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Thursday, March 31, 2005
back from Kluang!
I have returned! From Kluang to be exact... haha... i have done something that i think we were all unprepared for... went for a 'trek' in a mountain in M'sia... Bermulut to be exact... went with SH, Huiying, Yi Xin and Xin Xuan... well, the only person i'm aquainted with is SH actually... the rest are her pals... but got to interact and spend time together as well... hey, i'm not an anti-socialite k? haha...
Well, i say we were unprepared cos we were expecting a trek like up Bukit Timah hill kinda thing, just much longer... (Bermulut's summit is about 1KM above sea level...) but when we started climbing, we realised how extremely grossly we underestimated the trip...
Anyways, before i delve into that... i'll give an account of the 3-day trip from DAY 1...
DAY 1 (Mon, 28 Mar 2005)
We all met up at Kranji MRT station and i realised that i was carrying a huge bag (those used for trekking and such) while others were carrying backpacks almost half the size of the one i brought... argh... still regret bringing so much extra stuff around...
Anyways, SH was the last to arrive, as i had expected... haha... but anyways, we left for JB with my humongous bag... it was a long travel with plenty of bus rides... one to Larkin, then another to Kluang...
We had lunch at a shopping mall near there which had nothing much in there to shop, so we didn't shop there... had lunch (Tom Yum Bee Hoon... tasted more like Chilli Bee Hoon) then went to locate a hotel... finally settled on Ankira Hotel... it's quite nice and the 5 of us crammed into a room for RM86 per nite... we ended up lazing in the room for a while before going out on the streets to explore the tiny town... after the short walk, we've all come to the conclusion that Kluang is not a shopping paradise... neither is it a food paradise... but it may be because we didn't really explore the entire town... so don't trust us on that...
We had light dinner at KFC and then bought a couple of foodstuffs back from a super market... i actually tried this instant pasta... which tasted like crap... eeeeek.... bleh... spent the night crapping and talking... and trying to kidnap and hide Xin Xuan's Natasha (the Sesame Street baby monster, Natasha)... then we tried to tell ghost stories... Xin Xuan was our main storyteller but she's really bad at it... know why? cos she keeps pausing and refuses to go on with the story cos she admits that she's afraid herself! haha... but we did manage to give ourselves a slight scare with the unscary stories... ok, just so u have a taste of her stories... here's one...
In Cedar, there's this painting of two malay girls behind the stage... when u look at it closely, u may see them smile at u... (that's it... now u get my drift? haha)
I tried to watch Desperate Housewives there despite the poor quality of the TV in our room... managed to catch most of the impt parts of the storyline through all the static... lucky i didn't watch White Noise... haha...
Went to sleep at about 12 plus cos we needed to prep for DAY 2, which was the climb...
DAY 2 (Tue, 29 Mar 2005)
Woke up at about 5.30am... we all washed up and got all packed for the trek... we actually wanted to stay at the chalet at the bottom of the mountain but decided to stay in the comforts of our hotel instead when the driver who's supposed to bring us there advised us to stay at the hotel instead... so we checked out the old rooma nd got ourselves a better room with a better TV... argh...
Took a drive to the mountain... our drive didn't know how to speak English so we had a hard time communicating with him... he's a nice guy though... pity we couldn't communicate... our vocab for Malay only consists of approximately these few words (Terimah Kasih, ini, apa and a few others...)
We reached the mountain and got ourselves a guide to bring us up... a very young guide who walks very fast and doesn't say a word abt the surroundings... we had to cross a bridge to start off our trip... the initial trekking was easy... just walking up gentle slopes and steps... but it was a hard trek at times cos it's long and some steps and more steep and slippery than others... cos it's a forested area, the floor is dense with fallen leaves which made it slippery... there was this waterfall and we kinda chilled out there for a while, taking photos and stuff... then we finally reached a place where i think we all had doubts about successfully overcoming... it's a very steep climb up where we had to pull ourselves up with the help of trees and all... and it was literally a climb up... the first time i've ever experienced real mountain climbing... i've never loved trees more than i did on that trek... haha... kept hugging and grabbing them for balance and support... after we've all climbed up the steep part, the thing that was bugging us was how to get down that part on our return trip... gulp...
