How I got really hooked on camping and jungle trekking

I used to do a lot of camping and jungle trekking. In fact, one of my most memorable experience was our millennium celebration at Belum Jungle in north Perak. Armageddon theories were abound then and we decided that, if anything were to happen, we would greet our Maker surrounded by nature. (Not that we believe death was around the corner.)

A few things from the trip still remain vivid in my memory. One, I really reALLY REALLY hate leeches. I received the second highest leech bite in the group and was nicknamed Leechy Leanne. :p It’s funny now but then it was a nightmare trek because the leeches were just everywhere, at every single spot, hanging from tree branches to tree leaves and all over the ground. No amount of salt or tobacco could stop them. It was an endless colony of leeches. And yeah, we built a pyre and burnt them … burnt them all to death. How un-Buddhist of me! :p The moment I closed my eyes in the tent, all I could see were leeches in my mind and all I could feel were them sucking the lifeblood from my body. It was really that bad. The trek was practically in a virgin jungle as few people go there and it was frequented by animals (which explained why there were so many leeches).

We were guided by two Orang Asli carrying rifles and parangs. In fact, one claimed to have shot dead a cobra. (Yup! We heard the sound of a rifle going off.) And another actually shot dead a Seladang and fed us smoked Seladang for dinner. (It tasted like beef jerky .. not my favourite food since I always associate beef jerky with dog snacks! :P) I wasn’t sure if that was legal but my friends assured me that the Orang Asli was allowed to do so. The really cool part of it was actually hearing the sound of a wild boar trudging just within metres from us. I didn’t realise how close it was until one of the guides told us much later.

The icing on the cake was really drinking sparkling wine in cups made from bamboo (the guides made that for us) and cheering to the new millennium in the jungle; with cricket sounds and whispering breeze that was like an orchestra to the ears. The funniest bit of that was all our watches did not synchronize and thus, we were unable to tell the exact time. So, we drank to the millennium every other minute until the last watch showed midnight and there was not a single drop of wine left in the bottles! Now THAT is what I called a terrific millennium celebration unmatched by any wild, drinking parties. : )

One would have thought that I would have given up on camping and trekking after such a hair-rising experience with the leeches. But that proved to be a beginning of sorts and as we have established in an earlier post, I am a masochist after all. :P

I leave you with the quote from Dead Poet’s Society yet again since this is soooo appropriate!

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived." Henry David Thoreau quotes (American essayist, poet and philosopher, 1817-1862)