little talks.

After trekking around the Long Pa'Sia jungle for 10 days, it was not time to go back into semi-civilisation. I say semi-civilisation because Long Pa'Sia is still ~4 hours away from the nearest town in a 4X4. Which sometimes sounds really long especially considering it being a very bumpy ride most of the way, but also doesn't sound that long when I think about all the 13hour journeys back and forth from the UK I have made.

So there we were with chairs that have a back, beds that we don't have to set up and toilets that we didn't have to dig. Only 10 days away from all of this and already we appreciated it that much more. Part of the trek phase is being able to spend one night in a homestay which meant that for one night and half a day, we had some delicious food which included fresh vegetables! and bananas and donuts. All seemingly simple things but definitely tasty nonetheless.

Lucy, Me, Stef and Bobbie.

That was us spending some time up on this hill overlooking the village. 

Lots of nice green leech free grass that we chilled on. 

Our guide Noor!

Can you see how grubby my shorts and shoes are.

Also I think my hair looks pretty good considering I bathed in the river and had no conditioner for the past 2 weeks. Just saying. 

Homestay may have been the shortest part of my whole 10 week experience, but it was also one of my best memories. 

We then set off at 7?am the next morning cause we were bound for KK. As the bus was driving through KK to drop us at the hostel (people who do trek/dive instead of dive/trek get to spend one night in KK! =D) looking out the window just seemed so surreal cause there were just so much going on that my past time in the jungle all seemed like a dream. 

Anyways, the hostel we got to was okay. It had a bed, a fan and showers so no complaints there seeing as we all knew we could survive with far far far less. Happy day for we got our dive bag! Basically since we had to pack as little as possible for trek we got to put anything else we wanted for the diving section of our phase in another bag. Woohoo for non-jungle smelling clothes and underwear!

That night we went to the Phillipino market in the city centre. It's basically one big pasar malam that sells food on one end and clothes/souvenirs/trinkets on the other end. Had a nice time browsing around and feeling like a normal person, not a crazy person who decided to spend 10 weeks in rural Sabah. 

Next morning we went to out classroom session for diving. Part of the Adventure phase is getting a diving certificate from PADI. So we spent most of that day going over all the theoretical stuff. After that we set off for Mamutik Island a.k.a Dive Island as Raleigh calls it. It is an island just off KK and also where Shangri-La takes their guests to so yeah, it's a pretty nice island with a clean beach and clean water. However, besides the houses for the people who work on the island there are actually no lodgings so it meant we were back in our hammocks. This time under one large tarp that is permanently there for Raleigh. 

We then spent the next 4 days learning all the basics of diving. It was all quite scary at first because honestly breathing under water is just such a foreign feeling. Most of the time my mind was just going "Am I breathing enough? Am I breathing too slowly? Too quickly?", so yeah breathing suddenly became something that required my concentration. Though by the the time I got my cert(Yup I passed!) breathing underwater came more naturally. We got a boat dive as the last thing we had to do to get a cert which was a super great experience. Got to go quite far down and while from the top it all looks dark and deep and scary, once I was down there it was really peaceful watching all the little fishys go by and sometimes it did feel like flying. 

We also did some underwater clean up on the last day as a way of giving back. You wouldn't believe how much rubbish just ends up at the bottom of the sea! We even found a shoe. Haha. 

All the following pics are from the Raleigh blog/Lucy because I didn't bother with any pics. 

Look at us all tanned and smiley!

Super heavy tanks. 

Getting ready to go under. 

Breakfast on the beach every morning. 

And that concludes my Adventure phase. Dive island was a great 'holiday' and all but I was getting a tad bored so was quite looking forward to the next phase. Back to basecamp for a whole new group and project!

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all that i can say.

Now about the first phase of my 10 week expedition!

A 10 week expedition is split into 3 phases each lasting 19 days each.

