I arrived at the airport feeling fresh and fairly excited. It is really an exciting experience for me since this is the first time i leave the country without my parents. And I am going with total strangers whom I never get in touch with before.(Kenny Lee was there).Since it was still early when I arrived there, about one hour before the expected time, so my parents and I went to Coffee Bean to have a tea break.After taking a group photo without my parents we started checking in everything . Not long after , I bid my parents farewell and set off for Sabah, Kota Kinabalu. The journey from singapore to sabah took about two hours. The thing i like best about MalAYSIAN Airlines is that they provide good food. The airport at Kota Kinabalu was not as large as Changni Airport bus and there were renovation works carrying on. We were transported to the OBS School which was not near the airport. Along the way we passed many houses which were only one storey high. The school was not as large as OBS singapore either.Most of the surroundings were farming areas. Most of the facilities seems to be in the forest itself. We were allowed to choose our whole bunk, much to my relief and Kenny's too. I even managed to get a friend i knew from specialist's course(ncc) name is nicholas , to be in the same bunk as us. However, we were splitted up into various watch. Mine is Hang Tuan which i pressumed is someone's name. At first sight, the group members seem to be unfriendly and boring but after a while we managed to know each other. I made a new friend immediately. He was from Bukit Panjang Gov. High and was quite easy going.We were given some food and it was acceptable .There were some foreigners present there too. That day not much was done and that night we were given time to introduce ourselves and our instructors Pius and Sebastian gave us a briefing of what is going to be done during our stay there. (We were in cook house duty!!) Our bunk members were a noisy lot and i Screamed at the top of my voice so that they would sleep.I like sleeping a lot so everynight end up in the same way. In the night Pius made a short brief about our stay and we were encouraged to have some team building games after a short introduction of ourselves.
Today, I woke up feeling fresh and excited of the fun that awaited me. We were going to do some light exercise but unfortunately, it rained and we had to hide in the shelter instead. The breakfast was quite nice. After that we went to climb the rock wall, which looked evil and digusting. I did not like the idea of climbing it as it was slimy and many insects dwelled in it. Many of my group members climbed it fairly easily. I was one of the worst but it doesn't really matter. After that we were to have our tea break. I put in extra load of sugar and the milk tasted very nice. There was a lot of free time given to us and I usually spent it in my bunk with the others talking and eating tibits. There were not much things to be done and the day passed by quite fast. I anticipated the next day which was going to be a jungle expedition. That night, we went to the storeroom which was called the Cage. It reminded me of the iron cage match of the wwf. We collected our equipments and shared out the food equally among the twelve members in our group. Parang is the best of all the equipment.Their expression told it all, after all even the most sian guy which is me was excited too.
We woke up and as usual have to do our morning exercise. It was not much of an exercise though. We just have to keep the instructor entertained. After the breakfast we were ready to begin on our journey. We threw out bags into the trailer and were taken to the jungle by a small van. We sang a lot of songs on the way and I remembered the song, " Guan Huai Fang Shi" very clearly as it was one of my favorite song even before the ObS course itself. We were given a packed lunch which i carried on my hand and my new friend whose name is Weijie helped me carried the water while i carried his lunch. The journey was not easy as i had expected. Along the way, I fell many times because of my stupid shoes which had flat soles---friction loh. We walked along narrow path and finally arrived at a stream which was not calm. There were many pond skaters or some kind of water beatle in the water and it was a digusting walk although they were shiny but they were creepy as well. The water was very clear and cooling. When we managed to climb up towards the source of the river, we were shocked to find out that this was a dead end. (I suspect that the obs instructors were takening us for a ride) then we ate our packed lunch up there. I never tried that before and i must agree it was a whole new feeling.
