The Real Deal

This report I'm writing is based on my experience at one of Malaysia's greatest natural reserves and a place known all over the world as Outward Bound School. We went to the world's oldest OBS branch outside of England, Lumut. Reader discretion is advised, cause we're kind of a crude lot, I mean, if we aren't fun and exciting, we wouldn't be at OBS. Some of these things, the Instructors may not like finding out, but its the truth, I wouldn't exaggerate much either.

2nd of December, I went online at 8pm, for the last time in the next 11 days, just to talk one last time to my buddies at school. I went off at about 11.30, since the following day was gonna start real early. I got ready and went to bed, as the ancient grandfather clock downstairs struck 12 midnight, I wished myself a happy birthday and tried to sleep. I dint manage to get a good night's sleep, as I was restless, thinking about my course at OBS, Youth Adventure Course, the 24th batch.

On the 3rd of December at 5am, once the alarm clock started ringing, I hopped out of bed and silenced the alarm clock. I went off for a shower and got ready for my cousin Shern to come over and go to the Puduraya Bus Station together since he's joining YAC24 too. As I remember vaguely, it was about 7.30 when he arrived at my gate, with his dad driving his latest ride, a spanking new Mercedes-Benz CLK. As we left for the city, there was a traffic jam. We were worried about missing our bus, thank god the jam cleared up in a bit.

Our bus was suppose to arrive at 9am, we waited 15 minutes, and it still hadn't came yet. After some time, a bus came to our station, station 4, I still remember. But it wasn't the same bus service provider as the ticket we bought. Shern's dad got into a row with the bus touts, and mumbled, "Damn screwed up, these idiots" to us. Its really not related to OBS, so we'll skip this.

As we left the sights and sounds of KL, we looked at what food did our parents pack for us. I had a bar of Coca-Cola flavoured Mentos with Jawi writing on it, I clearly remember. As always, Shern's mom packed too much food for him, 2 bars of Hacks, 2 High 5 buns, a small box of Dutchlady's full cream milk and so on. The 4 hour bus ride was based on sleeping and talking between ourselves and sms-ing some "friends", standard teenager activities. I must say, the talking was good, found out more about each other, things that cousins usually don't tell each other much about. Reading through our brief introduction to rules at OBS and contraband, outside foods, drinks, reading material and electrical entertainment were not allowed. Knowing me, I'll break some rules. I loaded a pack of chewing gum into a medicine bottle so I could chew a bit.

Lumut, our stop. We arrived about noon, and our ride to OBS compound which would come to be known to us as "Base" was scheduled to be at about 1. Shern and I ate some Malay Nasi Campur before the van came. The guy who picked us up was really nice, he asked us about where we came from and sorts like that. Americans would refer to his van as a "shit wagon", one of those old Toyota/Nissan makes, cheap to run, low tech and crude, but extremely reliable. The ride to OBS took maybe 10-15 minutes, but it was great. With the wind carrying in all the smells from the nature around us, the smell of the sea, the bitter sweet smell of Durians, the smell of chlorophyll and of course, the smell of people, such as Lemang cooking over a fire, turbo diesel trucks ferrying fruits and such.

When we finally arrived at Base, I was nervous as I usually made a shitty first impression, and all those people! I only knew that we would be split into smaller groups and work together for 10 days! I was nervous, and was expecting all the participants to be rich kids who are not capable of doing things themselves, how wrong I was! As Shern and I walked to the check in table to get our name's ticked and find our Watch ( team), we found out that we were in the same Watch, known as Beremban. Sure as hell, Beremban sounds retarded, like "what the hell is a Beremban, why does it sound so stupid!" was what I was thinking. There were three other dorms, Trus Madi, Yong Yap, and Jerai.

It wasn't stupid, in fact, it was one of the best performing teams there, not in terms of speed or whatever, but in terms of teamwork and the closeness of team mates. As I sat down, I checked out our team. Broad shouldered Thong Vie Eik "Thong", tall and lanky Lee Kuan Jon aka "Sleeping Bear" "Jon", the only Indian in our group, Agilan Elan "Agi", Japanese looking Waltfred "Ajinomoto" "Aji", solemn looking Ong Teng Tjun, big bag packed Shane Loong Deng Young "Shane", nervous looking Chan Jun Shern "Shern", the super tall Eugene Ng "Lighthouse", pint sized Christina Ng "Tina", and un-cooperative Yasmin "Bushy Bitch", and yours truly, Tan Yee Juinn "Diu Lor"

We were asked to fill in a form, to be Manager, AssitantTrus Madi was sharing our dorm, the Beremban Dorm. Jon Suggested that all the guys from Beremban took the top bunks and left the lower ones for Trus Madi. After some time, I found out that 2 watches made one group. That is Beremban and Trus Madi in Group 1, Jerai and Yong Yap in group 2. Thank god we were with Trus Madi.

