My first Gunung Gading Trip.

This entry was written ages ago for my old blog. Gunung Gading is one of the national parks in Sarawak. Located in Lundu area, the mountain is importance to the community nearby as it is one of the water catchment area. It is also important for it biodiversity. The park is famous for its waterfall trek and raflesia.
wah! feel so tired...just come back from Gunung Gading National Park. It is relieving to go for a trip after the hectic semester one of 3rd year.

(Part 1)

First Day (22.11.2008)
I wake up as early as 4.30am to make bento for the trip to Lundu. The bento is very simple due to limited supply of ingredient. For vegies, i steamed carrot cut into apt shape, and boil cabbage in sweet soy sauce. The I boiled egg and cook sardine in chilli sauce and put a bit of tomyam cube (experimenting with flavor). Then I take about 45 minutes to arrange the bento to make it look nice....it actually look nice! Too bad I didn't take picture. After that i cooked more sardine for sandwich.

Around 6.10am, I walk to Sharon's place, on the way, i saw Arjun, Aman and Fazhan fishing...@_@! Then at Sharon's place, I'm surprised to see how much Sharon resemble panda! turn out she can't sleep because she have Coffee Bean earlier.

Sharon, is that you??? XD

*sorry for the picture above, I'm happened to reformat my laptop and haven't installing any photoshop or photostudio...i used Paint and Microsoft Publisher for the pic above.

Then, around 8am, Ig come to pick us up. Journey to Lundu is rather long, I end up sleeping once in a while in the car. When we reach Lundu town, we go to the market to get few stuff and we have our lunch or brunch there...I share my bento with Sharon and Kavitha...hehehe, ureshi!

After lunch, we go for Gunung Gading, we pay 4 ringgit for the entrance fee and we're staying at Juu Hui's Dad's staff barrack for that night. The house have 2 bedroom, Arjun insisting on having the bigger bedroom for them, but of course the girls did not agree as there are more girls. The place is comfortable enough.

Just in front of the staff barrack, there is a statue of deer with large boulders around it. We have fun "molesting" the deer and taking picture on the boulders.

The molested deer and Ig...


Konoha ninja???


my serious look...


imma going crazy look...XD

The swimming pool is right behind of the staff barrack, it is quite a nice place. The water is mountain water flowing through few waterfalls. It is so cool and refreshing. We play there for a while and after that we go for the Semantan Beach. The other playing kite at the beach. But the best thing happen at the beach is Mermaid Arjun! Basically we had Arjun laying on the sand and we put sand on top of him and sculpt it to our liking. We make boobs for Arjun. At first we plan to have D cup size, but we end up with G cup. Fui Mei gives Arjun special "facial treatment" of beach sand and treat his hair with sand...hehe. Then the sculpting activity proceed with the creation of 9 month old pregnant belly and mermaid tail.

Mermaid Arjun in the making...

The final product! The Amazing Mermaid Arjun!

The sculpting might hurts Arjun's pride a bit, but i salute him for being patient while we fooling around with him. Our masterpiece of Mermaid Arjun is anything but long lasting as the wave washing it away, Arjun get up immediately and immediately "repay" Fui Mei's special treatment with chasing her around to throw sand at her hair. Talking about bullies!

Then, me and the others fooling around by sitting on the beach where the water in our sitting position is on shoulder level, then we wait for waves to come and hit us. Every now and then we end up being push to the shore closer and closer. It is amazing how simple thing like this can fun!

After a good wash (sand is everywhere, i my shirt, my pants, my bra!) we headed to Lundu Open Air for dinner. We have a bit of satay (expensive and not really nice). Fazhan had nasi goreng special and extra rice, it look so cute as they hawker place his rice in two mound, big one and small one! I didn't have dinner since i'm not hungry....

