Silence!

xxx typed*: mind (blog)

(Monday, 19 November 2007-)
+11/19/2007 10:32:00 pm]*

Title: Mawai-

Hey.

The previous days have been so much fun when meeting new people, especially those who are so interesting! Yes, the Mawai Eco Camp was one which had quite a bad impression at start, but everything’s changed completely.

Day 1

Assembling at the pac so early was never a nice thing to do, all the more when I slept rather late the night before. This made me in an awkward situation when everyone had their own group of friends clinging in clusters throughout the steps at the door, which was when the a little bored me started to look for things to do; like helping Rheyza out at times with some attendance stuff or joining Gabriel while he talked to two guys.

These two guys seemed rather familiar. One of them was Mudit, an Indian. He wore in a leather shoe which made him look somewhat professional or something – I just had this impression of Benchester Cheong (um... his aspiration is to become a ceo) all over my mind. This was also the reason I avoided him at ALL cost. Honestly pardon me, but the fear of him was too great. Also, this person is more of the intelligent type from his way of speaking; logical and too quick for me. This also made me believe that he’s those who find random topics out of nowhere just to kill the silence. Yet I was wrong, after the first day. “Maybe some people are a little excited sometimes” was what came to my mind immediately.

The other one was Toon Jin. I’d rather call him TJ, sounding somewhat similar to that sec school classmate of mine. Perhaps it was in the morning then, so he didn’t speak much at that time. But things changed.

We had these usual topics about ‘what have you packed’ and things like that. The four of us were kinda alive in the conversation and kicked the day well.

The next person I was desperate to find was my group leader, Cedric. This guy got me a bloody shock of my fragile life when he added me online, forcing me to think of the sec schoolmate who was ultimately irritating. Of course he’s not. In fact he’s quite a good leader who always smiles. THIS IS TRUE, there is never once he never smiled, who knows why.

On the bus, gab was sitting beside me. No idea, but he seemed like he wanted to accompany me if I do feel uncomfy with the strangers in the t5-filled bus. After the Malaysian custom, he took seats at the back where the conversation would most likely come from. I followed. It was rather interesting when the name ‘mag’ came into our gossip session with all sorts of unique fantasies and actions of hers throughout these years. Truly, gotta thank him loads for that.

Also, I got so fascinated by the tour guide, another mr tan, when he came into the coach with this geeky hairstyle and I just couldn’t stop keeping awake. I mean, I don’t expect him to have the coolest hair, but at least tidy abit la!

There was this sense of excitement in everyone. At the same time, it was also possible to hear the disgusted tone in many voices when from where we got off, we could only see two wooden buildings with chickens and cats roaming freely the roads while the coach stopped in front of the dead-end river ahead.

We trailed behind the guides and stepped on the sandy road filled with stones. Maybe that’s not the long house, I thought. Soon, we arrived at a jetty. It looked pretty attractive with its yellow and blue painting on the wall. The life vest given to me was... UNIQUE when the buckle was kinda spoilt, but still manageable. Yet, no one can actually blame that on foreign soil. Moreover it’s just a short ride, about 20 metres across the river when it was just to show that we’re being cautious.

Then there was this pillow given to us. We are supposed to fill it up by inflating it but Mudit had this random idea that the imprint ‘G. Panti (read as Gunong Pantai)’ should be called the ‘gee pantie’. Well, sometimes filth does float around guys minds.

In the place where we guys sleep in called the ‘long house’, we had to set our beds. Ours were quite easy with just the unfolding of metallic strips. For some reason, gab was so curious about the beds that he was the first to grab the bag from the centre of the long house and started to make his own bed when the girls were learning to make theirs from wooden logs (and so it was quiet all around!) I helped along with it and the feeling of making beds without others’ aid was soo satisfying!! But here’s something frustrating. Gab’s bed was nice, but mine was a disaster. While trying to making the bed taut, I accidentally pressed too hard that one of the metal legs got bent which made it slanted. The loser side of me took another one, but if I was right, it became the dressing table for another! haha!!

I heard the wooden beds needed lots of strength to tie, so ours was much easier. The ironic part is that, after we were done with the setting of bed, everyone was supposed to gather in the guys’ side. It might have saved time if they do the metal beds instead of us...

There was this introduction talk by a funny guy. He was speaking so fast that I forgot his name at all, until the airy pillow had his name printed on it – Sutari. There were the usual safety issues by him, but this is more interesting. He said that we might be under threat of things like monkeys, wild boars, catfish and many more; something that no one would have encountered in cities. Then he was kinda familiarising us with the instructors too, only to find that the names he said was somewhat irrelevant when they were mostly on our whiteboard. He also told us how the place was environmentally friendly with wood buildings and fabric rooftop, which made me kinda liked the way our surrounding has become; natural housing materials and right above a little pond.

