Saturday, October 08, 2005
Back From Hellish Brunei...
Hey hey hey I am back finally!!! I am officially back from Brunei!!! Training there had been tough and mentally tormenting and what's more this time there was no fun R & R to look forward to like the previous Taiwan trip. Though tiring, this trip is full of memories that will be fun to talk about with my friends in years to come.
Let me start from the very beginning of my trip. I must say I am really very touched by my 2 friends that went all the way down to Changi Airport to see me off that night. We wished Mr. Teo Yuhao a happy birthday that morning itself as his birthday happened to fall on that day. Rumours were spreading fast when my men and buddies saw my friend that night. The congregation of RVians was short and we soon had to part with each other.
On the plane basically everyone just knocked out the minute they sat down as it was very early in the morning and we were simply too tired to do anything else. The journey was short and we reached Brunei in an hour plus time. Brunei was more backward than I thought and the jungles were just too much for comfort. During the one and half hour long boat ride we slept through it as well. No one was awake enough to feel sea sick I guess. We reached our camp after a long journey. The camp itself was really really very very simple and quite pathetic. The bunks were raised above the ground to avoid bugs and snakes I guess. The whole building itself was built of wood and I estimated about 70 to 80 people were packed into the small bunk like sardine packed into cans.
Exercises started the very next morning. The first exercise on the list was a guided navex. The terrain of Brunei was much different from those that I had been to in the past. Basically direct bashing would simply lead you to Holland. We normally walked on the ridge lines and sometimes they did not lead us to where we thought they would. So luck was pretty essential then. The next day we started our EX Nomad. We were given 3 days 3 nights to find 2 check points, 1 log point and 1 end point in the jungle. My group harboured at an amazingly early time of 1400. I dare say this was the earliest ever in the history of EX Nomad. We hid in a shelter built by the local and were well-sheltered from the rain till next day morning while I believed many others were drenched by the heavy rain. We woke up early next morning to continue our journey on the road. We sneaked past Foxbat and reached Test Tube safe and uncaught. We even managed to have breakfast by the river along the way! That night we harboured with some of the ATGM guys and the conversations between Murphy and Firdaus were just too hilarious. The next morning we pushed out to the road and simply waited to be picked up. We were all ready for a failure in Nomad since the start of the EX.
After one night's rest in the camp, we immediately move out the next morning to take over the other half of the platoon who're manning the checkpoints for the past few days. The first day it rained cats and dogs. Man that's really damn irritating... I had to stay in my pathetic shelter while my hammock slowly but surely got all wet. During the 4 days 3 nights quite a lot of things happened at my location. There was a team with injured OC and 2IC. There was Master Toh disturbing me at my location. Over the coms I knew that some teams went against the rule and split up and got lost. Of course the commander was blamed. There was even one team which had some spiritual encounters resulting in one of the specialists getting a high fever which lasted a few days. On the last day of manning checkpoints was my 21st birthday man! How sad could it get? Well my men were nice enough to cook me some birthday mee go reng which I appreciate a lot. Just when I thought things could not get any worse, it started to rain again! When I woke up in the morning I swore that the weather looked so fine that I dismantled my shelter. It's definitely my most memorable birthday ever. The 3 of us simply gave up and sat in the rain till it stopped. Luckily that day was the last day of manning checkpoints and we got to go back to Happy Valley and rest for the night.
The next morning we immediately set off to Spencer to become enemies for the infantry companies. Spencer was literally a knoll made of mud. The rain made the place so muddy and plus all the infantry kept running on the same place again and again till the whole place was not only muddy but also smelly. Wei Jie even fell down the hill when he woke up one morning trying to get out of the cocoon he was sleeping in. We had some fun catching the scouts there. Having to stay there for so many days really got us all fired up and gave the infantry a hard time fighting us. Besides fighting them at Spencer I was made the ambush IC and was deployed some distance away from Spencer to ambush the infantries when they left. After a while I got to know this Major following me better and realised that I had once talked to him before in BMT. What a small world man... After Spencer we moved to Cynthia and fight the infantries yet again. They must really hated us then haha... At Cynthia we had lots and
lots of fun trying to catch scouts! Chen Chen and I encountered one very very big wild boar while we were waiting to ambush
the scouts! At Cynthia the fighting got even more heated due to the fact that after overrunning us the infantries would get to go back to Happy Valley which was just besides the knoll. I witnessed some really attitude commanders. They were like really refusing to die when declared dead and got so aggressive when they believed that their blanks killed you but you were still standing. Come on man, it was just a simulation of war. Why did you have to get so worked up? Anyway we also did some CIP and helped to build a pathway on 2 knolls so that future soldiers training there will not step on the peasants' padi field again...
