growing "sian"?
yipee! our buses are finally here!Taman, here we come!
our way to Tuas Checkpoint...
We crossed the Malaysia Checkpoint and had to change to another bus. As one of our school mates accidentally misplaced her passport and was unable to cross the checkpoint, we had to wait for her. One for all, all for one!
here's the bus!xD
and the candid post of Michelle!
We soon began our 8 hour journey to Taman Negara. On the bus, our class entertained ourselves with many activities. Some chatted happily among themselves, some fell asleep. During the bus ride, our kind and pretty tour guide played a movie, Ah Long Private Limited, for us such that we would not be too bored. Many of us were so engrossed in the movie and this kept us entertained for around 2 hours. During our trip there, we realised how bonded our class is. For lunch, we came to a pit-stop at Yong Peng where we had our fill. Some ordered mee rebus, while others chicken rice. There was even a really big fish in the pond outside the place. We bought tidbits from the convenient store there so that we could have something to munch on while on the bus.
here's the humongous fish!
is it even bigger than Christopher??
Christopher...
There were toilet stops along the way and some of our friends bought snacks to fill their stomachs on the bus. Many of them were selfless and shared their snacks with the rest of the class. I remember that the whole class ate til we were so full that we were terrified when we saw the snacks being passed to us again! There was even once that there were 3 packets of the same nachos but of different sizes being passed around! That is the spirit man, 3 Grace!
this is one of our toilet stops!
the drinks sold there are really cheap!:D
on our way there,
some played with phones...
waited longingly for the arrival of Taman Negara...
laughed happily for no good reason...
When we finally arrived at the campsite, which was at Gua Balai, what greeted us was a cliff-face, abundant vegetation and lots of insects like butterflies which littered the scenery. It gave us a very rural feel and everyone was amazed by this sight. As city dwellers, we had little opportunities to actually see this. We began the climb up a flight of rusty stairs to our campsite which was in a cave.
Yipee! We finally reach our destination!!
carefully climbing the flight of stairs...
the tents inside the cave...
playing with torchlights while settling down?
Some of us had fear of climbing up that flight of stairs as we were able to see what were below the staircase and were afraid that our "barang-barang" would drop through the gaps. We helped each other along and finally reached our accomodation site. That's what friends are for! We got into our tents and put down our "barang barang". Each tent was to accomodate 4 people and as some of the tents were smaller, it was very squeezy. After we settled down, we prepared ourselves for our upcoming activity which is dinner! Everyone was so famished and could not wait for dinner! But... DINNER WAS LATE!!
let's see how our class waited patiently for the arrival of dinner...
off to explore?
erm, looking weird?
waiting for dinner to drop down?
took a class photo!!!
Finally, dinner was here. There were many flies flying here and there and there were even some flies hovering over our dinner! Our schoolmates who were serving had to consistently chase away these pests. It was indeed a rare experience to dine with nature! Dusk came, we soon finished eating and everyone was really bloated, except some who could not eat due to the "natural" environment. While having our briefing for the night activities, flashing lights in the sky caught our eyes, as fireflies were flying aimlessly circling above our heads bringing joy to everyone, it was indeed a sight to behold!
For the night activity we walked together in pairs with the guide in front to guide us through the dark forest. The moon was up and the trees were blocking all light from entering the forest ground, giving us a creepy feel which gripped our hearts. When we reached the cave which we first saw when we entered by bus, our trainers gave us a candle and requested us to walk back along the path. Our class was split into 3 different groups and one of our groups was the first to reach. Some of us went through the walk without even using the candle, while others thought it was a light stick at the beginning and broke it into 2. In the end, they came back using only half a candle. It was indeed a memorable experience where we encouraged each other and pulled through by helping each other!
Everyone managed to return safely and we all smelt bad after the walk. Everyone longed to have a nice bath and then to sleep as soon as possible. After the night walk, it was OTOT(Own Time Own Target). Almost all of us dashed into the toilets to take a nice shower. The toilets were not very clean and they were infested with many insects. Two of the girls from our class were freaked out as after they bathed, they realised that at the bottom of the tub, there was a DEAD RAT! Although the hygiene conditions were not very good, it did not matter as long as we had a great whale of time there!
YAY! OUR LONG AWAITED BATH!
After we had thorougly cleaned ourselves, we went back to our tents and realised that we simply could not fall asleep. Perhaps we were too excited? It wasn't a bad thing anyway and most of us went off to our friends' tents to have a nice chat before we returned and had a good night rest.
having a nice time in the tent...
It was not long before it was the next day! Another day of adventure!
And here, it ended the first day of our Taman Negara Trip 2008...
