Day 0
Today was Sathis's party. Why am I blogging about the day before camp? It's cause I think I don't give enough appreciation to Sathis so here goes a tribute to the guy. Happy Birthday again Sathis! He is another jigsaw puzzle piece completing my personal portrait. Nice fun fellow.
Day 1
Day 1. Woke up and did the usual then did a last minute check my haversack,well its Chuo Tung's haversack technically. For this camp I was a.k.a. LG ( Logistic Guy), what I do is that I am in charge of getting all of us from point A to point B. I had a bad feeling about it at first, which will be explained further in this first section of the post. Didn't exactly start the day very well, actually come to think of it now it might had been an early omen. Most of us were at Kah Hoo's house and they gave a call to Seck Houng telling that there would be more cargo coming our way. So me, Ming and Kevin went and meet them half way and helped with the load which was when I saw Kah Hoo carrying a very 'demonic' plastic bag. It was a bag full of ice. Why, how and who where the questions that raised in my mind together with my blood pressure. I carried the ice and got all wet even before camp started (the omen). Whatever it is I just wanted to get it done. Each one of us just slowly pop up one by one and we were actually off schedule but that didnt really matter. At 8am we left for Pasar Seni which is where we would take a bus to Templer's Park, our campsite. Nothing much happened on the way so we shall fast forward to approximately 9.30am.
It was raining. Slowly at first, but then it just gone bad to worse. Concerned, I asked everyone to make sure everything in their bags had been waterproof, which revealed to me that Florence and Huey Ee didn't so they had to. But it was actually a good thing though Florence and Huey Ee wasn't too happy about digging out their clothes from the bottom of the bag, cause it was then that we found out that 2 of the butane gas catridges Huey Ee had carried in her bag leaked giving it the nickname "Bomb Bag". Here is where the fun starts.
Going to and fro Florence and Huey Ee I happened to noticed the same houses that laid across our camp site's entrance, however they were passing us by. Then it had strucked me. We missed the bus stop. I quickly rushed over and ask the bus driver to pull over here and called everyone to get their haversacks and get off the bus. I was panicking now, due to the fact that the very first jungle camp I went to we stopped 2km away from the entrance which we had to walk 30minutes under the hot sun before the started the real hike into our campsite through the jungle which was almost another 3km away from the entrance. The only difference between that and now is that thank God that we did not stop too far, around 100m, and that this time it was pouring cats and dogs. But I was panicking, I jumped off the bus after it had pulled over and ran. I ran and ran in the opposite way we came from because I really wanted to know how far were we away from the entrance while adrenaline pumped through my blood. I was really afraid of messing up and after I had confirmed where we were I ran back and got everyone to move under the rain. See the bad omen? However I had really great bunch of campers/friends that we went through the rain without a slightest complain. We were soaked and caught unprepared, worse still it was only the first day a.k.a. work till you drop day. But it did not matter.
When we reach the carpark we splitted up into 2 groups because a few of them wanted to take a rest. So me, Ming, Flo, Huey Ee, Victoria and Wai Yew went on first. It was a tiring hike, with the haversack not helping because all the weight went to my shoulders despite clipping on all the buckles. (A note to future campers or backpackers, get a haversack with VERY VERY thick padding and buckles that fit you nicely if not you would suffer, there is physics behind this but lets not digress.) The pathway was not too bad so it was not a big trouble hiking in. We reached the campsite around 10 and met up with Seck Houng, Alwin and Vincent. Work began immediately while I backtracked to pick up Wee Kiat which did not travel together with us. Work was already in progress once I got back and then each of us got a briefing to get a better understanding of our roles. All the guys had to chop bamboo ( our target if 50, each around 8cm thick and 20ft high at least). It was never easy. I paired up with Ming who was very helpful and we were actually the most productive among all except Seck Houng. Why you may ask? Well Seck Houng went solo and he pretty much fell the specified bamboos every 5-10mins. The day went very quickly actually and it was quite a productive day. We had completed our sleeping structure and most of the neccessity before nightfall and everyone was still in high morale. Work also continued into the night, then lights out at around 11.30pm.
Day 2
Well today was quite an eventful day because of a few reasons. 1 is that it was my birthday but that was just the beginning. Thankfully the rain had stopped when we decided to turn in but the conditions were wet and damp making it slightly uncomfortable. What made matters worse was after 3 hours of sleep, at 3am, 5 consecutive sounds woke everyone up in unison. The girl's part of the sleeping structure could not withstand the weight on one of its side and it collapse leaving them sleeping in a diagonal position. Indeed it was a pretty good "birthday present" which I suppose many of them would agree. However our morale was quite high actually. I quickly went and open a flysheet for the girls so that they could sleep for the night till we are in a more favourable position to fix our structure.