Finally everything was over and we packed up and left Lakiun Camp, a place where I don't think I want to go back again and a place where a man was believed to have been possessed by some spirit and suddenly got so strong that near to 20 men were required to pin him down... We took a boat again to go to the city and I was thrilled to see the sunset
that morning. It was so beautiful... Upon reaching another camp, we unpacked our stuff and started our e-tour. The tour wasn't much but the Water Village was an eye-opener and we had some local delicacies at one of the houses built on water. I took photo with the owner's daughter who was really cute... I forget to mention we had our lunch at a 
restaurant named Seasons and the food and ambience were surprisingly good. The rest of the R & R wasn't much and I didn't buy much things either.
Finally we set off for Singapore. This time I didn't sleep on the plane like I did when I left Singapore. I enjoyed the sceneries outside the plane and the movies that were played. In about one and half hours we were standing on Singapore. Thinking back how badly I suffered in Brunei, I really want to enjoy the one week off that I was entitled man... Bye Brunei...
My mind's unweaving / 8:37 PM
Let me start from the very beginning of my trip. I must say I am really very touched by my 2 friends that went all the way down to Changi Airport to see me off that night. We wished Mr. Teo Yuhao a happy birthday that morning itself as his birthday happened to fall on that day. Rumours were spreading fast when my men and buddies saw my friend that night. The congregation of RVians was short and we soon had to part with each other.
On the plane basically everyone just knocked out the minute they sat down as it was very early in the morning and we were simply too tired to do anything else. The journey was short and we reached Brunei in an hour plus time. Brunei was more backward than I thought and the jungles were just too much for comfort. During the one and half hour long boat ride we slept through it as well. No one was awake enough to feel sea sick I guess. We reached our camp after a long journey. The camp itself was really really very very simple and quite pathetic. The bunks were raised above the ground to avoid bugs and snakes I guess. The whole building itself was built of wood and I estimated about 70 to 80 people were packed into the small bunk like sardine packed into cans.
After one night's rest in the camp, we immediately move out the next morning to take over the other half of the platoon who're manning the checkpoints for the past few days. The first day it rained cats and dogs. Man that's really damn irritating... I had to stay in my pathetic shelter while my hammock slowly but surely got all wet. During the 4 days 3 nights quite a lot of things happened at my location. There was a team with injured OC and 2IC. There was Master Toh disturbing me at my location. Over the coms I knew that some teams went against the rule and split up and got lost. Of course the commander was blamed. There was even one team which had some spiritual encounters resulting in one of the specialists getting a high fever which lasted a few days. On the last day of manning checkpoints was my 21st birthday man! How sad could it get? Well my men were nice enough to cook me some birthday mee go reng which I appreciate a lot. Just when I thought things could not get any worse, it started to rain again! When I woke up in the morning I swore that the weather looked so fine that I dismantled my shelter. It's definitely my most memorable birthday ever. The 3 of us simply gave up and sat in the rain till it stopped. Luckily that day was the last day of manning checkpoints and we got to go back to Happy Valley and rest for the night.
The next morning we immediately set off to Spencer to become enemies for the infantry companies. Spencer was literally a knoll made of mud. The rain made the place so muddy and plus all the infantry kept running on the same place again and again till the whole place was not only muddy but also smelly. Wei Jie even fell down the hill when he woke up one morning trying to get out of the cocoon he was sleeping in. We had some fun catching the scouts there. Having to stay there for so many days really got us all fired up and gave the infantry a hard time fighting us. Besides fighting them at Spencer I was made the ambush IC and was deployed some distance away from Spencer to ambush the infantries when they left. After a while I got to know this Major following me better and realised that I had once talked to him before in BMT. What a small world man... After Spencer we moved to Cynthia and fight the infantries yet again. They must really hated us then haha... At Cynthia we had lots and
lots of fun trying to catch scouts! Chen Chen and I encountered one very very big wild boar while we were waiting to ambush
the scouts! At Cynthia the fighting got even more heated due to the fact that after overrunning us the infantries would get to go back to Happy Valley which was just besides the knoll. I witnessed some really attitude commanders. They were like really refusing to die when declared dead and got so aggressive when they believed that their blanks killed you but you were still standing. Come on man, it was just a simulation of war. Why did you have to get so worked up? Anyway we also did some CIP and helped to build a pathway on 2 knolls so that future soldiers training there will not step on the peasants' padi field again...
that morning. It was so beautiful... Upon reaching another camp, we unpacked our stuff and started our e-tour. The tour wasn't much but the Water Village was an eye-opener and we had some local delicacies at one of the houses built on water. I took photo with the owner's daughter who was really cute... I forget to mention we had our lunch at a 
restaurant named Seasons and the food and ambience were surprisingly good. The rest of the R & R wasn't much and I didn't buy much things either.
