Con’t..
Day 5 : Was awakened by ‘orang bang’ from the nearby mosque. Felt damn guilty ’cause there I was lying inside the tent when I should be out there praying. And for the first time since the start of OT, I felt like I was back in civilisation. I felt a little hardworking so I went to the rinse off the mud from my shoes. Saw ST and XY writing in their journals which inspired me to do the same. Wrote in my journal, unpitched the tents and had ‘buffet’ breakfast while watching soccer match. Had a reflective ‘talk’ by Ms Teoh before boarding the bus to our hotel.
The bus driver drove awfully slow. Such a huge contrast with the 4WD. Stopped by a hot spring which stank of rotten eggs ’cause the people who went there before us boiled eggs and left the egg shells lying around. Had lunch at a Chinese-dominated part of Malaysia and had ‘trouble’ looking for Halal food again. Followed Arepex to some Malay stall. LF and PO accompanied us. Throughout the whole meal they were all suan-ing me on how non-Malay I am bla bla. Slow bus ride again. Stopped by a strawberry farm on Cameron Highlands. I had wanted to buy some strawberries home but it will get squashed in my bag so I decided not to. Anyway the strawberries were not sweet at all. In fact they were sour eww.
Finally reached our hotel! Checked into the hotel room with JN and we started washing all our stuff – insulation mats, clothes, shoes, bags, everything. And because our room was pretty small, we had no choice but to hang the clothes in the cupboard and lay the insulation mat on the floor. My my, our room stank of camp. Had my first bath in woah 4 days! NICE! Met up with everyone else and went to Ipoh Parade for dinner. Here we split up for dinner. Went to Marrybrown! Shared 2 meals with JN. So I got half of my meal and half of hers. Walked around a little. Bought ice-cream with JN and ST and then we went shopping at Carrefour for happy food! JN and I bought Cheezels and a small bottle of drink for that night and fake Loacker and mineral water for the next morning. Went back to the hotel after dinner thinking that we will be having another talk by the teachers but thankfully, we did not. Had a ‘party’ at 217 ie. ST & YY’s room. Played Bridge and Taiti. Went to 211 ie. family room to ‘pick up’ JN and went back to our room. Our room was freezing cold! Damn the air-con that does not have a temperature regulator. Opened our windows, hoping that it will not be too cold at night but no, it did not work.
Day 6 : Alarm rang at 5pm. We were supposed to wake up earlier to pack all our stuff into our backpacks. Snoozed the alarm 3 times after which it stopped ringing and we only woke up at 6am when we were supposed to report at 630am for breakfast. JN walked over to BW & WT’s room and found out that they were almost ready so we chiong-ed and packed everything into our backpacks in a record time of 20mins. And mind you, I emptied my whole backpack and everything was all over the room. So what took us so many days to finish packing our backpacks before OT when we could just do it in 20mins? Met the rest at the lobby and found out that the family room girls just woke up. Walked around to look for breakfast and not surprisingly, we could not find a Halal stall. So they ended up eating some kind of noodles at a Chinese coffeeshop while I drank hot Milo (again). Went back to the hotel, used the toilet for the last time and boarded the bus.
Adventure Caving was umm I do not know how to describe. It was pretty interesting at the start where the guide showed us how the natural grooves in the cave walls resemble people, animals and things. Later on, it got quite fun! We had to slide down this slope, drop into a hole, crawl low, ’swam’ and stuff. Saw crystals! And pretty marble! At one point of time, to prove his emphasize on why you should bring a torchlight for caving, the guide made all of us switch off our torchlights and my my I felt like a blind man! Waved my hands across my face and I could not see them! I was pretty disappointed when we walked out of the cave ’cause it ended so soon.
Had buffet lunch and then we took a lorry to the Whitewater Rafting place. ‘Played’ Nintendo! Whitewater Rafting was WOAHH! I was in Raft 5 with ST, YO, TB and KA. Before we started rafting, we had to body raft down the river ALONE! I was like OH MUMMY SAVE ME! I ended up being the last to go so I went with the guide down. Thank God. Raft 5 got to be the most jinxed raft! We kept getting stuck between boulders on the rapids. Just when you thought that you will get the thrill of riding down the rapids you realize that you are not moving ’cause your raft is stuck. We had a ‘jump-off-the-raft-and-climb-back-in’ drill, ‘capsize’ drill and BOM BOM drill. Our raft damn imba. Once we got stuck between a boulder and the rapid and was forced to climb out of the raft and stood on the boulder while our guide tried to free the raft. Once the raft got free, the force of the rapid pushed it downstream. So we were left stranded (literally) on the boulder and our guide and raft was swept downstream. In the end we had to body raft down stream towards our guide. GG! That was the end of my life!! I crossed 2 rapids and got slammed on my butt and back 3 times. Thankfully, another raft managed to rescue and pull me up onto their raft. They sent me back to my raft and we continued hitting rapids – unsuccessfully. At the end of the whole thing, Raft 5 people plus YY, SH, HH walked upstream, formed a chain and body rafted downstream. It was fun but I kept going underwater and swallowed quite a lot of water. Scary yet fun! Took the lorry back to the caving site where we had our second and final bath during the camp.
Boarded the bus back to Ipoh Parade. Had to take turns to keep watch over our backpacks. WATCHED NARNIA at just RM7! Sneaked in waffles! After that we went to Carrefour to finish all our Ringgit. I only had RM13 left so I spent them on gummies, cookies and biscuits. Went outside the shopping centre during change of shift. Mr Seet told us stories. Pretty nice and interesting stories about ODAC, OT etc. Ms Ng and Ms Teoh joined us later. Oh my, Ms Ng and MS is so alike. It must be the IJ TP thing!
Day 6 / Day 7 : Boarded the night bus back to Singapore. Sat with JN. The bus was freezing cold. Despite wearing my windbreaker and blanket I was still shivering. Slept through the 2 stops – one for toilet break and another for supper. No one woke me up =( Had wanted to stop and buy waffles during the supper stop. Cleared the customs and reached Mustafa Centre where I hitched a ride on JN’s dad’s car home.
That’s the end of OT. I still can’t help thinking about the lost pictures but no use crying over spilled milk =(
OT was A-W-E-S-O-M-E! Got to know the 25ths better and bonded with them. I hope we have gotten more bonded after OT =) Don’t mind going through it again!!
