a trip to the jungle

some time ago i went along with some of the guys from camp5 to sungai chilling, which is in kuala kubu baru. the reason we were there was because we were going to bring some kids from the alice smith school for a trip.

so off we went in the car. there were 4 of us, me, zak, andy and aqmal. on the way to sungai chilling, something happened. it involves a lorry, a rock and our car. to sum it up, here is what happened.

had to switch the picture to b&w, because it was overexposed. i accidentally took the photo in the wrong settings. here is another, with colour!


when we got out of the car, we could hear the glass cracking. and it continued to do so. in the end we decided that we had to kick the windshield out. JUST LIKE IN THE MOVIES!!

but sadly, it isn't as easy to kick it out like in the movies. in the movies, when they kick the windshield out, it comes out as one nice piece.

ours came out in pieces.... damn those movie directors, giving us false hope of an easy way out.

so anyway, we cleaned up the mess and went on with the show.

sungai chilling or otherwise knows as chilling river, is a really cool place. its a trek along the river with 6 river crossings before you reach the waterfall at the end.

so we headed there and briefed the kids on the safety and stuff. it was pretty cool watching 20 or so kids with huge backpacks walking into the jungle and crossing the rivers.

here are some of the river crossings


as you can see, the kids are quite small, and the current quite strong at some areas, therefore we have to make a human wall to keep them from being swept away. oh btw, when i walked into the water for the first time, my balls literally shrank!

the water is COLD! but its fun la. loads of fish in the water too.

so the trek each way is about 30 minutes. after all that hard walking, you finally get rewarded with a nice waterfall!


next, is a picture of the crew, minus aqmal. he decided to take a nap on a rock.

just a note, i didn't bring my remote for the camera then. so i had to put the camera on timer. only had a few seconds to scramble up some rocks and climb up that log before the camera took the picture. i was really proud of myself! lol!

with so much rocks and boulders lying around, what do you think a climber would do?


i went bouldering! found this killer route near the waterfall. good thing i brought my shoes along.

so after playing in the water and having our lunch, we headed back down stream. it was a really funny trip, cause at every river crossing, there would be at least 5 kids that would fall over and take a plunge into the cold water. there was even this girl megan, she carried this bag, and because she fell into the river so many times, the bag was practically full of water. so she actually carried the bag full of water and stuff all the way down stream. really hilarious.

anyway, here is a group photo.

great trip. i would definitely want to go back there again.

after we left the kids, we headed down to the nearby town to get our car vacuumed as there were glass everywhere!

the town seems to be a really old town. there are buildings from the colonial days when the british ruled us.


so yeah, it was quite cool.

after we got the car cleaned, we headed back home. its so cool to have a car without a windshield, because there is no need for air conditioning, everything you look at seems to have more colour, and its just the IN thing you know.

so anyway here was the picture of the day. hope you like it.

left to right: Zak, Noel, Aqmal, Andy.

aj hackett gig.

ok, so its been about 3 weeks since the rave, and its finally about time that i posted about it.

but since i'm actually quite short of time, ill just mostly post pictures and let you paint a picture for yourselves of what happened.

a picture that sandra took, she was pretty proud of it too.

the guys setting up the bungy cage. sadly the bungy didn't go through, cuase there was a problem with the crane. what a bummer.


the person in the cage is johnny. he is this white dude who manages the AJ hackett bungy in bali. coolest thing about him is he speaks freaking fluent indonesian. he even has the indonesian accent. its sometimes weird because he speaks to you in english, then all of a sudden he would just switch to indonesian. the first time i actually heard him speak indonesian was when he was giving instructions to the crane operator. and he was going on and on and on and on. i was totally stunned!

this is how high the bungy was supposed to be. too bad it was canceled. everyone was looking forward to jumping. thats about 45 meters up.

they had to dump loads and loads of sand to cover up all the mud and horse shit that littered the place. the smell of horse shit was so bad that we could even smell it before we set foot on the field.

a random shot of sandra.

me and lok when we were being strapped up on the g-force X. the cool thing about being part of the crew, was that we could sit on the rides as many times as we wanted.

this one is of sandra and me on the g-force X.

a picture of the only air conditioned tent. this was when it was all empty before the party started.
me, lok and sandra, posing on the balcony of out apartment. one thing i just realised about this shot is that we all had one leg up against the railing. only odd one out is sandra. *note* Sandra, why didn't you just go with the trend like the rest of us?!*

some more group shots.

on the night before the rave, we had this weird photography session with the other crew that lived in the next door apartment. they climbed over into our side from the balcony.


now here are some shots of people.

this is lok, he just slapped a huge bunch of sun block on his face. i don't think he even knew that his face was all white.

ok now i'm quite lazy to write captions.



next up is the swing. how it goes is that there are 2 cranes. one crane which holds the swing and suspends it 2 meters off the ground, and another which would pull the swing and bring it to a height of 40 meters. once the swing is at the wanted height, one of the people on the swing would have to pull a trigger to release the swing and all 3 people would come down in a huge swing.