Of the long intro he made, there was only one sentence he emphasised, “FOOD. You come here confirm won’t regret about the food here...” It sounded something like psychological boost when most got scared by a bee which was flying around the poles of the long house. Indeed, whatever he said was true, ‘cause it was really awesome. Except for the spicy ones which were not really too hot to handle, the rest was just too nice to miss!

Before the first activity, there was an animal trap demo by the orang aslis (if I spelt right). The five stations were something related to physics, but the chant by Uncle Sut of ‘8 times... WIDER, 8 times... LONGER, 8 times... TALLER, 8 times... THICKER, 8 times... STRONGER...’ was something I can’t really forget, and it’s still running in my head now. The trap they used was extremely quick, and I actually missed some of the stations.

For the first activity, it was Australian Defence Line Trail. Sutari preferred it as ‘AuDe Line Trail’. What lazy fellow. He was telling us about the history of Mawai here with the first jetty by whoever Corners (I just forgot his name) and also the battle here during World War Two. I don’t take that now, but some things I learnt earlier didn’t make me too blur about what Sutari said. He was also good in the sense that he guided us through the events with the surroundings and helped to visualise the situation back then.

The walk was rather long and boring at times, with the usual tree (palm) all around us. This was when I was stone-walking. Trust me, my steps were just following the footprints left behind by the person before me. Then out of nowhere yza popped up to talk to the ‘quiet’ me. It was rather funny to see her trying to join my pace when she was close to running already. Sorry, no offence!!

Sutari then brought us to the bunkers where Australian soldiers, young ones, were located at to counter the Japanese in ww2. Quite cool to see the two most haunted ones there with all of us trying to see if there’re any ghostly people in them. In fact, the first we went was the second worst, and for a split second, I really thought I saw someone’s back in some faint colour in the second room. The next moment it was gone. Creepy! But the next one I didn’t see any, sadly. Sutari was trying to tempt any of us to stay near the bunkers for a night with 200 bucks worth of sleeping bed, and camp materials. Only conditions were: must stay alone and tell him what happened. But who want for this sort of adventure?

As we went to the bunker which proved the existence of Australian soldiers in 1941 January, I went in as the second group. While waiting for the first group, Tiffanie showed off her bimbo skills, which was a COMPLETE FAILURE. The worst part, she was still trying to recall how to be one. Haha :D Big loser!!

Anyway, there were many handwritten messages on the walls with pencil. Couldn’t remember most of the content, but I’ve learnt to know who brought the camera!! Yza, mandy and tiffanie!! Get from them soon! I just heard that they seem rather clear in pictures than seeing it with the naked eye. But getting into the cramped compartments of that bunker was tough, absolutely. With the doorway leading to a drain-like passage, we had to avoid that when it was filled with water and dead creatures in there while acting like spidermen and swing 180 degrees past a wall separating the two sides. It’s rather difficult to explain how it looked like, but that was it.

He also taught us how to hear sounds better by cupping our ears from behind and the palm faces the direction of where the sound was produced. Reason? He said this,” God says man never listens.” How true that we never do, even when there were some of us who weren’t paying attention to him then.

Dusk passed and it was time for night activities – sing-a-long and fireflies watching. But before that, I managed to grab this chance to shower in the guys’ toilet before dinner. The shocking thing is that, girls from group 3 claimed that they had no water and had to use our shower rooms. Well, I was already in the cubicle then so it wasn’t much of any complaints available to make. Before long, my cubicle was sandwiched between two females who occupied the neighbouring two. Something better, they were taking their own sweet time which was rather frustrating.

During this sing-a-long, we were sitting on two different tables in the cook house, one guitarist on each table; Nathaniel on the other while our side had Lincoln, but it was so funny when one table know how to sing one song, the other doesn’t. They included ones like lemon tree, top of the world and so on, but there were some where I learnt new songs, or maybe, old tunes fit into the lyrics in the song book. Our side had singing fanatics. Yza and Audrey were singing out loud and moving to the beat while Amanda was using her nice voice incredibly well when there were some songs that most of us don’t know. She’s our singing survivor! Then there was one song that Gabriel was madly engrossed about this song ‘hotel california’ when this was the only song where his voice was at the max and full of emotions! The environment here was nice for songs, but the gas lamps got many of us pissed when it blinded us even after glancing at them.

Due to random schedule done in the last minute (i guess...), our group was called to the boat for fireflies. It was quite rush, but seeing Sutari made me think that our boat ride was going to be enjoyable. What’s more? I was the last to board the boat, which meant that the ‘vip’ seat beside him was all left for me. At that instant, I don’t know whether to be glad or otherwise – one moment I was thinking that I might learn things better by being closer, the other I was thinking that I seemed a little 'extra'.

On the boat, the fireflies look very different from what I saw in Australia last year. Those in Australia were more of blue in colour, but here I could see little stars glitter between the water surface and leaves of the trees drooping at night. They looked beautiful. I was admiring the shiny little dots from down to top, which reached all the way to the sky. Those in the sky are genuine stars, and are real bright in the clear dark sky. In the midst of staring at them, Sutari took out a laser pointer and shot into the sky. It was so incredible that it almost seemed like an invisible light stick that lasted all the way towards the stars. He gave a short introduction to the stars though, but I wasn’t paying much attention to the names which sounded so foreign then, so it wasn’t much of any use.

