Getting Too Close to Nature (Day 2)

"Are we there yet??", I asked for probably the fifth time since we've started the nature adventure session.

We've been walking for about 3 excruciating but exciting hours in the jungle and let me tell you, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

Yes, day 2 was all about being one with nature!
You have no idea how hard going jungle trekking in Genting can be! I mean, I've never thought Genting can be so.... natural. I've always thought Genting was like the City of Entertainment!

When I hear the word 'Genting', theme parks, casinos and movies pop up in my head, not the jungle.
But so not to confuse you guys, here's what happened early on Sunday morning;


Well, the longhouse was a pretty comfortable place to sleep. The mattresses and pillows and stuff was all set up for us already. Although the night wasn't that cold before I slept, it was friggin cold when we were asleep!

I was practically freezing the whole night. I'd roll about and stuff, take a peek at the others and just close my eyes once in a while, hoping that it was already morning and it was time to get up.

Then, the song "I Wanna be a Billionaire" came on and we all woke up. I love that song!


Morning, sleepy heads! There's Kai Tying from the left, followed by Melissa and Kai Shuen, Kai Tying's twin sister! That's soo cool!!




We played Fire, Hunter, Earthquake as soon as we all got together before we went for a superb breakfast!



After breakfast, we had an extra activity in which I call the Camwhoring session!






Not long after, we all got into our groups and we had to solve a sudoku and crossword puzzle before we can proceed to the jungle trekking before the other groups. So it was sort of like the Amazing Race.


The crossword puzzle was a piece of cake, but the sudoku took some time. Unfortunately, we took too long and we were the last group to leave!

As soon as we were done, we had to read up about some facts about the rainforest.
Then we started our journey in the jungle!


At first, I thought it was gonna be easy as we just had to go over tree trunks, jump over ditches and avoid muddy spots, but nooo! As soon as we got deeper, our guide stopped us, gave us a task and guess what it told us to do: Catch at least 6 leeches!

You may not realize this, but I get uncomfortable at the sight of blood so blood-sucking parasites isn't exactly my idea of fun...
At first, I was thought it wasn't gonna be easy to find any as we're in a dry place waaay above sea level, so how can we possibly find any?? I looked up, I looked at the leaves, anywhere but the ground.

Turns out you didn't have to do anything to find them, they'll find you.

EEeeeEEEkkkk!!!! Leeches!!

Funny thing was that we need to catch 6 of them, right? Well, I got bitten by 6 of them and guess what? None of them got caught!!

On the way, we saw this HUGE tree!


Our next task: Give the tree a big bear hug! Aww...

Eventually, we got to a river.

There, I got stung by some kind of flying insect. Until now, there's a sorta purple spot on my hand and it itches once in a while. But whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be gone.

Otherwise, I might get the same powers as that insect!

Right after the river, our guide stopped us again and gave us another task. Here's a clue on what it said:


Give up? Take a group picture with mud on your face!

Although it sounded rather dirty, it was surprisingly rather cool and refreshing on my face, believe it or not.
After that, things got really tough.

Because we started off downhill, we had to come back uphill and it was not through he other way. Man, it was the steepest, muddiest, leech infected place I ever came across! It was so steep, we had to use a rope to pull ourselves up!
As soon as we think we've gone past a steep hill, there's another one to climb!

God bless Malaysia!

By the time we were almost there, my legs were bloody from the leeches, muddy and soaking wet because I slipped into the river twice! It was the most tiring, toughest jungle trek I've ever been to.

On the way, I saw the most ginormous millipede I've ever seen in my life!
It looks just like this and it was hanging on a twig:

Somebody stuffed the poor little worm into the bottle and took it away!

3 hours of nature later, we've finally came back to civilization!



A lot of people have discovered lots of leeches sucking on them and things got real bloody at this point. And they thought Twilight was romantic. Pfft...

Some people was even macho enough to let their leeches grow fat and drop off by themselves. This particular guy in our group even named his fat leech 'Jon' after one of the other participants of the group. I'm sorry, but gross!



We had a short break after that and then we all split up into two groups to do a different activity. After that, we'd switch activities with the other group.

And so, my group went for the Flying Fox! Wheeee!!!




We then exchanged activities with the other group and went abseiling! Yay!

I had such a great time, Melissa said that it was the best camp ever, and I'm sure everyone had a blast!

THUMBS UP FOR NATURE AND THE PEOPLE WHO MADE IT HAPPEN!

YEAH!!