Sunday, September 27, 2009

the 09E xperience 3

Raleigh expedition 09Ephase3---trek@long pa'sia, dive@mamutik

finally and luckily, there comes my adventure phase for my last phase. this is the most enjoyable phase, more like a vacation. because we no longer have to work under hot sun!

after taking 4hrs of four wheel drive(with guaranteed good mountain view) from a small town Sipitang, we finally arrived to the KAMPUNG LONG PASIA!
photo of long pasia from a hill. i was so excited when i first arrived here. this village exists out of no where in the middle of the jungle. it is soo soo soo beautiful---a big piece of land, fulled of wooden houses,schools, football field, church and occasionally some small ladang, surrounded by mountain range and serene jungle.the cooling weather in long pasia makes the village the best villages to stay on in sabah.(i think la)

a bird eye view of long pasia village from quite high altitude.(taken when we're on the way to senipong campsite)

job description: very simple.as below.

everyday, we trek with big rucksack and kena attacked by hundreds/thousands/millions/billions of desperate brown leeches/tiger leeches.

reached campsite,set up hammock,dining area. then, chill out time! people walk around, chit chat,play games....

if Nooh and the porters have got some free time, they will make us some games.

on the third day of trek, our guide,Nooh, he bubuk-ed a baby monkey! we named this cute little creature "Si Hutan". since then, hutan joined our team for the rest of the trekking phase and everyday he gave me a morning call by producing this "wu wu wu" sound. i remembered one of my trekking mate said:"isn't it a dream of every little boy to have a monkey as friend and let it sit on your shoulder?"

after chilling out, this is where we usually have a mandi ! i love all the rivers mandi in long pasia. challenged yourself to the extremem coldness!! we had fun time celup-ing there.

one of the river that we have to cross. it's a HUGE river,i was astounded. i've never seen a river like that. i remembered sitting by the river for a long time by just doing 1 thing, observed how the water flow.. thinking if i kena flush away by the river water and you will never see me again. dun play play....

one of the animal i got to eat at "karnivor" long pasia is.....pelanduk! taste a bit like pork and the meat was a bit rough. after the night we got pelanduk, we hoped for more: kancil, kijang, wild boar......but we never got any coz it was raining everyday.

this is how we lived in a jungle...god...i really missed those time...the time when i was awake twice a night because of the freezing cold weather. missed also the bird chirping soulnd in the early morning. missed also the morning where we have to rush to take down hammock, clear the campsite and keep moving.

trekking wasn't hard at all. during off day, we went there! there---MAGA WATERFALL!! i swear i have never been to this kind of places b4,such a nice place! everyone was amazed by the fierce water which flows down at an unbelievably fast speed. my team mate and i even refused to leave the beautiful maga falls.

after 12 days trek,our happy time at long pasia finally came to end.i left no regret in long pasia, coz i already enjoyed as much as i can.erm, mayb a small regret, i lost some cenderamatas that Nooh gave to me.

then, we proceed to the equally fun phase---diving phase!! it's time for vacation at mamutik island!
Vacation time!!Jess at sutera habour.(just wanna show a nice picture taken by me.)

times at mamutik...i dunno what to say...it is just---real fun time! and of coz one of the reasons is....i dun have to eat oat porridge as breakfast anymore!

the diving instructor who taught me also new photography skill.thank you.

a photo of me with the angmohs.haha..thanks to them, i had many of my first times during expedition. first time sunbathe under the sooo hot sun. it was crazy and fun i thought. first time to get my hair braided. it's cool i thought. first time to join the FULL MOON PARTY. haha, this is the craziest stuff i have done during expedition,crazy stuff i never thought of doing if it's not expedition.












u think expedition is fun?? wanna check out more??
pls do not hesitate to check out our raleigh kl website at www.raleighinternational.org.my
or contact expedition officer at expedition@raleighinternational.org.my

Friday, September 25, 2009

the 09E xperience 2

Raleigh expedition fasa dua--kampung mapan-mapan (you will have to listen how angmohs pronounce these words)
My community phase in kampung mapan2 is to built a kindergarten! what a wonderful meaningful task.we made a difference in other ppl's life.

