Posted By Sia on Oct 19th - http://living-life-as-a-devil.blogspot.com/search/label/ODA
Gunung Chamah Expedition 30th September to 4th October 2008
Recently went for a G7 trip wit Outdoor Discovery Adventure on 30th of September until 4th of October.8 people go for this trip… 4 guys(Fu Yaw, Mr Voon, Ah Boon and AhSia) and 4 gals (chiannie, Miss Lim @ Teacher, BeeSuan and SiewTing)
G7 Mountain = Gunung Chamah, Kelantan
Mountain specialty =
From Gua Musang to Pos Rekom(an orang asli settlement)… 20 mins drive to a school and from there… Kenari need to park beside school as the remaining road can only use a 4wd where in this case… hilux.
Supposedly take 5 hours of 4wd(3 guys, Ah Boon, AhSia, Fu Yaw is the VIP for hilux, our seats are reserved at the back, cargo area) we bounced and bumped and groaned for 3 hours before we face a problem. The remaining 2 hours of drive cannot be completed as the roads are impassable by 4WDs…
So… gung ho… take our backpacks and hike to the orang asli settlement. Hot blazing sun scorched our heads and minds for 3 hours. And the road we treading on is logging trails… as you can see from the pics in the photo album. 3 hills and one mountain size peak we need to go thru before we reach Pos Rekom.,
From the orang asli settlement, POS REkom to Kem Tongkat Ali, needs 3 hours of hiking thru the jungle.
From the Kem Tongkat Ali to Gunung Chamah Peak… need 6 hours of hiking and climbing.
What SPECIALTY??? From Tongkat Ali to Chamah Peak… 6 hours of rigorous hiking, and Tongkat Ali is the LAST WATER POINT to boot. And WE plan to spend the night at Chamah Peak… so we need to bring enough water for all of us(cooking) and for individual drinking… In total… around 20 hours without any water source…
Lastly… there are 6 ‘false peaks’ before we can reach the real Chamah Peak… meaning one need to climb up and descend down from false peaks before you can reach the real Chamah Peak! Nice leh… haha…
And please check out some of the photos I posted in the album…
So overall… for this trip… 3 hours to Pos Rekom, 3 hours to Tongkat Ali, 6 hours to Chamah Peak and add it all when we come wan to leave the place adds up to 20 hours of trekking. Cool isn’t it?
Gunung Chamah Day 1(no pics)
Day 1…30th Sept 2008Meet up at Shah Alam wit the rest of the gang around 5pm for a last minute hoo hah and briefing and packing before drive to Gua Musang, Kelantan.
2 cars…
Hilux equipped wit off road tires – MissLim, SiewTing, AhSia, Fu Yaw.. (If I not mistaken la.. quite poor memory these few days)
Kenari – Mr Voon, Ah Boon, Chian Ni, Bee Suan
Nothing eventful happened on the way there… jus tembak tembak(ejek) sesame sendiri, eat Loh Mee at Ulu Yam(the vinegar damn lousy), stop at rest area(loads of people!) and one meaningful thing happen.
On our way into Kelantan, Gua Musang area… there is a car… Honda Jazz… apparently the car’s battery sizzles out after being left wit car lamp on for half an hour. The group of people are fellow mountain climbers it seems, on their way to Gunung Yong yap. Apparently they are helping car accident victims for half an hour and flag down passerbys to bring the accident victims to nearest hospital before finding out they are also victims too… wit their car’s battery dies out.
Luckily for them, Mr Voon aka McGyver(all of us thinks same way as me too) helps them to be on their way in few mins time(haha.. exaggerates a bit).
We, ODA are helpful in times of emergency and always we dun ask for anything in return except a few “thanks mate!” or shake hands and exchange information bout mountain climbings…
And in this incident… the Honda Jazz guys just watch in awe of our McGyver and after the small operation on their battery… they jus ask “ can I know your name” to mr Voon.. and well… jus left!
From my hearing and some of our gang… they never say any thanks or any gestures that they are grateful for our help( or in this case, Mr Voon’s help.) How we know they are going to Yong Yap? Apparently, Miss Lim need to ask them 2 to 3 times, “where you all going tonight?” before the leader of the gang says ”Yong Yap”
Lucky Mr Voon helps them or there wil be no Yong Yap for them until morning… that time is around midnight wit very very few cars passing by.
That night we reach Gua Musang around 2am… and spend the night(or morning??) at motel..
Gunung Chamah Day 2 - Oct 1st
Woke up at 7am, bath(forced to) and head down for a hearty breakfast.
After filling up the petrol to the fullest, we begin our real adventure to Gunung Chamah.