We were given time to play ice breaker games, one that we had to link our hands together and face inside the circle, then we all had to move and face outside. After that, we also had Captain Ball. You have a circle on each end of the court, there is a chair in the circle, your "catcher" must stand on the chair to catch the ball that you throw to him, then you score if he does catch it, quite the opposite of football, no kicking. It was Group1 vs Group2. 44 people in total. Group 1 was first to finish the circle's inversion and we beat them at Captain Ball.

           At night, we were given the lyrics for the OB song, OB spirit and Auld Lang Syne. We were also introduced to shouting "Ho Chuay" with the reply of "Hoi!" and "Hoi Haha!" to the second call. I was the only one mad enough in the camp to shout Ho Chuay at every damn thing that moves. We were also taught the actions that accompanies OB Spirit. After our singing session, we were split into our own Watches, and our Instructor talked to us about teamwork and not leaving each other behind. Also he wanted to know about what we intended to learn at OBS.

          On day 2, at 4.45am, some idiot bunking under Shane's alarm went off. The alarm clock woke the the whole dorm up, and everyone was "wehhh, fucker! Who's alarm clock? Damn noisy ahh", but that fella din't wake up until someone prodded him, then he sheepishly said sorry to everyone. But since we were up, couldn't let that opportunity go to waste, so we went down and sat by the beach, listening to the sounds of waves breaking and the fresh and crisp morning air in our nice attires. Our clothing was for the YAC24 group photo taken later. We were suppose to meet down stairs at 7, but the Yong Yap & Jerai watch were late, particularly the girls. We had to do Jumping Jacks, also known as Star Jumps, about 30 times in synchronization. The Group 1 particularly, thought "Giant" (A really really tall and massive instructor) was fecking nuts for punishing them. After our group photo, we were given time to change into our rough-it-out clothing for the rope activity.

We were taught the the basic procedure in doing rope activities. ABC's. A-Anchor, B-Belayer, C-Climber. Lock and check, squeeze check, am I on belay, instructor check, climbing. Jon, Shern and I were in the 3 person team. Jon and I clicked pretty well, guess cause we're both 16. I gave Jon quite a shock when I told him to close his legs, when he was wearing the safety harness. As the harness straps are quite near your crotch, bringing your legs together would close the two straps and clamp down on your "batang". We did that to Teng Tjun, and he was really showing the 0.0 look and was speechless.
  
After lunch, we did a store check, that is to check the quantity of equipment in the Watch's store. Counted the backpacks, Personal Flotation Devices (PFD), Maps and compasses, pots, tent pegs, tent sheets and so on. There was a cat at OBS, always wanting to enter our Dorm, and she was pregnant, Shane called it Bushy Bitch, eventually it got passed to Yasmin, don't ask me why she was called Bushy Bitch.

11pm was suppose to be our light's off time, but the rain was extremely heavy. You could hear when sheets of rain came falling down, it was like a never ending bucket. I was lying there, thinking about the 3 guys who went out and were probably stuck. Shane, Aji and Moses of Trus Madi, went out to visit some guys in the Group 2's dorm, they only had my small umbrella, and probably din't have torches. I finally got out of bed and walked down the rows of bunks, whispering and asking if anybody was still awake, Kumaren "Kukumalu" of Trus Madi was still awake. I whipped on my rain coat and took Kukumalu's raincoat, and he offered to go with me, but I turned down his offer.

On the way down that 77steps, my pants got drenched, and the hood of my raincoat wasn't long enough, I either had to sacrifice clear eye sight for staying dry or being wet for vision through my glasses. I went for the latter. I walked about 300 metres in complete darkness with a powerful torch that wasn't doing me much good, with the heavy rain, it only casts the beam about 5 metres in front of me. The gale was strong enough to make me tip and lose balance occasionally. And since the landscape was the shape of a valley, with 2 hills funneling wind through a big empty field, there was the creepy howling that chilled me to the bone. I went out alone for 15 minutes or so but it felt like hours, and I came back when I heard the guys shouting my name from the dorm's balcony. I was completely drenched by the time I was back in the dorm.

Those guys were thanking me and calling me brave, which I called it stupidity, walking along that path, alone at night, what the hell would have happened if I fell or something? I don't blame them, idiots, they scared themselves talking about the Witch from Left For Dead! When I was climbing up to my bunk, I remembered that plastic fan that I lent to Adrian Lau, the Trus Madi who sleeps on the lower bunk on my left, I stretched down and pulled it from under his face, it was soaked with his drool. Oh well, one night without a fan wasn't gonna kill me. That night, I barely slept, thinking about stuff.

Day 3, this was the day I started being known as "Diu Lor", "Diu" basically translates directly into "damn it" and more crudely as "Fuck!". Sometime after breakfast, we were taught more about ropes. How to tie the double thumb knot, thumb knot, figure of eight, double figure of eight, and the butterfly knot. There are the basic knots used in setting up a tent. We were also briefly shown how to start a fire. Just before lunch, we were asked to raft together 8 PVC poles (really long ones, about 10 feet in length each) and 4 barrels to form a raft that could carry the 11 of us at the same time. We had to paddle rather far out, then make a U-turn. After carrying our raft out to the beach, we were asked to put on a PFD and get into the freezing cold sea for Water Confidence exercise, which mainly, is to boost our confidence in water. Once we were done with the Water Confidence course, we then put our raft out to sea. With a mighty "boom and woosh", the barrels slipped of from under our PVC framework. The reason to that was because we have yet to master the knots and we cut corners here and there. Of course, Instructor Anuar did not tell us about the danger of cutting corners, we were meant to find that out the hard way.