Anyways, Xin Xuan had a near-death experience while climbing the steep part... she slipped and fell slightly... and if she had falled badly, she would have fallen off the ledge and into dense forestation underneath... thaat's the scary part... falling... i'm quite amazed that we all made it alive with not so much as a major injury to boot... thankful for that too... i was bitten by a leech... and actually the first encounter with a leech on the trip was also by me, when we were resting by a log and i looked down to my shoe and saw this earth-worm like thingy on my shoe... the guide then quickly rushed over and plucked it off, saying it was a leech... i actually got bitten once and the guide had to help me out again... and when i tried to get one off SH's shoe, i got it on mine instead and it nearly climbed into my shoe cos SH was trying to get rid of it by poking it with a stick... but the guide came down and grabbed it off my shoe once again... haha... after that, i was quite afraid of getting a leech in my shoe... argh...
Anyways, we reached the 'summit' or so said the guide... but we all think that he just didn't want to bring us up all the way and lied to us, saying where we stopped was the summit... but it was about to rain anyways, so we were ok with the fact...
We then headed down the mountain without much of a rest on the 'summit' cos of the weather... if you thought going up was tough, going down is even more difficult... with the constant fear of falling, we had to proceed with extreme caution and we even resigned to sittting down on the ground and slidding ourselves down slowly when it came to wet and slippery slopes... our knees buckled under our weight, our muscles tense with trying to hold us back against gravity, our toes pained with the constant knocking against the shoe... it wasn't easy... but we made it... we were all so tired and all that we started hallucinating "Is that the brigde? I think i see it... oh, it's not..." that happened a couple of times to me... haha... but when we finally reached the bridge, we were all so happy and tired... i just slowed down, took a couple of pictures and slowly walked towards the drinks stall...
I've come to realise that mountain climbing or trekking isn't only about physical ability... it's also a mental workout... when you're climbing up the mountain and trying to overcome fatigue and your fear of heights and falling, ur brain plays a huge role there... when u are faced with a steep climb, u have no choice but to carry on... ur brain will tell u that u can do it... u'll focus and look out for things around... become more alert and know where instinctively to step... i realised that by just looking at the step before u rather than the entire long climb before u helps... u'll focus mre on the steps infront and slowly, u'll overcome that huge stretch of steep climbing... the more i looked, the more my eyes and brain were telling me where to step and what to hold onto during the ascend... it was almost instinctive and instantaneous... even though i had no experience in mountain climbing or any climbing for that matter of fact, i found it easy to figure out where to step and how to get myself up after a while and with very hard concentration...
At first we were all reluctant to get our hands and stuff dirty... but after a while, we all used our hands like our life depended on them, which was true, and we just grabbed whatever was available... the trees, mossy rocks, the soil... everything and anything... but actually, it didn't smell bad at all... there was this very nice light tinge of nature... there's no way to describe the scent... except it was natural and quite pleasant actually...
We all managed to get back in one piece and all took our own sweet time showering... washing off all the dirt and grime... Hui Ying actually found a leech in her socks after she took off her shoes... her sock was soaked with blood but the leech had already died, possibly stepped to death by her... we were all filthy so we waited outside on the corridor of our hotel room while one person went in to get washed up... it felt great to have overcome all our fears of height, dirt, physical exertion... but thinking back, i'm really quite amazed as to how we all managed to do it... if i had known what was involved in this trek prior to actually going for it, i probably would not have gone for it... Hui Ying, Xin Xuan and SH went to get food from Pizza Hut... we feasted on pizzas and lasagne... and they even got me a cute little cake, a belated birthday cake... so sweet of them... we talked and watched TV while we all groaned in pain for the entire night... haha... plenty of counter pain made it go away for a while though... haha...
DAY 3 (Wed, 30 Mar 2005)
The day to leave for home has arrived... we packed up and checked out of the hotel and made our way to JB... went to City Square to shop around and eat... also managed to catch Ms Congeniality 2 there... very funny show...
Walked around a bit more then we headed to Holiday Plaza cos i wanted to get VCDs and games for my bro and Dan... shopped around there a bit and then made our way to Da Ma Hua Yuan for dinner... where we had snow fish, sambal kangkong, hotplate toufu, lotus soup and fried chicken... all very nice... hehe... after the scrumptous dinner, we headed back home...
All in all, it was a wonderful trip... i wouldn't mind going for one again, but i think i'll really need a long time to recover from the aches i'm suffering from now... haha..
