Jellyfish, lizards and leaches

At the end of my 5 back-to-back courses I was asked to join another course that day which would overlap into my next course: 7-back-to-back courses, no thank you! I took a days holiday to rest and recover and then be on Valser the next day. I had to ask Taufik the Course Director/Watch Instructor what I was to do, good job I double checked or else I would have been ready at 5am on my own for a “dawn kayak”! Evading that prank I still missed the morning run because I was told to be in wet attire at 6.30am, wet shoes really aren’t suitable for running! We had a kayak lesson where I was actually going to get to use the Dancers which are the river kayaks, and then bam jellyfish sting all down the back of my right leg, knee to ankle! No kayaking for me then! I did however get the pleasure of getting to laugh at Libby attempt to roll the dancers and empty the water from them, and Ali being actually being able to do half rolls after not very many attempts but be unable to get out of the kayak with any grace! Next day Ali and Libby were also caught by one of Taufik’s pranks, being half an hour earlier than everyone else! They kayaked over to Pangkor while I got to drive the safety boat! Once on the island we had 4 hours to chill. So hammocks were set up in the wrong place yet again, chilled in some beachside hammocks, went exploring in the coral, ate next mornings breakfast for lunch and mucked about on the golden sand beach: yes I know work is difficult! The tide was super low so all the coral was exposed and some cool animals lurked! Heaps of crabs, sea cucumbers, a few black and white striped fish and a sea urchin! A walk along the beach and we discovered that the cool tree swing had been removed leaving only the ropes: challenge accepted for Ali and Libby to climb said ropes and dangle upside down Batman style, I volunteered as photographer! Before coming on-shore I was given a bag of food and asked if it was enough for lunch, yes it was! Unfortunately for us it was actually next morning’s breakfast and taufik and Ali had walked to the town to get lunch, some pretty tasty noodles. While the participants trekked we were trained in how to set up the rappelling, wrongly the first two times!! On our way up to the site a large monitor lizard about 2m in length ran in front of us! This sparked an interesting conversation later on. The lizard is now called Nigel and according to Libby is Dave the gechos dad! I don’t know much about animals but I’m pretty sure monitor lizards don’t give birth to gechos!! I hope that’s the case anyway, I don’t fancy having Dave grow up to be 2m long, he would need his own room then! We were just chilling at the top of the cliff waiting for the participants to return from their trek to start rappelling when we heard a load of loud squawks, 3 eagles flying overhead for ages! I love how common that is here! This group were pretty capable and didn’t need much help from us. Our dinner was on the motherboat anchored out in the bay. We got to do some diving and swimming off the motherboat at sunset: yet again work is so difficult! With the boat having no toilet facilities girls only have one option, lets just say Ali timed his dive quite nicely to swim through some warmer waters!! The rain started just as we were leaving the motherboat so guess who had to move their hammocks once again…I decided to relocate to the floor again, Ali to a sheltered part of the kitchen hut and Libby to the more exposed outer part, resulting in a mid-night move to the floor! I slept reasonably well despite the fact it was another thunderstorm, pretty sure it was two thunderstorms colliding and raining on a tin roof. Embarrassingly we were woken up by the participants coming to tell us they were ready to leave! Arriving back at OB our job was very simple wash the ration drums! I was free until BBQ prep. Even got a mention in one of the speeches! Next morning I went to briefing for the Vale course to find out I wasn’t on it and had the rest of the weekend off…booyah!! I went for a nap and gotten woken up by a phonecall from Syafri asking me to go to the Executive Directors office asap. What had I done…nothing, he wanted me to meet a guy who was born at the old OB in the Navy base but moved to Scotland when he was 10! This cheered me up no-end! He lived in Inverness as well and get this is related to a guy who runs with my parents!!! Small, small world!! Meanwhile Libby and Ali were away hiking to different campsites with David, returning covered in leach bites and some remaining leaches! Libby particularly had some bad bites with a leach still attached at her hip, all I could do was laugh!! Well until I get my first leach...

