just returned from overseas camp at stong
Day 1:0
Went to tanjong pagar railway station to board the 12 hour long train to dabong, malaysia. Had lots of stuff to carry initially. My haversack, one chunkol, two tents, and a plastic bag of food for my bottomless pit. The train ride was quite boring, luckily there were beds for us to sleep on. I started playing bridge in the canteen with cheehao, benedict, and mervyn in the canteen, followed by a few hours of asshole daidi in the cabin with jessie, sekzen, cheehao, and mervyn. It was quite fun since I held on to the king title for about 10 rounds. However, they were rather stone while playing cards, so had to self-entertain myself with my mp3player.
when we reached the railway station at dabong, there were lots of flies and mosquitoes, but still less than that of ace camp (like what sekzen said). Then, we set off for the resort at the bottom of stong via vans. Since the vans were too small to fetch all of us at one go, several trips had to be made. As usual, mervyn and i were the last to leave the station in the guild's car, together with lum chee fai. And what happened next was totally stupid, the car's tyres were punctured halfway on the journey. So everyone who reached the resort had to wait for the grand arrival of the two jokes and the retard.
The waterfall was magnificant and it reminded me of the punchbowl falls in New zealand which i climbed about 6 years ago. The scenery was so beautiful that the cascading water stirred the hearts of the OAC lovebirds as their eyes burned with passion and their hands found each other. The hike up to the base camp was quite bad, really bad. Wonder why do they call it the base camp when it is at the top of the waterfall. It was super slippery and I wet my underwear, trackpants and tent even before we reached the base camp. After leaving our belongings at the base camp, we had to climb to the summit. It was a long journey and my shoes were so slip-non-resistant. Mervyn wasn't better off. The two of us kept slipping and dirtying our track pants. In the end, oac was just too slow, and the guide estimated that we would only reach the summit close to nightfall. Though I really desired to reach the top, most oacians were already exhausted, and it was also dangerous to descend the mountain at night, hence we made our way down, giving up on our goals. Going down was an arduous task, we kept slipping, falling, falling, slipping. After a while, I was probably even more dirty than the ground, and to prevent the agony of falling, I sat on the yellowish-slimy brown earth and skied my way downhill. It sucks for mervyn lim who was limping and shafting his hands between his upper thighs and underwear with every step.
Ok, here's the best part of the trip:
We were given like 30minutes to wash up. While some people stayed in their tents spamming prickly heat and cooking their dinners, others were bathing at the gathering place with a beautiful scenery. Since oac has both genders unlike sji, people didn't dare to take off their clothing while bathing. It was no point bathing in dirty clothing since you would still be dirty after the bath, hence benedict, mervyn, and I went to a higher isolated point of the waterfall and bathed there. The water was super nice, cool, and refreshing, just three guys bathing , it was much better than washing myself with water used by 20 others. We bathed till sunset where the atmosphere was serene and it felt that we were the only living things in the entire forest. It was very dark at the campsite since there were no streetlamps, but still we had the best meal i ever had at any camp where we had to do outfield cooking.
We descended the mountain the next day and headed for some caves. The limestone caves were awesome and they reminded me of the alien cave in star trek where the queen alien shafted her proboscis into the man's head.Then, 13 of us entered an underwater cave. What happened to the 29 others? They were stopped at the entrace of the cave by lumcheefai, khoo, and claralee since they deemed it as being "too dangerous". The 13 of us had already gone underwater and proceeded to the other side of the cave, so there was no turning back. The cave was cramped up, and it was a long, narrow, meandering route to its opening. There were even bats on the ceiling of the cave. Finally, we emerged at the exit and the guide told us some bad news: "er...er..saya..thisa...place, leeches,..many..many leeches,..one by one...one...one...you..is run...must run...across...fasti.d" The next moment, I found myself splashing through a waterlogged field (similar to the one in "Anaconda") When those wriggly, fugly things jumped onto my legs, i whacked them off desperately. We finally reached a road where cows were chewing grasses, horny drivers were beeping furiously at us to get off the road, and shagged-looking, yet happy oacians were sharing their experiences. I realised that I was the only one out the 13 who had the balls to enter the caves in shorts and not get bitten at all. The ip1s, alvyn, and rv girls were all in trackpants, full combat attire against leeches and its amphibious allies.
the shower at the railway village was crap. At first we were told by lumcheefai that there was no light, there were two showers but when one is turned on, the other is off, and we had a limited amount of water to use. Then, suddenly the lights were switched on, and we were elated. But rejoice was too early, way too early. The moment the lights were turned on, swarms of flies entered the shower room. Terence was screaming desperately for help, he was like:"kevin! kevin! just come in and help!" When I went to his rescue, i was dumbfounded at the grotesque sight. It was a nude oac vice-president clutching his family jewels with one hand and frantically scratching the back of his shoulders with his other. There were ants with their scattered wings all over his back, and their jaws were embeded in his skin.
Luckily, I had my bath in a shower room further from the light source. Yet, mosquitoes and flies were relentlessly attacking my groin and lower body. Mervyn was bathing in the shower room where terence was assaulted, and had to face the six-legged horrors too. However, a worse beast was awaiting me.
"mervyn, u done or not? my turn leh."
"ok, i off already"
Just as I was about to push the tap, the creature pounced from its camouflage on the wall, missing me by a few inches.
"LIZARD! lizard! fuck you lizard! fuck! get away! fucking lizard!"
It was a fat, stupid, and gay lizard, the 4-legged predator of the flies. It scurried to mervyn's cubicle and took a place with its buddy at the lights, enjoying the feast we had prepared for them. It was a nightmare come through, I had often dreamed about many little lizards, or one monster lizard jumping onto me when I was naked. Once, I even had this gruesome dream where the lizard jumped onto my groin, and i couldn't find it. When I spotted it, the idiot bit onto my balls and did not let go.
It was not over. At the railway station, khoo informed us that the tour agency had booked a wrong train which was set to depart the next day, and we had to stand on the entire journey till seats were available. Want sleep also cannot sleep, and people were staring at us like some goondoos standing on the KMTexpress. Passengers must be thinking that we were some illegal immigrants from dabong. They should really give us a certificate for "standing on train for 10hours", and compensate us too, man.
Though lots of stuff screwed up..the camp still rocks. Personally, i feel what is important about such a trip is the experience it gives us, and allows us to share it with other people. i mean if the trip went totally smoothly, there would be nothing to talk about, laugh about, and reminiscense in the future. On the train, i was like:"fuck, fuck, idiotic piece of craps", but after i reach home, theres this desire to be put into that situation again. In the past during sjisjab june camps, we would be counting the no. of hours to the end of camp, dreading every minute that passes in fear of new demands from the ncos. However, if I had a chance now, I wouldn't mind pressing some time machine button and be teleported to the instant where ACSM sean chua screwed the COS PTE kevin chan for giving wrong orders. I also wouldn't mind appearing at the 50 push-ups count when we were pumped 100 as sec1s when my dear squadmate marcus soh innocently cut the R&W nco's squad. Its an irony. Though there were many faults and unpleasant surprises during the trip, this trip has been a success for all of us. A camp/expedition is "a venture out of our comfort zones and an opportunity to develop as leaders(lasallian)"
