In order to save me from the torture of typing the details again, here’s the link to a post on the ODAC blog.
I shall now blog about OT. It was WOAH – indescribable. I shall switch to narrative mode now.
June OT [24 May 2008 - 30 May 2008]
Day 1: Met the 25ths in school. Everyone was busy testing the weight of each other’s backpack. My backpack is/was officially the smallest and lightest one. It is a wonder how I had managed to squeeze everything into that tiny bag of mine. Before we boarded the bus to Woodlands Checkpoint, we had a short ‘talk’ by Mr Seet and a did random cheer. Camwhored on the bus (photos salvaged).
Crossed the Singapore and Malaysian Customs. Then we had dinner at City Mall (or was it City Square?). Macdonalds, as usual. So much for our pact not to eat fast food until after OT. We ended up eating fast food every time we could. Helped them to ‘jaga’ their bags while they bought their food. Forgot to tell JN that I do not like Iced Milo but drank it in the end.
Walked to the train station and waited for the train which came 2 hours late. So we went back to City Mall/Square and sat around at some random spot and started playing stupid games. We played a ‘name game’ whereby we were given a topic and one by one we had to name an object etc that is related to the topic in alphabetical order. Once we did on schools and I was super shocked (and disappointed) when during her turn, Hui Hong said Cat High when everyone expected her to say Cedar. Haha.
The train finally came. I shared a double bunk with GT. Slept on the upper bunk. Packed my bag, wrote in my journal, camwhored and tried to sleep. That night was the night I had the least sleep. It does not help that I have motion sickness. I kept waking up. 10pm to 1am was pure no sleep at all. 1am to 3am was sleep for 5mins then wake up for 25mins then sleep for 5mins again and wake up for another 25mins. Only started going into deep sleep after 3am.
Day 2 : Was awakened by noises people made when they walked past my bunk. Woke up, washed up and wrote in my journal again. Then OT Chiefs told us that we could go back to sleep ’cause the train will be arriving later. Slept a while then got off at Gua Musang.
Ironically, we had a little trouble looking for Malay/Halal stalls in Malaysia. PO and AD accompanied the 3 Malays to eat at this random stall where we ate plain rice with charcoal-cooked chicken. Ordered hot Milo while the rest ordered iced Milo. People beginning to realise that I do not drink iced Milo. Saw a super cute kitten with sexy blue eyes!
When we were done, we went back to the train station and waited for our bus. Spammed insect repellent. Got on the bus which brought us to the place where we took a 4WD to the Orang Asli kampung. Oh my the 4WD ride was horrible. It was fine initially but after seeing KA, AD and SK getting motion sickness, my motion sickness kicked in. Felt like puking at the last part.
Reached the Orang Asli kampung where we had our first mobile meal and our first nature toilet break. Started the trek up Gunung Chamah! Our goal for that day was to reach Tongkat Ali Campsite. The trek there was quite a quiet one for me. Rather independent and did not need much help from Si Han or anyone else except during the crossing of the huge logs.
Reached Tongkat Ali Campsite before sun down and started Campcraft. Unfortunately it rained halfway. I was cooking Maggi Mee under a poncho/groundsheet shelter with SK, HH, LH, XY. Mixed the Curry powder and Chicken powder together. Who cares?! Haha. The maggi was nice! Because we were busy serving every one else, we ate last and by that time, there was not much soup left and the noodles were over-’kembang’.
After eating we went to wash the mess tins and indian pot in the stream. WOAH the stream was super nice. Cool, clean, clear water. Have I mentioned that it was cool? Super cold! Mess tins were still very oily. No soap, what to do. Changed into dry clothes, rinsed my OT shirt in the stream (No point washing. The next morning it was still as wet and as dirty as it was before.) and attempted to dry it by the fire built by the guides.
First night in the 4-men tent with ST, SK and LH. Crazy Cedar NP people who went on a Panty Party that night. Shall spare you from the details. And spare them from the embarrassment. That night was not as bad as the first night on the train but not that great either. I was freezing cold! Opened up my sleeping bag halfway through the night only to have SK hogging it.
Day 3 : Woke up in the morning feeling wet and cold. Helped to cook Milo for breakfast. Had mobile breakfast. Started the 6 false peaks trek up to the summit. Thinking of the 6 false peaks is mentally tiring. So throughout the trek up, I tried not to think about it. The guides ‘cheated’ us by not telling us which peaks we are on and by giving us the wrong numbers when we asked which peak we were on. Helped us not to count the peaks.
Had a break on the supposedly first peak and at some random slope on the endless peak. Saw JN and LF stopping for a break. Was quite scared for JN. Climbed all the way up to the summit. Because I was quite near the back, I did not know that the front few people have already reached the summit until I heard screams and shouts cheering us on.
