Sunday, June 10, 2007

alright its 5pm now and im back to blog again, twice in a day! which therefore means i have not started on any revision yet. shit! my mahjong table shall make its appearance soon! for now, i should just update about my june expedition before i embark on my intensive mugging next week. no photos now cause i've not received any. next time!

day1
met up with odac west at je platform early in the morning before we took the train to aj! i was late la and made the rest miss a couple of trains. sorry!): everyone was still in a daze and i've not switched my mode to the yes-im-gg-on-expedition mode, so i was stoning the whole way. luckily nigel played stupid games with us during the later part of the train journey, which made us slightly awake. haha!

so we started running into aj because we were late. thank goodness our bagpack was already in the store. everyone was doing their final packing and after saying all the goodbyes to those who arent going, 24th com, meiying, jingxin, mrchin, mrong, mrlarrylee and msng, together with the local guides went up the bus and off we went to the 2nd link! *zzzzzzzoooooommmmmmmmmm!*

it was about 8h coach journey to the base camp, with toilet breaks in between. everyone was getting more hyper each time after a break. hahaha guess its because we have finally relieve ourselves after a controlling our bladder for hours. oh i was sitting with diana the whole trip. it was nice talking to her. it seems like im talking to jessica la, both of them gives me a similar feeling. maybe thats why we can talk alot too. (:

surprisingly, diana gets motion sickness easier than me, so we didnt manage to talk the whole way la. i let her rest while i turn around and went crazy with the rest behind.

we were sitting near the front and meiying, jingxin were sitting beside us, while huiwen yihang yunlin were at the back of the bus. odacC commenced once in a while and the whole bus was like in the surround sound system la. front and back also got people singing. damn fun! (:(: though most of the time we were singing different songs and only sang in tune when we realised it. hahaha.

stopped over at a small town where we had half an hour walking around, bought a coconut to drink, oh mrlee bought a hockey stick back! hahaha he's so cute with his new bought toy, like little boy got new toy to play la. dunno how to describe but he's still as funny as pae! missed his lessons la... ):

anyway we reached the base camp after night fall. everyone got even more excited after the coach drove past trees after trees and there were no other lights around other than the bus light and moonlight. quite spooky if you were to think about it then.

unloaded our equipment from the bus and the guides brief-ed us on our next activity which is the ghost-buster night walk. they told us some spooky sightings by some people years ago before we took our headlights and went off in groups. 2 weakest headlights per group.

oh my group consisted of zhiyan yunlin veron huiwen keet nigel rongjie yunrui jeremy l.weije n.weijie, so much for a fun group la! (: and i was supposed to lead the group through the walk because mine was one of the weakest headlights. we had to follow the light sticks that the guides has placed on the trees, each about 10-20m apart. this is so much like selection camp la! but that time was a solo walk.

anyway the group was cooperative and nice the whole way, cause we kept talking to calm those who were more tensed up, and they didnt really grumbled at me when i took them on the worst routes like ramming and getting stuck in the bushes and stopping in middle of nowhere, causing some of them to tio leech bites. aahhhhhhh! the whole walk was fun la, didnt see anything extraordinary, other than my first encounter with the leeches which caused the upper part of my sock to be soaked in blood. haha.

then it was a 5min solo walk back to the basecamp. no headlights, no nothing, just you yourself and the moonlight in the sky. on a good note, the moonlight was bright enough to shine the road infront of me. it seemed quite fast before solo walk ended at the basecamp, sat around there while we waited for the rest to come. diana told me that we did walk past a house and graveyard. i didnt even notice la! guess im too indulged in my thinking le. hahaha.

after all the walks, we were taught how to make our own bed, somewhat similar to a hammock because its tied onto the spars using square lash. and hey! my bed is able to support my weight la!! zai right? hahaha. did the final packing for the land ex and lights out!

day2
woke up at 6 and we set off for the base of berembung after breakfast. we had lunch before we started on our ascend. omg la, that was the first time i felt like im gorging myself with food after food because our breakfast and lunch is only less than 3h apart?!