Finally, we reached a place where i thought would be our campsite. There were quite a lot of insects around and i grabbed them hungrily for lunch. Suddenly, my group decided to find another campsite when there is still time and there is simply not enough space for two groups in that small pathetic piece of col. I was without ideas so i carried on with the journey into the bamboo forest. The bamboo looks larger than normal and the journey was extremely slippery. Even the instructor Pius the man fell and I nearly flew off into the unknown. We set up camp immediately. I tried to slack but to no avail. I managed to find myself a task cutting bamboo for purpose of fire or fireworks, I 'm NOT SURE WHICH ONE. When night arrived it was very dark,luckily, I had my super duper torchlight and I illuminated the whole night sky and turn it into daylight.Pius started to say his "frightening" ghost stories and I was feeling very weird after his stories. However, the bond between our group members started to get pretty thick. And one particular thing in this night that i cannot forget was the toilets. Yes!~ The toilets were everywhere and open to all males and females. Rain fell and the temperature drops drastically. I could not sleep as rain was falling into my face and ants the size of my head was crawling around trying to forage me as food. Pius tried to amaze us with his fantastic ghost stories but i was not a bit afraid because my powers are peerless.
I woke up feeling not very refreshed. We were told to packed up and remove all evidence of us being in the mystical bamboo forest as the stuffs we brought were non biodegradable and would cause land pollution. It started raining again.(Rain comes almost everyday i think it is due to the northeast monsoon which carries moisture from the pacific ocean.) I put on my raincoat and work like a dog carrying the objects in my mouth and putting them into the bag. We made our way out of the forest much to my relief although i regretted not bringing my camera to take down many nice shots along the way. I slipped a few more times on our way out. Now, I am getting a phobic for walking .The little van carried us back to the OBS school and we were all given time to wash up.Yeah!!!! It was great washing up after acting like a dog for some time. Then we had some ropes courses and some precious energy resourses from the tibits shop of course. Using some Jedi skill, I managed to recall what activities were carried out. I think it was the middle and high rope course. We were "invited" to challenge the Giant's ladder and it seems that we will never reach the top.I remembered vividly Pius shouting, " Don't be afraid of touching the girls!" I find this to be acceptable as help was certainly needed if one wanted to reach the top. When it was my turn, I was not ashamed .That day i slept like a log to replenish my much needed energy and drank about half a gallon of soft drinks to stop my withdrawal symptoms.
I am not sure what actually happened on this day but i assumed that today is the sea expedition. We were given the waterproof bags which are extremely useful in helping us keep our items dry. This time round, I 've learnt my lesson and brought along my camera which i kept in the waterproof bag. We got onto the sailing boat and were glad to see that the weather is quite windy. However, we were soon dismayed by the oars that were given to us. They weigh around 500000 tonnes and I only managed to just move it with great difficulty. Horror overcame me when Weijie suddenly vomitted (not blood) because of the choppy sea which swing us around like a lily pad on a river. After exhausting all my energy the wind suddenly blew us to the beautiful island . I reckon it was around three to ten kilometres from our base camp. When we reached the island, we were simply delirious not because of exertion but because of the extreme joy of finally reaching. Everyone took off their T-shirt and showed off their muscles (excluding the girls). I did not take off mine as I was sensitive to the sun during their period. However, I took off in the end due to forced circumstances and rashes were ensured soon after. Everyone enjoyed themselves for a short period and we had our lunch before starting on the day 's work. The lunch was miraculously unaffected by out trip and we enjoyed it like dogs without food for a month.
Setting up camp proved to be an uneasy task. I tried to busy myself carrying most of the things but due to unforced circumstances I felt alienated and went cutting firewood instead.(Is this standing to sound like Survivor 1? ) Soon the ordeal of preparing for our next meal started to show through the quarrels among my group members. I cannot be bothered with these quarrels though. When we started eating, it was already dark and light lamps were set up around the place. With my super duper waterproofed shockproofed torch, I illumintated my own food and soon regretted doing so. However, we were amused by our own singing as well as Pius's and his assistant bird cry. I tried to imitate it as well as I could but my vocal cords were lost in the wilderness.
