Malaysia IS food!

Rewind two months and we come to my first time instructing a course! We went to briefing assuming we would be support as always but me and Alistair got taken into Syafris office and told we would be instructing a watch (15people) each with the help of Din and Fendy. Before instructing this course I thought I knew a lot about each activity and that instructing would be reasonably easy, how wrong I was! Its so difficult to keep the kids attention and make sure I'm one step ahead of the game. Most of the course went well, however the teachers on this particular course made life difficult for instructors by always intervening and telling the kids different meeting times to us. This also made it hard for us to gain the respect of the kids as teachers were always undermining us. My watch managed to lose their store key and a compass costing me 86ringgits! I learned a lot from this course and hope I get another opportunity like it to improve on my performance and there is a lot to improve on! The feedback forms made me laugh though, one kid commented

There should be less international instructors.

this particular kid was Indonesian and came from an international school! I had a rare free weekend and no plans so with 10minutes notice headed back to Alia's home in Ipoh. Her family are lovely, especially her mother who made me feel so welcome in her home. We visited multiple other family members who were equally nice. I got a full tour of Ipoh courtesy of Alia, her parents and her brother. We went to a couple of Buddhist temples, mostly situated in caves and have very colourful statues about (great for taking stupid pictures with!). We also went on a cave tour and visited Kellies Castle which was built by a Scot for his wife but she died before it was completed so the castle was left unfinished, still worth a visit although we were too stingy to pay the entry fee so just took pictures from outside! I'm pretty sure one day we had 5 meals, pretty standard in Malaysia, as Alistair said "Malaysia is food!" I had a great weekend getting to see another part of Malaysia, meeting Alias family and understanding more about malaysian culture. I also bought glow-in-the-dark stars so Libby and I can now stargaze before we go to sleep every night! We have Orions belt, the plough, north star, toilet star and light star among others! Back at OB and we're off on another training expedition. This time a kayak around Pangkor Island in two days. Heading up to Syawal took only 2hours, but once we got there we had to camp as participants so instead of our usual hammocks or dome tents we had to pitch a single tent made from a rope between two trees and tarpaulins over the top. Tents pitched, que the storm! Heavy rain threatened to flood our tent so mammoth trenches were dug, Libby hid under a wok and Alistair had a shower in the rain! Next day we started strong making good time, we didn't touch land for 6hours, only stopping for people to jump in the water to relieve themselves! And a mass capsize drill! The last little stint back to OB required good teamwork in each kayak to motivate those who were tired and sore but we all made it in one piece and without any fallouts! Habis for the moment! More to follow on Sunday (maybe)!