Combined UG Expedition Trip Part I

Combined UG Expedition Trip

Kuching, Sarawak

Camp Permai/Mount Santubong

East Malaysia

2009

Day 1

We first arrived at school at 8:30am and I saw most cadets with heavy looking bags. As our teacher-in-charge called us to report in, my heart was trembling; exciting things were going to happen! The teachers gave us our immigration white cards, whistles for hiking and wristbands for identification.

As we were ready, we set off to Changi Airport. It took us about an hour and we arrived at Terminal 2. As I first entered to the airport, it was so huge. This was the first time I have been to an airport. 

Instruction was given by our teachers on how to check-in our bags. After we checked in our bags, we had our lunch. As I checked in my wallet, I could only spend my money in Malaysia as I only had Malaysia Ringgit. My kind angel Raihan helped me to pay some money for my lunch. I was really blessed to have cadets like him.

            

 Our lunch took only an hour. After our lunch, we set off. We went to the immigration customs. It was the first time I used the electronic Biopass Passport. It was so simple and I’ve didn’t have to queue for a long time. After we cleared customs, we waited at our Gate as it was not yet open..

Suddenly, many began to cry. Mostly, they were scared, as it was their first flight experienced. To me, I’m excited but worried if anything happens on the way. The Gate opened and we boarded the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 737. On the Internet, the airplane looked small but it looked huge in real life!

           

We entered and prepared to fly off. The stewardess showed us the use of seatbelts, emergency procedures, and the use of life jacket. Then, we took off. My heart trembled. We looked shocked to see the true view of Singapore; what a small little island we had. Cars looked like ants and building looked like block-toys. Everything we saw became smaller and smaller.

Lunch was served. It was so delicious. Soon, we landed. The flight took us only 1hr 25Mins. The landing wasn’t that exciting as the sky looked dark. It was a bumpy ride as we landed with the extreme. We exited and headed to clear customs. Once cleared, we took our bags. I switched on my cell phone and contacted my parents that I reached here safely.

We soon take off to Camp Permai. The city was really small but it was interesting and there were wonderful vehicles, statues, and buildings. It took us another one hour of travelling time. As we arrived, we were split up into our roommates group. We took our keys immediately and head into our cabins.  Our teacher instructed us to meet at the Restaurant Café for our dinner.

The dinner was delicious. It was a buffet and it was very interesting as we ate facing the South-China Sea, with the sound of the waves, and the beautiful sunset. Once we were done with our dinner, we went back to our cabins for a good night sleep.

Day 2

The sun began to rise at 6am. At 7am, we had our morning breakfast. It was extremely delicious. Then, we headed for our first activity. It was high rope activity. We were firstly introduced to our instructors and he explained the safety procedures. Once done, we headed to our starting position. When it was our turn, I was scared. But it all ended with a very high flying fox. It was very fast and windy.  Once done, we had lunch.

After lunch, we set off to obstacle activity. It was a fun activity. The instruction was simple we had to the stick (called the king) to bring over to every obstacle Such as crawling, jumping and many more. Once we were done, we head back to our cabins and wash up. As the sun sets, it was our dinnertime.

After dinner, we had a briefing for hiking trip to Mount Santubong. We were introduced to their culture of the Dayaks (Tribal People) and the dos and don’ts for our Mountain Trekking. After the briefing, we head back and had a good night’s sleep.

Day 3

It was our trekking day. We had a heavy breakfast and then we set off. The instructors brought us to our starting point in a vehicle. As we arrived to our starting point, we did a morning warm-up exercise. Without doing the warm-up exercise, we’d be having cramps during the expedition.

After we did our warm-up exercise, we set off. We began our trip at 0837 Hrs. We climbed, walked, crawled. As we first stoped at ‘half-way journey’ to checkpoint one, we began to see the beautiful scenery of Sarawak. We carried on to checkpoint one. We had to climb up with rocks, ropes and unexpected tree branches/roots. We carried on to our next checkpoint. It was beginning to get tough. The ladder ropes took us 30 minutes for everyone to go up.

Once done, we carried to our last checkpoint before the summit. It was much worse than what we had been through previously. All did their best and managed to reach the third checkpoint. As everyone got up, we immediately split up. It was due to the bad weather. The sky began to get foggy. Some had to stay behind to prevent them from getting injuries as going downwards wasn’t going to be that easy.

The ones who were left behind, had their lunches and then set off. We carried on. It became worse as the ground began to be more slippery. We climbed up through the rope ladders and managed to reach the summit. We took a group photo. We are unable to take pictures of the beautiful city of Sarawak due to bad weather.

We ate our lunch and set off back to the starting point. We arrived at the summit at 1252 Hrs. The weather became worse. Light rain began to pour down. The journey downwards was tougher especially we are having bad weather. In the end, it all ended at 1833Hrs and we headed back to our campsite.

We had a group debrief. We headed back to the cabins for a good long bath and after then went back to the Restaurant Café for dinner. It all ended with a good, comfortable, long sleep.

Day 4

We woke up later this morning and saw another group from Chua Chu Kang Secondary School. We came to eat breakfast together with other schools. We asked them what the activity was for the day. They replied that it was their hiking day today for them. I was shocked that they look unprepared but we wished them good luck for their trip.

Sooner or later, we had our city excursion trip. The tourist bus took us to the nearest city from the campsite, Kuching. In Malay, Kuching means cat. With that, we get to see many statues of cats.

We stop by to one of the best tourist attractions in the Kuching city. The building (picture below) was used by the Malaysia government. 

  After sightseeing, we went to first-stop of shopping. There was a lot of beautiful stuff. Most are used today by Dayaks in Sarawak. We were all attracted to this cat.

Once done shopping, we walked to another shopping mall. It was called ‘Sarawak Plaza’ shopping mall. Most of the products were quite expensive. But I came across this collectable it was very wonderful.

 Then, we carried on to another shopping mall. ‘The Spring’. It was one of the biggest shopping malls in Sarawak and received the most tourists. But one thing was that the shopping was big but it was a tiring experience as the shopping mall looked almost like Jurong Point Shopping centre. It was a confusing experience.

In the end, we had dinner at the same shopping mall. It has the best food we ever tasted. It was Keaw Tiau Chicken Noodle. It was so delicious that I ate two bowls of the same dish. It didn’t look attractive but it was very delicious.

Finally, we went back to the campsite. We had our last briefing regarding the rules and regulation of Singapore Customs and were told what we were not supposed to bring back home. With that, we packed up and had our last night’s sleep.

Day 5

It was our last day before we headed back home. But before that, we had our favorite last breakfast. Many of us took our last pictures of the beautiful scenery of the beach.

After breakfast, it was a prize presentation. Many cried and smiled. It all ended in crying as we were going miss this place as it was the best experience trip of our lifetime.

We headed back to our bus back to Kuching International Airport and after clearing immigration waited for our boarding. There was catered food and we boarded the plane. Soon, we landed safely back in Singapore