstongguide.blogspot.com