and so we started our trek up! actually there's nothing much to mention about the trek cause its well, just treking up lor. sang songs and did cheers to motivate one another to move on, and to distract each other from thinking that we are actually super tired. felt more refreshed every time we had to walk across the rivers cause the water is super cold and it really wakes us up. cool~

we made it to the plunge pool area of the first waterfall where we took photos and top up our water supply. walao the water is so damn sweeeeeeeet la. and the view of the whole waterfall was B-E-A-U-tiful can. rested for awhile before we continue hiking up.

hiked for about 4h+ before we reached campY, which was already after the top of the waterfall. night was already falling. guess everyone was going crazy after a whole day's trek, thus we started to lose the discipline and everything seemed chaotic? hahaha dunno la, i was one of them also. pitched up the tents for the night and we washed ourselves at the nearby river. the water was freeeeeeeeeezing cold!

bee hoon + soup for dinner. hahaha yes though it doesnt really sound very appealing but it doesnt tastes that bad lor. quite edible too(: all thanks to the food com for the dinner and the meals for the rest of the days! even though it isnt the best of the best but i think we can all die if not for them preparing the food for us la.

reflections and debriefed. repacked the bag for day2 since we are able to share the bagpack within the group. after which, lights out. oh! we had alot of juicy juicy conversations in the tent too, which kept us awake for about an hour before we decided to tune out. hahaha.

day3
6am waking time. to my horrors, i felt like shitting badly. not only me but alot of the others as well. i guess its because odacians are just full of shit. hahaha! went up further into the forest with zhiyan keet to shit. it was quite an experience for me, shitting in the open, and its really super open can. used the toilet paper that we brought to indicate that its shit there - dont step!

it was the last flight up to the peak of the first mountain. well, it was quite disappointing because there wasnt anything much to see at the top, other than the broken signs. unlike belumut which has at least a big stone for us to climb. berembung has nothing up there! just some broken signs and trees. so we descended and started the trek up the 2nd mountain, ceremong.

trekking down is always more tough than trekking up, since we are more prone to slips and stuff. whats worse, it started to rain like cats and dogs! the trekking route was even more slippery but we overcomed that too. it was quite a trek because it was raining at this moment then the sun was out at the other, then it was raining again.

then we came to lasir river, where we stayed around there for 2hours, replenished our energy and played in the waters. the small rapids and mini waterfall was nice. we slide down on the rocks with the river flow, damn fun! reviving our second childhood(: while the saddists, namely jingxin and marvin started torturing those water leeches, seeing how those blood flow out. its damn funny to hear how jingxin curses those leeches la. after 2 hours, we started the second part of the trek.

as the evening gets nearer, it started raining heavily again. this time it rained all the way to the night. in between the trek in the heavy rain, we had to cross this river but the flow was super fast and we had to hold on to each other at the opposite side on the rocks while waiting for the rest to catch up. though tired but we were cheering each other on, holding on to each other like if there's any wrong move, a precious life will be just washed down with the flow.

as quoted from nigel during reflections on day4, this is what make us odac, some experiences that other ccas wont understand, something that concerns life and death. hahaha though abit exaggerated la, but yupp i think thats something that make odac so unique(:

we didnt actually stopped at the second peak. according to the guides, we only walked past the peak cause it wasnt a place that can accomodate so many people at a time. *shrugs* i dont really remember la. but we did climb up there somewhere in middle of the trek. hahaha.

some fell sick after reaching campY because of the cold and rain and many stuff. it was a leech-infested night for many as well. helped out with the dinner due to the shortage of manpower, stood outside the shelter and fed the leeches and mozzies. it was pasta + bacon bits for dinner. anything will taste good in the cold cold night la(:

had sentry duties that night too, with zhiyan nigel. it was quite boring during the first half hour but we started to san ba during the second half which made us all wide awake. hahaha! but we still did the routinely check around the parameters every 20mins. oh wells, sentries arent that boring after all!(:

day4
what goes up must come down. it was descending all the way back to the base of the mountain, took us 4hous plus before we spot the existence of civilisation. sheeeeesh. slid down quite a number of times due to the unstable ground and unstable cg of mine. thank goodness there was nigel behind me to motivate me on!(: had several bruises/cuts and leech bites on me after the land expedition but wasnt that much of a concern la.