Before the boat took a turn after leaving the campsite shore too far out, we were given five-minutes-of-silence to hear the river. The obvious was the cicada; they sound irritating at times, but they don’t have much choice if they must mate within one month after spending seventeen years underwater. There were some other insects and birds too, but I preferred to hear the fuzzy noise when facing the opposite bank. It was the hazy sound that interrupted the high-pitched cicada sound – the traffic from 1km away was the culprit – when I cupped my ears as taught earlier.

This taught me one simple lesson about life. We are born with five senses for a reason; if you can’t see because some obstacles are blocking, try hearing them. Or smell around you works as well too. They all help to know your environment better and also to adapt well too!

Day 2

That night wasn’t sound. If I’m right I think I woke up about 5 times. Yes! 5 times in 7 hours!! Ahh... yes, I remember now, there were weird dreams about war and frogs and stuff, perhaps because of the ‘gwork!’ sound those creatures were making though. And also the foolish and stubborn-minded side of me didn’t get any sleeping bag, so I was kinda freezing for the night.

Anyway, we got up to wash up real early at 6.20; both Gabriel and I. By the time we’re done with wash up, we realised how idiotic we were when our half of the bunk were still knocked out but those opposite, as in those from group 3, were too excited for the day’s activities. It was 6.45, but we needed to wake at 7, so the remaining time was the most precious time at dawn.

Stepping out of the long house shocked me. It seemed like a fallen island in the middle of the path where the hurricane lamp was stuck to the log and the broken part just dropped into the water. I heard the log could not take Zul’s 90kg weight.

So, activity 2 was the water obstacle course. But before that, we had team-bonding games which were the normal ones like wacko like ‘husbands protecting the wives and the wives protecting their husbands’ and overturning a mat with 18 of us on it and the simple maths equation on progression. I forgot the details but I still believe Lincoln must be thinking real hard to solve it. Yza agreed! (:

There were 10 parts to the course. They were very interesting. The first I went was one with 3 ropes across the river in a downward pointing triangle. Walking on that with two handles was easy. Then there was the mawai dash which scared me off a little where we had to run across two floating wooden planks linked by an empty barrel. The monkey bar surprisingly seemed to be plausible when people like me failed pull-ups. There was also the rope jump off to a platform, but the platform was so near that the rope seemed redundant to use. As for the Asli Bridge; that was where I finally fell into the water, thanks to tiff.

I can’t explain, but if things are seen in the physics way, I wouldn’t have fallen – my angle of standing was symmetrical, I kept my CG low... everything’s perfect! But the mental side of mine pulled me. My thigh muscles started to vibrate and the right heel began to move forward. As I was in that inevitable position to drop, I looked at my feet. The next moment they were off the log.

While in midair, these ran in my mind – wow, the shiny reflective circle of the sun looked more attractive than before; Terence try to float yourself with that rubber shoe of yours (which was definitely impossible); close your eyes so they don’t infected by the filthy-looking waters. The splash didn’t seem nice, but I liked the riverbed. The soil was soft and sinking and the fun part was to be able to lift the feet completely when the soil appeared to be sucking and pushing me all the time.

I didn’t complete all stations – there was the balancing on logs which I knew I could never get past them since the rubber shoe I wore was too small and my toes were feeling the heat under the hot sun.

The instructor Santosh said ‘only the orang aslis can complete all without getting wet’. By the fourth, I dropped. Yet Audrey was real superb. She was quiet all the time and did things swift while all the guys who could also do it were pulled down once they got on the obstacles. In the end, she did without being wet! Then there were some who just wanted to wet feeling... our group was so magnificent and varied!

For some reason, our entire group found that it was easier to get through the Bridge when we worked as a team. In fact, I went through that twice. The first time I was sandwiched between Chester and Terence Tang. Before her was Zul. Zul was sometimes a little impatient when he went on with his long legs and left the rest behind stranded, but the scene when we shouted his name to call him back to help us move was hilarious. The second was when I was between Natalie and yza. Hey I realised that girls don’t really grab as hard as guys do, which was when the confidence grip was missing, but things went well. The confidence pull I told them worked as well. Yay! By the way, the pictures the whole group posed and taken looked nice too.

Along the way onto the Bridge, we were too amazing to find our group the only one to break a stick here. In fact we heard some cracks already which panicked everyone. Thankfully for me, I didn’t break the support of the first part amongst the six sections of the Bridge, because I would have gone weak. But I do feel for Lincoln when he fell then.