As we rafted the things all together again on the beach, with sand grains in the fibres of the ropes, it was hell to pull on those ropes. As we were working on our simple raft, we were also looking on at Trus Madi's very impressive looking raft. Impressive as it was, it sank at the furthest point from shore and everything started falling apart around them. They floated back in their jackets, holding onto their paddles and poles. When we finally got into the water again, with a shout of Ho Chuay, we were off and everything worked out right. Anuar rewarded us by letting us into the sea. We sang OB Spirit at the top of our lungs as we watched Trus Madi paddle by, and we cheered for them while at it.

Shortly after lunch, we were given guidance on kayak-ing, which Kukumalu called kaya king. Portside, left side. Starboard, right side. S.O.S signals were taught. Not only that, we were also taught how to exit a capsized raft without complications and how 2 rafts can help to right a capsized raft. Since the day before, Jon has been asking me to be his Kayak Buddy, and I had no problem with that whatsoever. Again, we were given a trial run, paddle about 500 metres out, to an offshore warning beacon and come back. As usual, Yasmin did not have a partner, so she had to group with the super strong Instructor Harry. Harry was previously a kayaker competing in national levels I think. He was super fast, with Jon and I paddling as hard as I can, Harry just paddled the 2-seater with heavy Yasmin at the front sitting there, and he over took us like he was in 2nd gear.

After we went up to collect our bags that contained the things that we required for a night's sleep, were got our things ready. We got our Jerry cans, gallon bottles, paddles, kayaks, ration drums lined up by the beach. It was a sight to behold, military precision, I must say. The crafts lined up nicely, all tipping to the right side with the paddles jutting out from the front.The kayak Jon and I were in, was numbered 44. Soon we formed 2 lines, under the watchful eyes of the instructors, we passed things down the line and onto the waiting speed boat to load our things on. Our plan was for Beremban to hang in the rear with the Sweepers (Christina and Eugene), then when I shouted "Ho Chuay", we would paddle ahead, over taking the mass of kayaks, and ram the Sea Captain (Roy Toh, Trus Madi who bunks under me). Unfortunately, all of Beremban was under performing that day.

We left base under the scorching heat, paddling towards that "Eugene" we saw up ahead, a light house, the point where we had to turn and go for a beach boarding. Our destination was 7 kilometres away. We made it in 1 and a half hours, tempers were running high, everyone was weary. Boarding the beach was shitty, there was shit water floating around us so we paddled slowly. Jon and I were among the last boats, we were slow. When we arrived at Pangkor Island, we were wasted, and we shifted our kayaks slightly inland, and moved all our heavy gear to the camp site. Through out the day, we heard kayaks encountering jellyfish, up to 1 metre across, thank god we dint see any. I heard about Eugene telling the tired Christina that "Determination Is The Key through out the whole journey"

We set up camp, with the fire running well and having collected enough firewood, we were ready for the night, except that, in a damn jungle, usually you can't sleep. As we were cooking rice for dinner, and I was just about to pour water into the pot of rice, 2 hornets landed on my sleeve. I was hopping around for a few seconds, shouting "Diu lor, diu lor, diu lor" with my brain stuck in lag. Little did I know, the whole of YAC 24 was within earshot of my shouting. Dinner was special, with Anuar showing us his Chinese culinary skills, how to make things sizzle in the wok. For supper, we boiled a pot of water for Milo.

We were suppose to take turns to be the watchmen,but it ended up being just a few of us staying up late. I went to sleep at 10 and woke up at 12, curse those damn bugs, I saw Thong being in the same state as I was, blurry eyed and annoyed. I offered him a cup of Milo and tried to get the fire going. Do you have any idea how hard starting a fire with embers and firewood the size of your big toe? Out of frustration that fried his mind slightly, Thong nonchalantly threw in half a box of matches just for fun. Eventually, I got it running. The girls then showed up, Nicole and Lydia of Yong Yap and Euodia of Jerai with Christina. We talked a bit, and my god, Euodia is born to piss people off.

Eventually Martin woke up, and offered me his Milo, that was about 6, i guess. I took a nap after that, till 8. After a breakfast of sugar crackers that Aji totally loved, and left over Milo from the night before, we slipped on our attire for rope activity, that is long sleeved shirts and long pants with shoes. We walked along the beach and up to a rocky landing. From the landing we climbed up on our palms and legs, about 25 feet up. From there, Anuar gave us directions on how to rappel down, safety protocols and such.