GIS

Lessons learnt in the past couple of weeks: keep a diary cause your memory fails you after a few days, jellyfish stings are pretty stingy (surprising really), don’t run and jump when it’s raining (cut and bruised knees aren’t fun), ants will get to any food that isn’t in a sealed container (packaging doesn’t count therefore 4packets of sugar crackers were wasted!) and don’t pour milk into your muesli before checking its not sour!! The last few courses were pretty fun when I managed to actually stay alert! GIS was fun since the three of us were actually on the same course. The course was just 2 nights expedition to Pangkor Island with participants kayaking over then trekking, rappelling and games. Our choice of hammock placement once again failed with one of the poles in the rickety shack breaking, not the pole I was attached to though! I spent the night in Aishah’s tent, no comfy at all with no roll-mat or pillow! The second night was much better with a wooden floor for mattress, dry bag for pillow, hammock and towel for sheet and sleeping bag liner for duvet ensured a brilliant night sleep, only woke up once! Me and Libby joined the trekking for the morning and then rappelling for the afternoon, Ali was vice-versa. After the instructors persuaded the kids that flip flops and short shorts weren’t appropriate for jungle trekking we set off up past the rappelling site. This was the first trek we had done. Being used to the Scottish landscape I became a little disorientated when we didn’t come out where I expected! The jungle is so thick and dense you don’t have a clue where you are! After reaching South Summit and witnessing our first leach, not on us thankfully, there was a quick first aid stop half way down and I’m not going to lie I was a bit of a hero and had it all under control: the skelves stayed in till we got back to base! A “fallen tree” on the way back down forced us to go back up and down another way, much to the joy of participants who were now claiming homesickness and missing McDonalds, not like it was only the second day of the course or anything! Rappelling in the afternoon was pretty relaxed, we stayed at the bottom and coached the kids down. At the end of the session we again proved just how bad we are at coiling ropes! Ali’s trek was cut short so the kids could go for a swim before dark and from what I hear the girls took a liking to screaming “Alistair” in a high pitched fangirl way and swarming round him! A shower was much needed for us, oh yeah the womens toilets and showers had no water so it was a case of pee in the bushes and take turns between guys and girls to use the guys showers: a large bath with buckets to throw the water over you, note not to actually jump in to and of course there would be no door in the showering hut! All I hope is that the rumours being spread by the kids weren’t true and the guys hadn’t actually done the toilet in the bath. Back to base the next morning to hose down equipment and ourselves and drop the instructors gear off at the quarters and Sisma in the back of the pick-up truck. I will most definitely hold on a lot tighter next time Wan is driving, not sure how legit his driving licence is even by Malaysian standards! The BBQ that night was hilarious with some of the performances even giving “Alistair” a special mention! His friend requests have certainly been up lately, safe to say he was a hit with the ladies *cough*13yearoldgirls*cough* (soz people had to know Ali)! I can literally not remember anything from AM bank course therefore I’ll move on to Valser. On a wee side note Libby is continuing to enjoy the company of the ants! Returning from camping at Teluk Batik with a very swolen lip and face and arm! Sleeping in ants nests is not advised, they bite!

