...those 16 days... dekrakpha

YEP adventure part 2


our first event at dekrakpha was the children camp. i din participate actively during the camp cos my welfare committee was in charge of cooking for all 3 meals on the 1st and 2nd day of the camp. the cooking was fun especially knowing more people like the main chef , P ood, P seang, P toottu and noon bum. btw we have to address someone who is older than us as P and someone younger than us as noon. the 2nd day dinner was chaotic. it was like a mini funfair and the villagers actually came. so we had to cook for more people. and the preparation part sucks... we actually started preparing for dinner immediately after washing up for lunch. we cut, chopped and cooked the whole day. the detergent was useless cos it was not soapy and it was really hard to get rid of some stubborn oil and strain and GREASE.


my bunkmates and i formed this NJ gossip club and our teacher-in-charge is mr menon. hahaz... we always have our mini meeting everyday and we were recruiting more and more people everyday. hahaz...


there was a homestay before the teenage camp. the homestay was cool... it was a chance for us to learn and intercat more with the thai and understand their culture. =) we took a motorbike there. the feeling of riding on a bike rocks... going in the direction of the wind. cool... our first job was to cut rice at the padi fields. it was a tiring job. we had to bend our backs and cut rice. after cutting rice for sometime, our backs ached and we had a few cuts. we got tanner too.. yeah... but we were too tan until my skin turned dry. ahhh... my homestay family is the village chief. he treated us very well. they prepared mattress, pillows and mosquito net for us. we were so touched. the father of the house known as pual in thai realised that i had alot of white hairs and prepared hair shampoo made of lemon and salt for me. he told me it can cure the white hair. so sweet... i was still cutting rice on the second day of the homestay. i will treasure rice more than before. dekrakpha's principal has a dog name bobo. it has human instinct. it was with me at the homestay. late at night when the 3 of us went to the toilet, it accompanied us and it waited for all of us and followed us back to the house. i finally understood why people always say dog is man's most loyal friend.


the teenage camp was fun and enriching. this time round, i was more invloved during the camp. we had this buddy system and my buddy is so handsome. hahaz... but he is only 14 years old. how sad right... it would be better if he is of the same age as me. hahaz... he is a very quiet and reserved guy. he does not talk much to people. i needed to initiate a conversation with him and pushed him along to be invloved in group discussions and activities. by the way, his name is jesada. hahaz... besides knowing my buddy there, i met other new friends there too like nod, toy, ah-cat, goi, aom, eye, tak, bee, bum, the drama kids and many many more...


the first and major crisis that the YEP team encountered happened after the homestay. a few of us had fever and started vomitting. they threw up quite a few times. some even vomiited blood. omg... we din know what's went wrong. reika had a tick on herhead for 2 days and thought it was just a mosquito bite. omg... in the end, she also had fever but she din throw up. things started to get out of hand and the illness seemed to be spreading and affecting more and more poeple. so our dearest and funniest expedition leader, mr menon decided to send 5 of them to the hospital. one of my bunk mates, xiaotian was admitted to hopsital too. i could not slp that nite. i was very worried for them and i felt weird without xiaotian in the bunk. the next day, the environment team came to dekrakpha to check on the health condition of the remaining people. they still could not find out what is the main cause for such a woo ha.. they only suspected that it could be food poisoning. the next day, i had a little fever. i was scared out of my wits. luckily i din vomit. i quickly took the fever medicine and the temp went down. =)


on the last fri night at dekrakpha, we celebrated lor katong. it is a thailand festival which they used banana truck and leaves to decorate a float. they will release the float into the river to thank the river goddness and hoping that their bad luck will be washed away. =) besides that, we had another culture exchange activity. they taught us how to make tie dye. hahaz... mine was ok lahz.. not as fantastic as others. they actually used mud and leaves to boil the dye. nature lovers xia...


