Tasik Kenyir's Holidays 1 April, Tasik Kenyir, Terengganu

Enchanting...

The trip to Kenyir was the best thing happening this early of the year. With 70 over students and staffs of PPKTJ, we embarked on our journey to Kenyir. The bus trip was very tiring as the journey needed 9 hours and we would be thinking when would this bus stop so that we could relieve ourselves. Other then that we will be either busy chatting or listening to music. I felt that time was passing slowly as the buses moved along the road. A minute to me seemed like an hour and I felt tortured. I tried not to think about what time it was and tried to sleep. No matter how hard I tried I could not sleep. So I began to look around and I can see Syieda and Nabilah sitting behind. They were happily chatting and it seem to me that nothing could bother them. I shifted my attention to Hasparina Sensei as she chatted with Farhan and the others. They were talking about movies and other things. I tried not to overhear their conversation but it was hard. As time went on, the clock struck two and most of us were sleeping. I was no exception and I too felt asleep. Finally, some commotion happened when one of the busses had a flat tyre. Probably, that is what I was hoping as I was growing bored of the journey. The funny thing was that we had a flat tyre at Maran, the hometown of Shukri. A rumour went by saying that Shukri punctured the tyre so that he could show us his hometown. We stopped at a gas station and began fixing the tyre. All of us came down from the bus and began stretching our aching muscles. After doing so, I began to walk around and looked at the night sky. The stars looked nice and I tried to figure out where was the constallation that I usually see back in my hometown. We continued with our journey and at about dawn, the bus driver show us one of P. Ramlee's film, "Sumpah Orang Minyak". It was fun watching the people chasing the 'orang minyak'.

The boats began to set off and my boat was the fastest. The view of the islands was breathtaking and the water was clear. You would not believe it when they told us that the water of the lake is clean and can be drunk directly without filtering. We reached Petang Resort in about 45 minutes and we had a little desserts and we went to our rooms. I took a shower and later we went swimming. Along the way we went to the dam. As I grew confident I began to like riding boats and when we reached our swimming spot, it was raining. While we walked to the spot, the drizzle grew bigger and it rained cats and dogs. I was walking side by side with Esham and I told him that it was fun walking in the rain as I had not done it for a long time. The place was fun but be caution as the place was slippery. I felt down the stairs but I was uninjured except that I was embarrassed. I am not good in swimming and tried to learn to swim. With a little advice from Esham and Doink, I tried to a least float. I could float a while but later I sank down. The guys went in first and later the girls joined in. It was fun. Some of us tried to be Tarzan as they took a swing with a rope and dived in took the pool. The area that they dived into was very deep and that kind of action should be tried except by experts. As we took the boat back, it was very cold as the wind blew at us in our wet condition. I shivered a little but I am ok. Arriving back at Petang Resort, we ate once again and later we went kayaking. This was my first experience doing kayaking and I was afraid that the kayak would overturn. The other reason is that I can't swim. With the life jacket on me, I still felt nervous. The girls and the guys did well in kayaking. When I saw Syieda and Nabilah were doing fine, I said to myself if the girls could do it why couldn't I. However, as my confident returning, a kayak overturned and that made me scare. But no one was injured except that their egos were bruised. As my turn came I went inside the kayak and later I had my picture taken with the others as our kayak lined up side by side. It felt like we were trying to create a world record.

That night, we also had the pleasure of doing 'Night Trekking'. We had to walk in the dark without any torches and it was quite scary to be walking in the dark and we could not see anything. I had tripped a few times and I nearly lost my spectacles but I was ok. I told myself that since I couldn't see anything, I might as well take off my spectacles. The forest was just beside the resort and I was relieved. Mat Tarzan told us to listen to the sound the insects were making and I tried to but it was hard to do it while I was looking for a safe path to walk. Before the 'Night Trekking' ended, Mat Tarzan explained to us that we should respect the forest especially to forest's guardian. That night ended with us playing the Japanese games. Prizes were given but my group failed to get one. The next day, the real challenge began. We will be doing jungle trekking but first we were given the opportunity to see the Thais do underwater logging. After that we went to Gua Bewah and in the cave we could see the ancient site of the primitive people. The stone inside were interesting and there were two famous stones. One that looked like a dead body that was wrapped and the other looked like someone doing a prayer. We took a lot of pictures there with those stones included in the pictures. I found a stone that looked like a girl kneeling down and was covering her face with her hands as if she was crying. Another interesting in the cave was that the bugs were big. One of them decided to stick to me and the girls who saw it started to call my name. However, Ishigawa sensei took care of the bug. We did not visit Gua Taat as it was flooded so we went jungle trekking instead.

The walk was hard as the ground was very steep and with the sharp rocks all over the place, it was dangerous. Furthermore the rocks were covered with mosses which made them even harder to climb. We had to rely on the trees and the vines to help us cross the jungle. It became more challenging as it rained and the ground became wet and slippery. Besides that, the ground grew soft and became mud. My shoes were done for when I stepped into the mud. As for me slipping so many time was that I was wearing sneakers at that time. Have you ever heard of people going jungle trekking with sneakers? Now you have. I am the first! We walked in a line and our line had been broken so many time that in the end we ended up with two group, the fast one and the slow one. It was ok to say that it was not easy to keep pace with Mat Tarzan. We reached the jetty and the 'uproar' began as the some girls began to scream because of the 'pacat'(a type of leech) that they found at their feet. I understood how they felt as I also got one. Ridhuwan was the shining knight in armour to Izyan as he helped her removed the 'pacat' sticking to her feet. After the trek, we went back. I did not go kayaking as I fell asleep. Aminah sensei did the same thing after coming back. At night we had karaoke and Shukuri was the first to sing. He did a duet Haidar but it was more like a solo to me as Shukri kept quiet. Later Esham tried out but failed to finish his song. The others like Doink did a 'Hotel California' song for us. I was playing chess at that time and the others were playing scrabbles, monopoly, cards and UNO. I played UNO with Aminah sensei, Esham and the others. Aminah sensei and Ehsam were having a great battle as they tried to help their 'students' to win. I became the neutral unit on the table. Later Syieda and Tariq joined in and the battle became more intense. We played late into the night as my luck for that day began to wane I knew I would not achieve victory as easy as I did when I played with Yan Ling and the others in the first round of the game before I joined in to play with Aminah sensei. Before that, I with Doink and three more people form a group to sing Westlife's songs.

The last day we were there, we visited the herb island and we learnt something there. Before we went back to KL, we stopped by at Kuala Terengganu to service our bus and did some last minute shopping. I wandered all over the place following my foot and heart and met up with Naim and the others doing shopping at a supermarket but mostly I saw was batik and clothing shops. We went back to KL and along the way we bought Keropok Lekor. We reached UTM at about 3:30 in the morning. It was tiring but fun. I know I won't be riding a bus for a long time after my experience of sitting and sleeping in the bus for 9 solid hours.

Prepared by,
White