(to be continued)

(Part 2)

After dinner at Lundu Open Air, we head for Gunung Gading and race to take shower first before everybody come back...hehe. After that, few of us prepare the chicken wing marinade for BBQ later. Steven have problem peeling the onion, it is too much for him to handle, so I take over. Later my hands smells a lot like onion and garlic...urgh! My body doesn't feel so well that night, maybe its the cold water or something else. So, i go sleep for few hours and waken up 11 something as the BBQ starts at 12am.

Second Day (23.11.2008)

Everybody was trying to help with the BBQ, the guys help to start fire and setting up the charcoal, Iggy was so eager BBQ-ing and imitating Jamie Oliver along the process with "Good, good, very good!" and "Oh, this one gonna be tasty" and etc etc. A lot of smoke makes everyone choked when they try to BBQ. We have chicken wings, hot dogs, corn and fish (from our uni lake). BBQ-ing corn was very fun i think! We BBQ until 3.30 then go back to the staff barrack but some of us did not go to sleep immediately, we lied on the boulder (5-6 of us) and look at the sky. The place is not affected with light pollution that the sky so full of stars, we also saw a few shooting stars, it was so amazing. After that, when we almost fall asleep on the boulder, Ig called us in to sleep inside cause he worried that centipede or snake might come and bit us if we sleep outside.

Luckily I bring my blanket because the night is so cold. But with my blankie, it felt so nice that sleeping on the floor is not uncomfortable at all! I slept so well that i did not dream as I usually did.

Woke up around 9, I washed my face and brushed my teeth and eat a bit of high-sugar-content food and eat honey. Today we gonna climb the mountain and our destination is the Air Terjun Tingkat 7. Honestly, I'm discouraged to climb cause my leg hurts more and more along the way. But Aman encourages us all to continue our climb till our designated destination, it is worth while!

Along the way, I observed a lot of interesting stuff, such as bats, amazing trees, and attraction, such as Batu Apek (Old Man Stone).

When we reach the destination, it is a breathtaking view (because it is beautiful and also because i'm out of breath!).

Our destination...the waterfall!

I don't know how to put it in words....there is no word that can do justice for the view...i just can say that i feel cleansed from all stress and worries that i carry from uni life. I saw few fauna at the waterfalls, a lot of cute frogs, fish, tadpoles, water insects, dragonflies, butterfly and bla bla bla...oh! there are also some of frogs eggs attached to the rocks under water and some tadpoles around the area...it is amazing. I can hear the water flowing, the leaves rustling in the wind, the birds singing, my friends chatting and laughing, Aman and Sharon playing guitar and singing. After playing in the water, we have our breakfast on the boulder in front of the waterfalls. We all sit together, dipped our legs in the water or just sunbathing on the boulder. I wish the moment last forever and ever....the moment where all worries and stress gone and you feel calm and happy, and with friends that you loved are together with you. I wished it last forever.

Few hours later, we need to go back. The climb down the mountain is much easier and take less time the climbing, we take different route to go down as it is easier. Once we reach down, Kavitha, Fazhan, Aman, Arjun and I go directly and play some more at the swimming pool. Actually we don't want to take turn to have a bath, so we just take a "bath" at the swimming pool.

Around three, after everything settle, we head back to uni. Ig, Sharon, Siew Mei and I in the same car. Before we go back to Kuching, we stopped by at one Chinese restaurant called Flower Scent and the other have lunch there...i just sleep in the car...after that the long journey back to Kuching began.

When we reached Kuching, we stopped by at a market and bought vegies and dry groceries...I bought kacang buncis, langsat, ginger, mushroom, dried beancurd, potatoes, turmeric powder and curry powder.

When I reached home, I rest for a while and after that cooked dinner, maggi with a lot of vegies and eggs...taste so nice when you actually hungry. Then i surf internet for a while, checking out forums and blog. At 9.30 pm I felt so tired that I fell asleep without cleaning out the dishes first....huhu...woke the next at 11 am but sleep again until 12pm. My legs feels like cramped a bit.
around 2pm I go to faculty to do a bit of lab work and with that my ordinary uni life set in motion again after 2 days 1 night pause that cleansed worries and troubles away.