Freezing Cold Yong Belar II

Monday, April 14, 2014 , , , , 0 Comments

Part I: http://alifeasamortal.blogspot.com/2014/03/freezing-cold-yong-belar.html 
Part III: http://alifeasamortal.blogspot.com/2014/04/freezing-cold-yong-belar-iii.html
Titanium goodies courtesy of ashley and the 'bunsen burner'.
(sorry for the blurry photos! my hands were freezing! :x) 

After fumbling for our gears and shivering in the cold for about 25 minutes, we were finally done setting up the tent, tarp and had our mini outdoor stove out, ready to boil water to make a hot mug of ginger tea. While we make ginger tea, Bryan was so nice to fetch more water for us from the water point. It's about 500m away but the way down is full of ruts and potholes. And plus, it's so cold that, if possible, we actually don't even want to budge away from our place.

Lil one we found at night ;)

Well, we also needed to shower, badly because both me and Ashley felt smelly, so, we reluctantly got up after having hot ginger tea, packed our clothes and towel, then went down to clean ourselves.
We just took our towels, wet it and wipe our bodies with the damp towel. We only soap from knee below as there were dried up dirt and mud from the hike earlier. The water was freezing cold. It's like as if you're bathing in ice water. I said : "Ey Ashley, just try to think as if we're taking an ice bath," then chuckled gleefully. The water point wasn't very deep. It's probably about 1 and a half feet deep and it's actually quite clean. Also, it's not a river, but just a little stream and its width is around 2 fully grown human standing side by side.

Ashley at our camp. :)

We still felt uncomfortable as we didn't really bath but we don't think we could stand splashing ourselves with freezing water. Bryan came down shortly after we've finished 'bathing' and changing into our fresh clothes. We waited for Bryan and of course looked away while he clean himself and when he's done, we went back up.

My 'partner-in-crime' whenever I go for any trail adventure.

While in the tent, I told myself several things I should (and you can learn from my lesson, too :) ) learn from this hiking trip.

  • First, never ever ever be lazy to pack things I had in mind before the trip. I actually wanted to pack my jumpers in the bag but because I'm so used to wearing shorts, I told myself it wasn't needed. I also wanted to bring my wind breaker (I thought that already having one fleece jacket was enough but the rain proved me otherwise) along but I told myself it may make my bag bulkier. 
  • Second, bring more food especially when you're hiking in the cold. This sounds like an obvious statement, now but, I never thought about bringing more food and I actually brought less this time. I always have extra food from my hiking trip and well, some of them looked nasty and squished. (oops!) oh and yes! do very much bring hot drinks if you know you're hiking up in the cold!! 
  • Third, Expect the unexpected. None of us expected a heavy downpour. Well, even if there was, we thought it would go away quickly. And so, that's also the result of me not bringing my windbreaker (aka hiking raincoat?) and my long pants. (smart move.) 
  • Fourth, Ashley brought tortillas instead of the usual bread everyone brings.Next time, we'll try to bring more ready-to-eat foods like cooked ham (no porky ham of course. You know, the 'invisible rule' in the forest!), cooked sausages (Ashley got us single-serving wrapped sausages from Jusco) and the usual canned food. 
Pretty flowers we found. Unsure of the name, though.

Tiny roots I found hanging on a branch.
(The photo would look better without the lens blurring up :()


Then came one of the hikers from the other group. He came shivering, wearing his poncho and offered us his boiling water, asking if we needed any but we politely decline but felt thankful that he was really thoughtful. It was so cold that we couldn't really cook but still, we managed to make more hot water for milo and instant noodles. We shared them amongst ourselves and well, if it weren't for the rain, we would have tried to socialize with the other hikers like we usually do.

Shhsss.......*snooze* *snore*

But anyway, we stayed in the tent and snuggle inside and then after awhile, we realise the rain has stopped! Still even when the rain has stopped, it's still freezing cold. I was cold until the point where, I could touch the cup of the boiling water and not feel anything. Really, I was that cold. My touch senses only came back after a few seconds. Bryan went down to fetch another batch of water. He said that these were going to be our drinking water for tomorrow's hike down and then, he threw in a tiny tablet. It's about half cm in diameter and it's suppose to get rid of the microorganism in our water. Since we had nothing much, we decided to go to bed early. We're suppose to hike to the peak tomorrow - Yong Belar!

Till Part III,


(p.s: sorry for the irrelevant photos following the paragraph. I couldn't take much photo, especially when our surroundings are getting darker and plus, I was really freezing in the cold weather..!) 


Cleo Loong

One of God’s many creation on planet earth. Here are just some of the things I’ve learn thus far from life and I believe there are many many more lesson to come in this journey.

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