Tomorrow is April Fool's Day... it's also my second anniversary with Dan... time really does fly when u're having fun, no? hehe... gonna go find him later today... missed him so much in the trip... i think he would have loved it if he went with us... perhaps another trip to another mountain next time? haha...
Well, i say we were unprepared cos we were expecting a trek like up Bukit Timah hill kinda thing, just much longer... (Bermulut's summit is about 1KM above sea level...) but when we started climbing, we realised how extremely grossly we underestimated the trip...
Anyways, before i delve into that... i'll give an account of the 3-day trip from DAY 1...
DAY 1 (Mon, 28 Mar 2005)
We all met up at Kranji MRT station and i realised that i was carrying a huge bag (those used for trekking and such) while others were carrying backpacks almost half the size of the one i brought... argh... still regret bringing so much extra stuff around...
Anyways, SH was the last to arrive, as i had expected... haha... but anyways, we left for JB with my humongous bag... it was a long travel with plenty of bus rides... one to Larkin, then another to Kluang...
We had lunch at a shopping mall near there which had nothing much in there to shop, so we didn't shop there... had lunch (Tom Yum Bee Hoon... tasted more like Chilli Bee Hoon) then went to locate a hotel... finally settled on Ankira Hotel... it's quite nice and the 5 of us crammed into a room for RM86 per nite... we ended up lazing in the room for a while before going out on the streets to explore the tiny town... after the short walk, we've all come to the conclusion that Kluang is not a shopping paradise... neither is it a food paradise... but it may be because we didn't really explore the entire town... so don't trust us on that...
We had light dinner at KFC and then bought a couple of foodstuffs back from a super market... i actually tried this instant pasta... which tasted like crap... eeeeek.... bleh... spent the night crapping and talking... and trying to kidnap and hide Xin Xuan's Natasha (the Sesame Street baby monster, Natasha)... then we tried to tell ghost stories... Xin Xuan was our main storyteller but she's really bad at it... know why? cos she keeps pausing and refuses to go on with the story cos she admits that she's afraid herself! haha... but we did manage to give ourselves a slight scare with the unscary stories... ok, just so u have a taste of her stories... here's one...
In Cedar, there's this painting of two malay girls behind the stage... when u look at it closely, u may see them smile at u... (that's it... now u get my drift? haha)
I tried to watch Desperate Housewives there despite the poor quality of the TV in our room... managed to catch most of the impt parts of the storyline through all the static... lucky i didn't watch White Noise... haha...
Went to sleep at about 12 plus cos we needed to prep for DAY 2, which was the climb...
DAY 2 (Tue, 29 Mar 2005)
Woke up at about 5.30am... we all washed up and got all packed for the trek... we actually wanted to stay at the chalet at the bottom of the mountain but decided to stay in the comforts of our hotel instead when the driver who's supposed to bring us there advised us to stay at the hotel instead... so we checked out the old rooma nd got ourselves a better room with a better TV... argh...
Took a drive to the mountain... our drive didn't know how to speak English so we had a hard time communicating with him... he's a nice guy though... pity we couldn't communicate... our vocab for Malay only consists of approximately these few words (Terimah Kasih, ini, apa and a few others...)
We reached the mountain and got ourselves a guide to bring us up... a very young guide who walks very fast and doesn't say a word abt the surroundings... we had to cross a bridge to start off our trip... the initial trekking was easy... just walking up gentle slopes and steps... but it was a hard trek at times cos it's long and some steps and more steep and slippery than others... cos it's a forested area, the floor is dense with fallen leaves which made it slippery... there was this waterfall and we kinda chilled out there for a while, taking photos and stuff... then we finally reached a place where i think we all had doubts about successfully overcoming... it's a very steep climb up where we had to pull ourselves up with the help of trees and all... and it was literally a climb up... the first time i've ever experienced real mountain climbing... i've never loved trees more than i did on that trek... haha... kept hugging and grabbing them for balance and support... after we've all climbed up the steep part, the thing that was bugging us was how to get down that part on our return trip... gulp...