The final part of the water obstacle course was volleyball in muddy waters, but some exceptions to the rules. There was an introduction to second serves here when the net looked as if it were a few Zuls above us. The next was that there’s no ‘let’ as people call in tennis; taken as fault one instead. Then the third was once the ball passes the net, if it lands out-of-bounds, there was no second serve. What weird rules, but fun to manage! Another rule which was close to impossible to judge; we were supposed to hit the ball within the width of the court where two wooden sticks were stuck onto the riverbed – one tall, the other was broken such that only the visible top part was up to 3 inches!

We had a weak team but one superstar in the middle of our court, Mr Jason L. Anyway, my side had mostly girls and the guys were only Nathaniel, Hong Chen, me, Lincoln and Mr L. while we went to the side which was in much lower grounds. So the other team appeared like giants to us, especially with Zul around. When it was my turn to serve for the second time, I was absolutely amazed to hear someone saying, “eh watch out! from volleyball one!...” when I was never in any sports CCA since five years ago.

So my side lost the first set and here’s something very fun – we must switch courts through the muddy water! Imagine the groans and sighs that followed... (:

On the other side of the court, the grounds here were much higher and harder. It’s better in the sense that we weren’t falling as often as we did initially. Yet, we were still suffering from the anti-mud syndrome when compared to our opponents who were mostly daring to dive for the ball; our side tend to stay in our positions vertically. Anyone would have known that this wouldn’t give us a victory, so we did lose.

Thankfully we did our courses quick and there was some time for a half game – race to seven. Losing the first four points was demoralising.

During the process of losing here, there was one point was played superbly; the girls in front of the net were struggling to get the ball over which eventually popped to my side. I fisted it with a scooping swing as the ball flew towards the middle guy opposite. They had a few rallies here and there, but we were so ill-fated that it landed on Natalie’s head. Maybe that’s for staring blankly when she was supposed to play. Yet at that instant there was a sudden outburst of laughter inside me. I somehow managed to control it, where I turned out to be clapping sarcastically at her instead. It was unintentional but Gabriel started laughing at me when he thought I had anything going against her.

This was when the other side had the idea to keep a clean sheet for themselves. None of us wanted that, so we fought back. Point by point, our side had this sense of aura coming when we became extremely quiet, all the way until we trail 5-6. We had no choice; every shot must be a hit. We won 7-6 in the end, but everything was in the ‘nothing to lose’ state of mind. Compared to the complacency the other group had, we showed more spirit in playing this set. But realistically, I seriously think that hitting the shots in those places where no one was standing meant a lot to win.

The rubber shoe I wore was quite useful in a way that they never slipped off my feet, but the pain my poor little toes suffered was the price.

Some time in between, our group was drying in the sun after the water games. Meanwhile, some of us started to sit in a circle for the usual ‘truth or dare’ game. It turned out to be ‘truth’ game mostly, but the questions asked were too cheesy to be answered. Thank goodness Tiffanie let me off lightly, phew!

During the game, I had my first surprise of the camp; the rain. It got very heavy and never gave us the optimistic notion with every drop of rain in here, especially with the swamp walk coming up.

Third activity was the swamp walk. This was rather unplanned when the instructor mr tan (mentioned earlier) decided to swap times with tea time with the walk. Then before setting off, I kinda liked the way he sat down with us in the cookhouse and asked what we wanted and also our expectations for the walk. Of course it meant nothing much to him since we were talking to him in third party’s view with other groups’ comments or he would have done the same way even if he didn’t consult us. Instead I thought it was more of a purpose for us to find the will to appreciate the anticipated-boring walk. With expectations life will be meaningful, I thought at that moment.

We told him things like mud, leeches, fun but avoiding dirtiness – things which we saw for ourselves in other groups which were like ‘duh’ if they could get their genie to grant them a wish for the troubles they could avoid. In the end they still came back with mud. Lots of them.

I carried on wearing those pair of tight rubber shoes because none of my other pairs were high-cut all the way up to the shin, and also the mr tan said that it was better to be soaked in mud rather than being bitten by leeches later on. But my silly side chose to wear white shorts! And it’s definitely the easiest to get them dirty!!

This part of the programme had a few parts.

The first was to learn about the different types of food we could get in a tropical forest. There was a berry which was sweet and when rubbed against the tip of the tongue, it would turn blue, or dark for the orang aslis. I didn’t eat them though since they were either left in bits by the birds at dawn or those that weren’t ripe. Really wished if I could try... Next was the triangular-stemmed plant. I forgot its name, but it was so amazing that it could be pulled out when the centre leaf is pulled upwards. The best was that because there were so many layers in there, I had to pull like 6 times before the section which had the taste appeared! As for the taste, those in my group said it was sweet, but strangely, I felt a slight bitterness at the tip of my tongue when I thought only the back of it can taste bitterness. Still, there was some sweet taste, just a little perhaps.

There was also a plant which was dark purplish in colour with a tinge of brown at the edge of the leaves. Some in my group said they got the sweetness, but I felt it was just another fresh vegetable; crunchy and juicy. (:

Mr Tan said about the history of ecology and how man destroyed it which the classic example of Australia. I forgot the sequence of imported animals, but there was a quote by him. “Aliens are never good,” seemed interesting when he merely started with a water lily floating on the pond there in Mawai.

