Betong - 7th March

Again, due to my visa problem, I need to be out of Malaysia. I will take it as a blessing, as it gives me chances to travel overseas, albeit only a short journey.

This time, we decided to travel to Betong, Thailand. It is near to CK's hometown, around 1.5 hour driving, and since his mom wants to go back hometown, I would say this place is perfect to kill two birds with a stone.

We started our journey on Friday night, arriving Lenggong at midnight. CK and MIL did the thorough cleaning while I took care of baby in the car (to avoid the dusts). Baby was doing fine through the 3.5 hours journey.

The next day, after breakfast, we kissed baby goodbye and left her with MIL, joined CK's friend, Jun, and started the trip to Betong.

You can drive your car to Betong, however, there are things to be prepared, especially a copy of car registration to be endorsed in the police station before reaching the border of Malaysia, otherwise, once you reached the border, you will need to pay for the endorsement by the police station there.

Clearance from Malaysia immigration was easy, however, we wasted our time in Thailand side. As per usual, before granted entrance to a country, we will need to fill in the registration form. However, it's quite different for this immigration.

You are not allowed to fill in the form yourself, you will need to obtain the form and have it filled in by the information counter, and of course, needs payment for that. RM2/person. *Illegal? Legal? Scratch my head* The counter only managed by 2 ladies, hence we wasted our time queueing there and another at the immigration counter (also managed by 2 people).

Once done with this, we still needed to register our car in the Thai border, and paid RM3 for it.

We cleared everything and reached the Betong town by around 12.30 noon (Thailand time). To be the truth, Betong is known as prostitutes town by Msian, therefore, GALS, refrain to go alone. So you will see lots and lots of saloons, beauty centers, massage centers, beauty parlors, etc with gals waiting in front of the doors. On some, there are pictures of gals displayed for you-know-what.

Since it's noon, and we had no idea what to do, we went for lunch. We drove and found a parking, and simply walked to a restaurant, hence I do not remember the name of it.

Our lunch, squid and prawn salad, sweet and sour fish, tom yam goong, and fried kailan with salted pork.


And this only costed us RM55. Aduiiiii..., why Msia food are so expensive??? The food are good, and I really cannot understand, why the Thais always have a ready stock of fresh seafood even though they are living in mountain area. And most important, it's cheap!

After lunch, we decided to check out the Communist Cave, but with the language barrier by the Thais, we ended up in some mountain area which is like so far apart from our original destination. We reached Julapong (和平村) after 30 mins driving into some mountainous area, only to find out that we went to the wrong location, and another 30 mins to reach back Betong main town.

Another round of direction asking, and we found the right person who can speak fluent Cantonese, and with his direction, we found the Piyamit Tunnel after another 20 mins driving.

Before reaching Piyamit Tunnel, we stumbled upon hot spring area, and we did stop by and relax while dipping our legs into the hot spring pond. The place is very beautiful and good for egg dipping!


I saw this lady who kept on shaking on the tray she had there, and wondering what does she sell?


It turned out to be ice lolipop, and I bought one to try, costed me 3 baht only. (RM0.30)



After dilly dallying in the hot spring, we continued our journey again to the ultimate destination, Piyamit Tunnel!


We have reached our destination and was quite amazed with the scenery presented! We thought we were in the wrong way, but after confirmation, it IS the Tunnel!


Well.., it certainly does not look like tunnel outside, but obviously, the Thais understand the value of tourism and in order to attract more tourists, they built and decorate it grandly.

They built restaurant, souvernir shops, gardens, and worship place. The entrance of the tunnel looks like this.


This is written on the wall:
"The Piyamit Tunnel is the Malaya Communist's base built for bombshells and storing food supplies. The Battlefield bases are located on the mountain top in the midst of the deep forests which separates the boundaries of Thailand and Malaysia covered the area of Yala Provinces.
The Piyamit Tunnel was built in 1977 with the length of 1 km. And 5-6 feet wide it took three months for excavation of 50 hard manships and there are 9 entrance exit paths"

Sounds impressive, well, now let's go and explore the tunnel!

First of all, we had to climb the stairs all the way up to the hill, which was quite tiring. Once we reached halfway, we spotted the Guard Post, which apparently was there for the Communists to keep an eye for any intruders.

Once we reached the top, we were lucky to attend the class conducted by the ex-resident of the tunnel. He claimed that he is the 3rd generation who stayed inside the tunnel for 10 years plus!


Life were hard for them, as they needed to hunt whatever that is available in the forest for food, eg. monkeys, elephants, etc. Elephants! How to eat that?

In order to avoid detection by government, they even invented the SMOKELESS STOVE! How genius!


The people dug a tunnel from the stove uphill, therefore, when they cooked, the smoke will be travelling through the tunnel up above the hill where it blended with the fog. Uhmmmmm......., speechless!

According to the ex-resident, they usually travel by foot, and they even know how to walk from the tunnel to Genting Highland, BY FOOT!

Now.., how does the tunnel look like? The one below is after some refinement and lights. Imagine how did they live under ground and in darkness?


Me in the tunnel. Notice how narrow is the place? Oh yes, the tunnel is quite cool, despite the hot weather outside.


They divided the tunnel into sections like, work room, store room, sleeping place, sitting place, etc.

Despite staying underground, the residents did have full equipment, like radio, video camera, traditional music equipments, books, typewriter, television, walkie talkie, and of course, war equipment like guns, mortar and such. So they did enjoy some modern facilities it seems.

We went back to Lenggong by around 5pm, and the next day we travelled back to KL again.

I would say this is rather a fruitful trip, thanks to the delay of my visa! :D