The 3 phases for this expedition would be
Adventure: 12 days of trekking in the jungle and 5 days diving.
Community: Building a Community Learning Centre in a village OR building a gravity water feed system as well as a sanitation unit(i.e toilet)
Environment: Spending time in Class 1 protected forests helping the rangers out.

The order of which phase you do first is basically unknown to everyone till the morning where your new groups are announced alongside which project you will be off to.

The Adventure phase was one of the most feared by most to be the first phase to be embarking on as 12 days trekking in the jungle sounds super duper intense. That is 12 days of trekking to a different camp each day with all your belongings on your back. Which also includes the group kit stuff and ALL your food. Okay well not all, 6 days worth at a time. Really can't imagine how heavy my bag would be with 12 days of rations in it, even 6 split evenly between everyone was heavy enough as it is. Also considering that the bag was like half my weight standing up with it was always a challenge.

Sorting the food out proved to be the toughest part as everyone had to consider how much weight it would all actually add up to. We basically had to decide right there and then how much and exactly what we would be having for all meals. As while we would all have liked to bring a nice comfortable amount the thought of carrying so much weight for a long trek each day meant we had to cur everything down to the bare minimum. Suffice to say that everyone in the group lost weight after our 12 days in the jungle.

Alpha 6!!

Setting off the first morning. With rucksacks packed to the max.

No day to day account but a typical day on trek in Long Pasia will run like this.

6am: Wake up and start packing everything. Collect water, make fire, boil water, have breakfast.
8am: Leave camp.
Trek trek trek trek trek trek trek. Usually for 4 hours. With a couple of breaks in between with everyone collapsing on the ground and sharing a packet of ice gems/banana chips.
12pm: Reach camp and start unpacking the radio, get water from the river(cause the chlorine pills take 30minutes), start a fire.
12.30pm: LUNCH. Everyone's starving so every last crumb is consumed.
Laze about. Maybe a shower if the weather is nice, and by shower I mean a dip in the nearest river.
6pm: Dinner prep which mostly just consists of boiling noodles and heating up the meat/vege.
7pm: Food time. Usually followed by a hot drink.
8pm: BED. For most people.
I usually stay up till 9ish writing in my journal or chatting with whoever is awake.

Rinse and repeat for 12 days. By the end everyone's spirits were dampened because well I guess 12 days of trekking with minimal food in the same set of clothes will get anyone down.

I would have liked to write a longer post on trek but honestly no matter how many words I type out it still will barely describe the experience.

So here instead are the top 5 things I learnt!

1. Everything gets wet in the jungle. One night I left a pair of dry socks out and by the next morning it was damp even though it didn't rain that night. So put everything away in a dry bag.

Welcome to the laundry area. A lot of us dried out stuff over the fire but take note that everything will smell of smoke and may have scorch marks. 

2. There are gonna be leeches on you no matter how hard you try to get rid of them. If they haven't started sucking just flick them away. Otherwise just 'massage' them till they curl up into a ball then flick them. Try not to burn or pour salt on them cause they may throw up into your wound which may then get infected. Wearing longs while trekking does help though. 

3. You will drink lots of tea/coffee/Milo especially when it rains. So try to always keep the fire going to boil water cause it's easier to keep the fire going than to start a new one. And also drinking chlorinated water on it's own is not exactly the more pleasant taste.

4. Get a walking stick. Even if you don't own a nice proper walking pole, you can ask the guides to find a nice sturdy stick for you. It really helps with the going up and down hills. And believe me when I say there are A LOT OF HILLS.

5. Duct tape is the solution to everything. Haha. Leaky tarp? Tape it. Broken cutlery? Tape it.

My conclusion?

Yes trek is hard. But if I (who does absolutely no exercising at all), can do it. Anyone can.

It's more about adapting to the jungle life than it is about being fit. 

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moonlight.

Onto the first week then.

Now considering most of the projects would be deep in the rural areas of Sabah where there is absolutely no cell service much less internet connectivity how were we to keep in contact with FieldBase? It's important to maintain contact so that at all times our movements were to be accounted for and also in case of an emergency they would know where to find us.

