Pre-expedition photos

I'm still midway through packing with 3 hours to go before leaving the house, but there isn't much on the list to go. Very restless now, walking around to get individual items, coming back to the laptop to surf the net and chat, I still am not feeling real excitement about the trip but just a nervous tension thinking of the immediate arrangements.

Photograph from National Geographic website

Here's the Nat Geo report of a recent exploration of the Xe Bang Fai cave there which was probably the inspiration for the trip. Looks really cool isn't it? It takes a lot in terms of planning to get there, but I'm sure it will be the trip of my life (for this year at least). This is the reason why I bought my foldable boat. Though it's an insane investment to many, it is the stuff dreams are made of.

Pre-trip prep

Things have been silent so far here because I was busy with stuff; had lots of meetings with the various contractors, attended (wasted time) at school camps, and did preparations for my trip. Actually, I haven't been doing very much of the last, which should be the most important thing because I'm due to leave TOMORROW. But all I have done so far is to throw a few bits of stuff at one corner of the room's floor, waiting to sweep them all into the bag. But I'm good with packing my stuff, will get it done in a while.

I'm proud to have improvised my sail mounting base myself! Last week I went back to school and looked for the friendly workshop technician there. He gave me an aluminium plate which was exactly the size I wanted, and I had fun using the hacksaw, file, and the drilling machine, which I haven't used in more than a decade. It was really satisfying to create something that is functional.

I had to put 2 D-ring patches on the side of the boat to secure the mast down, but because of the uneven top surface, it is hard to apply weight down on it for it to be securely glued on. I actually have to tear off one of the patch because it was so non-sticky, scratch off the glue layer and redo it again yesterday night.

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This afternoon, I picked up JB and we went around, printed maps at Peace center, and buying loads of lithium batteries. We came back home and sprayed on UV protectant on our boat decks and lubricated our frame's tube joints, then went out again to collect the lights from his friend who made it for him. It's really quite an remarkable piece of engineering, with many thoughtful features, will post pictures if I can after my trip.

Just now while folding the boat to keep it, the D-ring patch came off again, and I had to spend an hour peeling away the old glue layer to stick on again at a better position. The glue refused to came off on the other piece though, and in frustration I made a new patch. Unfortunately, I need to secure the glueing of the D-ring to the strap first before I can stick it to the boat proper. So probably I will wake up at 7am tomorrow to do it, and hope that by 6pm before I leave for the airport tomorrow I can get it secured!

Suddenly feel very mad about it...should sleep soon...

Busy with expedition planning

The upcoming Laos river trip is really quite a major expedition. The gangleader has repeatedly told us to expect hiccups everywhere due to transport/access/logistic problems. The interesting thing about the trip is that we will be paddling through kilometers of caves, and that means it will be pitch dark inside. JB's got a friend to come up with some lighting system, but we'll need to improvise a stand for mounting onto our boats.

Meanwhile, I am doing other things

• Trying to download a GPS map of Laos and get it installed in the set
• Getting emergency camp food packets - I hope it comes on time from the US!
• Packing all logistics for myself and JB
• Planning for food - and both of us are fussy eaters!

Also, I need to create this mounting base for my downwind sail, something like this -

This improvisation is necessary because usually the cleats are fixed directly on hardshell kayaks by drilling through the deck and fixing it on; but for skin kayaks that's definitely not possible. It prevents the sail base from rubbing against the cloth deck and also adds rigidity to the whole setup so that the energy gained from the wind can be better transferred to forward motion (and not side-to-side rocking etc).

Whole lot of work - thankfully the holiday is here!

Playing with my GPS

I got my Garmin 76cx GPS about 2 months back, but really just got to know how to use it these past few days. First, I didn't know how to upload maps that I downloaded from the internet into it, and it took a long while for me to learn that from Addi.

Now that that's done, I played around with the different functions these days. I select waypoints to go to on the map and followed the directions while driving, and tried to explore places and features in far off places in Malaysia like Putrajaya and Langkawi (with some success).

It's really cool how the map gives you information like food places, petrol stations, hospitals and other notable features near your current location, so you can really just have fun exploring a place with it. I'm looking forward to doing things like driving up KL with it some day!

Expeditions completed!

Took my CCA kids out for their annual round island expedition last weekend, and am glad the whole thing was completed without much hiccups. The planning was hellish for me, as I was the only one slaving away to cobble up the program, and there were many different parties I had to liaise with.

Thank goodness I had Jame's help on the expedition for spontaneous problem-solving. There was endless things to worry about and it was fortunate that he decided to hang around for the entire expedition to help me out with the planning.


The most important thing I have learnt on the trip - Time for facilitation of the experiences should not be compromised! Must learn how to do it properly too, and must somehow teach the other teachers as well.


I am glad to hear from a few of the kids that they really enjoyed the whole thing, and that really makes me wonder (like last year) if I can outdo this next year ha. One of them said that she slept 2 hours for the two nights! I slept more, but then, I worry more during the trip too ha.

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And then I am back today from a river paddling race, after leaving yesterday! James and I left from Golden Mile at 8pm, and ended up in Serimbun bus station at 2pm, where we were picked up to rest at the accomodation. After a short nap, we work up at 7am and waited a long while for breakfast beforewe were told to go to the competition grounds to consume that instead.


The water level was very low, and that made the river race poor in quality. On the flat stretches, one couldn't plant a full blade into the water to paddle without hitting the bottom, and on the rapids, much of the boulders were exposed. We scrapped over the rocks countless times, and many including myself got stuck when we couldn't control our boats round the narrow gaps where the water runs between the rocks.


It was frustrating to get stuck so often, and up till now I still don't know if my ability to choose my paddling line down the river was so poor, or if it was the length of the boat that gave me problems (though others were using even longer boats). All thoughts of competing vanished pretty soon, and I told myself I'll rather try enjoying the experience instead.


Alas, things were not that easy. The rapids were over within the hour, and we paddled a flat stretch to the finishing line, which we were told was about 5km away. We ended up paddling for 2 hours downriver! It's unbelievable how a river race can have such an extensive flat stretch, which I have to remind again, was so shallow that it made paddling very awkward. James and I kept wondering if we missed the end point, took a wrong turn etc etc...


Finally we reached the end, the coming in 3rd and 4th from last. We couldn't care less, and we decided that there's no way we'll want to do this again the next day. So we hurriedly made arrangements to leave, hitching a ride with this small group going to KL for a climb before returning back to the event that evening.

So in one day, I paddled in a river race, visited Camp 5 climbing center (it was truly cavernous), had a great dinner, and took the bus back to Singapore, reaching at 5am. Quite a fruitful day actually, but pity the quality of the paddling.