But I was very shocked to find that a blue-coloured fat-looking beetle landed on my right foot. It was a little pain with that poky feeling, although there was no mark of biting at all.

Before we got into the swamp, we were getting through patches of mud puddles, bypassing rare footprints of animals roaming on where we stepped on earlier and also the reservoir which supplied water for those shower cubicles and cookhouse.

We arrived before the entrance of the swampy forest. It was real humid then and I could see the steam in some people’s spectacles! But Zul’s pose with the circular-twined plant looked awesome!

Attempting to balance myself with unbearable rubber shoes on irregular logs and uneven soil meant I would have counted myself lucky not to fall, yet getting the cold watery mud over my feet wrapped by the burning hot shoe felt extremely good, even though the sand bits might scratch here and there.

While gliding through the mud (mr tan said avoid lifting our feet so the mud wouldn’t splash all over) it was a torture at first; the mud was pushing me backwards and just put me swaying. I wished to leave this place as soon as possible, and the only way to survive through this was to grab any standing tree or thinnest branch available, yet they were so weak. It was just impossible to get any holding position, which was why I almost slipped twice there.

We learnt about some gigantic palm plant which had strong leaves that could produce baskets and the footprint of a weird creature which had 4 toes in its fore legs while 3 in its hind legs. Moreover, the creature’s prints were so exclusive that it only appeared that morning!

In all, our group was one of the better disciplined ones when we took the shortest time to go into the middle of the swamp walk and we had NO scream about mud or leech or whatsoever. These facts were given by mr tan, so they must be something memorable!

Most of us almost died when there was not much water in the guys’ toilet yet the girls joined into our queue, claiming that they had run out of water. This was why Gabriel and Tiffanie were grumbling and pissed with everything at dinner time. Yes, skipping the all-important shower in order to meet certain timing for dinner was freaking disturbing. I was angry with that too, just that prolly it wasn’t shown on my face then.

First time for star-gazing after dinner; Mr Tan was real kind. He knew some of us weren’t in a cleared mind to listen to him for hours about stars, so he said he’d be quick. He was swift in talking, but that few minutes he took was informative. He taught us the types of astronomy books, the colour lights to use, and the way to position ourselves to look at stars, how the Earth works, how to identify stars, how to differentiate Mars from stars and which maps to use in different parts of the world. Honestly, I preferred the basics of astronomy rather than telling us about whichever star directly. At least we wouldn’t be bored by hearing him rattling his way with words.

The adventure to shower in the girls’ side was... funny. Because we were the only group to come back last for shower dinner and everything, only Maj and Tif were the only girls in shower room. Yza showed how good she as an IC could be by bringing us to their shower side through the track behind the cubicles.

With my faint torch shining on the truly original bridge made of long wooden rods and shorter ones laid across the longer ones, it was rather obvious that animals like frogs could leap from the grass beneath the bridge. There was once when I literally saw it jump across my right foot, even when I was walking!! What coincidence!!

Showering at the girls’ side was as bad when water was trickling! Yes! It was coming out drop by drop when I was standing and when squatting, it came in the thinnest track of fluid to wash the soap and bubbles off me. I guess that’s when people like Cedric and I were too rush in getting the shower done. See? Gabriel and the guys were enjoying their time and surroundings of the forbidden toilet, which eventually paid off when the other half of the toilet had water splashing out that made them call the shower ‘shiok!’ If only we could... but now I finally know how the girls felt when their long strains of hair had to go through more than a zillion droplets of water.

As I said, the night schedules were mixed so badly that it was sing-a-long after shower immediately again.

I forgot who, but I was talking with someone while we were going to the cookhouse for the sing-a-long. We talked about many random things, by the time we reached the step before the cookhouse; Sutari appeared from the side of the stony path we were on. He was saying that he took the shortcut route to the cookhouse and could hear everything we said along the way. This was when I thought that the instructors were extremely smart to do the ‘I can hear you, you can’t hear me; I can see you, you cannot see me’ effect.

Yet this time round it was a better organised singing session when we have a guitarist who was superbly familiar with the songs in our song book and could play every tune perfectly. I think his name’s mr leong, anyway, he led us to some songs, only to find us not knowing some that he was playing. It was a nice experience to learn songs, but apparently he thought we were not interested so he ‘let us off’ by suggesting that we rest at where we were sitting while he joins the teachers for more, and that we could join in if we wished.

The teachers were singing all the songs out loud even though the tune was a little off at times, but anyone heard their voices would have known that they gave out their max to the lyrics. One perfect example, mr jonathan tan; from the way he was swaying to the beat and rhythm of the song while closing his eyes for some musical imagination, it was quite clear that he loved them all; every single word sung.

We joined in at times when there were songs that we know of with Amanda leading our pack with her awesome singing voice.