dang dang dang dang! proudly presented to you my kampung.....
dang! the morning sunrise at abt 5.45am. yes, i sumtimes woke up at 5.30am for the sunrise shot and have a lonely morning walk around the kampung.

kampung mapan is a small little village with most of the villages catch fishes or other seafood for a living. oh yes, there was once i even waded across the sea to a small small island to help the women to collect oysters! but then i think i "gao gao zan, mou bong chan", ruined most of their oysters. it was a nice experience though.
this is what we did in mapan-mapan. again, very similar to the job in sepilok.

situation: very hot sun. normally the angmohs will say: "i'm baked"

job description:
1.carry more woods >_<" .
2.saw wood. we even had a sawing competition. my fastest record was sawing a 2"x4" wood in 28 second.that was the fastest i can go..considered quite fast d.
3.lots of arranging and nailing. bang-ing in a 4 inch nail into a piece of hard woods can be very demoralising whenever the nail bent.
4.actually not much work to do. i got lots of time to interact with the locals.or having a nap at the bench outside klinik kesihatan. or reading a book at the tower nearby the school.

accidents
did occur.
almost everyday,we gotta do a medrep.
someone parang-ed his own finger.which is very stupid.
someone parang-ed,nail-ed,saw-ed,hammer-ed his thumb.the same thumb.which is very stupid also.
i knocked down a timber and unfortunately the 6"x3"x10' timber dropped on my unlucky left foot. was using a DIY bamboo tongkat for a day and limping like a victim who survived a bomb for a few days.

the 19-years-old boy and 17-years-old girl. see the difference if we eat rice everyday or if we eat bread,cheese,oats and milk everyday ?

after a day's work. this is a lil bit reward.
an open space washroom with kampung view+a bucket of rainwater+some mozzies bites= shower time
everyday, i cant wait for the refreshing shower! i loved this open washroom so much that i din even wanna wash in the proper washroom.

when i have got some free time(i have lots of free time actually), went down the water village and look for my frens. chit-chat with the locals, makan their kuih-muih and drink their tea(purposely did that to skip having oat porridge/crackers for lunch) or sometimes just chilled out at their house.

this guys, same age as me, he owned a red boat. it's very impressive. and he will undoubtedly win the "most helpful villager" award.

almost every evening, we played volleyball with these guys.all of them are orang asli. is either orang ubiyan,orang sulu or orang sungai. although they look like those illegal foreign workers in kl, they were actually very kind.

this is how the living hall looks like before breakfast,after breakfast,before lunch,after lunch and before dinner.

the kids! is really a bad timing to arrive in kampung mapan mapan. because of the seriousness of H1N1 cases,we were not allowed to teach english in the school. if would be great experience if i can teach them some english songs. but then, still i always lepak at the school area.had some random childish chat with the standard 1 kids, played forfiet chess with them and took lots of picture of these naive faces.
see? they are so cute.i cant remember their name,there are too many of them.i'm glad they remembered my name! but i think most probably now they have forgoten my name. working in a small village like this made me realised lots of things. if it's not kerajaan who sponsor their uniforms,school bags,textbooks and lunches, they might not have the chance to go to school. when they grow up,most probably they will get married with some guys and be a housewife. if these kids were born in city like kl, they might have a chance to make it to university and got some profession jobs.mayb a pharmacist,mayb my collegue. and i say these ppl are those who really need help, education sponsorship and not those city mxlxy with lousy results.

a photo of black,white and yellow people. and a picture of the world.raleigh expedition puts people from different parts of world together.this is what i find very interesting.

after a week's hardwork, finally this is our off day! to the island. is called pulau perkuburan. yea.is an island with graveyard. but we're like "bak mou kam gei", surprisingly, no spooky feeling, no one feel scared.hmm...this a very nice picture taken by me. that afternoon was one of the best moments in mapan-mapan too. it was a very hot afternoon and we(locals+venturers) were having a dip in the cool sea water. we menyelam-ed , found lots of baby jellyfishes, lots of starfishes, jumping into the sea water from each other's shoulder(quite hard) and competing with each other to see who can hold their breath longest in the water(of coz the sabahan won).