The main form of communication would be our radios. This was no basic walky-talky kinda thing. It was a proper radio system which we had to learn to set up. Setting it up involved firstly putting up the dipole antenna which always proved to be the most difficult/annoying part as you had to get it up a certain height and aiming for a branch on a three was clearly not a skill that was required in our day to day lives. The rest of it was a breeze with just having to plug things in into the main unit. We also learnt radio speak which is well awkward as you are trying to use as few words as possible while sounding official. I did find it fun though with learning the phonetic alphabet and all.

Next form of communication would be using the satellite phones. Which we never actually did use at any point because the radio always worked. And when the radio didn't work, neither did the sat phone.

And of course with Raleigh being very careful about things. There would have to be an in case of emergency option. The PLB. A Personal Locater Beacon. Basically just a big red button to push that would then bring emergency services in. But only in case of dire emergencies. Like if everyone was dying. Not dead. Dying. Grim but true.

We also covered some basic first aid. Always important when the nearest hospital could be hours away. Although there would always be a medic with us during projects that were more remote. So really, no worries cause the medics are well prepared. Other important things we learned were stuff like how to set up our bashers(involving putting up the hammock, tarp and mosquito net), where/how to dig our long drop(toilet a.k.a hole in the ground) and the etiquette behind it to avoid accidentally walking into someone doing their business

So after all the theoretical learning, it was now time to put out knowledge to the test!

We had all been split into different groups and my group Delta 5 got to be one of the first to go for our practice trek alongside two other groups. Packing wasn't such a chore yet as we were only going for one night so there wasn't really much to take. So after dividing up the food and group kit such as cooking tools, radio(which in total weighed 8kg), shovel, jerry cans(for water), we were off! There was also the matter of the group tarp also known as the sausage which two people had to carry at all times. It was heavy beyond imagination and carrying it for just 10 minutes over the uneven terrain was a test.

My first basher. Please excuse my socks they needed drying out. 

The group leaving. 

It was quite a challenging experience. What with me not having gotten my jungle legs yet. There was a lot of slipping and sliding along the way as while we did follow a sort of path, it was still a venture into the jungle. And for those who know me know that I tend to trip and fall even on completely flat ground for no reason whatsoever. Considering that, I think it was a pretty good trek with nothing broken or sprained. Haha. I did end up with lots of bruises and scratches though. 

With that done and dusted, I had gotten my first taste of the jungle life and while it wasn't the easiest thing, it also wasn't the hardest. 

I think I must also mention the first day of team building exercises. Not for the exercises themselves but for the conditions that we were to do it in. Let's remember that the end of the year is monsoon season over in Borneo so we were having downpours pretty much everyday. So the first time we were out on the field doing some team building thing it started pouring down and of course our first instinct is to run inside for cover. However, we were ordered to march back out by our PMs(Project Manager) and continue because rain will and should not stop us. The idea is that even while we are trekking in the jungle, we aren't gonna stop and seek shelter when it starts raining so we were gonna have to get used to being completely soaked through. 

Overall the first week was quite a learning experience. But that would prove to be only the tip of the iceberg because we still had another 9 weeks to get through with many other difficulties which meant a lot more learning about the jungle, our fellow group members and ourselves. 

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little lights.

Time to blog about my jungle experience!

If you didn't already know, I spent 10 weeks on a Raleigh expedition in Sabah last year. This was an experience unlike any other and as much I will try to describe it here in detail, only those who have been will really know what it's like to live the simple life.

Let's start at the beginning then.

Got on the plane early Sunday morning as we were told that we had to be there by 11am. And by 'we' I mean the HCVs(Host Country Venturers), basically the Malaysians. The internationals were only getting in a day later. This is mainly cause we get the training and briefing a day earlier so that we can learn at our own pace as the English may not be everyone's first language. We were taken to Field Base which is a house somewhere on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu where everything is coordinated from.