Eugene and I were the first to go. As I walked backwards down the steep incline, with the harness bearing my weight, Anuar asked both of us to turn around and look at the beautiful scenery. What I saw was "fucktastic". I saw clear blue all around me, stretching as far as my eyes could see. A few boats dotted the scenery, giving it a very serene look. Closer to shore, the water was crystal clear with a tint of aqua blue, waves were breaking on the dark coloured coral formations, its still etched in my memory, clear as if it was just yesterday. I mumbled a diu lor from the height and the scenery. Eugene assure me that we wouldn't die, shit happens but Beremban is tough. As I began hopping off the cliff face and started rappelling like they do in Call Of Duty, I hear Christina cackling high above me, about me "diu-ing" this and that.

As we went back to camp, we rushed to pack up our gear and change into clothing that was suitable for water. We had the biggest space between two trees, so we shared our tent line with Jerai, and goodness, they took our rope and dint even bother to check, annoyed MAX. We were running around, checking for a tent rope with a yellow labeling, and we finally found it, the guys from Jerai were playing around on the beach without a care in the world, with our rope in their pack.

Sweet Christina, always in debt to her, made us tuna sandwiches. When we put our crafts down on the beach and put sun block on, an Instructor told us about our timings, on our first run, we managed in about 2 hours, and today, we were targeting 1 and a half. When I mentioned coral formations previously, it meant low tide. and for us, low tide was bad. At first, we were optimistic that we could just paddle slowly through the water, then the conditions were becoming too rough and dangerous. I got off the craft reluctantly as my sandals were broken, nothing stands between me and the sharp corals. I pushed the craft forward as Jon used his oar to steer us clear of the corals. If we weren't careful, the waves could breach our bow, and we would just all be stuck. I pushed the craft out about 20 metres from shore, still in shallow water, about 10 more metres to clear waters, I placed my weight on a rather high piece of coral (just about half a foot underwater), and the coral fell of its perch and landed on my foot, gave me quite a shock.

When we finally did get going, I paddled non-stop, stopping occasionally just to take a sip, and persuading the rather mad Jon to take a sip too, as we were under the hot afternoon sun, dehydration was our worst enemy. When we arrived at shore, we were asked to shift our boats to the boat shack and hose it down, removing the salt saturation and sand particles from the hull. We were super tired when we went back to the dorm. After taking a quick shower, most of us were knocked out until dinner time. Apparently, I slept talked some very embarrassing things, something along the lines of "Christina...why?".

Day 5 was a really relaxed day, we learned how to read bearings through a compass, throughout the day, Christina and I were arguing about everything, she PMS? It was decided that Shane would become the first Parangman and I was his backup, eventually, it would be the other way around. Behind us was Thong, as the Navigator, Shern the Pacer, followed by Jon, our expedition leader. Behind them all, were the four Iron men, the people who bore most of the load, Teng Tjun, Eugene, Yasmin, and Agi. The last two were Sweepers, their main purpose was to keep the group from splitting into two, thats Christina followed by Aji.

We went out for a test run at the nearby path. We were to collect alphabets at the checkpoints that would eventually spell out a word. We met Trus Madi half way through. We had nothing on our backs, put Trus Madi were fully kitted out. They had their parangs, gallon bottles, back packs, maps. As always, we spent most of our free time down at the Royal Square, talking about girls, problems, playing games and such. Before dinner, we went into the store, grabbed the backpacks, took out all the equipment that we would require and placed it on a big table at the store and sorted through them and put our loaded equipment in the hall. After dinner, a couple of us went out to collect our ration drums. We were told about our treks, as usual, Group1 and Group2 were split up. On the first day Group1 would take the shortcut to a rock face for rock climbing then to the camping grounds, meanwhile, Group2 would trek along the long way to the camping grounds. On the way back, Group1 would take the long way back to base while Group2 would go to the rock face then go back.

We trekked for about an hour along the road, stopped at a grassy field full of trees to have lunch that we brought with us. I accidentally threw away my fork and spoon. Then we hit a turn off. We placed our backpacks in the van that belongs to OBS, then we carried our bottle with us and walked further up until we saw a rock face. Sure it looked easy, until you had to climb it. We were meant to climb it using our 4 contact points only and the rope was supposed to be used as the safety rope. There were 3 paths up, the 2 at the sides were alright I guess, but the one I chose, the middle one was difficult. I climbed up a few metres quickly and without problems. Suddenly, all the handholds disappeared and those that were there, were too small for me to hold on. Unable to apply weight to my fingers, I was stuck. One of the other Instructors finally got tired of me swinging around cursing and everyone else laughing, and just hauled me up several metres and let me climb over the edge myself. It wasn't embarrassing, I just wasn't good enough. We continued with our trek after a short break, We walked along rocky landscapes, on the edge of jungles and lalangs fields. When we did stop for a break at the top of a little hill, I asked Anuar where was our camping grounds. As an answer, he pointed far away into the distance, to the furthest peak we could see and did a "behind that" sign.

