My Very First Canopy Walk At FRIM (Part 2)

In my last post, I mentioned about my fear of heights. I was surprised to receive many comments from bloggers saying they suffer from this fear too. I wondered how this fear came about.

I am sure that when we were first born, we were not afraid of anything! As a baby, we were not afraid of climbing out of the cradle. We were not afraid of falling down because we had not experienced pain from falling. Try putting a baby at the rooftop and I am sure the baby will be enjoying himself while we adults suffer from panic attacks!

So it seems that this fear of heights or acrophobia is a learned reaction. Somewhere along the way, we may have experienced pain from falling, or we had adults putting this fear in us by constantly drumming into us not to climb the stairs or out the window.

One way to cure acrophobia is to go for hypnosis. This method will help us trace back to our childhood and find the cause of our phobia. I thought this was time consuming and probably costly as I may need to engage a hypnotherapist.

Another way is to practise behaviour therapy. One kind of behaviour therapy is to gradually exposing yourself to your fear. You may start with climbing up a short ladder, then progress to looking out the window of a tall building, to climbing up the rooftop and so on.

Another kind is to immediately expose yourself to your most fearful situation without gradual steps.

I decided to go for the latter. By going canopy walking at FRIM.

I know, I know. It's just walking on a suspended bridge. Thousands have probably walked on it without any unfortunate incident. How dangerous can it be?

Well, those who do not suffer from acrophobia will never understand someone with acrophobia. I tell you, walking that suspended bridge is like risking my life!

Confucius once said "A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step". And so with much hesitancy, I placed my right foot forward.



And I just walked without looking down. The bridge was pretty sturdy, I thought. I walked with the help of the ropes by the sides.

And then I reached the middle part of the bridge. I did not know why but I decided to look down. Oh my God! My heart almost popped out! I was very high up, as I could see the top of the trees below me. Falling down below would spell instant death!

My legs were turning a little rubbery like and I felt slightly dizzy.

Even then, I was thinking, should I take some photos here? I found myself saying, "Are you mad? You can't even stand steadily with both hands holding onto the ropes, you want to let go of the ropes to take some God damned photos?"

And so I steadied myself and walked on. I could see a wooden platform at the end of the bridge. I made myself walked a little faster to reach it. When I finally stepped onto the platform, I heaved a sigh of relief.

I looked back at the bridge I just walked, bent down and took this photo.



I rested for a while at this platform. I realised I did not dare go too near the edge of the platform as standing near the edge made me feel dizzy again. I was so glad there was no one near me at that time as the platform could only take the maximum load of 4 persons!



I have to say the scenery around me was quite beautiful. But I did not take any photos as I was more interested in crossing the next bridge.

I proceeded to step onto the second suspended bridge. This time, I felt braver and calmer. When I reached the middle, I decided to stand there and enjoy the view. It was great! But I still could not bring myself to take any photos!

Then I reached the second platform which was slightly bigger than the first one. No wonder it could take up to 8 persons!



On top of this platform, I saw some breathtaking views and could not help taking some photos.







And then I was off again onto another suspension bridge and another platform. I would not say that my fear of heights had completely disappeared, but it had certainly reduced to a level that I felt was manageable.



Finally I reached the end of the canopy walkway, after walking all 150 metres of it! Yes, I made it!! It was a good feeling indeed!





Now that I have conquered the canopy walkway at FRIM, what's next?

Well, I am thinking about going for the longest canopy walkway in the world! Do you know where that is? Believe it or not, it's right here in Malaysia, in one of the oldest rainforests in the state of Pahang. Yes, it's none other than Taman Negara National Park!

The canopy walkway at Taman Negara is 500 metres long, which is more than 3 times the length of the one I've just walked in FRIM. And it's also higher, at 40 metres above ground as compared to FRIM's 30 metres.

Anyone interested to join me?

FIRST COMMENTER