You've got a leech where?!...

We had a good few weeks where OB has been really busy, all staff have been on-course and extra instructors brought in, that is all staff other than the 3 mat salleh. While everyone else has been rushed off their feet with back-to-back courses we've spent our time training for the course we're supposed to instruct: KTJ. They are malaysian participants who are studying A-levels and hoping to go to university overseas so pretty smart people, I was a little nervous about instructing though as I've done very little work with people of my own age before. Training included a lot of theory based stuff like WI briefings, admin, debriefings and first aid as we've got a pretty sound knowledge of the practical side of things having been on-course a lot. To familiarise ourselves with the trekking route we would be following we followed a course on HTM. The group I followed was pretty average with no remarkable events. However the watch that Libby followed had one incident. I heard about this incident like this: We were sitting in the van waiting to return to OB. I overheard this conversation in the front of the van between two instructors explaining why we were taking a female participant back to the medical bay: "pacat masuk..." which prompted my shocked response of "leech entered where?!" Libby then proceeded to tell the story of how a participant in her group had come to her hysterical because she thought aforementioned creepy crawly had gone somewhere it shouldn't have! You know Libbys response, "It'll drop out when its had enough"! Sound advice. Alistair appears to be making it a thing that he doesn't trek, he claims its not deliberate but I don't know...this time it was a recurring ear infection. 

 As we weren't on-course we made the most of a free weekend me by going to visit Xiao Wei in Penang, Alistair by going climbing with Amri an ex-instructor in KL and Libby by going to Aishahs house. I am always told that Penang is like the New York of shopping but for food, epecially chinese food. My days it certainly lived up to expectations! Thats pretty much all we did for the weekend; went to temples or ate food, a weekend well spent I would say! Penangites love their food so much that the place we went for breakfast we had to wait 10minutes to find a seat and twice as long queuing to order food! It was most definatley worth it though, dim sum is an incredible creation. Xiao Wei's family were great and allowed me to stay at their house despite only a days notice and took us to the best places to eat :) 

I have recently learned a lesson in life, a very valuable lesson. You shouldn't lock people in the shower. I may or may not have been joking around and locked one of the shower doors while Mera was showering and genuinely forgot to unlock it, my bad. That resulted in Mera breaking the lock, stronger than she looks! And me getting a right telling off, apparently its not quite so funny when you're the one locked in. 

So the course that we had been told right from the start that we would be instructing was upon us and before it had even started it was stressful. When we went to sort our equipment store we were told there wasn't enough equipment so we would have to share. There also wasn't enough actual store rooms so they would also have to be shared adding extra problems. Then the name lists changed last minute. Thankfully once the participants arrived we got a bit more settled in and relaxed. The course was 7 days with 2 big expeditions, one trekking and one round-island kayak. I had the task of doing the Knotting & Campcraft lesson where we teach the participants everything about how to survive the night of camping, from pitching tents to toilets and cooking to tying knots. Its a long lesson where its difficult to keep everyones attention. Luckily for me the participants were eager to learn and very cooperative so the lesson  went smoothly. I even got compliments from the two instructors who were observing for the structure and content of my lesson, a small proud moment :) 

For the trekking expedition I got more praise from the staff as my watch, called Gayong (no laughing), were first to complete the route and were the fastest group that I've ever followed for that route! The participants impressed me a lot during trekking showing a lot of determination, keeping good pace the whole way and working incredibly well as a team by encouraging the two watch members with injuries. Unfortunately we didn't get to camp in the jungle that night as I got a call from MJ the Course Director instructing us to return to OB asap. Know why? 'Cause the haze we'd had for the last few days had reached hazardous levels so the participants were getting sent home that night :( Not going to lie I think Libby, Alistair and myself were pretty gutted that we wouldn't get to finish the course, especially considering it was supposed to be our last course at OB! We made the most of the night before they went home with some good craic, they were shocked  to find out I was the same age as most of them, younger than some! I'd go as far as to say that they were some of the best participants I've worked with all year, just a shame they had to go home early because of the stupid haze!

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)!

Christmas in 'Nam

Our first trip alone. No-one else to take the responsibility. What's the first thing that happens? We miss the bus. Almost. Well we did but MJ being a legend drove like a bat-out-of-hell and caught up with it! Turns out I bought bus tickets to the wrong airport. Our plan: sit quietly and hope the driver doesn't know that we're supposed to get off at KLIA and not LCCT where the bus stops next. The plan worked!