Anyways, Xin Xuan had a near-death experience while climbing the steep part... she slipped and fell slightly... and if she had falled badly, she would have fallen off the ledge and into dense forestation underneath... thaat's the scary part... falling... i'm quite amazed that we all made it alive with not so much as a major injury to boot... thankful for that too... i was bitten by a leech... and actually the first encounter with a leech on the trip was also by me, when we were resting by a log and i looked down to my shoe and saw this earth-worm like thingy on my shoe... the guide then quickly rushed over and plucked it off, saying it was a leech... i actually got bitten once and the guide had to help me out again... and when i tried to get one off SH's shoe, i got it on mine instead and it nearly climbed into my shoe cos SH was trying to get rid of it by poking it with a stick... but the guide came down and grabbed it off my shoe once again... haha... after that, i was quite afraid of getting a leech in my shoe... argh...
Anyways, we reached the 'summit' or so said the guide... but we all think that he just didn't want to bring us up all the way and lied to us, saying where we stopped was the summit... but it was about to rain anyways, so we were ok with the fact...
We then headed down the mountain without much of a rest on the 'summit' cos of the weather... if you thought going up was tough, going down is even more difficult... with the constant fear of falling, we had to proceed with extreme caution and we even resigned to sittting down on the ground and slidding ourselves down slowly when it came to wet and slippery slopes... our knees buckled under our weight, our muscles tense with trying to hold us back against gravity, our toes pained with the constant knocking against the shoe... it wasn't easy... but we made it... we were all so tired and all that we started hallucinating "Is that the brigde? I think i see it... oh, it's not..." that happened a couple of times to me... haha... but when we finally reached the bridge, we were all so happy and tired... i just slowed down, took a couple of pictures and slowly walked towards the drinks stall...
I've come to realise that mountain climbing or trekking isn't only about physical ability... it's also a mental workout... when you're climbing up the mountain and trying to overcome fatigue and your fear of heights and falling, ur brain plays a huge role there... when u are faced with a steep climb, u have no choice but to carry on... ur brain will tell u that u can do it... u'll focus and look out for things around... become more alert and know where instinctively to step... i realised that by just looking at the step before u rather than the entire long climb before u helps... u'll focus mre on the steps infront and slowly, u'll overcome that huge stretch of steep climbing... the more i looked, the more my eyes and brain were telling me where to step and what to hold onto during the ascend... it was almost instinctive and instantaneous... even though i had no experience in mountain climbing or any climbing for that matter of fact, i found it easy to figure out where to step and how to get myself up after a while and with very hard concentration...
At first we were all reluctant to get our hands and stuff dirty... but after a while, we all used our hands like our life depended on them, which was true, and we just grabbed whatever was available... the trees, mossy rocks, the soil... everything and anything... but actually, it didn't smell bad at all... there was this very nice light tinge of nature... there's no way to describe the scent... except it was natural and quite pleasant actually...
We all managed to get back in one piece and all took our own sweet time showering... washing off all the dirt and grime... Hui Ying actually found a leech in her socks after she took off her shoes... her sock was soaked with blood but the leech had already died, possibly stepped to death by her... we were all filthy so we waited outside on the corridor of our hotel room while one person went in to get washed up... it felt great to have overcome all our fears of height, dirt, physical exertion... but thinking back, i'm really quite amazed as to how we all managed to do it... if i had known what was involved in this trek prior to actually going for it, i probably would not have gone for it... Hui Ying, Xin Xuan and SH went to get food from Pizza Hut... we feasted on pizzas and lasagne... and they even got me a cute little cake, a belated birthday cake... so sweet of them... we talked and watched TV while we all groaned in pain for the entire night... haha... plenty of counter pain made it go away for a while though... haha...
DAY 3 (Wed, 30 Mar 2005)
The day to leave for home has arrived... we packed up and checked out of the hotel and made our way to JB... went to City Square to shop around and eat... also managed to catch Ms Congeniality 2 there... very funny show...
Walked around a bit more then we headed to Holiday Plaza cos i wanted to get VCDs and games for my bro and Dan... shopped around there a bit and then made our way to Da Ma Hua Yuan for dinner... where we had snow fish, sambal kangkong, hotplate toufu, lotus soup and fried chicken... all very nice... hehe... after the scrumptous dinner, we headed back home...
All in all, it was a wonderful trip... i wouldn't mind going for one again, but i think i'll really need a long time to recover from the aches i'm suffering from now... haha..
Tomorrow is April Fool's Day... it's also my second anniversary with Dan... time really does fly when u're having fun, no? hehe... gonna go find him later today... missed him so much in the trip... i think he would have loved it if he went with us... perhaps another trip to another mountain next time? haha...