I don't really remember who I trekked with, I only remember we broke formation after some time and I went with Shern, Shane, Thong, Aji and Simone. This time, we trekked easily and was having fun, singing It Ends Tonight by the All American Rejects. When we did arrive at the camping grounds. we had to walk on wet and slippery mud for awhile, with a lake on our left. It was really really pretty when you look far out, but closer, it was dirty, with styrofoam cups floating around.

When we arrived, we were given the biggest piece of land between 2 trees, right in the middle of the grounds, easy access to the firewood area and good communication spot with the other Watches and it was all to ourselves. The two trees we had were nests for ants, and thanks to brainy Jon, he started a fire under a tree and fed it greens, smoking out the whole two trees and half the campsite. Very soon, Jerai and Yong Yap came over to "borrow" some ideas. I dug a hole for our fire to burn and fanned it, getting it up and burning while Shane, Tjun and Shern went off to get the first batch of firewood. Eventually I would join them, starting the madness of chopping down whole trees. When I joined them, I saw the numbers of dead trees, left standing, Shane was chopping the branches. I took the parang from him and started hacking at its trunk instead, taking turns with the other 3, eventually, we brought the tree down. Once we got the rhythm of chopping whole trees, we took down several more, and a few smaller trees.

When I came back to relieve Jon of his fire keeping so he could take a piss or what not, Yasmin came over and poured lots of cooking oil into the fire, making the flames leap up high, which was exactly what Jon dint want. Jon intended to keep the fire low, but running, so we could use the firewood late into the night. Jon was grumbling very much, "Yorr! What the hell is wrong with Yasmin ah...bitch" was the way he grumbled. We were a bit bored with the usual of white rice, sardines, tuna and stuff. So we agreed to pour in two cans of green peas into the pot of rice, turning the rice a shade of green. We ate with Ayam Brand canned curry, it was very spicy! Because I threw away my fork and spoon, I had to wait for someone to finish before I could start. We ate on the limestone hill nearby, the hill had a rock, which looked like an ass with a G-string running through the middle, work of the mischievous Instructors perhaps?

Night was pretty much the same. Talking, joking and stuff. Most of the louder and more outgoing ones we at Yong Yap's fire, meanwhile, the more quiet and down-to-earth were at Beremban. I remember having Simon, Shern, Jon, Moses, and Thong around Beremban fire. One by one, they left for their own watch, due to the Instructors calling a meeting with they're respective Watches. The main point of that night's meeting was about YAC24's swearing, Marcus was swearing way too much, mostly about Cibais and your mama. Anuar also told us about us being very tidy during the first group camp, and very messy now. Obviously after he left, we hurriedly ran around the camp, looking for our cangkul and stuff, fearing to disappoint Anuar. When we were finally done with packing up so we could leave immediately tomorrow, we sat back down at the camp fire to talk more. Before going back to the fire, Shern, Jon, Moses and I went into the bushes to take a piss. We counted one, two  three then off our lights together and took our dongs out for a breather in the dark. Without looking, I pointed my torch at Moses's crotch (He was beside me), on the light. Instantly, he shouted "Woi, off the light! Off the light! You looking ah? Off it!" Finally, most of them went to sleep. Simone was the only non-Beremban to join the lot, there was Jon, Thong, Shern and I. We spread open a tent sheet and lay there under the beautiful stars, with the glowing embers shinning dimly. It was truly beautiful, the sky was peppered with stars, unlike the night sky in Kuala Lumpur. Suddenly, black shapes flew high above us, too fast and too dark for us to see, those were bats. I also did see the Singh (Simranjit or the other one?) vomit, with most of the others, their dinner having parties in their stomach. Thank god Beremban's food was clean, none of us went down with any effects besides Eugene, who ate the other Watch's food.

Soon, all of us fell asleep lying there, Simone to my right, and earth to my left. Out of the blue it started raining, with a groan of "what the fuck", I hauled my ass of the sheet and into the tent. I woke up at 5 to the sound of a girl's voice and I sat up quickly, thinking I was in the wrong tent. Turns out Christina was sitting on my left opposite her was Fabian, talking late into the night I presume. It was still drizzling outside. When it stopped raining and we grabbed the buns to eat for breakfast, we checked out the mess outside. The tent sheet had mud on it, since we left it out, rushing to get under the sheets. Worse still was what Shane did. We left our dirty eating utensils inside our mess tins, not intending to use them until we got back to base, we cleared out the leftover rice as much as possible so that we wouldn't have to carry a pot of disgusting half eaten rice with us.