20 mins drive to a school, Kenari was forced to be left behind as the road are meant for 4wd vehicle only
8 people in one HILUX??? Luckily for 3 guys, they are the VIPS for Hilux… ODA reserved 3 special seats for Fu Yaw, AhSia and ah Boon at the back of the Hilux.
So 3 of us… bumped our way for almost 3 hours. On the 3 hours hell of a ride, we met wit 3 obstacles
1st stage – First time here…all of us really dunno the way to Pos Rekom as the guide that we find earlier has not shown up. So Mr Voon as the driver wit 4 gals inside the car and 3 VIPS on the back, we jus follow our
instincts and jus…drive into the unknown.
Lodging trails, fallen timberss, big gaping holes and panoramic vieware part of our journey until we accidentally met a Chinese middle aged guy who was very helpful and nice. He offered to lead us to Pos Rekom so happily(painfully for the VIPS) as Mr Voon follow him closely. And when I say closely is the Chinese guy drive his Hilux at neck-breaking speed and Mr Voon followed closely in pursuit of the fast car. So that is why I say it is painful for the VIPS. Haha… “OSIM’s saddle chair will not be able to fight this ride” is wat I remarked to Fu Yaw.
2nd Stage – Fallen timber blocking the way, there is a narrow gap jus perfectly fit for Hilux to go through. Perfectly fit means if you navigate the car a bit off less than 1cm, kiss the paint goodbye. Hehe… look at pictures for better view.
3rd stage- Supposed to be 5 hours ride, the remaining 2 hours ride are not meant to be as the road is too full of big gaping holes. We are forced to abandoned our Hilux by the roadside and trek the remaining road to Pos Rekom. Thanking the Uncle happily, we embarked on our first phase of Chamah Expedition, walk on barren logging trail wit hills to reach our first checkpoint
Pos Rekom.
We walk under blazing hot sun carrying the backpacks… and well… it really sapped our energy and mind. Jus after half an hour… my skin is all black and tanned. Until now I can still feel the scorching sun on my skin.
We took 3 hours to reach Pos Rekom, where the orang asli says our speed is quite fast as there are many groups of mountain climbers who take at least 4 to 5 hours to reach Pos Rekom from the place we left our Hilux. Terror le… haha
That night we spend the night at Pos rekom, sleeping in the Kongsi settlement( a kongsi is like a resting place and sleeping place for workers, and in this case, it is for logging industry workers)
After filling up the petrol to the fullest, we begin our real adventure to Gunung Chamah.
20 mins drive to a school, Kenari was forced to be left behind as the road are meant for 4wd vehicle only
8 people in one HILUX??? Luckily for 3 guys, they are the VIPS for Hilux… ODA reserved 3 special seats for Fu Yaw, AhSia and ah Boon at the back of the Hilux.
So 3 of us… bumped our way for almost 3 hours. On the 3 hours hell of a ride, we met wit 3 obstacles
1st stage – First time here…all of us really dunno the way to Pos Rekom as the guide that we find earlier has not shown up. So Mr Voon as the driver wit 4 gals inside the car and 3 VIPS on the back, we jus follow ourinstincts and jus…drive into the unknown.
Lodging trails, fallen timberss, big gaping holes and panoramic vieware part of our journey until we accidentally met a Chinese middle aged guy who was very helpful and nice. He offered to lead us to Pos Rekom so happily(painfully for the VIPS) as Mr Voon follow him closely. And when I say closely is the Chinese guy drive his Hilux at neck-breaking speed and Mr Voon followed closely in pursuit of the fast car. So that is why I say it is painful for the VIPS. Haha… “OSIM’s saddle chair will not be able to fight this ride” is wat I remarked to Fu Yaw.2nd Stage – Fallen timber blocking the way, there is a narrow gap jus perfectly fit for Hilux to go through. Perfectly fit means if you navigate the car a bit off less than 1cm, kiss the paint goodbye. Hehe… look at pictures for better view.
3rd stage- Supposed to be 5 hours ride, the remaining 2 hours ride are not meant to be as the road is too full of big gaping holes. We are forced to abandoned our Hilux by the roadside and trek the remaining road to Pos Rekom. Thanking the Uncle happily, we embarked on our first phase of Chamah Expedition, walk on barren logging trail wit hills to reach our first checkpoint
Pos Rekom.
We walk under blazing hot sun carrying the backpacks… and well… it really sapped our energy and mind. Jus after half an hour… my skin is all black and tanned. Until now I can still feel the scorching sun on my skin.
