Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Before I describe our perilous journey, let me feed you some info about Gunung Ledang. Gunung Ledang a.k.a. Mount Ledang, located at Tangkak, Johor (Rachel’s hometown). Apparently very mystical (and I would say it’s still mystical), rumours has it that an Indonesian princess (correct me if I’m wrong) who is better known as Puteri Gunung Ledang stays there. This legendary princess is so famous in Malaysia that they even made a movie out of it. Some of the filming was shot there too. But, they added some asam and cili padi to spice up the story lar. Hang Tuah fell in love with the Puteri?? Anyways, since stupid TANES kept his mouth sealed when we asked for the itenary, the info I managed to squeeze out from Su-Lyn and the rest of the Pharmacy gang committee was:

- there are 8 checkpoints throughout the journey.

- our campsite was located at Campsite 4.

Armed with my limited knowledge in hiking (I got a 1 hour crash course in hiking from Sheng Ching just few hours before the trip), I embarked on my crazy journey to Ledang on 4th Nov 2006.

I wouldn’t go into too much details about the journey coz u all can refer my friends’ blogs (ref previous post for links). I’ll try to make a simple pictorial out of the trip.

Now since we girls are total cam whores, we love to take few snaps whenever there’s an opportunity. Before the journey, I met up with my alien group 7 members. Sorry about the terminology ‘alien’, but that’s how I labelled everyone if I don’t know them but I just know their names.

From left: Ken Seong (who still doesn’t know how to spell pharmacists’ names), Tze Jin, Hong Yang a.k.a. Guang Liang, Shino, Chenna (I don’t know how to spell), Jin, myself, Ali, Rachel, Hwee Yin, Yan Leng and Eng Seong!

Taken at CP1 (near ranger’s office). Still looking good. PS: Guess what’s the use of the long sticks in the pic? It’s to make an Ali Baba toilet!

Now why did I say our journey was perilous?

You see, we rummaged through the forest for the right trails, thanks to our very, very athletic jungle guides.

Protected our precious biscuits and cream of mushrooms up to our camp.

Climbed up boulders. With the aid of ladders, of course. I’m not spiderman.

Abseiled very steep cliffs. NOTE: There are no safety equipments. We abseiled in the OPEN. I think it is more dangerous than climbing. It was fun though.

The journey was soo tiring that we have to camp. We have to "ber-emo" with the tree.

Survived from leaking tents.

Survived in the “som-som-chet” (007 in thai) game. Someone had loads of uncooked macaroni that night. Hence he-who-shall-not-be-named shall be known as “Som Som Chet King” from today onwards.

Survived Hwee Yin’s Macaroni Special (with holy water blessings from the sky too!)

My shoes still ok despite the heavy workout (see proof below):

Survived the temperamental weather. It’s rainy season. Very bad season to hike indeed. I even have to prepare a raincoat for my bag. I used a large JUSCO plastic bag. Thank you, Sheng Ching for the improvised raincoat idea!

All these just to catch sunrise at the summit. And this is what we got:

You tell me lar… Is it worth it? After N hours of hike and the hardships we’ve gone through.

Anyway, this trip proved to other faculties (esp TANES) that PHARMACY GIRLS BOLEH! YAY!

I shall end this entry with the classic group picture! Not really satisfied with this trip. Scenary not very nice also. But I get to know interesting people. Next stop, Gunung Irau anyone?