PIMP, photographers and pirates

So 2/5 back-to-back courses are done and I'm knackered! Never have I been so appreciative of long lunches, means I get to nap. The first course was MMSB who were a group of engineers, really nice people but the course was only 3 days. Pretty much all we did was a night walk in the jungle (saw a few fireflies!), rafting (despite being engineers their rafts weren't the most stable!) and kayaking (they were reasonably good at this taking only 25mins to all get to Teluk Batik 1.5km away). From what I can remember it was an easy course for us, mostly just observing since it was our first corperate course. As far as we knew we had the next week off until this weekend so we went out to Lumut for a few hours, had dinner, went to the night market and then to the cinema. A very late night since we went to Biriyani's for supper at 12.30am! We saw Looper although this was basically Shukri talking his way through the film and eating Libby's peanut butter! Note to self: take a jumper next time you go to the cinema, its freezing! We were told that we could try haggle at the night market: didn't go so well with me trying to get a discount on RayBans which were only 10RM (£2)because the RayBans logo was missing on one leg! The stall holder wasn't so keen. We decided we better go to the training office the next morning to find out what we were doing for the week: we were on course for 5 days, yayy -_- Nah it was amazing actually, I'm really glad we got to do the CIMB course! Pretty much bankers who've paid a lot therefore they had incredibly good food, a lot of fun, a gala dinner as well as plenty of rest time when they were conducting their own activities that OB wasn't needed for. The rafting race was a lot more motivated than normal groups, team flags were made, chants were chanted and overall morale was high. We were the turning marker in the pram. We weren't really needed for kayak practise other than to show how to capsize and recover the kayak. Boy and Khaliq spent their time practicing rolling the kayaks, we've been told we'll get tought soon enough! That night the participants had to do a BBQ for everyone but this wasn't just any BBQ this was a competition of taste, presentation and effort. The food was brilliant! Next morning was a dawn kayak to Teluk Batik for breakfast and then over to Sekadeh beach on Pangkor before returning to OB for lunch! Minus a few people being sea sick and poor man getting stuck in his kayak when we beached at Sekadeh it was without event. When at Sekadeh there was time for a swim and a game of "throw the football so it splashes water in peoples faces"! This was done on a coral beach I may add, with sea eagles flying overhead with fish in their claws! Libby kept me well entertained on the way back by attempting to be Scottish and then making up a Scottish song to the tune of P I M P!! Surprisingly good! We were treated to a culture show that evening, resulting in us dancing to some Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian dances! The culture show also had places we should go in each country so we've got even more ideas for holidays. As if we weren't undecided enough! We were also informed that the next night would be pirate themed celebration dinner, everyone else had know for weeks, we had less than 24hrs: challenge accepted! Before that though there was still the whaler race. After being slightly dissapointed that we would be on the motherboats and not the whalers, it ended up being very enjoyable, there was some brilliant banter on our boat at least! On our boat there was only me, Ali, Ros (one of the photographers) and the boatman. Unfortunately a pact was made agreeing that what happened on the boat stays on the boat *cough*seaisnotatoilet*cough*!! Ros kept changing his mind about who was his favourite Scot depending on who gave him food, made him laugh or had the better music taste! Embarrasingly though he had a better knowledge of Scottish films than me and Ali put together! We all got a chance to drive the motherboat as well:D The gala dinner that night was pretty cool, our pirate costumes weren't too bad for last minute! I even had blackened teeth :O haha my poor retainers! Someone commented on the choice of weapon: "the participants all have plastic swords; the instructors have real ones!" Before eating there was an instructors against facilitators Pirates of the Caribbean style chase for a treasure chest, unfortunately we were all shot and the treasure stolen! The food was good but the banter was better; a forfeit for those not dressed well enough as pirates allowed us to make a fool of them by dressing them up as the ultimate pirate, cause pirates definately wear RayBans and green face paint! A little dissappointment next morning when there was no cereal at breakfast like the previous few mornings :( After giving our facebook's away to multiple people and being asked for photos they were gone! Yayy a few hours rest before AM Bank! *I started writing this over a week ago but didn't have time to finish it, I'm now finished all 5 back-to-back courses so you'll be getting another post later on today as well!* P.S. sorry for the length of the post, hope it doesn't bore you too much!! P.P.S. Forgot to add in one of my highlights: Libby left her packet of cookies open overnight so when she went to take one the next day, guess what...a mouthful of ants!!! P.P.P.S. I tried to upload photos to this again but the internet connection is too slow so theres pictures on my facebook! http://m.facebook.com/?_rdr#!/media/set/?set=a.4171821787004.162248.1628054921&type=1&__user=1628054921

