Tuesday, August 31, 2004 .

if only words could describe how glad i am to be home, in singapore, in bishan, in my warm bed.

brunei wasnt as bad as i thought, but wait till i tell you what really happened.
it's incredible. in every sense of the word.

the highlight of the trip was the climb up Mt. Biang, which is quite a challenge.
the view at the top was less than spectacular, definately not worth the climb.
but for the 30mins we stayed at the summit before our decent, it felt like heaven.

we took 1h 20mins to ascend, which is half the time we initially estimated.
we thought decending would take 4hours at most.

started climbing at 0630hrs
conquered Biang at 0800hrs
reached the river crossing point (foot of hill) 1830hrs

i swear.....it was pure 9hours of torture.
first they dont supply water.
we either had to find a stream or bare with the thirst.
but of course we carried bottles.

from the summit, we climbed down hill, then up, then down, then walked along a river, climbed up rocks...the list pretty much goes on.
im surprised no one fell to their death.
to get to the foot, you need to climb up and down many times cos of the fucked up terrain.
and many a times, the face of the hill was pretty much perpendicular.
i kid you not.
and all that stands between you and falling to your death are loose rocks and slippery slopes.
it happened along this part of the climb where rocks (about 2basketballs size) came loose and rolled down the slope.
everyone's heart would skip a beat thinking that it might have been one of us who fell.
cos it sure sounded like it...and the possibility of that happening was very very real.

plus....when rocks roll down the hill, there's a good chance it'll hit someone below.

while walking along the rive banks...the boulders you walk on wear thin moist coats of moss.
freaking slippery.
alot of peole fell. when they folded up their pants, their knees we damn badly bruised.

the list goes on.
i shudder when i think of those worst 9hours of my life.
it's insane.

the only "casualty" out of the 260 cadets was our NY rugby Kent.
sprained his ankle.
for the whole expedition, the base camp kept checking over the radio to see if he was okay.
Kent told me later that he got damn irritated when they kept asking "is the casualty ok?"
"can the casualty walk?" he's commonly known as "the casualty" now.

i survived the ordeal with only a splinter from the thorned branches.
thank God for that.

i think that NS's greatest purpose is to make kids like us realise how privileged we are.
who would have thought that murky river water could taste like Coke.

you dont appreciate what you have till you lose it.
ask Andrew.
really. it's damn cliche right.
but when i was climbing the freaking thing they call a hill, all i wanted was 50cm x 50cm of reasonably flat ground for me to squat and rest my legs from hours of climbing.
and there we were in BMT complaining about fieldcamp.

i dunno.

im just gonna enjoy being happy in singapore now.
being able to walk on concrete roads.
it feels good.
i resolve not to complain about petty things in life.
however hard a task it may seem.




screaming infidelity at 10:21 AM
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