yeehee...this is our battle crab. they caught 3 crabs, tied them up, built a sand battle stadium and put them into battle with each other.if i'm not wrong, this crab won.as you can see, it is quite big in size. and i kena sepit by one of the crabs lo,super hurtS!!!! dun play play...then, i learnt a lesson:how to catch a crab correctly before catch you.

then there was once, i followed the orang kampung go korek telur burung. the eggs is almost twice the size of a chicken egg.very weird, this kind of bird lay eggs underground, then when the egg hatches, the baby bird will crawl all the way to the surface. really "shan kei" lo,first time i see this kind of bird. in less than 1 hrs time, the orang kampung already dug out 16 eggs.they take it back,cook it and eat it.

a crab. 2 kilos of crab for dinner! soooooo good.

a fish. a humungous fish for dinner. sooooo good again. few days later , we had prawns for dinner. soooooo good again!










i'm glad that i've been to this place. to have fun. to understand the locals. to build tadika kg.mapan-mapan.

the 09E xperience

my 09E xperience at sepilok, kampung mapam-mapan, long pa'sia and mamutik is the most unforgetable summer ever.

it is impossble to tell the expedition story in just few lines. like many other ex-venturers expedition stories ,it will be "yat pat pou kan cheong.". that is the only period where i can still vividly remember what i did 10 weeks ago,where have i been, what i have seen and whom i talked to. it is so true and like what Mac like to say: YOU WILL HAVE AN AMAZING TIME.

PHASE 1:SEPILOK JUNGLE CAMP FOR BSBCC
-working closely with Borneo Sunbear Conservation Centre to build a jungle camp
-free admission to see baby orang utans which are under quarantine.
-free admission to see the smallest bear in the world,sunbear.
-lucky enough to witness a wild orang utan in sepilok jungle.

One of the very raleigh style photo on Bravo FWD! the jungle camp WE BUILT is just behind the oil palm tree. lots of laughter, rain, sweat, hardwork, sunshine, parang-ing, wood ferrying, hole digging, sawing, nailing , chiselling, mozzie bites, star gazing, singing and games...

it took us few days of hard work and trek before we can actually sit down and lay down like this. such a harsh environment but we made it.

all cleared in just a morning.my parang buddy(the one in grey shirt), has very beautiful blue eyes! maybe it is the most beautiful eyes i have ever seen. and her killing smile..i heard lots of english boys talked abt it one...

not only on parang-ing.we were hole digging buddy too.although she's also very good in digging long drop(a hole for us to pee and poo),sorry lo. i dun wanna be her long drop buddy.

living with whole bunch of angmohs,being the only malaysian in the group, i got lots of culture shock.
eg. angmohs eat kuih with fork and knife. eat rice with fork. they said,spoon is for tea and soup ONLY.
eg.angmohs like to over exaggerate when they tell stories.mayb they wanna make it more interesting.my team mate told me she saw a DINASOUR in the jungle, where it was only a camourflage lizard.

lots of culture shock! you will know if u go expedition.

one thing that i'm very proud of this this papan i made.it is carved on belian wood,one of the hardest wood in the world and it takes a very very long time to reput.i want to get the papan back 2 years later."Rasa sayang" is the name of our camp. i had fun teaching them the song and laughed at them when they cannot pronouce it correctly.

the walkway of OUR jungle camp.took us 5 days to build the whole thing from foundation to zink roof.this is definately AMAZING job with AMAZING people in an AMAZING phase. i spent the last night of my phase sleeping in this jungle camp.that was one of the best nights in jungle.in the morning, the birds woke me up.

sometimes, leng lui got dirty too..hmm..maybe i should say, most of the time,everyone gets very dirty and sweaty.

on our day off!

ps:stay tuned.more storis to come.
wanna join raleigh expedition? check out www.raleighinternational.org.my and email expedition@raleighinternational.org.my