the last activiy was the sports carnival. i thought it would be very crowded and hectic that day but the number of people joining the sports carnival was average. mainly were the children and teenagers who attended the camps. we played games like volleyball, soccer, captain's ball, frisbee and poison ball. we ended our sports carnival with a telematch. i was glad that the participants enjoyed themselves. =)


the night after the sports carnival was our farewell night. we sang songs and danced NJ mass dance to the song that thing you do. not forgetting, maha, jilline, meera and shamila indian dance to the song pretty woman. it was entertaining and funny. hahaz... the most touching part was when they started their prayers for us, wishing us to have a safe journey home. after the prayers, they took some white threads and tied them around our hands. it was a form of blessings. i was so touched that i cried. both old and young, friends and strangers gave me their well wishes. we din bear to remove them. all of us wore them all the way to spore. i still keep them in my journal.=)


on the last day, we packed all our bags and were ready to go. though i wanted to be home ASAP, i could not bear to leave dekrakpha too. conflicting thoughts. i cried again when we were on the truck, on our way to the train station. it was my first time sitting on a train and it sucks... i am stuck in the train for 6 hours. omg... it was damn boring... when we reached bangkok, we had 3 hours before pour flight for shopping and having our dinner. omg... that's really mad rush. we just grab anything. haizz... v sad... so little time. i din have time to shop for myself. ahh.... nvm... i can always go back to thailand again. the shopping centre that they brought us to was HUGE. i think it is bigger than taka.


when we arrived at changi airport, i was overjoyed when i saw my mum, my dad, my brother and his girlfriend. i really miss all of them. i was jumping and jumping and jumping. hahaz...


i miss everything and everyone at dekrakpha and khaoyai. i will treasure the times i spent there. i will take with me the lessons and experiences i had gained forever and ever.

...those 16 days... khao yai

hey guys.. i am finally back in spore!! did u guys miss me? hahaz... YEP is fun!!! it is a totally brand new experience for me. i am starting to miss everything there. the thai people esp my buddy and mr cool, the school (DEKRAKPHA), khao yai national park, the toilets without a flushing system, bathing late at night, my dearest bunk mates, the newly formed NJ gossip club and many many more....


i spent my first 3 days at khao yai national park. it is a tourist attraction and a nature reserve. its area is like 3 to 4 times the size of spore. omg.. that's very HUGE. it covers about 7 provinces in thailand. we slept in tents for the first night and it was freezing cold. i actually wore long sleeve, track pants, socks and covered myself with 2 blankets to sleep. i was shivering when i woke up at 5am (thailand time). one of my bunk mates, maha actually covered herself with the blankets when she went to the toilets to wash up. hahaz.. damn funny.


we were deleted into 3 differet groups and had 3 different activities over a period of 3 days. each group has 2 thai guides, one of which is mr cool. hahaz... my first day was nature walk and the study of hornbills. we went into the forest to get as close to the animals as possible. though we were supposed to study about hornbills, we din spot any that day. =( instead, many leeches found their way up to our hands. leeches are a type of insect that feed on human blood. and they will grow in size while sucking ur blood. they move forward by curling themselves up. i think they look like earthworms. we also saw some gibbons. they look like monkey with a tail. they said gibbon belongs to the ape family. the terrain was horrible. it was so damn steep and we had to hold on to one another or the trees for support. we soaked our legs into a river and had lunch. so cool... after eating, i attempted to draw some birds of thailand. the other thai guide, P Tock, came and taught me how to draw. no matter how ugly my drawing was he would say beautiful or very nice. what a nice guy right? he could not speak english very well so we had to communicate in simple eng and thai and body lang. =)


the second day was awesome. we played a blindfold game at the start of the trail. when we removed our blindfold, what we saw was a shockingly beautiful landscape. we were standing on a cliff and we were way taller than the highest layer of the forest.we saw trees and trees and more trees.. the mountains and everything. it was like woah.... the best part of the second day was the visit to a real waterfall. i had nv seen one in my entrie life before i went on the trip. in the end, we could not visit the most magnificant one in the national park cos the princess of japan was there and she was touring around the park too. so outsiders could not enter. so sad... in the end, we went to a smaller waterfall instead. it was equally cool too. we jumped into the water and swam. cool... the rocks were so damn slippery that i slipped and fell quite a few times. clumsy me...