The other table sat those usual t5 people and somehow they started the trend of massage party. We were lazy to move from our seats, which was why we created a mini party for ourselves, including tj, me, tiff, chuan, maj, Natalie... Trust me; it would have been very cool to see us so united even when we were tired!!

Before bedtime, I had a little shock when it was obvious that lightning could be seen. I was thinking, what if those flashes of light hit our long houses? Or if the rain drench us all like it did to us in the afternoon where only the middle section of it was dry? There were many more questions, till it put me to sleep.

Day 3 – Expedition Day.

It was a day full of excitement and perfect curses right at the start. After breakfast Tiff was going around telling everyone about her dream of 4 extra blisters growing, on top of the 3 on her right palm. Ouch! All from the monkey bar, but the worst was that I somehow found out that I had 4 blisters on me! 3 on my left index finger and 1 on my right toe, WOW! She could curse real well. Maybe she’ll make good voodoo dolls in future.

The next amazing thing was that I could put contact lenses without mirror, considering that I don’t often wear them. Yay!

Anyway, everyone was in such hurry state of mind when Sutari briefed us with quite a lot of details for this. Things like poncho, lunch pack, water bottle, identification items of both Cedric’s and mine were stuffed into my miniature backpack. We just seemed so pathetic when big sized people were taking turns to carrying a bag for kindergarten kids. On the other hand, Mudit got his haversack which tempted everyone to chuck all the trash to him. Poor him!

Our group started first naturally, so we set off in a kind of adventurous attitude. Then with the group of t5 guys leading us all with the guide, we looked to own the other groups to reach the summit first.

Going uphill was easy, just that the big steps and quick pace meant that it drained us very much. I remembered like after 10 minutes of the walk I was panting a little, yet I acted as if I was fine. Thank goodness I didn’t collapse in the end; it’d been disastrous!

Walking between Cedric and Mandy was quite a task for me. Those in front were going so fast that we had to call them back at times since I’m the type who prefers to wait for the rest to join in the fun. So did Gabriel, because he said it’s LTC that changed him to care for others. Cheers! Maple’s gang was behind us. They seemed to be admiring the environment all the while so we did let them far behind sometimes and I had to keep my pace consistent so Mandy wouldn’t be caught in a surprise if I did fall back. Anyway, Gab was behind her.

There was once when we were waiting for the rest a cool mountain breeze blew in from the left. I said this loudly, “The wind is AWESOME!...” which I find it a little embarrassing to do if I were to do this in the city. Haha.

I didn’t know how and why, but Mudit felt uncomfy along the way as he passed his big bag to someone else to carry while he joined as the last person.

Gabriel suddenly had a brilliant idea when he suggested that those slower ones, which sounded a little offensive I guess, to stay in the middle. It was rather good to find that we paced up much more now. But it wasn’t too nice to find myself to be the 'last man'.

There were nice pictures taken along the way too, some from Mandy’s and Tiff’s cam.

We took slightly more than an hour to reach the summit, something which never looked like one for a newcomer’s point of view; it was like a circular platform of around 2 to 3 metre radius, just enough for all three groups to sit packed tight.

The lunch pack here made me feel clumsy when all the water was on the container cover and the spoon was semi-buried beneath my fried bee hoon. But nothing was worse when someone found my pants tearing apart! It was an accurate split which seemed awkward, yet weirdly, I took it as nothing special happened. Normally I would have gone off blushing haha, nope I didn’t this time!

Getting downhill was worse with many things that followed, steep slope and rain. It was apparent that the clouds were turning grey before we left the summit, just that I kept lying to them about its slim chances which never worked.

The route was particularly long, going down then up then down in a zigzag manner. It was full of risks and adventure when the ropes were there for the steeper slope so we wouldn’t fall off the forest.

That’s when tj was the last and also behind me in our group. We had many troubles while going through here, including one where tj stepped on a soft ground and his entire body fell off the hill. Thank God he was quick enough to grab onto the tree stem right beside him.

Obviously he didn’t pull the stem to himself, or the thin wooden stick would have broken with its thin body. And once again, it has shown that it’s just the confidence grab that we all need to calm our nervy minds down in crucial situations.

Then there was also one time where I heard many screams ahead. This was the toughest of the whole expedition, yet the most challenging in fact, because here, there was no space to place any rope and right before us was a wet-sandy slope that was close to 90 angles and more than five metres far!!

With the help of hong chen n gab it was rather easy to manage when there was this mentality of ‘if those guys can survive so can I’ while going down here. However, I think our group showed that we could be the strongest one when even Tiffanie could pull the guide so hard that he got displaced after she slid. If I’m right, that scene of hers was so dramatic that after leaving the first part of the steep slope where Gabriel was, she managed to lose her second grip to swing herself!! Risky time for her, but I thought the guide got a shock too!

