Last weekend I went to the jungles of Hulu Perdik, Hulu Langat, for a weekend of camping, leeches, trekking and mud with Raleigh International KL chapter, as the Head of Medical team. It gave a well deserved break that I so needed from my routine life at the office and I must say I loved every single bit of it.
We gathered in International Youth Centre ( IYC in Cheras) and left for Hulu Langat at about 11pm. Tents for the staffs has been set up by the camp and Logistics team who scouted the place earlier, but we still had to pitch additional tents for other staffs. Didn’t help that it was raining and the whole place was wet and muddy, and I didn’t have the chance to change into my trekking boots so I was with my slippers instead – so naturally you can guess what happened, I fell off the mud a few times and got up swearing because I was covered with dirt at 1 in the morning.
We slept at about 3.45am, and woke up again at 6am, the camp chief had prepared breakfast and we had a good meal of eggs, bread, tuna, crackers and hot tea and Milo.Poor participants had to cook their own meals lol. Since I was free for the morning, I joined my tent mate in her facilitating for a game. It was a good one, and the spirit of all the teams are commendable as everyone was working on high spirits. Lunch was served at about 1pm, after lunch it was trekking. I went with team Delta, and I never knew Hulu Langat had such a remote trekking trail.The trail was fairly easy, as opposed to the Bukit Kutu trek I had as participant in the Introweek in November 2005. The trail was slippery and muddy, and my trekking shoes gave way ( the cushioning at the back came off) so the hard leather was poking and slicing the soles of my feet. Halfway into the trek, we realised we had taken the longer route instead of the shorter, designated one, thanks to one of the trailblazers who mistakenly thought we had to take the longer route. That costs us about 2 hours, when all the other teams had reached the designated checkpoint when we just made it through the first checkpoint.
Nevertheless, we didn’t make it to the top,because we were already late and we were too exhausted to continue the journey.After we came back to camp, washed and had a good dinner, it was time for campfire performance by the participants.
It was such a hilarious show that we went on laughing for hours after that. I realised it was something I needed, to be away from all the stress of the city and indulge in some nature.Did I mention that I lost my glasses during the trek? I drove back to Seremban practically blind!Nevertheless, it was a wonderful weekend! Kudos to Raleigh KL for a job well done!