Uplands

After a relaxing weekend we were on course again, huraahh! Uplands International School of Penang, a group of 13-15 yr old school kids who all speak english and don't have the best attitude! Very western, all the latest gear (one kid wearing genuine Ferrari gear) and enough junk food to last a year. So prepared for an OB course. Oh how me and Ali took pleasure in doing the wake-up calls. 5.45am = bang on room door as loud as possible, shout good morning, make sure the lights are on and repeat in next room! You make our lives hell during the day, we'll get you in the morning! First activity: raft building. Admitidly the kids did pretty well with this, most rafts floated! The teachers however, asked if they could make their own raft, so after us being told we would join with them since we hadn't done rafting before we sourced all the rope and humped all the barrells and pipes around we were kindly requested to leave the teachers to it. They wanted to show the kids they could do it too. Good luck, there was 3 of them and they only had half an hour. Should of taken our help, the guy ended up with awful ropeburn! The rest of the course all the support staff(us) would be belaying for the high ropes course up in the mosquito ridden jungle. This was reasonably enjoyable for the first two hours or so but after ten it gets pretty tiring and patience will be lost with anyone who says its not safe, or insists in coming down half way round but won't let go off the platform! One of the bonuses of this course was that they got snacks twice a day, resulting in 3 free packets of Malaysian style oreo's! Thank goodness next morning brought their departure, plenty of leftover cake and welcome rest! Now as for Libby, she was ill for the start of the course so spent the rest of it recovering, however this meant the jammy person got put on "support" for the OB Singapore staff trip! Pretty much she got to go kayaking in their amazing kayaks to paradise islands for 4 days while me and Ali spent our time being extremely bored and unable to even go to town since everyone went home and we have no bikes yet! We totally weren't jealous or anything! Its incrdible how different the two operations are, Singapore just seem so professional and have heaps more funding. We've been invited to go down to OB Singapore sometime, hopefully Christmas or New Year! This week we have been "working" in Logistics, shame no-one told them! This has just been frustrating! Literally my work for the week has been sweep 6 rooms, fill 2 barrels of food, go shopping, drink Milo, discuss escape routes if all the locals happen to be zombies, count some plates and cups and drink more Milo! Apparently work will get more difficult soon...we'll wait and see. I think they're just a little lost with what to do with us since the 25day course we were supposed to do got cancelled. We have tried some cool food lately though ranging from really sweet ice cream thing with added sweetcorn to super spicy curry served on real banana leaves! In other food news I've started practicing for Come Dine With Me with the help of the kitchen staff, it should be aired in early next year!! Ps. I apologise for not being very cheery in this, we're getting just a little aggitated that we're not doing much, especially when we're hearing OB South Africa lot haven't stopped doing tonnes of physical training...if only!! Jumpa Lagi

An "insteresting" night...

So I was planning on posting this weeks goings ons but I reckon last night is worthy of a post all on its own! This weekend was the first course we were working on, local school children sponsored by Vale to do a 3 day course. It started with formalities like admin, showing kids to dorms, ice breakers etc. Me and Ali were to support primary children and Libby the secondary ones. 7-12 year olds seem to have a continuous supply of E-numbers! You would think if they were still running around at 11pm they would be shattered at their wake-up call attacks 5.45am, oh no already up and ready before we had even got up to "wake them up"! From here there was the usual morning exercise followed by us spending all morning belaying on the climbing wall. Already tired we were glad that the primary children got to go over to the camp site on Pangkor Island on the motherboats! All went well the boats were loaded and unloaded and camp was set up in an amazing bay. It wasn't quite the camping experience I was expecting, lots of tents from other groups, lots of shacks/huts and an awful lot of rubbish on the beach and surrounding trees. Oh yeah and there were toilets! Not nice ones, we're talking hole in the ground, with a bucket to wash, under a tin roof and a towel as a door! It gets dark really early like 7:30 so we set up our hammocks for the first time ever before dinner. Now the placement of our hammocks wasn't exactlly ideal, we went for between 2 trees right on the beach, this wasn't a good choice apparently! Once we had dinner which was tinned chicken curry, malaysian style of course so it had bones in and was far too hot, we went on a night walk with the kids. It was only about 100m in the jungle but leading a line of kids when you don't know where you're going and have given your head torch to a kid whos scared of the dark and stopping the circulation to your hand is pretty difficult! A nice wee night cap of Milo and sugar crackers(yeah I know they're weird) and off to bed we went! The real drama begins...