We took 3 hours to reach Pos Rekom, where the orang asli says our speed is quite fast as there are many groups of mountain climbers who take at least 4 to 5 hours to reach Pos Rekom from the place we left our Hilux. Terror le… haha
That night we spend the night at Pos rekom, sleeping in the Kongsi settlement( a kongsi is like a resting place and sleeping place for workers, and in this case, it is for logging industry workers)
Gunung Chamah Day 3 - Oct 2nd
We wake up at 4.30am, getting everything ready and wait for our 2 guides that we managed to secure from the orang asli settlement yesterday night, thanks to McGyver again. Haha…
They apparently scared of the brisk rain, which starts at 4am, and the orang asli turns up around 6.30am later. So hurriedly we set off for our 2nd checkpoint.. Kem Tongkat Ali which is 3 hours away.
Around 10am we reach Tongkat Ali, stopped for our brunch and filled up our water bottles for the assault on Chamah Peak. As I said earlier, Kem Tongkat Ali is the last water source for Gunung Chamah so each of us need to carry at least 5 bottles of water. And my frenz, please dun forget we need to carry our own stuff in the backpack as well such as shirts, rice, veges, eggs(rice, veges, eggs are all for cooking, and ODA pride themselves on enjoying themselves wit fine healthy meals while mountain climbing, not maggi mee every single day). Thankfully for the assistance of the guides, they helped to carry the 2 heaviest bagpacks…
Kem Tongkat Ali specialty…
EXTREMELY FULL OF AGAS!!!!!!
Our legs and arms are full of bites…
We rest for an hour or more… and we start our final mission in mind. To Conquer GUNUNG CHAMAH!!!!!
Despite carrying the heavy load(even I shudder to think of the backpack), our guides doesn’t even break a sweat while climbing for the first few hours… and if they want to… they can even break into a run., leaving all of us behind. Haha… thankfully they really wait for us. Walking by the ridges, crossing booby trapped swamps
(me and Fu Yaw kena, where booby trapped means if you are not careful you will fall into mud, and you need to spend unnecessary strength to pull yourself and your shoes out from the mud). There are many fallen trees I noted, which is very challenging for me as sometimes I need to literally crawl under the tree… or bend very low… for more than 5 times. Wit the backpack. A pain in the ass for tall guys like me.
6 false peaks… and they really took a toll on your mentality as one needs to climb for 6 hours… go through 1st false peak… and descend down for few hundreds feet again before we need to climb another few hundreds feet for the 2nd false peak.
1st false peak… “aw man… climb so long now only see the 1st false peak???”
2nd false peak “ hmmm, this site is big enough for campsite”
3rd false peak.. “wow… so many bushes man!!”
4th false peak.. “ we are nearing the real peak!! Yeah!!
5th false peak “ should have bring my camera phone.. so pretty here”
6th false peak.. when we reach the last false peak, the guide told us it is around 15mins hike to the chamah peak. “YiPPEE!!!”
And at LAST…!!!! Around 5pm… I am the first one to reach GUnung Chamah Peak!!!! (I mean first one from
my group, as the gu ide al ready reached much more earlier than me, haha) 
I putted down the backpack and feel the cold air and cold breeze around me!! I inhale deeply… and suddenly feel that… G7…. Under my feet now. A feel of euphoria and sense of proud, achievement, happiness surge through me….
Fu yaw emerged among the bushes a few mins later… smiling broadly. We shake hands and proceed to put up the fly sheet and set up the six man dome first.
After that, Miss Lim appears, followed by the rest. That night we laughed and smiled, eat happily and drink hot ginger water(we left the tea sachets at Tongkat Ali, haha)
as you can see from the pics… most of us are wearing snow caps(I dun have snow cap) wear gloves, and wear thick jackets as that night is a cold night. We even wear socks…
I can still remember vividly during the middle of the night, I woke up trembling with my teeth chattering to the fullest speed. Even my hands are numb from the cold. Hehe… that is the coldest I ever felt in all my mountain climbing trips…
They apparently scared of the brisk rain, which starts at 4am, and the orang asli turns up around 6.30am later. So hurriedly we set off for our 2nd checkpoint.. Kem Tongkat Ali which is 3 hours away.
Around 10am we reach Tongkat Ali, stopped for our brunch and filled up our water bottles for the assault on Chamah Peak. As I said earlier, Kem Tongkat Ali is the last water source for Gunung Chamah so each of us need to carry at least 5 bottles of water. And my frenz, please dun forget we need to carry our own stuff in the backpack as well such as shirts, rice, veges, eggs(rice, veges, eggs are all for cooking, and ODA pride themselves on enjoying themselves wit fine healthy meals while mountain climbing, not maggi mee every single day). Thankfully for the assistance of the guides, they helped to carry the 2 heaviest bagpacks…Kem Tongkat Ali specialty…
EXTREMELY FULL OF AGAS!!!!!!
