Yeah....its HOT, naturally!

Bentong Hot Spring may not be as popular as the other better known & more commercially 'hyped' hot spring spots in Malaysia. And I am truly thankful for that.

The place obviously has very much less crowd (infact it is almost deserted if you were to visit it on any of the working days... except for a few tired and very friendly lorry drivers - they are very chatty and more than eager to share their driving experiences with me!) compared to the others of its kind.

The place is very serene and green. Very lush, very green ... very 'Eden' indeed. All sorts of trees of those rainforest types could be seen around this place. And the best thing I like about this hot spring pool is that the bottom part of the pool is not covered by cement! So, you could actually step on to the original ground (can be a bit 'yucky' actually....those slimey and greenish weeds

and algae).

There are actually 2 separate pools located at this spot. The main one, which is the bigger one, looks like a normal giant swimming pool from the outside. Because of its size, you can really enjoy swimming in it. But children, elderly or anyone who doesnt swim well should be more cautious. Some parts of the pool are quite deep and can be dangerous for those group of people I had mentioned earlier. Oh yeah... and those 'slimey greeny thingy' at the bottom of the pool. Hmmm... I'm alright with it because I didnt allow my feet to touch the ground:)

And the other one, which is smaller in size, is located just beside the main pool. It looks more like a pond rather than a proper hot-spring pool. It is also surrounded by many matured, green and very shady trees. And there are no 'brick' & cement walls surrounding this small pool (except for the part where it shares a 'wall' with the bigger one). It is also 'hotter'. It sure is a very pleasant natural way of shedding unwanted fat off my waist. But then, it is a bit hot that I could not really stay 'inside' the pool more than 15 minutes at a time. Infact, this pond is actually the main source of the hot-spring water in the main pool. Nevertheless, I prefer this one better than the main pool.

Across the road, there is a hanging bridge crossing over a small stream... typical scene in small villages in the Malay Archipelago region. The stream is actually a good way of 'cooling' yourself after a nice 'hot-dip' in the pool. And I did exactly that. The water from the stream is cooling enough to make me wanted to jump back into the hot-spring pool! Yeah... you guessed it right:) For the whole day, I ended up making alternating rounds of dipping in the main pool, followed by the hot-pond and then off to the stream! And what a day it was:)

Sad to say, as with many other 'free-public-recreational' areas (yeah... its FREE! - no entrance charges) in and around Malaysia... the facilities found at this place are in a very, very sorry state. Not only the changing rooms/toilets are dirty & unkempt, they are quite scary too. The buildings are (there are 2 separate buildings meant for the purpose) all surrounded by tall bushes. Errr... my worst nightmare would be to step into a toilet cubicle to do my thing and found some slithery 'friend' crawling in to say 'Hi-sssss' to me! Brrrrrrr....

But then again, I did truly enjoy spending my day at this hot-spring pool. And I definitely would go back there again soon. I love driving to this place. It is only 45 minutes drive frm KL. And there are only 2 tolls along the way...which eventually cost me only about RM10 for one-way.

And you know what.... on the way home, I took the old Bentong-KL road all the way back to the city! It was FUN-tastic! Those century-old trees lining on both sides of the road. Those monkeys that went berserk every time they saw a vehicle approaching (there were lots and lots of them playing by the road-side). Those streams flowing down below. And most importatly.... try to do this.... switch off the radio....switch off the aircond...wind down the windows... and LISTEN.