And I tossed and turned, but could not get to sleep. Dunno why. Images of the upcoming trip filled my mind and I simply could not stop thinking.
Of whether my bag is too heavy. Or whether the trip is alright. Or the impending boat ride to Lombok. Or scaling the volcano.
Rinjani, at 3,726 m, is certainly shorter than Mount Kinabalu (4,095 m) which I had scaled almost a year ago. So it shouldn't be so cold right? I've a niggling feeling that the stuff I brought up this time round is much more than previously. A last count provided the following for the 4d 3n trek:
1 set long johns
2x track pants (1 for spare)
3x tee shirts (1 for spare)
2x trek shorts
2 jackets (1 windbreaker + 1 winter type w/ hood)
Gloves
Beanie (for my head)
Scarf
1 pair of running shoes
1 pair of sandals
Seems a little overkill. Added to the fact that I brought along about 3 sets of clothes for the RnR after the trek, the bag is rather heavy, though I'm not too sure if it is within the 20kg limit set.
Haiz...gonna do some repacking.
Rinjani Beckons...
Current Mood: 
Awake
A pity my stitching wasn't perfect. Not using the same aperture and settings for all the shots, as it was on auto-focus mode. Dang.
Should have used the SLR instead. But that takes time to develop. Haiz.
Enjoy!
Today...just resting at home. Flu's getting better. Wished I had a job to keep myself busy. At least, there's a good read to keep me entertained. Just being at home reminds me of having saved money. Going out for a simple dinner with the 26th yesterday ended with $4 spent on transportation! OMG. I still remember those days where u had to pay 55 cents or 60 cents for the entire ride...
Times have changed...
Rinjani in 2 days time!
And that completes my fourth Datuk. In retrospect, each Datuk provides me with different experiences, yet I'm climbing the very same mountain... To think that the first time I scaled it, I was super enthusiastic and loving the entire mountain, the tough trek up, the lovely view up above, the ability to have a sea of stars right above you.
This time round, it was doused by the rain. And it was kinda cloudy. The trek itself, seemed more tough compared to before, probably due to the deterioration of the terrain. I'm not so surprised with the terrain change, for the mountain is not really under the care of any park rangers, and the mountain is a regular backyard climbing spot for the residents in the area.
Perhaps the trek up was such that I decided there was little use of my camera. In fact, I did not take much photos! Drained from the diving trip, perhaps? Guanyu (John) was also on the same trip with me, together with Weichuan, Aeron (my stong trekking buddy!), the Chem Engine ppl (Weili, Huiyan, Qiurong, Bingxing), alumni (Wai Kei), Geraldine and Jason. Quite a fun bunch, I must say, but it's a waste that the 4 girls pulled out the last minute. Probably due to the 2 reports of people dying from falling branches (or trees).
Whilst I wait for the rest of the photos to come...here are some which I have obtained thus far!
The real-life Puss In Boots!
At the foot of Datuk
The new bridge!
The dam was where we used to walk to get to the other side...now there's a sluice gate. Wow...
A GIANT millipede. Big isn't it? Nearly squashed on it.
Me, Bingxing, Weichuan, Guanyu
At the campsite! There wasn't anyone, so it was just us and us!!!
Setting up the tents
The sunset
The cooks and the satay chicken
Up on the rock!
Me & Aeron
Must really thank BX and QR for going down to get the water with me...really difficult to handle 10+ bottles of water and still make it up in time before last light. Due to the rugged terrain, the movement was slow. Luckily, we 3 made it up just in time and had help from those who had set up the tents already.
A pity that it drizzled. Spoilt most of the fun, and with it there was dense cloud cover, so seeing stars at night was almost impossible. Tired, I washed up the stuff, and drifted off to sleep.
The second day down was kind of eventful. In the morning some of us decided to go up to the summit again to have a view of the surroundings, but it was super hot up there. Where was the cloud cover when we needed it? After taking some pictures, we made our way down and got ready to leave.
Being the last man, I was with Aeron and we cleared the area of any remaining litter before heading down to meet the rest. Caught up with some of them, and it was then that Sayanee fell and injured her ankle. It was barely 30 minutes down the hill, and her ankle was injured. In the end, Aeron volunteered to guide her along in front, whilst Guanyu and Weichuan were guiding her from the back. I took her bag, and we moved slowly along the path.
As we walked down, it got slower as the pain started settling in, and it was evident that we would not all make it down on time. So I asked Guanyu and Weichuan to go forward to meet the rest of the group, while the 3 of us slowly made our way down. Luckily for us, we managed to reach the foot of the mountain by 1pm. Phew. I was super relieved on reaching the foot, and the shower which greeted me was heavenly.
And definitely, a meal at Pizza Hut, and then at Secret Recipe, after a long and exhausting trek, sure does wonders to the mind, body and soul.
