Berkelah Falls w/ ODAC!

Once again, it's almost 1 month after the event on 23rd - 25th September 2011 before I blogged about it. Haha. It is my first overseas trip with my new CCA in NTU OutDoor Adventure Club (ODAC) :D

Our destination? Berkelah Falls, Malaysia. It is situated in the state of Pahang in the heart of Malaysia.

According to Wikipedia, we trekked up to the seventh tier - the 2nd or 3rd highest part of the waterfall. Wow! Haha.

Will chronologically go through the whole trip but here's the reward at the end of the whole trek:

The 7th tier of Berkelah Falls :)

We all reported at Woodlands Sheng Siong, opposite Woodlands Checkpoint at around 6pm :) There, we got our food supplies and all...

Pumpfest XV Outside Woodlands Sheng Siong :D

From there, we took bus 170 to Johor where we had our dinner/supper before loading up our indented coaches :D

Trek Comm + Pumpfest :D

Pumpfest XV again :D

Take 2 :D

At this pit stop, there were a lot of provision shops and we bought their "Ramli" burger. We were scammed. It wasn't a "Ramli" burger stall but their burgers were wrapped in the "Ramli" burger wrapper so we assumed it was Ramli... -.-"

The difference? The patty wasn't wrapped in egg!! HAHA! The Ramli burgers in Singapore's pasar malams are wrapped in egg! Not for this stall -_-" Oh well, it was only RM3. Haha.

We then headed to KFC for a hearty meal before we boarded our coach. The coach btw, wasn't exclusive to us...It was shared a few other local riders...Haha.

A few of us :D

We slept through the 4-5 hour bus journey. Ok, I didn't exactly sleep through the whole journey. 1 hour was spent playing asshole ti-tee with Yew Ting, Sean and Zun Chen...If I remember correctly...only the 4 of us played...Hmmm...Haha.

Anyway, after our bus journey, we alighted and took a 1-hour cab ride to our breakfast point where we had roti prata... :D

All of us at the coffee shop :D

2 things I'll always remember about this coffee shop:

1) They way the cook the egg prata...The way they crack the egg for the egg prata is SUPER WASTEFUL!! He simply crushed (smashed) the egg in his hand and splattered like only 60% of the egg onto the prata before lobbing it into the dustbin.

!@#!%$^#*$#&*# We ordered like 60+ pratas!! Out of the 60++ maybe 25 were egg pratas? 60% x 25eggs = 15 eggs wasted!!!

HAHA! I'm still wincing at the thought of their wastage...LOLS!

2) We ordered so many pratas at one shot that those that ordered after us had to wait like 30minutes for them to serve up our order!! HAHA!

So the queue was uber long...With many black faces thinking "Sia la...This bloody bunch of kiasu Singaporeans come here makan so much la siol...make me wait for 30mins. Bull-toe!" HAHA! :P

Anyway, after our hearty or rather over-filling breakfast, we cabbed down to our start point :D

Start point!

Still along the "start point" stretch.

The guys :)

Take 2 :D

We then started on our journey. Felt like some army road-march...Just that this time, there are girls, I'm not in number four and there are no safety rovers driving around...Haha!

Our first pit stop is at some tier-3 point in the water fall I guess. Pretty deep in already. There was a nice waterfall there with a pool where we all could wade in. But that wasn't our destination...haha

The guys again :)

Us at the tip of the tier-3 point of the waterfall :D Can you see me? The guy raising his 2 hands? Haha.

Shoe drying time...The kampung adidas shoe! It has really good grip. Bought for $6? I think so, can't remember. Lols!

Take 2 :) From left guy sitting down: Pang Ngee, Zun Chen, Kai Sen & myself :)

After spending like an hour or more playing at this area, we had to move on :( Haha. This is just a prelude to the immeasurably better Promised Land. LOLS!

Moving on from our tier 3 point... :)

I must state at this juncture, that many parts of this trek were precariously dangerous. We just had to miss a footing and we're history.

Take the photo above for example, if we slipped (some part of the rocks are really slippery), we'd fall into the  river and flow down the tier-3 waterfall (3 to 4 pictures above) to our deaths. Haha. Or if God's hand is upon us, to our horror. Lols!

Really, thank God, no mishap or accidents occurred. Yup, we continued trekking upwards...till we had another rest point.

From left: Sean, Tee Li, Vanessa, Chia Lek, Ching Yee (on top), Chor Seng, Kai Sen, Teck Kian, Pang Ngee, Myself & Joyce :D

The whole trek up took around 2-3hours. It wasn't too bad, but it was really tiring. This isn't like those army route marches where I can cover 32km in FBO and long four...This is a trek going VERTICALLY UPWARDS! Route marches are on level ground (x-axis). This one's not (y-axis)! Haha!

At the end of the whole trek, my thigh muscles were aching and my legs were wobbly and ready to cramp the moment I exert any more force on it. Haha.

Yup, here's our end point :D The tier-7 part of the waterfall :D

Berkelah Falls, 7th Tier. Yes, this is the same picture as the first one in the post...haha.

The waterfall :D If you're wondering who's that small girl in the float? It's Shi Min. Haha!