boarded the bus and we had our lunch at some coffeeshop before we went to the river side and launch off our kayaks. sea expedition was much much better than land expedition, at least we will be on our butts all the way and only the arms are moving. and i had more breath to sing songs la! my partner is nigel! then we kept talking in geog terms about the different parts of the river. actually we have been doing that since land expedition. it was entertaining talking to him the whole way! (:(:

we started at midstream so the flow was still quite fast, didnt really have to use much energy to kayak as well. nigel and i capsized twice cause we were caught in some logs and the flow just overturned us. exciting la! but we were lucky cause the places where nigel and i capsized are always quite shallow la, then its easy to return up to the kayak(: yayness!

beached up at some river bed for the night. pitched up the tents. this river bed is much more leech-infested than campY lor and somehow these leech bites are painful this time round, not forgetting the sandflies. roar! nevertheless, the guides helped us with the dinner, they mass cooked in the local methods, its much like the traditional form of cooking la. quite interesting(: was hoping around station to station with huiwen, to look see and help out with the cooking.

dinner was served at 10 plus or was it even later? anyway we had our reflections by the river, under the starry sky. it was an emo night for all, after ending off such a challenging land expedition and experiencing such a trek on day3. no doubt that everyone was damn tired out already, but we had to hang in there because there's the other half of the river for us to conquer!

among all the days, i felt the day4 night was the best. the place and ambience was nice and comfortable, ignoring the small company we have under our feet. the night sky in malaysia is damn nice, its really stars-infested la. enjoyed gazing at the stars, saw many things that we wont get to see in singapore(: only if i had my company with me who was back in singapore then, it could have been better. oh well, probably we were all looking up at the same moon then(:(:

day5
second half of the river to conquer! arms muscles were still aching like siao and had to kayak in the morning and afternoon sun. sang songs and gossiped to keep us all moving on, kept telling ourselves that we are reaching basecamp soon even though its a pack of lies. guess we just have to live on lies la. dont just lies give us a tinge of hope to move on?

finally after donkey years of kayaking, we finally reached our basecamp. had a mini race back to the base camp after the guides said that we were only 5mins kayaking distance away and we raced against that. started off fast but nigel and i decided to let the others overtake and go slow. hahaha we are the yuhua slackers!(:

washed up the equipments and finally we get to bathe with shampoo and bodywash. super refreshing la! got ready for dinner and for the night market! night market was mainly buying food to eat and munch on.

return to base camp and we sat down for reflections. it was already the last night and everyone had the turn to share the 5days of experience. everyone had their say and everything that we have been doing for the past days just seemed so easy when saying out on the last night.

i think i said something like, we dont have to be bother about our glamness in odac because everyone has already seen all our unglam moments and there's no more xing xiang for us to hold, especially infront of fellow odacians. its the process of making these experiences that forms the strong bong between the batch, what shitting in the forest, peeing in the river, screaming at the sight of the leeches, hanging on to one another with their own lives, singing songs and cheering one another one. guess thats what make odac a big family, everyone can just be themselves(:

shit, i sounded so er xin now to think of it. but i cant remember what else i said that everyone was laughing la. but well, thats the truth anyway. odac is one big family, where we dont even have to bother about our own glamness anymore!(:(:

day6
typical civilised day. did the final packing up and cleaning up of the base camp before setting off. did some shopping at kuantan before we started our journey back to singapore. everyone was catching up on their sleep on the bus. i had mine for a few hours before i spend the rest of the time talking to kat who was behind me. ghimmy, if you're reading this, kat misses you alot la! she keeps talking about you lor. hahaha!

talked and fooled around on the bus. everyone was excited to see the malaysia and especially singapore customs! im more than happy to see the "Starhub" popping back onto my handphone screen, indicating to me that im finally back in singapore!(:(:

there're just so many things in singapore that made me look forward to coming back, though there are times when i hope that time will just stall in malaysia. but nevertheless, it was still the things in singapore that pulled me through this expedition(: because i know i've to make it back for them! hahaha.

june'o7 expedition allowed me to learn new things and to form stronger bonds with everyone. like what all the trekking teachers had said, 24th has a great potential to become one of the strongest and bonded batch in ajodac history! and i believe so(: though we started off by getting ourselves into much unnecessary troubles but we will show the rest that we will shine!! we will shine! XD

24th odac rocks!(:(:(:

7:32 PM