Then at 7am we had a very unexpected wake up call. All of a sudden, a bamboo in the jungle just fell and woked up everyone instantly. I thought the bamboo had fallen unto our campsite which it didn't but if it did it might have wrecked everything. Things didnt really looked too good but we made the best out of it. It was at this time I noticed my hands were as if rocks trying to bend because the ache was terrible not to mention the cuts from the beautiful bamboos(not being sarcastic). Work started after morning exercise and breakfast. Another good news came for us at around 8am, the rain was back to dread us again! So 3 very helpful things had happened so far today. Thankfully the rest of the day wasn't too bad. It was a another productive day. We set out to fix the girls sleeping structure, then build gadgets, and then came lunch which was my first time ever cooking during camp( I was kind of nervous and honestly it was just above par). Slowly camp begin to change into leisure mode as we reach into the evening when we had our water games and activities till Seck Houng made us work again, but it was understandable and no one complained. Nice day where we played mafia and had a opening ceremony at night(lame of course) and what not. Sir Win Han and Ms Pui Ling joined us today making the night more fun. A better day didn't look too far away at this point.
Day 3
No extravagant start to the day except Seck Houng banging the cangkul like that irritating "paper lama" man waking us up in the morning. It was a really really great day. The sun was out today and no sign of rain any time soon. Breakfast was great and we actually had a lot of free time as we did all the necessary and unnecessary things prior to today. So we sat around lazily just chit chatting. We nicknamed this the "Whatever Time" which Seck Houng really potong our steam by doing work. Well it wasn't official work but more like making crafts like spoons. Some very weird creations came out during this time. All of them were spoons of course, just that most of them weren't really shaped to be able to fit their purpose. The whole time during camp Huey Ee had been our discipline teacher, catching everyone using the D word and what not, too energetic for her own good. After that was lunch which was nicknamed the "Spaghetti of Love" cause it was made by Seck Houng and Hui Xian. "What? WHAT?!" you say? No, no there is no scandal here, just something we made up and followed through the whole camp haha, but then again, Seck Houng would make a great soulmate I suppose haha. Then we got ready for a very exciting river hike. Me and Alwin were in the middle of making a Japanese table but we didn't get to finish it in time and we were actually left behind by everyone. So after deciding to follow the crowd, we terpaksa leave the campsite without any guardian. We tried to compensate that by tying a red ribbon on our gateway to block the way with a "Be Right Back, Akan Kembali" sign on it but I think it kinda look like we had just build the perfect campsite and are inviting anyone to just cut the ribbon and enter. Totally defeating the purpose.
We managed to catched up and had a very very fun river hike. We started off by rock climbing a I think would be 30ft high at least waterfall which was very challenging and amazingly Ming managed to climb too! For that moment he was hailed as "MAN". Then we continue to hike a few other mini "waterfalls" where we met a lot of other campers. After a 30minute hike we decided to stop and we just laze around that part of the river. Some of them sat on the rocks where the water was gushing really strongly making it a very nice but cold "Ogawa" massage machine. We had a little moment as well when Sir Win Han hid behind Ee Ling to block the water we were splashing at him which he pulled her shirt and it extended a little too much making him a.. PERVERT! We had our revenge and then we had to hike back down. When we went back we had a really fun time during the evening. All of a sudden Sir Vincent burst into his 'ugly' mode. His mouth was unstoppable. He just couldn't stop talking and we couldn't stop laughing. Most of us which were lazing around him would know and I thought I might have lost couple of pounds just laughing. Really really great guy Vincent. That night we had Tom Yam, chicken and veggies for dinner cooked by Ming. It was fantastic. I was happy too because we got to use our Japanese table. It really made just satisfied me and I was really proud to had build so many things in camp. I was non stop building and building, leaving no room for Secky or Fatty to complain about me being lazy! Then we moved on to MK!(Malam Kebudayaan or Campfire Night.) Though dinner was a bit potong-ed by the sound of a baby wild boar roaming nearby our campsite. It strike a little fear to most of us but no pig is going to stop our camp. We had a really fun MK, or at least everyone said so. I potonged their steam a bit in the middle cause I got mad when they kept on complaining and digressing about the activity I asked them to do. I wanna apologize for everyone for that bit. However after that we had our Awards sessions which seen some very unexpected winners. (Like Yong Ming winning Most Handsome... what!???) Well all rules were overlooked tonight as everyone just enjoyed themselves chit chatting. Even Seck Houng took some time to relax... I think... If you would call making an underground oven relaxing. Owh well thats Secky. As for me? I slept right after open talk. Not because I was PMS, it was because I was dead tired and just felt so happy and comfortable with all my friends around not giving a 'ABC' about me sleeping.
Day 4(Today)
Well last day of camp. Nothing much other than the usual cleaning up and destroying all our hardwork. We woke up at 7.30am and got out of there by 12. We did the usual. Get on the bus and head for McD's for lunch. Everything ended by 4pm where everyone went home and I typed this post.
There you have it. Sorry for making it too long and uninteresting but thats how the camp went through my eyes. Yong Ming will probably have a more 'burst' version coming up so do check it out. Thats all for this post and I just want to show you a picture which pretty much sums up the whole post. See you around soon and thanks for reading!
P.S : For pictures of camp, please visit us again later cause I have yet get any yet. Either me or Ming will upload them. And something I hope that could make your day, the quote of the camp was,quote,
"If I'm stress, I erect".
Enjoy yourself with the other posts!
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