Met the rest of the HCVs there as while 5 of us had flown in from KL, there were another 5 who were from Sabah. Right before we had lunch, we learnt one of the most important things to remember while on expedition. Three bowling. What is this you ask? For the whole duration of the expedition, it would be drilled into us to always three bowl before and after a meal. Three plastic bowls would be set up with the first for soaping up your eating utensils, the second with clear water to rinse and the third with water and a capful of bleach. So that would be soap rinse bleach after a meal and bleach rinse before a meal. This was to be the preventive measure against D&V(Diarrhea&Vomiting) seeing as living in the jungle isn't exactly the most hygienic of places.

It was then onwards to the swimming test! As part of the expedition we were going to get our PADI certs(diving cert) which meant that we had to be able to swim 200metres and tread water for 4 minutes. Thankfully swimming is one of those things you never forget as the last time I went swimming was probably 3 years ago.

After that we were taken to Base camp. It was about 45minutes away from KK so not as 'ulu' as you might think it is. This would be where we would live for the first week learning all the essential things like how to use the radio, use a parang(machete for the non-Malaysians) and basically how to survive the jungle.

Home at base camp.

Static bashers are surprisingly not that bad to sleep in. 

*TIP* Never ever ever put anything on the ground. Hang everything off the end of the bashers, including shoes. Something we learnt the first night there as it started pouring down in the early AM and everything that we didn't get off the ground in time got soaked cause the place floods. 

Bamboo hut. Where we would eat all our meals and get daily briefings. 

Another view of base camp. 

Normally it serves tourists as there you can go ziplining and white water rafting there. 

One thing that seemed so insignificant at the time was toilets. The toilets you say? Over the course of the 10 week expedition, base camp would be the only place where we would get flushing toilets as pretty much everywhere else it was a hole in the ground that you could perhaps flush with a pail of water or it would literally just be a hole. It would also be the only place with showers! And not rivers or buckets of water. Oh the little things you don't realise are luxuries till you don't have it. You don't know the joy of being the first back at base camp after a phase and being able to take a nice shower and wash your clothes in water that didn't smell like jungle. 

That night we learned how to make dinner using trangias(portable spirit stoves). 

Useful to know how to use. 

However we never actually used it over the 10 weeks.

It is a bit of a slow method especially when you're trying to cook for 10+ people at a time. 

Our first encounter with Raleigh rations.

At first what went through my mine was how can I eat the same kind of food for 10 weeks!?

But then you tend to get really creative with what you can make and I had some pretty good meals that you would never think to make. 

On that note I shall tell you a little about the meal plan for 10weeks.

Breakfast: Porridge today. Porridge tomorrow. Porridge every morning for 10 weeks! And not the rice kind of porridge that I like but rather oats. It's not so bad once you learn what you can take it with. My preferences are peanut butter and chocolate spread(the snickers combination) or condensed milk or Milo. Or when we run out of peanut butter, chocolate spread, Milo(because there is a limited supply but high demand) then it's raisins and sugar which is still okay. Honestly it was a bit weird to eat something sweet for breakfast as the Asian in me is more used to things like roti canai, wanton mee, or basically savoury things. 

Lunch: Crackers, cheese, tuna and chicken luncheon meat. A cold lunch so to say cause it requires a lot less effort and time. Although it sounds quite boring to eat for 10 weeks, this simple combination was actually enjoyed by everyone right till the end. Some of them found that just mashing everything together made you feel like you had more to eat and that it tasted better.

Dinner: The one real meal of the day. A very carb heavy meal though as being on rations meant that we couldn't use as many tins of meat that we would like. So it was a lot of noodles, pasta and rice with a side helping of vegetable and meat.

Overall in terms of food it wasn't that bad. And if it ever did get boring, someone told us to remember that "Raleigh rations are fuel not food".

That's all for this post.
More about our one week of prep before we set off on our projects in the next post!

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