After a quick breakfast, we left for Base. We walked several hundred metres out along the trunk road before turning on to a rut. Along the rut was rubbish that uncaring individuals left, washing machines, sofas and such. Anuar stopped at a point, and pointed to our left, asking us to go ahead now. This was where our adventure began. Immediately, I was greeted by the sight of a stream, the water tinted red by pollution, stench of iron coming from it. There was a wooden pallet floating dead in the middle of the stream seemingly the only way across.I scouted around for just a moment, then the lot behind me were shouting "Just go, Just go!", if only they saw what was in that river! I hopped onto the pallet, praying it would support my weight. Either I din't pray hard enough or God doesn't exist. It sunk immediately, the water level rose to the middle of my shins. With a shout of an angry "Diu Lor", I hopped off and onto the bank on the other side. I climbed up the steep incline, hearing "Dius, fucks" and whatnot's from every person behind me. Once I reached the top of the incline, it was a field of waist high lalang in front of me, snakes perhaps? I asked Shane to go forward, but he said he dint want to. Sigh, me again. At first, I tried chopping at the lalang to clear a path, but in the end, I just pushed through, flattening it.

We had four peaks to go, with Jon giving us 5 minutes rest at every peak, to me, that was too little, but I managed. I'll just fire off what comes to my mind then. We eventually put Yasmin behind Shane, because she was slowing down the whole pack, breaking us into two. Shane and I went as fast as we could, just to piss her off, sad but true. At one point, Shern grabbed her gallon bottle and told her "I take your bottle, now you start moving faster". At one point, she did break down and weep, just for a second or so, then she caught herself. As the parangmen, we had a responsibility for the safety of the whole pack, when we have a particularly dangerous obstacle in front of us, maybe a sharp drop on the left, we would say 'Cliff to the left" and the word would be passed down the line. I was the only one to have been bitten my a leech. What they tell you about leeches, "their bite doesn't hurt" is bullshit. I felt a sharp pain, I pulled up the sleeve of my pants, shouted "Ho Chuay! There's a fucking leech", Beremban's response was "Hoi! Diu lor!". Christina poured the salt on, I saw the leech wriggle. As salt actually removes the water content from the leech, so the leech would seem to shorten and my wound would seem to give off more blood. Those 2 factors made the leech look like it was trying to drill itself into my leg, and I was screaming "Ho Chuay" repeatedly, and they were kind enough to "Hoi" me back, niceties.

There was a point in our journey, where we had to pass a place, full of palm trees which had thorny branches. It was literally full of thorns, thin and long ones, and extremely pointy. I cleared it off, using the parang, bringing the blade down the side of the branch, chopping off the protruding thorns. After our fouth peak, Anuar decided that we did well enough and brought us to a short cut. It took him quite long to find the short cut, which used really difficult paths, a cold and crystal clear stream that flowed past slippery stones. Instead of taking the long route through the jungle and appearing at close to our previous day's road, we appeared near the Instructors' living quarters, then we walked downhill to the main road. Just 200metres from the main gate, we sat down by the side of the road and took a long rest. Most of us dint care about cleanliness, we just lay down on the concrete pavement, Tjun fell asleep on the sidewalk and Shern panicked, thinking that Tjun had heart failure or something. Finally, after 5 hours of hard trekking, we were back at Base.

When we arrived, the first place we went to was by the lone tree at the field. The other three Watches were there already, we were the last. We din't sit down at the tree, we just sort of fell down. After trekking for 5 long and hard hours in soaked shoes, our toes were wrinkly, like sausages. My socks were wet from the water and had blood caked on the top, due to the leech's bite. After we lay down on the grass for a moment, we popped open our bags and took out all the food we had. First, we ate Tuna Sandwiches, then Jam Sandwiches, then Jon started making Tuna & Jam ones, we did the same, so we could enjoy more jam. We even took a spoonful of jam each, and just let it melt in our mouths. Then came the good stuff, Yeo's Ikan Bilis Sambal! Fuyoh, Martin loved that! We had 2 or 3 loaves of Gardenia's Jumbo White Bread. We finished it, clean to the crumbs. The people from Group2 were playing with Milo powder, pouring it on each other, while we were cleaning our things. We hosed down our tent sheets, and cleaned our pots and pans.

Christina volunteered to clean our mess tins for us, half way through, she came back shouting "OI! Which asshole left chicken bones and soggy rice in his mess tin?!" There was chicken bones, rice soaked in curry sauce in the tin. Shane ran behind me, smiling sheepishly, Christina saw that and shouted more at him. Eventually, we started cleaning our gallon bottles, 11 of us, 5 of us washing. We were all wet from top to bottom, since we had been spraying each other with water while cleaning. We took the gallon bottles, rinsed it, then poured the remaining water on the others, we cleaned each bottle several times, maybe more than 4 or 5 times? While Christina was squatting down, washing one of the pots, and I was hosing it for her, Shane came up between Christina and I and whispered "Eh fucker, Look at the bottom of my pants, I'm gonna piss", he pissed in his pants "Woaah, damn hot now" he said softly. The piss dint come out from the bottom, so he lifted his leg, and it still dint come out. "Oh shit, its not coming out. Weh, pinjam the hose" "Shane, eeeew, what the fuck is wrong with you, I'm standing beside you and you're pissing in your pants!"
              
