A Great Outing

I just got back from a camping trip (Okay, not just. I got back last night). The last time I went camping was about 14 years ago. That time I had to go. I had no choice. I was just hired to join one of the subsidiaries for the Renong Group as a Management Trainee and they sent the 12 of us to the Outward Bound School in Lumut.

Most of the time we slept in the hostel, but on 2 occasions, we had to camp out under the stars (The stars were actually barely visible as we were camped under the trees on the beach on 1 occasion, and in the middle of the jungle on the other). On the 2nd occasion, we were taken to the middle of a jungle, and each of us was given a location to camp which was a fair distance from each other. So we spent the night beyond hearing range of each other as if we were alone in the middle of the jungle.

Needless to say, none of us managed to get much sleep that night. I have this strong objection of sharing a tent with a snake so I ended up sleeping on the ground a bit further away from the tent. That was an experience I would never forget and I swore to myself I would never go camping again.

So when the invitation came through Facebook to go on a camping trip, I was full of dread. I started to get flashbacks of almost walking into my tent to find a snake nicely curled up on my sleeping bag. But then, after talking to some of my friends who wanted to go, they managed to persuade me. What could happen in the middle of a campsite full of more than 30 people?


So on Saturday 7th February, I left the comfort of a nice warm bed at the ridiculous hour of 6.30 a.m. to pick up my friends, Juliana, Alfie and his wife, Shasha to head for Ulu Slim up in Perak. We joined up with some of the other members of the group at the Petronas Service Station off tthe Middle Ring Road 2 near Taman Melawati and picked up some old clothes to be donated to the “Orang Asli” near the camp site.

We then headed off to meet the rest of the gang at the Rawang R&R on the North South Highway. From there it was a 45 minute trip to Tanjung Malim, then another 45 minutes to Sungai Gapis (We would have gotten there sooner except for 1 of the cars had a tire blow up along the way). This was to be our first destination. Our camp site was at another location but the organizers felt that we should visit the waterfalls at this location first.

Before we headed for the waterfalls, we stopped by the “Orang Asli” village to pay our respects to the chieftain or “Tok Batin”. He wasn’t around at that time so we decided to head for the waterfalls first and meet up with him on the way back to donate some of the old clothes we had brought. We drove halfway to the waterfalls and had to leave our cars behind as we had to cross a stream.

Once we left our cars, crossed the stream, it was an uphill walk to the waterfalls. It was a pretty steep climb, but it didn’t bother me much. I was perched on top of a pick-up truck all the way up the hill. We had to leave the truck as we got near to the waterfalls. It was a short walk from there and the climb up was well worth it. The waterfalls were absolutely breathtaking.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we were running short of time (We still had to get to our camp site), I think maybe some of us might have taken a dip in the cold mountain waters. But we could only stay there for 30 minutes and we had to make our way down, back to the cars, and head for our campsite.

It didn’t take long before we reached this other village (Sorry, I can’t remember the name). We left our cars parked at one of the villager’s house, and headed out to our campsite in 4 x 4 vehicles. We were told that we could probably drive our own cars, but it wasn’t advisable. If it rained, we would have a lot of difficulty trying to drive out as the road could be very slippery.

From the village, it was a 30 minute ride in the 4 x 4 vehicle up to the camp site. The trip was quite an eventful trip as the road was very bumpy and we kept bouncing around in the 4 x 4 vehicle. But all the aches caused by bouncing around went away as soon as we got to the camp site.


The camp site was located next to a stream where the water was crystal clear but fast flowing. I thought about taking a dip in the water immediately after I got to the camp site. But then I was told to pitch up our tents first as it was getting pretty dark. So after I finished pitching up the tent, and helping Alfie to pitch up his tent as well, we all decided to take a dip.


The water was so cold. But it was great. You just had to be careful because of the very strong current, one slip and you could probably end up 100 meters downstream. After the swim, I took a short nap. It was a pretty exhausting day and there were still some activities in the evening.

I woke up just in time for dinner and the food was excellent. After dinner, the “Orang Asli” from one of the nearby villages came over and gave a performance of their traditional dance, the “Sewang”. All in all, it was a pretty enjoyable day. I was so looking forward to the next day.

I woke up quite early on Sunday and decided to go out and look around the camp site. I knew something wasn’t right. I wasn’t feeling too good so I decided to go back to sleep. I woke up again around 9.00 and felt that something was definitely wrong. My eyes had been constantly watery since 6.00 in the morning. I had gotten an eye infection.

The last time I had a similar infection, I couldn’t leave my room for 4 days. My eyes became very sensitive to brightness and would immediately become watery. I knew this was going to be a lousy day. I had already missed breakfast so I changed and took a dip in the waters. I didn’t stay very long as the brightness was making my eyes water so I went back to my tent and stayed inside. I fell asleep until lunch and during lunch, I decided to wear my sunglasses for the rest of the day. It helped a bit, but on occasion, my eyes would still become watery and I would have difficulty trying to keep them open.

Anyway, like I said, the last time I had a similar infection; it took me 4 days before I could leave my room, and a whole week before I could drive. This time, I was up and about today. I went out to meet a prospect together with Juliana and the accompanied her to meet Imran, a fellow Platinum Networker and his prospect earlier this afternoon. And I did all the driving. There were moments when I was a bit uncomfortable, but still, it didn’t take me a whole week before I could drive around.

I guess taking 4Life Transfer Factor Plus does help. Within 1 day, I’m already up and about. Compare that with the 7 days I had to spend at home at the end of 2007 because of a similar infection.