I doubt I'm going up Datuk again, considering that the trail is getting worse, and more leeches are abound. Siewhua had a total of 9 leeches la! Gosh. I think it's like a mini-Nuang already. Guess the changes in weather had brought about the change in environment there too.
Current Mood:
Tired
Finally...after 2 years of diving hiatus, I'm diving again! My last dive was with Seaborne, learning diving over off Pulau Dayang and Aur. This time round, I've decided to join up with Simply Scuba (which is teaming up with Rovers for all the dive trips) for the advance diving course which I've been thinking of (for a LONG LONG time!)
So when the offer of a diving trip came along and it almost did not fit my schedule, I asked Guanyu whether he is interested in taking up the advanced course, and I've a dive buddy!
I was supposed to go along with some more of the 27th who are going for their basic open water course (Nicholas, Weihuang, Xiuling, Zhihui) but they had to pull out last minute, so I had no choice but to go along for the trip without them. But I was surprised to meet up with Tianyuan and Ang (Huiqin's bro) on the trip! They were also there with Huiqin for their advance dive course! I can't just use the word 'fun' to describe the dive trip! The 爱心 pratas, the crazy & silly games (毛毛 & Who,What,Huh?), the gay-loving dive instructors, the onboard pole-dancing entertainment, the enjoyable NUS people, the photo-whoring sessions, the deep blue sea, the turtles and sharks, and loads more! It's simply too much to describe. Guess I can truly say that it was really memorable. I love diving!
Imagine everyone in the middle of the ocean, swimming around and looking at the corals and the fishes, and suddenly, a familiar ting-a-ling-a-ling sound was head. Reacting to the the sound, we all rush to the source of it, and end up cluster-f***ing whilst hovering in that little area, trying to peer over each others' shoulders (and BCD and tanks) to get a look at what's the commotion about.
Or, imagine the familiar sign of a shark being posed by the lead diver (our instructors). With the sound of the ting-a-ling-a-ling, we all switch to top gear and zoom off to chase the shark down. Alas, the shark swam quickly away, probably afraid of us going for it's precious fin. It's like switching on the NOX of the car and zooming on the highway with it.
P.O.W.s in Malaysia?
Photo-whoring starts now...
Touch down @ Tioman!
Left to Right: (Top) Tianyuan, Yi-Shyan, Ignatius, Guanyu, Ang, Huiqin
(Bottom) LJ, Huimin, Evelyn, Me
Low-tide on arrival at Genting Village
The lizard is scurrying around to dig for food?
Guys at their best
Loads of these at the bridge! You know you've squashed them when u hear a 'squish' sound.
Ahem...English wrong here..
The 爱心 prata bomb!
The making of the banana prata
A great meal after a great dive makes one happy!
The cat which simply could not resist snuggling beside me
We R Diving People!
Peaks of Tioman - Gunung Kajang
Ign, Me, Jon
Divers also become Ultraman...
Perched atop the boat are diving people ready to dive!
Batu Malang
Leisure divers taking a dip
The group of fun-loving divers!
Cats eat lizards?
Tioman Diving May 2007!
The master and the student
Photo whoring on the boat ride back
Of all pictures I like to take, I love to take pictures of sunrise and sunsets the most. Why? Because they give added colour, vibrance and life to the area in which the golden light bathes the environment around it. And that, in essence, it nice. Such a wonderful feeling...
Lovely sunset!
Once we reached NUS, some of us (LJ, Huimin, Evelyn, John, Jon, Huiqin, Ang, Yi-Shyan and I) trooped down to Botak Jones in Clementi for dinner! The lamb there was simply sumptuous!
I simply love diving. Whee! I wanna go other places...Redang? Manado? Anyway...Datuk tomorrow! Really down into the sea, up a mountain...Packing my stuff, whilst trying to load up the pictures. Might end up posting the rest another day...
Note: Saved as draft and posting the original post.
Current Mood:
Tired
NOTE: I couldn't access this page for so many days 'cos of a stupid Singnet redirection problem. Luckily, I managed to search some help forums and got around this seething problem. MIO sucks. Singnet...it's worse.
Anyway, back from Ophir! This is my 4th time up the mountain, and almost nothing has changed, except that this time around I experienced less water (compared to December!) and the weather was super kind to us (we reached the bottom of Ophir and were about to board the taxis, and it rained!). So all in all it was a wonderful trip!
A trip with good weather, coupled with a group of noisy and jolly participants sure make the entire trip more relaxing and fun. We met in the morning at Kranji station, and I was kinda shocked by the numerous lights around the MRT station - there were actually SHOPS there! No more just a old-looking This Fashion outlet. There were bakeries and even a Jollibean outlet there! And the white-lights are certainly blinding, especially early in the morning!