Things started off well, the view was incredible and everything was calm. But then 4 hours, 3 hammock adjustments, no sleep, goodness-knows how many bangers and and a high tide later and we were forced to shift our hammocks!! As we were packing up a few flashes of light lit the sky, after a good bit of discussion we came to the conclusion that it was in fact lightening and we couldn't hear the thunder for the noise of the sea lapping at our feet! We decided to join Daus and Boy in the raised floor, tin roof hut with no walls! Almost immediately the thunder and lightening got a lot more exciting, flashes that lit the whole sky for seconds at a time and rumbles of thunder almost right after! We spent a good half hour just watching in amazement, we could see the actual bolts hitting the sea in front of us! As we tried to get to sleep the rain began. When it rains in Malaysia it really does just bucket it down. This mixed with a wind that was picking up and a lot of holes in the tin roof resulted in multiple very wet and tired instructors!! So what did we do in this situation, ah yes cracked open a packet of sugar crackers and a pot of peanut butter and chocolate spread, I mean what else would you do at 4am during a storm?! Finally we got a few winks of sleep literally less than an hour for me and Ali, of course Libby got a good few hours she has some magic ability to sleep anywhere (on my leg in this case), anytime! Again the kids were up ling before we were! Supposed to be loading the boats at 7am but we were only just waking up! Loading the boats was interesting with massive waves rolling in and the boats rocking and swaying. Lucky Ali got to ride in the safety boat back to the centre, I'm a little jealous it would have been fun!! I went back on the motherboat with some of the kids. Once back ashore and everything sorted out the leftover rations was left for the staff to salvage, we managed to get 2 big bags of Milo, half a bottle of diluting juice, 3 packets of sugar crackers and some soy sauce for Libby! Added bonus, expeditions will be more rewarding from now on!! I have to say I slept like a baby last night, 13 hours sleep!! Hope you're all enjoying freshers!! Selemat paggi :)

Week 1

Time flies when you're having fun, cant believe thats its already been over a week since I left home! The flights seemed to take days, oh yeah they did! The only mishap was Jennys bag not arriving in KL but she has it now so all is good. Mr Mann picked us up from the airport and gee that guy has power, he allowed me to go back through security in the airport just by speaking to the guards. Apparently he used to be in the special forces and can't leave the country incase he gets kidnapped or becomes a spy or something! Anyway we spent the next few days as a country group in Seremban basically eating and swimming! There was an epic Scotland vs England rugby water polo game with a Dutch ref, the scots well and truly kicked ass!! We got bused off to Lumut on Monday I think or maybe Tuesday my memory is just as bad as always! At the lunch break on the bus we witnessed our first Malaysian rain storm, bloody hell when it rains it really does pour! After thinking we were in Lumut 160km before we actually were we finally got to Lumut bus station and were picked up by Syafri and Matthew. Our rooms aren't too bad, ours is certainly better than Ali's! We have a shared balcony looking over the school. The amout of wildlife is incredible! Loads of monkeys and baby monkeys and stray cats with one eye and no tail and ants everywhere and gecho's sitting on all the roofs watching you showed, watching you eat! And then there are the mosquitos, I have some killer bites, like 10cm across! Theres not really much for us to do at the moment other than chill and get used to the heat, its still a shock to go outside and it be warmer than inside! Everyone we've met has been lovely, we've had invitations to go fishing, been taken into town for dinner, possibly going to a wedding next week in KL and people will give us lifts to town whenever! I've gotten to know the "practicals" who are here until december, apparently Shuek is not the same as Shrek as I thought, my bad! The first course has come in today, a bunch of local bankers so we are just to observe if we want but we have the weekend off so have been invited to a food party as part of Hari Raya on Marina Island with the big boss man tomorrow! Last thing, we've all been given nicknames by the staff: Ali is now Ali Puteh (white Ali), Libby is Extra and I'm Katy Perry since thats the only other Katie they've heard of, shame I can't sing quite so good! Thats it for now, Pirates of the Caribbean is about to start!  Jumpa Lagi Xxxx

How To Contact Me

If you fancy sending any letters (which you all should!) my address for the year will be:

Outward Bound Malaysia

Teluk Batik

32200 Lumut

Perak Darul Ridzuan

Malaysia

Also decided to get Skype: katie.dougan3 so you can all see my wee face in Malaysia!!