Reaching the summit was not as spectacular as I had expected it to be. No nice scenery nor view. Just trees and more trees. Started Campcraft and cooking pasta with Campbell soup. TB, KA, WI and XY went to collect water with the guides. It started raining halfway while they were gone and we were all very scared for them when they did not come back soon. Back at the campsite, LF, SK and LH were freezing. Gave them heat packs, dry clothes and jackets to keep them warm.
Our 4-men tent were flooded so the guys 8-men tent had to adopt our backpacks. Dried our tent when it stopped raining. My my you should have seen the amount of water we poured out from the tent. Later on we camwhored at the summit (photos sadly failed to be salvaged). The view at the summit was damn nice! It is a sad thing that the photos were lost =( I feel guilty to those people whose photos were lost. Watched the sunset.
Food Comm bought sparklers for us to play at the summit but the Arepex did not allow us to. When he lighted up 3 sparklers, we knew why he did not allow us to play. The smoke produced by that 3 sparklers was woah so much. Imagine what would have happened if every one of us played with the sparklers then. That night, I slept very soundly ’cause I was warm and cosy in my sleeping bag. Ok that was a lie. Cosy yes, but warm no. It was still very very cold.
Day 4 : Woke up, watched the sunrise, camwhored (sad), took photos with the banner, had light warm-up exercises and started our descent. MUD MUD AND MORE MUD. The initial part of the descent was pure jumping into mud and sliding on mud. Oh yeah and FALLING! SH damn imba! He fell down 3 times consecutively. I have no idea how he did that. He was going on fine then he suddenly fell. He got up and walked a few steps and fell again. He got up AGAIN, walked a few steps AGAIN and fell AGAIN! If he is not IMBAlance then what is he? The Falling Clan was formed, comprising of SH, YO, YY, LH and me (KA is a temporary member). SH being the president ’cause the started the falling chain reaction and me being the vice-president ’cause no one can beat me falling record. I fell down don’t know how many times! Mostly glamorously! Once I skidded and grabbed on to a tree trunk to break my ‘fall’ and broke the tree trunk! Many funny falling moments that kept me entertained! YY best la! She fell down on flat ground!
After taking more than 3 hours descending, we (people at the back) started to choose to believe that we were descending all the way down to the Orang Asli kampung instead of Tongkat Ali Campsite. That was one of the things that kept me going on. JN ‘fainted’ halfway =( Do not really know what had happened ’cause like yesterday, I was all the way behind while she was all the way in front.
Reached Tongkat Ali. Super disappointing =( The rest went to play at the stream while a few of us waited for JN to come back with Mr Seet and the guide. Lemuel made MUA-lo from the instant 3-in-1 packet and nice cool stream water. Spammed JN with gummy, sweets and MUA-lo. Continued our trek back to the Orang Asli kampung. It started raining heavily so we chiong-ed all the way down. The rain slowed us down a little. Had a little trouble towards the end when the rain got quite bad and I kept sliding down. Thankfully SH stopped me from sliding further down by using his foot to stop my foot from sliding. Once I almost slide off a huge log. Thanks to YO and SH, I got back on the ground. Traumatized by huge logs! Chiong-ed back to the kampung. I swear the feeling when we reached the kampung was way greater than reaching the summit.
Took a 4WD back. WOAH DAMN FUN! It was so different from the 4WD to the kampung. Chucked the backpacks to the front and the girls (plus YO) all stood and leaned against the front while the guys played some driving/racing game at the back. Throughout the whole ride, ST was behind me and she put her whole body weight on me. I was crushed between the backpacks and the girls behind me. Whenever the truck made a right turn or drove over a bump, my whole body will start to get into Pain Mode. My ribs and stomach will slam on the backpacks, causing my insides to feel like coming out and my left hip bone will slam against the spare tire on my left causing me to need a hip replacement after the ride. Poor WT needs breasts replacement haha! In the end I concluded that the people at the front (WT, YO and me) need a full body replacement! It ride back was damn fun though. We got the F1 driver who kept speeding up! Roller-coster ride of my life! KH, who was sitting at the passenger seat, claimed that we made R-rated sounds (eg. OHHH, AHHH, AWWW) throughout the whole ride.
Once our truck suddenly stopped and there were 2 men talking to our F1 driver. One of them was wearing the green army pants and had something slung behind his back which we thought was a gun. Ended up that it was a fishing rod. Scared us sia! Thought that we were hijacked or something. Haha.
Reached Betis where we started Campcraft, washed up and bought dinner from a foodstall. Sat together with the Truck 1 people (ie. back half people plus TB and ST) and talked alot while waiting for our food which comes super late. KA told us the story of the 4 people who went down to collect water while it was raining at the summit. The falling clan shared our falling moments with the rest. And we just talked and talked. Slept super well that night. Best sleep throughout the whole camp.
Ok I shall stop here for today. It’s 11:49PM! And I am still awake! How surprising. Why is it that I don’t receive any relays when I stay awake, but when I sleep early I wake up finding my inbox full of relays and urgent relays?