After meeting the group of participants (all were on time!), we headed off for Larkin Terminal with our bags on our backs, and soon we were on the road towards Ophir! For us (Hwi Bee, Weihuang, Xiuling and me), we were there there for the 2nd time together ever since the previous (failed) Ophir Trip, in which there was torrential rains and it flooded the tents throughout the night. (And not to forget I kenna a leech when I was asleep, and it died subsequently after I squashed it haha) The weather seemed perfect, and most of us just dozed off to sleep, with little noise in the first half of the bus journey.
After the bus made a stop over at Muar for some diesel, all of us seemed to wake up, and there was more noise now...which meant that the fun was just starting! Soon, we reached Tangkak, and we unloaded our bags into an area bathed in sunlight. Hot...indeed. Just the weather I'd remembered a year ago.
View of Ophir from Tangkak Terminal
After having our lunch at the nearby stalls, and taking a taxi ride down to the base of Ophir, we were ready to start the trek! And from here on...I think you can retrieve the previous post here, while I just upload pics. Enjoy! :)
Us at the base!
Kenneth, Yongkai, Mingjuan, Jingwen
Xiuling, Me, Hwibee, Weihuang
Liyang, Lee Koon, Tan Ching
Sandy bathing in the sunlight
River crossing!
Hwibee's bag...is gone... :P
Terrence, Liyang, Hongquan
Too many people behind me. haha.
There was no one else at the campsite for the first night, so we had the whole place to ourselves! So a group of merry people sat down, pitched their tents, washed up and got down to the main item for the night - EATING!
The girls went for their bath first, and the guys decided that the best course of action would be for us to stay back, relax and wait for their return, and at the same time play a game (or 2) of 'Minimizer', since they would take their time (haha!).
Our pot of porridge (I didn't like porridge on treks...but the sweet potatoes sure helped!)
Busy eating!
Cooking...
Porrdige and vege...so 清淡！
Chef Hwibee
Chef Jingwen's pot
Still busy eating with 2 chefs at the helm
Eggs added to the mix with veges!
Fried fish...oooh...
龙眼沙爹
Day 2 was rather interesting...the climb to the summit! The KFC, the caves, the roped ascent, and the 'snakes and ladders' climb! It's damn interesting!
2nd Day...en route up summit!
Ophir Tarzan!
Snakes 'n' Ladders?
Clambering through the rocks
Almost to the top! (CW from left: Liyang, Hongquan, Zhaobao, Tan Ching)
The beautiful sky...
Participants!
All of us together!
R O V E R S
The downward abseil
Operation Fix Sandy-als
As you can see above, we've undertaken a very major operation up at Ophir. Yes...we operated on Sandy's sandals (it rhymes!) which had basically opened up, the rear support was fully damaged and gave way, and we had nothing but tape etc to keep them in position. What a sight. Jingsong can consider being a roaming cobbler in the future. Haha!
A giant millipede (be scared...)
I noticed this on the way up...a chameleon?
And of course, how can there not be pictures of some of the wildlife in Ophir? Above are 2 interesting ones which I took...enjoy!
The 2nd night was quite good, but there was another group there which took our cooking spot the night before. So we had to settle for second best spot...While the comm and JS' group were cooking pasta and other food, Terence's group was settling for cup noodles outfield! Gosh...long time no see cup noodles, and I had to see them out at Ophir. What a sight! Each of them having 2 cups of noodles for themselves...
And there was the desert for the night...Green Bean Soup by Xiuling! It was great! But there were too little people EATING the green bean and too many DRINKING the soup itself...how can you have nice soup without the ingredients? Gosh. So in the end 3 chemical engineers 'ta' the entire bowl of green beans - Weihuang, Yongkai, Me.
And the night was spent around a small fire, with candles and lamps added to the mix. The lamps were super hot, as illustrated by insects which landed on it and cooked instantly. O.O For that, I will not go into details of what happened next. Haha. Too gruesome for an online blog :P
The next day, the weather was pretty cloudy, and it seemed like rain was imminent. Our trek down was uneventful, and we reached the bottom safely and on time (luckily). It only rained AFTER we called the cabs and were about to leave! How shiok is that?
The view of Ophir on the way home...nice clouds!
At Larkin, most of us decided to go to Taman Sri Tebrau for dinner, and my cab (including Jingsong, Jingwen, Mingjuan) got lost in the whole area...and we finally found the place after a long time...usually when I said to the cab driver he'll understand where's Taman Sentosa (大马花园), but I guess next time I should just stick to Taman Sri Tebrau liao.
We were late, but the food arrived just in time! And soon we gorged ourselves silly on the food, and didn't have space for the king of fruits - durians! Guess that would've to wait till a later date. Tsk.
1 trip down, 4 more to go!
Current Mood:
TiredCurrent Music: Su Da Lu - Xiao Qing Ge