The flight to Hanoi went pretty smoothly. But we were unprepared for the arrival: it was cold. We're not used to cold anymore. After a bit of asking and reading we found out that bus no.17 runs from round the corner of the airport to the city centre. So walking out of the airport, past heaps of taxi drivers all shouting "TAXI" we come to a dusty 4 lane road. Not going to lie we were both bricking it, so much so we pretended our rucksacs on our front(yeah thats right we went full tourist with the bag on the front!) were bulletproof vests. This bus was an old-school rickety, rusty affair, but it only cost 20,000dong (70p) for the hour to town. What an introduction to Vietnam though, the only foreigners on the bus, bouncing down a single track country road, and then the best radio ever: Jingle Bell Rock, in Malay! The first christmas song I'd heard and it was 23rd December. A bit of a wild goose chase round part of Hanoi trying to find the bus station and we run across the road to catch the bus to Haiphong as its still moving. A nice 2hr journey gave us the chance to watch some Vietnamese dramas on TV. Warning: NEVER EVER WATCH DRAMAS FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA, EXCESSIVE CRINGING WILL OCCUR!

Scam number 1 of Vietnam: throw the foreigners off the bus on a street corner. Scam number 2 of Vietnam: charge the foreigners three times normal fare for a taxi to the harbour. Arriving at the harbour we were ushered on to a hydrofoil boat before we could say "its not a mistake, its a lesson learned" (our motto for the trip!) Getting off the boat at our final destination, CatBa Island, Halong Bay, was incredible. Our room was on the harbour front with a beast view over the bay and all the limestone scenery.

Once we met and had a good catch up with the other PT'ers we decided Christmas eve would be spent on motorbikes (read scooters). I've been told vietnam is one of the worst places to learn to ride a bike, I can see why! No point using mirrors tooting the horn is how you let people know you're there! Therefore Vietnamese roads are very noisy. Please note: the best thing to do when you want to stop is not to panic and twist the accelerator more but to pull the brake, especially when in a petrol station! Once we had the hang of the bikes we were off down quiet roads, limestone cliffs covered in jungle towered over us. The beauty of the place made jaws drop further with every corner we turned. Stopping at a stall (someones house) to get some food we were entertained by local children showing off their slingshot skills. All was going well, we took the coastal road back, saw the sunset over a bay, until almost simultaneously we find out the road ahead is shut, I don't have enough petrol to get back to the town the long way and Rianne gets a puncture! Luckily we had passed the only garage we'd seen since leaving the town 100m down the road. Rianne gets the puncture fixed, I buy some petrol in a bottle and we're on our way! Slow is the aim of the game as by now its dark, I have no rear brake light, Rianne can't see well in the dark and Vietnamese roads are pretty pot-holey! I am glad this series of unfortunate events happened though, otherwise I wouldn't have seen the silhouettes of the karst, with a clear sky, full moon and hundreds of stars. Hard to keep your eyes on the road. Felt like I was standing in a picture from National Geographic. Beautiful! Of course then came Scam number 3 of Vietnam: accuse the foreigners of breaking the bike. We didn't!

The next day saw us having a "beach christmas", no it wasn't hot (I wore my woolly bobble hat) and we didn't have a BBQ however we built some sand-men, went paddling/swimming, sung christmas songs, said merry christmas to everyone we saw and had a traditional christmas dinner of pizza or cheeseburger finished off with a few drinks and games of pool! Secret santa was also pulled, gifts included starfish, ibuprofen, a bong, flip flops and a farmers hat!

Boxing day we took a Junk boat tour of Lan Ha Bay consisting of cruising, kayaking into caves and under arches into lagoons, lunch on the boat (exceedingly good considering it was cooked on one stove on the boat), and playing card games with some germans!

On to the capital city Hanoi next, expecting to stay in a dingy hostel in a backstreet so it was a very pleasant surprise to be staying in SE Asia's best hostel! Full of westerners, a bar downstairs, pool and free wifi, but right in the heart of old Hanoi! Hanoi is an amazing city, huge markets of the most colourful foods and textiles you have ever seen. There appears to be a different street designated to a different item, eg one street would be filled solely by shoes (get it?!), knock-off fakes of course! Lunch one day was at a local cafe in a narrow street, we sat on hobbit sized chairs with a hobbit sized table and ordered food which for all we know could have been hobbit! There was an old bicycle sitting on the opposite wall and chickens running round our feet, again it felt like I was part of a National Geographic photo! Alistair and myself were up at 5am to catch our flight back to KL, may have been wiser to take less advantage of the cheap beers the night before but hey ho!

Chao for now! I'll be back soon with contents including: New Year, Cameron Highlands cycling trip, Final Trek staff training expedition and Thaipuasm, possibly the most bizarre religious festival out there!