After we got through the steep slope, droplets of water started to fall on us, even with the trees acting a semi-umbrella for us. The first thing I thought was what many people were talking about before we set off from the summit – it was going to rain heavily. Call it ‘instincts’, we immediately paced up although no one said anything. Of course, we didn’t leave the two girls from group 2 behind who were too quick that joined us instead, but everything was swift.

As we moved on, I realised that the trees seemed much taller than us, more than those at the summit, all the way till I was stepping on flat ground of the forest.

By the time I went out of the forest the t5 guys were already wet at sea! Oh! Their adventurous attitude paid off! Naturally for my playful mind I chucked my backpack beside theirs and rushed to the water for some feet splashing.

The feeling was great when the water pushed my track pants backwards which somehow seemed like a massage of my ankle.

I never wanted to be drenched in water, so I merely played water around by splashing others. Everything looked fine until I did something wrong here when I splashed at Cedric. He chased me from a few arms’ length! The escape was tricky; three things were running in my head – run, avoid the sinking sand and don’t be affected by the current coming from behind! I survived that, but it drained me lots. Fun though!

Cedric alone was powerless in getting me underwater, so I ended up wet when the rest of the t5 guys wanted me down. Yes, I willingly went in, with my poor head being grabbed by Zul and dunked down.

The water was exciting! Being pushed by the water currents and forced to taste the salty waters were the most memorable moments, because the rest of the time we were doing foolish and playful acts. Nonetheless, everyone had let their laughs out.

Mr Tan gave a mission for us after the sea, which was to pick trash that was washed up to shore during high tide. But before that, he gave us a long talk about the need to pick them and sort like that. I didn’t listen much, honestly, mainly because I was drilled hard with these marine environmentalist ideas during oral presentation a month ago! Words like ‘leatherback turtles’ and ‘feeding on plastic bags’ were even used there; things that were too common to listen again.

The rubbish picking was never comprehensive, neither did it seem to last when what we could find were styrofoam boxes and their bits; they were supposed to float, yet we had to uncover them by digging them from the think brown leaves above them. There were also sweet wrappers all over the place, those that we often eat in class, especially under the trees, which was particularly obvious at the roots that those wrappers landed there eventually.

The place was far from the bus, so all eighty of us walked through the rocks and sands of the beach.

Along the way I found nice colours on seashells. Others picked pointed shells which looked outstanding from the rest. Most had bundles of shells on their hands, which was when I started to imagine if everyone who passes by this beach takes shells like we did. I chose not to believe by thinking that the world is still huge and plentiful, even though I knew what I was visualising.

There were also tiny crabs on the sands. Those little creatures appeared like insects from afar with their greyish transparent shell, which gave us the impression that we would have squished them alive for many times. I picked one of them up; it crawled on my palm which felt like nothing at all. Yet, they looked cute to handle.

Of the pieces of trash that everyone picked, there was a buoy which was especially heavy that could only be dragged away the beach by pulling the rope tied to it. It was rather comical to see that Kimberly began calling that ‘spike’ and treating it as a dog, especially the sudden spark of idea when almost everyone was too shagged to think of any entertainment during the long walk.

Before we boarded the bus to leave the beach, here’s something funny. “I’m taking the road,” was what Rheyza said. It sounded wrong, which in fact, meant that she was amused by the long stretch of road ahead and she was going to take a picture of it, but we took it falsely.

We had a surprise afternoon tea before heading for campsite. It was rather unpredictable, but the goreng pisang was fantastic! Just that when Audrey gave me the piece it was skin-proof which seemed gross and felt as if maggots were on it before I touch that piece of food.

On the bus, almost everyone slept. But what Audrey did gave me an inspiration. She was sleeping very soundly that no one could ever wake her up on the bus, yet when she was awake she put all her effort into the activities. That’s when I realised that we should live in a simple world; when you’re tired, just go ahead and sleep. Don’t think if your bus mates dump you when leaving the bus, nor be disturbed by the bus’ rocking along the roads. That’s when you learn that all your friends on the bus do care for you and in return, you bring smiles and laughter on their faces.

That night, we went for late dinner for all the delays in bus rides and traffic jams. After all, no one could care this much when there was no curfew.

However things turned out rushing. We had to hurry to get to the campfire place for the campfire activity when I always thought that all 3 groups would do the night activities separately. Yes, I was wrong.

During this campfire session, it was rather new to see Rheyza and Benji hosting the night. I heard that she was told to do this only an hour ago! So I was quite impressed with the way they could handle the crowd well and also to waste time between the important events of this schedule by giving questions to the floor. That was good, but the better idea was to invite one person from each group for the ‘most comical’ person to entertain us. Zul and Kim were those that I know from the three, but only Zul was amazing. The t5 guys were giving the disco beat and the flashing light while he did the monkey-like dance that showed his flexibility all over his body. I couldn’t remember how he did it, but it seemed original.

After the campfire, I happened to come across Jeriel, the overall in-charge person of the camp. I found that I had known him before from splat when he was the first aid guy, but he was very quiet then when the rest of us were talking during lunch break. Anyway, I was asking him, “did you enjoy the campfire?” He told me this, “I don’t like this way of campfire. The one I know is not like this. I think that everything should be more organised...”