this is a picture of me, sandra and lok getting geared up. i was even able to strap my video camera onto my hand. i'll post up the video when i have the time. then you guys would be able to feel how is it like to sit on it too!

this is when the crane was pulling us up.

this is one of us swinging.

ok, looks like i've wasted enough time posting pictures. i'm late for an appointment with some old friends now. looks like i'm going to be 30 minutes late. as usual...

i'm back!

whee! i'm back from langkawi!

had a really good time there. loads of time to relax and all.

but now, since i just got back, i'm gonna go to bed, cause i've got my instructor course coming up tomorrow at 9am.


ill post pics and the story of the trip when i have the time.


till then! good bye!

the shoot! part 2

well this is the second day of the corporate video shoot for pertonas.

sorry its kinda super uber delayed. i actually do have a life.


the second day started with us all needing to meet up at batu caves. this was the day which they needed our rock climbing skills. so we met up in the infamous BHP petrol station. only thing different about today was that we were joined by caroline, john-son, and shams, which were hired to be our belay slaves and bag/gear carrying bitches!

hahha!

well it was really good money for them. they got paid 300 bucks for just sitting down and carrying things around, and belaying me, shahpur, and fida.

i had to go up first, as i had to set up the anchor for the cameraman 15 meters up on the wall, and let me tell you, it was so freaking hell hot! i had to stay in the sun for like 1 hour. this is what i had to do on the wall.

1. had to climb up there, set up the anchor
2. wait for the cameraman to climb/get pulled up the wall
3. then fix the cameraman onto the anchor
4. haul the camera 15 meters up the wall to where the cameraman was
5. then finally i was able to go down.

after all the things were set up, i had to put on my smelly shirt which was already full of sweat from the previous day and climb up the wall.

filming is really so funny, i had to pretend that the route i was doing was really hard by making really weird facial expressions. anyway, had to stay on the wall another 2 hours or so before i was able to get down.

i was practically the one who was in charge of the cameramans safety, so i couldn't get down until the cameraman was safely on the ground.

after the shoot on the wall, we did a few shoots while bouldering.

by 4pm, we were pretty late for our next destination. so we rushed to the next place. we headed over to bagain lalang(i think i spelled it wrongly). this place is near sepang. its some kampung beach side place which has a nice sunset. as weird as it sounds, our last shooting location was supposed to be the first scene in the video. by this time we were all tired and shit. so it was pretty funny. the sunset was really cool tho.

here are a few pics from the whole trip.

me doing a hand stand on a boulder in genting.

some cool scenic shot in genting.

a small waterfall in genting.

another cool shot which i quite like. taken in genting.

now this is cool! how often do you see these plants? i found this while walking around in genting.

me and shahpur climbed this tree while waiting at the beach for the sun to set. had to wait for about an hour.

i bet you can't spot me.

a shot of shahpur on the beach.

here is one of me.

these are tiny sand balls that were all over the beach!

close up view of the huge tiny sand balls!

spot the crab.

this would be a really cool beer advertisment. shahpur drinking under the sun.

the reflection of the sunset form the back of fidas car.

a shot of fida and shahpur.

this picture was taken when we were practically chasing to take photos before the sun went down. i could actually see it move. it moved pretty quick too.

this was when the sun went down and disappeared behind the horizon.

finally the time you all have been waiting for. the picture of the casts!

fida and me.

shahpur!

well i still have more cool pics, but im lazy to upload them. i might upload them some other time. cya!

shoot!

well today was the first day of the video shoot for some petronas corporate video. this is a 2 minute video which we are required to run, jump, balance on logs, and do a little climbing.

our first spot was a place called lipur lentang. its some place which has rivers and has a camp site and stuff. a really nice place actually, until you look around carefully. there was freaking loads of trash everywhere!

i mean WHAT THE FUCK?! why can't people learn to throw their trash away?

wait let me correct myself. WHY THE FUCK DO MALAYSIANS HAVE TO LITTER EVERYWHERE?!

when i got to the place, it was really great to see a place with rivers and trees and stuff. but when i walked down to the river, there were empty bottles, diapers, paper plates, plastic bags, and any other SHIT that people take along with them for a picnic.

i seriously really hate people who litter. everywhere i go, i can find people who throws their rubbish around, without even bothering to search for a rubbish bin before they toss their crap on the floor. these people are the people who really make this country a shit hole. when ever i see people littering, i really feel like kicking them in the balls and cutting out their eyeballs too, cuase they don't deserve to have children, because they would probably teach them that littering is not a bad thing. seriously, i have seen it happen before. parents telling kids that littering is freaking ok! i mean what the fuck?!

have you ever complained that this country is so dirty? well what are you doing about it? do you yourself litter? well if you do, then you are one of those damn bastards who just loves to complain but doesn't bother to do a thing about it. i mean think about it, why bother complaining that your country is such a shit hole with trash everywhere when you, yourself are contributing to it?

for those of you who say, well everyone else does it. what difference does it make if i do it?

WELL IT MAKES A WHOLE LOT OF DIFFERENCE!

if everyone in the world thought the same thing, this world would probably be a really shitty place to live in.

