It's 1148pm now and I just got home from Jazz concert and felt the need to blog before i hit the bed. No, not about Jazz concert. Considering i'm pretty much a noob in music and not totally into jazz, i've nothing much to comment on it except that it would have added much to the atmosphere if it was held at a club of sorts (or the TSD room, to think of it).

Of course, those in ODAC reading this blog, would like infer that my entry today will be about APREX, the last official odac expedition for batch 22. Seeing that it's the last expedition, i think it deserves a proper entry in my blog for posterity's sake, so here goes.

Before reporting to school, i went to jayeight to get 1x pandan kaya cake and spectacle bands. The weekend escapade began on Friday evening on board Cheery Bus (that looked new and nice). The only thing less cheery was our singaporean guide who spoke in a very irritating sort of way (but i guess she's quite nice giving us chocolate and buying bday cake and stuff). After a bus ride that seemed to last forever, we finally reached Yong Peng where dinner was hungrily and swiftly devoured. Our malaysian guide was this fat malay dude that had the voice of a deejay cum airplane pilot. damn cool. So we took out the abovementioned cake and celebrated the birthday of a whole lot of people.

The next item after dinner was basically sleep. As the more acute of readers would realise, Gopeng (our destination) which is in Perak, is pretty far away. Further than KL, cameron highlands and the sorts. So it was a night bus ride for us. Mr Shah, who was seating across the aisle from me, was pretty at task when it came to sleep. I, on the other hand, had pretty little of it. My personal inability to fall asleep on buses, coupled with a certain fear of night buses (and it was friday the 13th somemore), meant that i only enjoyed short bouts of light sleep. Every hour or so, the driver would stop at those highway rest stops for extended periods of time and the jarring orange light would disrupt my hard-attained state of sleep.

So, after a fitful sleep, we finally reached Gopeng town and were greeted by Pip, our female Kiwi instructor. After she gave us a cheery greeting, Mr shah responded "Wah i sleep in yong peng and wake up in Australia". We said goodbye to our coach and boarded lorries to reach our campsite. Yes, just like you see those construction workers doing, we were standing on the back of lorries and i must say it's one hell of a way to travel. It's so great to have everything near you (without the barrier of a glass) and the excitement of having to duck every now and then due to low hanging branches. Lorries would remain our mode of transport for the rest of the stay.

After a bumpy ride, we reached our destination: Camp Adeline. This is really a idyllic kampung-setting camp with numerous guest huts and a house that houses some locals that cook and upkeep this place. The moment you step in, your nerves are calmed and it just exudes an aura of relaxation. The girls got the larger dormitary near the entrance and the guys took the one behind, separated by "the natural jacuzzi". This jacuzzi in question is really the site where this huge water pipeline (like those between sg and m'sia) has burst at a few points and water gushes out non stop. It was like our natrual private fountain. After a breakfast of oily kway teow and over-sweet milo, we prepared to go caving.

Caving was a pretty new experience and we were dressed like those rescue workers handling a collapsed mine, complete with plastic helmet. Although we were expecting to get pretty wet, we got soaked by puddles before we even entered the cave. The cave we were exploring was supposedly a hideout used by the Malayan communists operating around the 50s and 60s. After an initial 10 minute walkabout, Pip brought us to a spot and made us remain absolutely quiet and turn off our headlamps. It was really creepy and surreal to feel for yourself how the communists must have lived in, surviving on one candle A MONTH. Its so dark that opening and closing the eye has no difference. serious.

There were also points where we could hear bats but did not have any idea where they were. After more climbing around and crawling about, we finally reached the flying fox arena. This was essentially a set-up about 5 stories high and we were like flying across this hole that had formed in the cave. So, me being quite intimidated by heights and flying fox and stuff, was rather glad that it was 80m across and not 80m HIGH. But i still screamed the whole way across lor. But screaming for flying fox was really, therapeutic. it was like letting everything out into the cave man.

That pretty much summed up caving and then we adjourned for lunch. And like all plays/musicals, there is an intermission. And here we take an intermission. Goodnight. Stay tuned for part 2.