the last activity was the most slack and boring of all. it was the bird watching. it was just walking and more walking and seeing birds and more birds and stretching the birds and blah blah... nothing exciting about the activity. i was impressed by the thai people because they know all the facts about the nature like the birds, plants and insects at their fingertips. they all can draw very well too. when they spot a bird, they will immediately take up some papers and a pen and start drawing. and their drawings are very realistic esp those drew by mr cool.


our night activities at khao yai were to learn some simple thai. but i could only rmb those that are used to scold pple. hahaz.. besides attenting thai language lessons, we had painting and drawing classes too. we either touched up on the drawings that we drew in the day or asked the thai people to draw our protrait for us. the last night there was writing autographs and more autographs. we actually stayed very late that night to ask the translater to translate the thai messages that they wrote in our books to english.


after touring at khao yai for 3 days, we were off to DEKRAKPHA (children love forest) school to organize 2 camps and a sports carnival. it is time for the 29 of us to work... =)

...to be nobody...

we always hear people encouraging one another to dream big so that one can be successful. is that really the case? to dream big means to be somebody right? hmm... what's so good about being somebody? somebody will have all the fame, power, money and attention. people will take a second glance at you no matter how ugly you are cos u r SOMEBODY. living a life of luxary... who does not want it? hey, hold on! maybe we have to think if we really do want to be somebody. in the process, we may lose one of the most fundamental and genuine things in life such as true friendship by hurting our loved ones to achieve our big dream. without the support from our friends, life is miserable. =( so maybe it is ok to be a nobody . if we cannot get what we want, it is ok. just be contented with what we have now. sometimes, living a simple life with no worries is a blessing. =)


went to celebrate my ally's 17th birthday today. hahaz.. she is finally 17!!! cheers... it's really sweet that the group of us are still in close contact though we are studying at different JCs now. that's what i called true friendship. =D it's great to see them and chat with them and talk about our RV lives.


after having our lunch, we went to watch SHARK TALE. seriously, the movie isn't a blockbuster but it is a great movie to watch if you are in a dam lousy mood or you just want to watch a light hearted movie. the jokes are not really that funny to the extent that you can picture me rolling on the floor, hugging my stomach cos i laughed too hard ya. somehow, the movie makes me think alot about myself.


enjoy the holidays people!!! =D

...it's coming...

satursday is drawing near and i have not packed my YEP stuff yet. ahh.... i have all the things ready at home but i am too lazy to pack them neatly into my backbag. what have i been doing for the past few days?? there are SOOOOO many things to bring to thailand. besides my own stuff, i need to stuff (see people, the keyword is stuff not pack) 3 packets of instant noodles for my committe into my backbag. omg... how am i going to do that?


i am scared. though mr menon has arranged many sessions with us to brief us on what to expect at surin and also invited other expediture leaders who had been to surin before to tell us more about their trip and the place. but there is still a bit of me who is feeling SCARED. i wonder if my fellow friends, who are on the same trip as me, are feeling the same way as i do. haizz...


however, i am also excited about the trip. though the planning and packing and adapting to the new environment suck totally, it is a new experience for me to really test my own limits in a foregin land and also in a situation whereby i will never be in in Singapore. i just want to have fun and enjoy myself there. hope that there will not be any hip cups along the journey.


=D

...first time here...

ok. this is my first time here and i am damn blur about how to go about setting the blog and most importantly to design my blog. but it's ok cos i have great friends around who can help me along. i am so grateful cos i am a complete computer idiot.


i don't know how long this blog will last. the previous online diaries that i had did not lasted for more than a year. i just throw them aside to collect dust and rot and decompose and finally they vanish. hahaz..


wish me luck and happy reading. =D