Life of the finite being: The Long Holiday Part 1: Redang Camp

Ok so I joined the ELS summer camp. We gathered at the school bla bla bla bla bla.

Reached the island and took a long painful hike to the "pusat ko-ko". We ate lunch and it sucked but someone bought in some bak chang which the boys really appreciated. We got our bags frisked bla bla bla and entered our room. Dirty, full of dust and the mattresses were smelly and full of holes. I had a feeling like "I didn't really sign up for this" because I was hoping to join a bad ass camp that could kick start my holidays.

Then there was some kinda water confidence. I could not even lie on my back to relax watching the clear blue skies as there was always someone to splash at me. DANG! That night someone broke my guitar string so the only song I could play with my guitar is the power-chord-based GNR song "Dead Horse".

Then we needed to design our flags. I gave out a few ideas including a logo similar to the album cover of "It's 5 o Clock Somewhere" by Slash Snakepit. I finally setteled on a pirate doing the hula dance with a flower necklace, grass skirt and coconut bra. I added a Slash skeleton crunching his Les Paul.

There was an old saying "When the lights go out, the mice will play". This happened to us on the first night. Some of us had a Chinese karaoke, some laughed loudly and Arul, William and Asyraf built an army observational post. Armed with nothing but their will and flashlights, their mission: to see if any of the boys ahead of them did something naughty. One of the boys scratched his bird then they yelled " 'anonymous' garu p**** ". Then they played a weird sex audio and laughed and laughed. By this time the camp official got tired and barged into our room. Through my observation, his face was full of anger like a dragon awakened from a 2000 year hibernation.

The next morning, we woke up to find our feet to be freezing. After a horrible first day, I thought the second day to be full of promise. We then hopped of to Pulau Pinang but we didn't find any char kway teow. We saw fish and hot babes in bikinis LOL. We then did the traditional feed-the-fish with-bread thingy. I learned a new technique, stuffing your bread in a bottle and squeeze em out slowly. It was here I got nipped by a parrot fish. I also saw some giant clams, a deflated puffer fish/blow fish and the infamous trigger fish. There were some stone fish so I kept my feet up. Then there was a group of silly form 5 girls who were scared of fish. WHAT THE HECK? So I disturbed by putting bread in the middle of their circle. They screamed like in the Jaws movie but that was a 25-feet man-eating Great White Shark, these were 4-8 inch long cute colourful fish. Damn they need an education on marine life.

Then Willert sorta panicked as vigorously as those silly fish-phobia girls. He said he had a cramp. I reeled him in like a lifeguard...CHEH... Sohor banyok. I got him to relax by singing the Discovery Channel song "Boom-De-Ya-Da". The song fitted with the moment as we were in a place to show that the world is truly awesome. We sang the regular nature themed verses such as "I Love the fishes" or "I Love the Oceans" and I think it was Arul coming in with "I Love Bikini Girls" LOL.

After some good lunch, we went to Marine Park. Due to the cramp I had during the water confidence, I hurried to the shallows not wanting to drown. The deeper water 6 feet deep was full of corals but no fish. The shallows were much more interesting. There was a clown fish and anemone in water shallow enough for me to stand. I thought the clownfish to be the Ocellaris clownfish that we saw in Pixar's Finding Nemo. My favourite species is Ocellaris because I dislike the fat and dull one striped body of yellowtail or two band clownfish. Now I knew how Nemo got kidnap because as I was enjoying myself observing them, one of them got pissed off and swam straight at me in a pattern that says SHOO! SHOO! It flicked it's tail the same way we flick our hands to shoo people. The longer I stayed, the more closer it came. It came to at least 5 inches from my face. I thought, if I caught this fish and put it into an aquarium, will a pelican ith a mouth full of water and fish fly into my window.HAHA.

Next we went to the Laguna area at late noon. I and Willert went to the Pasir Panjang aka Tanjong Tengah area to see my favourite marine animal THE SHARKS! I remember venturing into this area with my dad when I was a small kid and those baby sharks were everywhere. But times have changed. We had to look hard for em so their numbers probably decreased. The good thing was there were no jellyfish like those days when I went with my dad. The sharks usually swam in groups of 2-5 sharks. Some fools forgotten their mask and grabbed others but eventually went to get their own. Due to my marine knowledge(Cheh.. sohor lagi), I told them not to spread your arms out when the shark approaches because it scares them. It may cause the sharks to flee and spoil everyone elses fun or lead the shark to bite you. I remember Michelle was friggin annoying due to impatience of seeing some sharks. The sharks were Blacktip sharks(Carcharhinus limbatus) and it's status was "near threatened" like many shark species. The babies were at least 3-4 feet long and were perfect replicas of their adults that can grow to 9 feet maximum. This particular shark eats mostly fish. I can describe the sharks as very elegant and beautiful. They never displayed their sharp teeth unlike the nasty evil grin of the dangerous Great White Shark. They were calm, minding their own business unlike the artificial shark in Jaws which kept nipping of human limbs. This are real sharks, not animatronics created by Steven Spielberg. My dad also told me bigger adults 6-7 feet long can be found in deeper waters in Redang. Blacktip sharks are also known to engage in asexual reproduction altough this is one in a million.

OK enough of sharks. We were supposed to have a barbecue and Pirates night but the electricity went down so Pirate Night had to be cancelled but I didn't give a damn about Pirate Night, I wanted my barbecue food. The food was AWESOME but I preferred last year's barbecue in Cheneh. That night was kinda quiet with me chatting with Willert and Choon Khai while reading Godfather: The Lost Years. When everyone else slept, I exchanged jokes with Asyraf and Arul for a while then we slept like pigs.

The next day kinda sucked. We woke up to the sound of Tay Vivian aka The Angry Pikachu screaming. GOSH! She's worse than my mother. The activity was fun though frustrating with me swimming with makeshift rafts. Due to lack of preparation, my raft busted. I grabbed the bucket from Willert and hurried back. I came in second behind William(Sukma swimmer) and was battling nausea and was forced to eat raw eggs. A combination of disgusting food, exhausted body and nausea proved too much for a couch potato for me and I vomited. Then I was mad, I yelled and cursed I don't know why.

We then went back and bathed, packed up and left Redang BLA BLA BLA BLA.

Reached home, bathed, used computer for a while and slept on my computer desk. My mom asked me to sleep somewhere else. Went downstairs to sleep for 30 minutes than I was whisked off. We were going to Kuantan then to KL.

How good the camp is? Depends on how you look at it. The snorkeling trips and your exposure to nature's magic is OUT OF THIS WORLD while the dorm's condition, canteen food and most of the group activities kinda sucked(no offense AJK's but nobody's perfect). If you keep bragging and bragging, the camp will suck but if you relax and look back at your memories full of fishes, splashed and water, the camp is reasonably good. Thank you ELS.

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