Saturday, October 18, 2008
12:27 AM

Ke Atas

Ages since I've been on a tropical trek. Big difference when I 'trekked' in Blackforest. Hardly perspired as I attempted to ascend and descend slippery snow-covered trails, while in rainforests, I get all sticky and muddy as I scrambled up vertical dirt tracks infested with all sorts of bugs.

Somehow, I just seem to miss trekking without remembering the actual feeling while doing the ascent. Just imagine having a 12kg load on your bag. You take a big step up the first step, slip a little as the soil is soft. Then another. Then another with the other leg. The another. This goes on and on, at an angle of 70 degrees to the horizontal. You start using your arms to pull/ push yourself up. Sweat drips profusely down you forehead, chest and legs. You start hearing your breathing. Soon your sight becomes a blur as blood rushes throughout your body and your head. You start telling yourself, "go on, don't give up".

This goes on for another hour, then another. Finally the air feels cool. More mosses and less bugs on the terrain. It's finally more than 800m above sea level, and you're closer to the peak.

I complain about the dirt, the humidity, the bugs and the scar you get on your legs after a trek, but I still go back to the mountains. Perhaps it's for the adrenalin rush, the sweat-out experience, the fresh air, or the panoramic view. But then, I don't just go with anyone. It's really for the company, the escape with the right people.

This particular trek is indeed a special one. We missed our bus from Larkin because we left school late, and were held up at the Customs on Singapore side. We ended up negotiating for prices to get to Segil, and finally were satisfied with 2 cabs. It was an exciting ride at 130kph. The cabbie did not put on the seatbelt until we reached a police checkpoint. The average distance between our cab and the vehicle in front was less than 1m, he was effectively tailgating, or some say, drafting?! To paint a clearer picture, most times we were in between the first and the second lane, and whenever the cars on the first and second lanes were far enough apart, he would drive through the gap, as a means of "overtaking". The cabbie was a bumiputra but he could speak Mandarin fluently due to his education in a Chinese school.

Finally, we reached Segil, but after some clarification, we realised we were in the wrong entrance, but by then our cabbies have left, so we had to stay over outside a prata shop in a carpark, where sounds of creatures squeaking and hitting the zinc roof were audible. We speculated those creatures were rats, as the cats were purring loudly and not many species squeak so loudly like that. It turned out those were bats flying around, and returning to their homes under the zinc roofs.

Anyhow, we managed to get on the trek, and throughout, we behaved like senior citizens. First it was me who felt breathless and had my vision blanked out. Next it was Weizhe. Then it was Heng who had leg cramps from too much muscles. Alph tripped over a fallen log and got pricked. Melvin followed suit. Throughout, we needed so much rest, it was like leisure trek. But who cares. We arrived at our campsite early, but were joined by a bunch of 4WD campers.

Those people were atrocious! Tables and chairs (real chairs, not field chairs), lamps lit from their car engines, gas stoves, audio system from the cars, complete crockery set and BBQ sets. We have never seen campers having such complete equipment before! So we were jealous and started fantasising that they would bring us down the bottom of the mountain the next day since we had difficulty getting transport back to JB, and that we could join them for dinner and so on.

Guess what, as we spoke to one of our neighbouring campers, he offered to bring us ke bawa without even having us asking! Xinyu and I were immediately celebrating in our hearts as we continued our conversation with him. Then, a bunch of his fellow campers came over and offered to cook dinner for us later! I don't know what to say. It seems these pple are full of passion for life, for enjoyment, for everything and everyone. We have never met in our lives. We might never meet them again, and we had absolutely nothing to offer them. To think about offering them our canned longans and corned beef was just an absolute joke. What they had was unrivalled - bah kut teh, fried noodles, stir-fried wild boar meat, squirrel meat stir-fried and deep fried, BBQ chicken and spare ribs. We wondered how a bunch of pot-bellied middle-aged men could cook so well, and the mystery was solved when we found out the chef was the owner of a wild delicacy tzechar restaurant in Kulai. (!!!) The alcohol stock was neverending - beer, Chinese wine and grape wine.

This has to be the most elaborate trekking feast we ever had.

Worthwhile climbing ke atas to catch the sunrise.

These guys showed us what kampung spirit and luxury camping was.

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Nobody actually knows what exactly is going to happen in the market next. How many more banks are going to go bust? Is DBS going to pay back the housewives and elderly their hard-earned savings that went down with Lehman in their High Notes and Minibonds? Will the liquidity pumped into the economy by US and European nations save us from the crisis? When will recession set in? What implications are there for the structure of banks in the future?

Same for me. I had been kept waiting for my employment status for the past 1.5 months, and finally heard assurance from them today. Yes, I'm keen on joining, but the worry of whether the Investment Banking arm will be kept going in the medium term is not unfounded. But then, which bank can you say is currently safe from the crisis. Perhaps none.