Indeed, it wasn’t really organised, but I thought that the campfire was rather acceptable when everyone had fun, considering that the hosts didn’t have enough time to prepare anything at all. Moreover, I believed that he should have appreciated that it was tough to be an entertaining host, but the way he spoke stunned me at first.

Because of the curfew-less night, we went to the balcony for star-gazing. It was rather pointless when most of us ended up talking at people, but I found it perfect to see shooting star twice on the same night. Both were short and lasted barely more than half a second, which was why I never tried to close my eyes to wish for anything. The first was when most of our group see it; it was flying northwards from front. We saw it but I felt pitiful for Tiffanie, she was gossiping that she missed it obviously. As for the second, I don’t think many were attentive for that; it was going westwards on my right. I wished to tell everyone about the star I saw, and also how I was relating it to the movie Stardust, but sometimes some things are meant to be kept personally.

That night we survived till late morning at 0327 hours. It was also when we stayed in the cook house and the teachers were beginning to leave for bed. One of them taught us how to switch off the kerosene lamp by turning the knob. It always looked easy, but then, life seemed to be back to basics.

We ended up going to bed whether we were tired or otherwise, but the lightning that flashed across the sky frightened me for moments. Yet, the cooling atmosphere froze me completely and knocked me out.

Just as I was about to black out, I heard shouts from somewhere far. Mr Tan was shouting things like ‘do you hear me!?’ I had no clue till morning that two were talking in their bunks, but I was thinking how I’d argue with him if I were in this situation which repeated many times!

Day 4

The morning was a rush. Everyone was busy packing and fighting for space in the washrooms while two people had time to stop and ask the teachers if they could buy the merchandise. Yes, Cedric and I, how idiotic. =.='''

But the shirt and cap looked awesome despite the not up-to-standard materials, and yes, he bought exactly the same as what I did.

Anyway, Cedric was a good mate that he was able to blend with everyone here while accepting for whatever they are, except for the comments he made at the museum. Well, he’s joking of course!

That fellow was calling me this, ‘camwhore’ the moment he saw me near any camera lens. It was tough trying to shrug him off, but somehow I accepted it with his persistence. Maybe I needed to learn how to manage such things in future!

We had time for free-play like lunch and shopping. Marrybrowns was interesting. I was always fine with food, but I heard it was like a modified MCs n KF C. Probably I’ll find that out soon! Oh! Shopping was a disaster when I had no idea what to buy then, which was why I did some ‘learning trip’ by studying what the girls bought, and they were rather amusing. They had things like shampoo, hair bands of all sorts and clips of all types, things that seemed foreign to me. Yet I was a little glad that See Kei survived for buying a butterfly hair band, she’d know why!

This period of time was mission-based such that we had the intention of getting Mandy a cake since it was her birthday on that Saturday. The cake was well picked with the creamy taste, but the process to give her the surprise was the best! We got to the bus last and carried a big bulk of red plastic bag, spoke in overly-excited tone on the bus, turned back too many times unknowingly and Gabriel staring at us discussing... so on. It was rather obvious, but I guessed Mandy played along well. Anyway, she had this surprised feeling when Yza gave her the cake. Thank goodness it looked successful!

I slept after the cake for the first time since taking the coach. Yes, maybe the trip was too draining, but I was glad I did rest then.

It was a time when almost everyone was special and had their unique things.
Going with the name list, I'll try recall about them:

Tiff - certified half bimb
Majella - she could blend in with the guys well and also be a good girls' group ic!
See Kei - afraid of butterfly! first to see it LIVE!
Audrey - she lives a simple life!
Natalie - attempted to interact with the rest despite her 'no-stranger' principle!
Kavita - quiet, but played in the games too!
Mandy - prolly she preferred to stay quiet, just that others always took her to the limelight cos of gab
Maple - still as quiet, but bonded well with kavita n pals
Yza - made the best ic ever by countering the 'loudspeaker'!
Amanda - nice voice!

Chester - his dad's comments about how those in china who attempted foolishly to cheat his dad... he saw a shoe that cost 70 bucks in the first shop and when he asked for the price in the second shop, that fella said 300. the way he laughed was too comical to describe!!
Chuan - one who called Tiff a bimb
Zul - amazing jokes about intelligence! and the dance too!
Nathanial - named for his hotness.
Cedric - cool mate
Terence (tang) - quite smart at water obstacles
Hong Chen - learnt alot from his way of speaking; slow but paced well!
Lincoln - prolly he's still stuck with the maths question...
Gab - athletic enough to drag audrey into water!
TJ - perfect b****
Mudit - youthful fella!!

yup, so that's what happened (:
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xxx typed*: blog

(Monday, 19 November 2007-)
+11/19/2007 10:32:00 pm]*

Title: Mawai-

yup, so that's what happened (:
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