We all indulged in the SUPER COLD water. Boy was it refreshing :D The rocks there were super slippery though! Haha! Upon knowing that the water was super cold, I wanted to go in slowly. So I went to the side and sat down and slowly brought myself into the water...

Next thing I knew, my whole body is in!! HAHA! The rocks were SUPER SLIPPERY! I slid down in a blink of an eye and the next thing I knew...I was singing my soprano vocal range from the sudden temperature drop! LOLS! HAHA!

After we got used to the temperature, we swam to the other side where there was also a mini water fall.

The 3 guys standing at the left side of the picture is us...Me, Kai Sen & Pang Ngee :D The bottom right is Shi Min & Chor Seng having the time of their lives and at the top right is Sean. HAHA!

You didn't know ODAC was a Buddhist Club?? They're teaching us how to meditate! HAHAHA!

Now for the hand-clasping meditation pose...LOLS!

The interesting thing about this waterfall is that...the mini waterfall in the 2 pictures above, is pouring warm water onto us...The water from the massive waterfall is balls-shrinkingly cold! Hahaha!

Therefore, we all gathered at the mini waterfall to warm ourselves...LOLS!

After wading in the pool, it was LUNCH TIME! So we took out our crockery and food and began to cook :D

Me & Yew Ting :D

Me, Yew Ting & Shi Min :D

Clockwise from top left: Me, Yew Ting, Kai Sen, Gui Ru, Ching Yee, Shi Min and Yong Jun - NTU ODAC's president! :D

Yong Jun, myself, Yew Ting & Shi Min :)

+ A white monkey called Kai Sen...HAHAHA! :P

After a hearty lunch, some of them continued to play cards and had a singing session...As for us...this is what we're busy with...

SLEEP! HAHA!

If you're wondering how we slept...we were this tired. Haha. And it was SUPER COOLING! In fact, it was cold!

When I opened my eyes again, it was nightfall! Haha! Time to cook dinner! It was like lunch, just that, we had to use our head lights...Haha! Not the car headlights but the head-torches we strap to our heads. Lols.

While dinnering halfway, our worst fears came to pass...IT RAINED!!! $%&@^$#*(^&^@#%^)(%^&*$^#&* HAHA!

We orderly formed a human chain and brought our stuff back to our tents which was covered by the forest canopy.

Yes, dinner halted but not our fellowship :D Haha. We sat on our groundsheet and played GAMES!! HAHA!

All of us playing games :)

Me, Yew Ting, Zun Chen, Yong Jun & Wei Hong :D

At this juncture, let me introduce my superiors you...Haha. My direct superior is Wei Hong...my department's (Pumpfest) Special Project Officer (SPO) :D

The next guy is Yong Jun, the president of NTU ODAC :D He's everyone's boss. Lols.

They're all very friendly and nice people united together in their love for the great outdoors...something that I don't really love that much...HAHAHA! But well, I don't mind...and since my 2 good friends Chor Seng and Kai Sen are in ODAC, why not? Haha.

After the rain subsided, we continued cooking dinner :D

The cai dao kueh gang!

Yes! We cooked cai dao kueh! Carrot cake! We brought a large chunk of radish bought from Sheng Siong up there :D There we just cut it, and dump it into the frying pan and fried it with onions, garlic and eggs :D

After dinner was...wash up and sleep. Haha. Sufficient sleep is key because we need the strength to trek down the next day. So yup, powdered bath and went to sleep. Haha.

Upon opening my eyes, it was MORNING! Haha. Took our last few photos and group photos before we had to pack up and go.

Me, Gui Ru, Chor Seng, Yew Ting, Shi Min and Zun Chen :D

The guys :D

Pumpfest XV with our ODAC pose in Berkelah Falls! :)

Pumpfest + Munir from TrekComm. Haha.

Packing up time! Me trying to squeeze my clothes into the bagpack...haha.

The trek down took much lesser time than expected! We took like only 1.5hours to trek down! Compared to 3-4hours to trek up! Haha. Ok, this time we didn't play at the tier-3 waterfall area...Haha.

Yup, that's the end of our journey! :)

PumpFest + TrekComm :)

Oh, if you're still wondering what's Pumpfest and TrekComm, they're just 2 different departments in ODAC :D My department, PumpFest, plans bouldering activities in shopping malls around Singapore :D

For TrekComm, they are the guys that go overseas to recce for new destinations to bring ODAC to...Some trips are also made open to public.

The standard, ODAC pose :D Haha.

From there, we cabbed to some mall and had A&W for lunch before boarding our coaches back to Johor :D

Me & Kai Sen at A&W :D

Me & Kai Sen on the coach back to Johor :D Ignore Priscilla & Wei Hong's hanky-pankying...HAHA!

Me, Priscilla & Kai Sen :D

Oh, Priscilla is also my boss. Haha. She's also an SPO of Pumpfest XV together with Wei Hong. She's nicknamed "Lao Ban Niang" HAHA!

Me, Kai Sen and Wei Hong & Priscilla :D

We arrived in Singapore on a Sunday night, around 10.30pm. The next day, we reported back to NTU to do stores washing!

Stores! The tents are not in the picture...haha

Yup, all in all, had an awesome trip! :) The waterfall at the top was indeed rewarding! :D But do bring your sweaters because it can get really cold at night! :)