Our legs and arms are full of bites…
We rest for an hour or more… and we start our final mission in mind. To Conquer GUNUNG CHAMAH!!!!!
Despite carrying the heavy load(even I shudder to think of the backpack), our guides doesn’t even break a sweat while climbing for the first few hours… and if they want to… they can even break into a run., leaving all of us behind. Haha… thankfully they really wait for us. Walking by the ridges, crossing booby trapped swamps
(me and Fu Yaw kena, where booby trapped means if you are not careful you will fall into mud, and you need to spend unnecessary strength to pull yourself and your shoes out from the mud). There are many fallen trees I noted, which is very challenging for me as sometimes I need to literally crawl under the tree… or bend very low… for more than 5 times. Wit the backpack. A pain in the ass for tall guys like me.6 false peaks… and they really took a toll on your mentality as one needs to climb for 6 hours… go through 1st false peak… and descend down for few hundreds feet again before we need to climb another few hundreds feet for the 2nd false peak.
1st false peak… “aw man… climb so long now only see the 1st false peak???”
2nd false peak “ hmmm, this site is big enough for campsite”
3rd false peak.. “wow… so many bushes man!!”
4th false peak.. “ we are nearing the real peak!! Yeah!!
5th false peak “ should have bring my camera phone.. so pretty here”
6th false peak.. when we reach the last false peak, the guide told us it is around 15mins hike to the chamah peak. “YiPPEE!!!”
And at LAST…!!!! Around 5pm… I am the first one to reach GUnung Chamah Peak!!!! (I mean first one from
my group, as the gu ide al ready reached much more earlier than me, haha) 
I putted down the backpack and feel the cold air and cold breeze around me!! I inhale deeply… and suddenly feel that… G7…. Under my feet now. A feel of euphoria and sense of proud, achievement, happiness surge through me….
Fu yaw emerged among the bushes a few mins later… smiling broadly. We shake hands and proceed to put up the fly sheet and set up the six man dome first.
After that, Miss Lim appears, followed by the rest. That night we laughed and smiled, eat happily and drink hot ginger water(we left the tea sachets at Tongkat Ali, haha)
as you can see from the pics… most of us are wearing snow caps(I dun have snow cap) wear gloves, and wear thick jackets as that night is a cold night. We even wear socks…
I can still remember vividly during the middle of the night, I woke up trembling with my teeth chattering to the fullest speed. Even my hands are numb from the cold. Hehe… that is the coldest I ever felt in all my mountain climbing trips…
Gunung Chamah Day 4 - Oct 3rd
We wake up at 7am, feeling damn cold. We clear all the tents… and as a saying goes..“we leave nothing but footprints in the mountains” so we carry all the stuff that we bring in out again. But I personally think that saying should be change a bit…
“ we leave nothing but footprints, urine and faeces in the mountains” haha…
After taking many pictures, we prepared to go down from Gunung Chamah again to our Kem Tongkat Ali checkpoint… feeling good and happy… we stopped briefly at every false peaks for photo sessions..haha…
A few hours later… we reach Kem Tongkat Ali… eat our lunch… and carry on our way to our Pos Rekom checkpoint…
We reach Pos Rekom in the afternoon… very happy despite exhausted and the gals quickly go for their bath first as it’s been one whole day we dun have any.
We guys promptly searched for some dry woods to build a fire to keep the dreaded AGAs at bay. That night we cooked a sumptuous dinner… blah blah blah until 10pm when they all decided to call it a night and go to sleep. Fu Yaw and me… still full of energy…decided to sleep at 12am. So we jus chatted… dry our clothes, shoes and bags by the fire… and keep the fire burning brightly.
That night is a special night as both of us saw a very spectacular sight…
Sky was full to the brim wit stars and galaxies and universes…!!!!
A few shooting stars flew past….
And the stars in the sky…
Was truly a sight to behold…
And all this time… I was thinking…
“Only if my girlfren… YeeLing.. can see this stars…
Wish you were here….”
12pm sharp… went for some shut eye. However.. at 2am I was woken up by sounds of MissLim taking 5 and Siew Ting chatting away. Drowsily we talked and after tat I proceed to sleep again. Haha…
Day 4 - Oct 4th - Teh Tarik Adventure!!!
Final Day… Teh Tarik Adventure!!!12.45pm.
