Gunung Stong... Conquered...
finally back from our climbing expedition...supposedly to last for 5 days ended up with one more day spent at the base camp due to a small situation...but nevertheless it was quite an enjoyable trip, just that i totally missed my AV camp....only managed to make it back in time for the BBQ, but i was too tired to go for it...feels kinda bad to 'pang seh' my AV friends...oh well....what's done cannot be undone...here i'm blogging when i'm supposed to be at the BBQ...haha...
anyway...back to the expedition...i will try to recall most of the details....though it's kinda impossible...haha..
Day 1... well...we set off in train at Tanjong Pagar train station in the evening...all of us were excited...most of the people got the sleepers, while the 7 of us namely Bel, graham, jingwen, claire, shu hui, terrence and me got the seats...well there isnt enough sleepers to go around...couldnt be helped... so we din complain and started chatting happily on the train.. we got all excited...so maybe we did talk a bit too loud...which two women travellers who were sitting in front got kinda pissed...then i think it was because of a small cockroach that claire gave out a loud scream... it cant be helped ba...i mean quite a number of girls are afraid of such stuff...but one of the women travellers gave a comment, ' Too much...This is Too much'.. i din really hear it for myself..but that was what the others said... then while we were sleeping...i think it was about midnight or so...Bel told us that one of the women travellers tried to film us making a lot of noise...but sadly she din succeed...cos we were all sleeping? so she complained to the conductor...fine...do whatever you want... oh ya...a interesting fact told by Bel... reliability of it is up to you guys to decide...Bel said the two of them actually kissed on the train...hmm...
day 2...we reached dabong station... first programme of the day....caving....started off with a dark cave...i dunno what to say...pictures are all with weicheng and the others...cant really remember much... after caving we started to trek up to base camp... not a very smooth trek.... quite tiring even for me...i was panting quite heavily when i reached the half way mark...some were ok...while some were struggling...joey had muscle cramp and rachel got too tired... in the end we used 3 hours instead of 2 to reach base camp... we pitched our tents and rested for the day...
day 3... we woke up early in the morning to prepare ourselves to trek up to the summit of Gunung Stong... it took us about 4 hours to reach the summit...not a very easy trek...luckily we were only carrying our day pack... but the reward was kinda disappointing... it was a cloudy day i suppose...so when we finally reached the summit.... we could see nothing below except clouds and more clouds surrounding us... quite depressing... i could see a mountain directly opposite us when the clouds cleared for a moment...but after that it was all white again...we ate our lunch, took photos and chatted for a while before going down the summit.... going down the summit was harder than coming up...though it used less strength and energy, but the fact is that we need to control our speed due to gravity and the trek down was slippery... nonetheless...we finished the whole trek down and rested at base camp for the day...
day 4...the day's programme was to trek up to the top of the waterfall...for me the initial trek was horrible.. apparently my shoes are not cut off for trekking on soil... i kept falling and holding on to trees and branches for support...kinda embarassing.... but after the forest trek... it was easy for me...it just travelling between rocks and going up slopes without slippery soil... my shoes din fail this stage... quite fun to jump from rock to rock... then we finally reached the top...not really the top ba... but it's the highest we can go...we could see the top of the waterfall from where we were... under Mr tan's approval with his actions...the guys took off their tops and went into the water... we enjoyed the water falling on our backs...once in a lifetime experience... we stayed there...enjoyed playing with the water and took some photos and headed back down to base camp... heading back down... i got a little accident.... hmm...better not comment on it ba... anyway... was supposed to prepare to go back to singapore after the waterfall trip...but something cropped up...in the end we needed to stay at base camp for another 1 more day... we enjoyed dinner at the guide's house...having fried rice and BBQ chicken...the chicken is fabulous...especially when you hadn't had meat for a few days...after dinner we sat around to listen to stories...said by Bel, weicheng and even Mr tan with his ghost encounters...
day 5...i woke up early in a hope to watch sunrise...but mr tan forbid us to go to the edge of the waterfall.... in the end i couldnt see the sunrise...which was very disappointing... we spent our time playing cards for the rest of the day excluding the time taken to trek down and until we boarded the train... oh ya...i din manage to enjoy the malaysia night sky...the nights that we spent...it's either cloudy or raining...hai...oh well... nevertheless...it's a great experience and great bonding between people... that's about it... ciao~
waiting for you to come back @ 8:26 PM