We were given the day off and told to have a good rest since the following day would be Solo Camping. We spent pretty much the whole day lazing under the sun. At night, after dinner, we were again asked to pack our things, this time, for Solo! Sounded quite scary to us. While we got out our tent pegs, 4 for everybody, there was 1 missing, and Eugene wanted to just take 3 and let everybody else have 4, but Anuar the ever fair guy, dint allow that. If Eugene couldn't have 4, nobody would. At night, we took out all the things, and this time, it was really heavy. While packing out bags, we were singing all the songs that we knew. We even tapped the tent pegs together according to the beat. Nothing really special happened tonight.

D-Day, Solo Camping time! In the morning, I followed Aji to one of his previous Instructors, he asked if Solo was scary. The instructor said not to worry, he told us "Just do what you feel like, if you think of Meagan Fox, *TFK motion* Just do it, the monkeys see you also think "Uggh, what's wrong with these humans"". We followed Anuar to the shack my the boat storage to get our sleeping mats, after filling up our gallon bottles, checking our food supplies, and strapping on our sleeping mat, we were ready to roll.

Anuar asked us to grab some chair and sit in a circe, our last serious discussion for the rest of the camp. It was to discuss our flaws and about things we've learned throughout YAC under the guidance of Anuar. Basically, what everyone said about somebody would be the same. It started with Teng Tjun, followed by Yasmin. I wouldn't deny okay, it was hilarious seeing Yasmin get negative feedback from everyone. Eugene's feedback to Yasmin's was the cutest. He stuck out his finger at each comment he gave. "No Determination, no desire to succeed, sure die one la you.", "I told her she was lazy, no teamwork and a burden on the team". My flaws was that I swear too much, like hey, its just 'Diu Lor" occasionally.

While we were still in the dorm, I gave Jon half of my water proof matches (just matches dipped in hot wax) and some fire starters (paper coated with wax). Anuar then led us out of OB land, and out to the jungle nearby. He brought us to our individual campsites, my campsite was great! I was placed next to Jon, about 15 metres away, but foliage blocking us. After setting up camp, starting a fire and while waiting for night to come, I made a cup of Milo and went to Jon's tent and sat there, talking about girls, and life outside OBS. Suddenly Jon whispered softly "Instructor, Instructor", I replied with, "What, What? (progressively louder) " Suddenly, Anuar appeared out of my blind spot and slashed Jon's tent rope, "1st Warning." and my God, Anuar's voice scared the living shit out of me. I grabbed my cup and ran back to my tent, and I found my tent sheet already lying in a heap, tent rope cut. Oh damn then, I tied it up again, instead of the traditional 2 opening tents that our instructor taught us, I opened up my third side, hence, very good ventilation. My feeble attempts at cooking porridge to eat with canned sardines made me annoyed, and I finally just ate barely cooked rice and sardines. I had problems with the can openers too, damn things wont open my can. I was luckier than Thong though, he forgot to take a can opener and resorted to stabbing the can with a ball point pen over and over again until it opened. I spent most of my free time thinking about what happened for the past 8 days and meditating.

Night was pretty annoying, I woke up several times to me rolling down the hill and my track bottoms riding up my ass. I woke up in the darkness, to see flash lights shining around in the trees to my right and heard Eugene and Thong's voice and Canon rock playing in the back ground, I later found out that Canon Rock, the Jerry C version was playing from a club nearby. They couldn't see my camping spot, since my fire had died out long ago. I whipped out my green laser and signalled them over, desperate for some human contact. It was 12 at that time, and those 2 continued walking around, searching the grounds for anyone still awake. They ended up at Shern's tent, talking throughout the whole night. I woke up at 5, to a loud buzzing noise, and damn, there was a bee in my tent. I quickly started a fire, hoping to smoke it out again, When I eventually got the fire going, it was dawn already. I put a cup of water to boil and poured in two or three packs of coffee powder in, I was just about to pour it out, when Aji came along, backpack on him, fully prepared and ready to go. He was told to pass the message around that we were leaving soon. Nice guy as always, he helped me roll up my sleeping mat and packed my camp a bit while I shared a cuppa with him. We continued on, to see Shane already at Jon's camp. Jon was cooking something while Shane wanted to take  a piss in his fire. We walked about the campsites helping each other pack, eventually, we sat at the biggest clearing which was where the Instructor's camp was, and they had hammocks!

We walked back happily, knowing that the night went by smoothly and without any problems. Along the way, Anuar briefed us on what was happening that night. Barbecue night babe! We had practiced our performances several times, very pretty fluent, but the sad thing was that, our "Beremban!" "Diu lor!" thing couldn't be done on stage, since parents were gonna be around. When we went back, we lay under the sun for a very long time, tanning our already very dark skin, peeling it further. That was when Nicole asked me to do cartwheels with her. Aji was kinda annoyed by us, like "Crazy one they all, sitting under the 3 o'clock sun." When 5pm came, Beremban went off to the barbecue pits to roast the chicken wings, while the other Watches went to do their respective duties. It was pretty much the same. Group1 guys were sitting down by the beach before the parents came. We were unwilling to go back to our parents, intending to sit by the beach forever, letting time freeze without a care in the world. As night came, we ate, then it was the same as all parties with best friends. Just imagine one party, and everyone attending has been through serious ups and downs and has helped you through it, you trusted them and they dint let you down, basically, these were all your best friends. My brothers in arms and a sister in hand. We were drunk without alcohol that night, we drankAji's parents brought his phone, so he playing music on full volume. Martin started dancing on the floor, touching his body like how strippers would. And the scene got progressively more wild, he started un-doing his shirt, and danced on the tables. Just before it was time for the parents to leave, us, OBS participants chained our hands together and sang the OB Spirit, Auld Lang Syne