Stuck inside the mud. As you can see from the pics.. the wheels of the Hilux is submerged until half inside the mud… the moment we see this…
Hahaha… “damn it!” “*&%* it” “I got a date tomorrow”
That is all my personal thinking… not others… although they may be feeling the same too. hehe…
Again… the sun is blazing hot… and the mud is very muddy… hence the name “teh tarik adventure”
Grabbing the cangkul and one more stuff *dunno-the-name* (like a big spoon, use for gardening also) we proceed to make a mess of ourselves…
1st war plan – Put planks or stones below the tires so they can get traction
and hence we will be on our way in no time… Scramble everywhere for wood.. stones.. big or small doesn’t matter… we put our first plan in step… on the engines… we pray while Miss Lim or Mr Voon(dun quite remember.. jus know we are hoping for the best) steps on the pedal and after a few seconds… Hilux in same spot!
1st war plan = Fail
2nd war plan – Dig a trail for the tires to go through. So we execute the plan diligently… scrapping and digging away 2 small tire size trails for the front tires.. after that Miss Lim proposed we also try to dry the muddy road with the hot blazing sun as our backup. So 4 gals dry the muddy water or affectionately known as “Teh Tarik”
as the color and water is same as Teh Tarik and the guys dig up the trails… after an hour… Mr Voon on the engine again.. and the rest of us tried to push from behind… result??2nd war plan = Fail
3rd War plan – All of us felt that the teh tarik still too muddy so it mus be dried completely. Proceed wit the 3rd war strategy… dig dig…dig dig… and while digging I realized that I can straight away dig a trail for the back tires… proposed the secondary objective to general in charge… Miss Lim … Approved! So I jus dig dig dig…
Stealing a look at Fu Yaw… I am really amazed at how white his skin still looks although he was spending way more time in the sun than me that day… I looked at myself.. charcoal color.. damn! What I was thinking now?? So I proceed to dig..
And suddenly one of the gangs proclaimed… “we need to clear all the soil and teh tarik underneath the Hilux… it’s piling up until the steel *dunno-wat-the-name* and that makes Hilux basking inside Teh Tarik.
3rd war plan = Fail4th War Plan – We proceed to dig and clear the soil underneath the Hilux.. wit ChianNi paving the way by wriggling herself completely below the car…
After that I tried to imitate her which… of coz… fails tremendously.. haha…
Bit by bit… we clear away the soil and debris that stuck below the car and block the steel pipe*dunno the name* and wit the dark clouds looming overhead us… this is really one last chance for us to break free…
Mr Voon step into the Hilux again… and all of us gather behind Hilux to provide a push… and 1.. 2… 3… PusH!!!!
Vroomm… vromm.!!!!
The Hilux breaks free from the mud.. leaving trails of destruction behind where in this case.. teh tarik on us…
First reaction – Scream wit joy
Second reaction – take pictures
Third reaction – board the Hilux and drive out ASAP as it shows the sign of raining and if we are stuck inside other mud again… we will be stuck until tomorrow as that time already 3.30pm.
So VIPS behind roared wit laugh
ter as we chat and make fun of each other while Mr Voon drive like there is a Tyrannosaurus is chasing us… we hardly feels anything except the rain is painful… macam stone hit us… and also when suddenly three of us are thrown into the air.. and back to the VIP seats again when Mr Voon flew past a small hill or mound. That was officially painful!!!Call us crazy or something but.. the 3 of us… were chatting non stop… talking bout gals, mountain climbing experiences, gossiping while being pelted wit rains and also being thrown around like cargos…
Around 6pm we were out of the 4WD trail… and VIPS all change place into Kenari… and Fu Yaw really is a true gentleman… me and ah Boon is a mud man wit very wet clothes… and he still can smiles when we bundled into his car…. A true gentleman…
Taking off our wet clothes… we 3 guys followed Hilux into Gua Musang to find a place to eat dinner… and passerbys was eyeing us curiously as 8 muddy guys and gals… walk to a restaurant… to find food. The tauke is a kind person… allowing us to use his bathroom to clean ourselves and change into clean clothes…
But after paying for the bill… we felt that he charges for the usage of his water and bathroom also. Haha…
Afterwards we stopped by Miss Lim’s teacher’s fren house at Tapah for a brief visit before continuing our way back to KL…
We reach Shah Alam that morning around 1am…
All of us spend the night at Teacher’s place that night… and the next day.. we bid our goodbye and go back our own homes…
And truly… Gunung Chamah is an adventure that is hard to forget…
1 comment:
wa wa wa....gunung chamah what a nice trip !!! Dig here dig there...so exciting , so shuang(especially for the teh tarik adventure)wahahahah !!! but i cant go for this trip..arghh...><
nvm , after SPM i will be back...muahahaha...
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