CHANGE STARTS WITH YOU! if you don't change, how can you expect others to change.

so next time, when you have a nice piece of candy and decide to pop it in your mouth, then suddenly find that you have a candy wrapper in your hand, don't toss it under the car, or even into flowerpots. there are petter places where these things should go. these places are called trash bins. if you can't find one, then keep them in your pocket till you find one.

remember, change starts with you! together we can make this country cleaner than singapore!!

haha... well maybe thats too much to wish for, but it would be nice, wouldn't it?




well back to the shoot, after all that jumping and all, we were off to shoot in genting. we shot running scenes from really weird places and stuff. we had to pose with the sunset in the background and even while hanging from a rope off a cliff. but it was all fun.

at the end of the day we (me, shahpur, fida) were all tired out. i mean like seriously. i can practically fall asleep right now if it wasn't for the fact that i had to buy bread for the house...

anyway will update again on day 2 of the shoot, which is tomorrow.

the lost world...

of tambun!

yes everyone, this is yet another climbing entry.

so a week ago i went with zak to the lost world of tambun to bring the alice smith school kids for an outdoor climb.

what is the lost world of tambun?

well the lost world of tambun is a water park. coolest part about it is that Team Mammut went there to set up loads of new routes.

so the day started with a drive which started at 7:30am. zak picked me up from my place with jeremy's new old BMW. the drive to ipoh was looooooonng...

whats worst is that jeremy's car has

loads of freaking ants which crawl all over the dashboard!



anyways, when we arrived at our destination, i saw this.


i would say the location was really cool. first thing you see other than a car park is that building with a huge mountain thats all green as a backdrop.

the entry into the park is pretty con, and also quite a fuss. if you are interested to climb there, you have to go to the office and go through a few things and pay a fee of 21 bucks before you can enter.

after all the registration and stuff, we were escorted to the climbing area.

the first glimpse of the main feature of the climbing site was

the needle of tambun, its called.

its a really cool feature. a monolith tower in the middle of a valley.

so we set up a few routes and just supervised the kids and teachers climbing.

the kids were really really noisy. one of em kept singing 100 beer bottles of beer on the wall, which stopped at minus 87 beer bottles on the wall, and later changed to another song which could actually go on forever! it was as if it would never stop! ahhhH!!

here are some of the kids.

this kid has only one hand! and he climbs pretty well!

can't really remember their names...

this is tommy. he might look cute here, but he is the most irritating kid you can ever find. hence me able to recall his name.

i have no idea where this picture came from, but its cool. just look at the scenery! its really cool! those 2 people in the background are just weirdos who don't climb.

after all the kids were tired from climbing, they headed over to the water park.

what does that mean for me and zak? well it means that we can climb!

i did this really cool climb on the needle. here is a pic of it.


but thing is i kind of climbed the wrong route. so this was how i climbed.


yes, i went the wrong way. i had to down climb and climb back up again because i didn't want to kill my rope which would rub against the sharp surfaces of that stalactite.

well later on we decided to head off home.

so it was back to the highways again.



the time i left till the time i got back home was almost 12 hours!

so here is my review of tambun.

tambun is a place which is probably the most beautiful crag i have ever been to. the place has probably been landscaped by the land owners, but never the less it still looks good. this was the only place where i ever saw a really green lawn. there are 2 lakes nearby, and the entrance to the climbing site has a huge wooden door which makes you feel like you are in jurassic park. the climbing area is also enclosed by green hills all around. this means that there are no noises from vehicles. all you hear is the birds tweeting, and the occasional roar from the water park's atmosphere setting speakers. the climbing area also has a big open lawn.

for those of you who doesn't like the sun, this place is the best. most of the routes are shaded from the sun all day. even if there is sun, there is always an ever present breeze which flows through the valley. this is the only crag that i have been to that does not have any sound pollution from the highway or even roads.

the routes there range from 4b to 9a, and there are loads and loads of routes to do. this climbing area would not be so good for climbers who only climb 5c and below, you wouldn't really have much to climb, cause there are only a handful of those. click here to get a copy of the route map. you gotta search for it tho. look under general info, downloads.

now for the bad part. the damage to get into the place is 21 bucks if you are a camp5 member, and 29 bucks if you are not. cool thing is, you can swim after your hard climb. besides that, there are houses on the other side of one of the lakes. for now they are still uninhabited, but when they do get inhabited, it would probably be noisy. good thing is, the houses are really nice, and look real expensive. so the place wouldn't be as noisy as a normal housing place.

-end of review-

ok so here are a few pictures of the area.

this is the infamous needle. in front of a lake.


a picture from in between the wooden gates.


the houses which are behind the climbing area.


this is another wall which has a really cool roof section for climbing.


the needle from the back view.

now tell me, where can you see really nice green lawns? nice ain't it? well except for tommy who kinda killed the picture.

well, we all need a cool pose picture.

another wall which is called the playground section.

this is how the people in tambun spell group, or is it grup? lol


all in all, it is a really cool place, really nice.

best part of all, is that i left my beloved climbing shoes there. time to get a new one.