When the parents left and the Instructors were still awake, we sang a bit in the hall. To this day, the faces of everyone, smiling happily but sad cause they know what was going to happen the following day. The Instructors sent us off to our dorms, but it was the last night, so no one listened to them. YAC24 were at the barbecue area, while OYP (another course who finished on the same day as we did) were at the Royal Square. We lay down and took a good look at the stars for the last time, taking pictures of ourselves. At 2, most of us had fell asleep there, suddenly, one of the Instructors from OYP, ( people see him as quite arrogant, and very strict) came in through the main gates and started shouting at us to go back to the dorm, threatening to tear up our certificates. We went up to the dorm, and just sat around for half an hour or so, chatting.

When the next morning came down, did our last morning exercise together, then Beremban went up to one of the classrooms to talk about what we've learnt, and how we feel about OBS and our favourite activity. We went back to the dorm to pack our bags, own, with out bags packed, pillows wrapped in our bed sheets and blankets, We sat on the steps in front of the hall, saying our last good byes. I dint see just a pair of teary eyes. Anuar said we had to do one last thing for him before he presented us our badges, I'm not sure how the other Watches did it, but we were made to run 50 metres, shouting "I want _____" , filling in the blanks ourselves, and we were suppose to run and shout all in one breath. We were all running very spiritedly, except Yasmin. Sad case, she ran 2 steps, and said in a semi-loud voice, "I want.." We dint hear the rest cause she suddenly went on mute. Anuar was a bit embarrassed about that happening. as he dint wanna force her to do something she dint want, so he just called her over to where we were standing, on the field, in front of the staircase where everyone was sitting. We asked Anuar if we had done good enough and he said it wasn't while smiling. Playing us for as long as he could! The last thing he did was really really funny, we had to run around the mass of people on the steps and do animal sounds and actions! I mimicked a pig, Shane was being a monkey and Jon being a bull. It was really weird, Anuar playing us kao-kao until the end. We finally got our badges. We were standing in a file, then Anuar clipped our collar badges on us, a very very proud moment for us, and for him too, I bet. Since he has said previously that we were one of his best batches. After our badges were on, Jon shouted "Everybody, group hug Anuar!", we crowded around Anuar and did so.

When the driver finally called the Singaporeans to get into the van, for the bus back to Lion City, we knew it was time to ciao, I think the only person I hugged was Eugene, who left pretty early. While we were sitting on the steps, we suddenly had a brainstorm. After 10 days of white rice and stir fried vegetables and the occasional fancy beef stew, we needed a treat, McDonald's! The big bunch of us went to McDonald's, our group consisted of Thong and his cousin, Teng Tjun, Jon, Shern, Ajinomoto and his brother, Christina, Martin, Shane, Holy Shit, Brendan and I. It was at this point where Martin asked Christina "Eh? Where's your Indonesian maid?", he was actually referring to Yasmin, from then on, the name Indonesian Maid was stuck until now. We chatted a bit more, shook hands and stuff. I ate a really really big meal. I took a Big Breakfast set with Fillet 'O' Fish, and added another Fillet 'O' Fish and topped it all off with 2 sundaes, sweet! To this day, eating McDonald's Chocolate Sundae brings back memories. We left one by one, the feeling of a bunch of besties splitting up is an indescribable feeling.

Several days after OBS and when I was home bumming, before sleeping I would occasionally sing the OB Spirit just for fun, think about starting fires, fiddle with my trusty torch and all before I slept. Even in the day, sometimes I had that "Thousand yard look" in my eyes, staring off into space. Of course I got a scolding from my mom for being a moody ass. When I was online, chatting with the Bounders, when I turn around, I would somehow expect all of them to be behind me, and the "Ho Chuay" that was coming out would be stuck in my throat. 6 months after OBS, I'm much better of course, all these "hallucinations" of friends has stopped.
And this is the end of my report-ish writing about my experience at OBS. Like what most Bounder's said, its like going in with a very simple, childish mind, and coming out independent, confident and grown up, in other words, coming out a different person. I would like to return to OBS another day, but not this year.

To any parent out there that is reading this, this is the real deal, no censorship, no red tape, but pure stuff. All fact and no fiction. And if you have just a vague idea of sending your child to OBS, it is definitely worth it.

"Ho Chuay" to the great YAC24, and "Diu Lor" to the even greater Beremban. We've got these experiences at a teenage, while most people don't even have these when they leave Earth. Classic Course anytime soon, mates?