Rock Intro Experience (RIE), Bukit Takun
Another event deal decided a week ago through Waterfall Survivor; one of the activities parked under Learning Adventure; and it is also one of my most wonderful outdoor activities experience in my life :)
After registering, paying the deposit and kept in touch with the instructor, Chadel, I couldn't wait for the day to come!
Despite being a little tired and a little muscle ache from the Tabur West hike a day before, I was not reconciled to FFK and quit! :) Another reason was because I paid for the deposit liao... RM60 wei...
Since I don't know the way (and, yes, I was lazy to drive too), our instructor, Chadel, picked me up from 1Utama, and convoyed with Hafiz, the other participant, to Rawang.
Oh yes, by the way, there was three of us in the event: Participants - me and Hafiz the 'big liar'; Instructor: Chadel.
After signing the necessary waiver form, packed up gears and stuff, off we went to the challenge.
Bukit Takun is a rocky hill located at Templers Park, Rawang, near a uber high-class housing estate. The only access into the hill is hiking, and since the housing estate's community doesn't allow random cars to go into their area, so we had to park our car at the guard house and walked from there.
Just before I thought tar road was nothing and not to mention those huge mansions have adorable dogs!! Although they barked like there's no tomorrow..., the hike up Bukit Takun made my jaw dropped wee bit. It's like walking in my grandfather's orchard, that kind of earth, but with steep grade, and the earth was quite loose too. According to Chadel, if there's rain, the whole place will become mud slide, and I didn't doubt him at all.
When we walked past a struggling fig tree (I hope I get the spelling right...) and I wanted to take a picture, something on the camera screen frustrated me. Clever me, I brought a fully charged camera, but forgot about the memory card.
... AaaAarRaaRRgGgGGgghhHHhhHHh ...
Zha dao-ed, I could only depend on Chadel to take the pictures. Plus, I will be a little awkward and shy to do those dramatic posing and emotions when a stranger or should I say, new friend :) takes my picture, and especially using his camera, not mine. So, boh bien lo, all the pictures you see have those boring 'V' and the awkward smiles... -____-
^First hike phase done - boring V
First hike phase was the most difficult. It's very steep, has soft ground, and nothing to hold. My thigh still hurt a little, so it's quite terrible lah.
Chadel showed us around the place, there's a hole where bats live in it, we were able to see 2-3 only. Then, the hike continued for another 15 minutes, and we finally arrived the rock climbing site.
The first ever lesson was to learn about how to tie a knot, the tools, gears, equipments and stuff about rock climbing, how to wear the seat harness, how to tie knots (Flemish bend or figure-8 is the most common one), how to tie this to that, how to handle the rope etc.
Chadel is one good educator: patient, careful, wise, enthusiast, funny (most important haha!)
Next was the "top rope" belaying practice.
"Top rope" means the 'hinge' of rope is from above. I'm so shitty in explanation -_-
Belay is the action, from below or top, to give slack (feeding rope to climber), take in slack ('tension' up the rope), and lowering the climber. Meaning, when you ever watch or see people doing, on poster, on TV or whatsoever, the person 'seems like' hanging on the climber is called belayer, the one who kinda hold the climber's life in his/her hand. There's also some "mock falls" to get the feeeeel.
All these training is to meet the objective of this activity: we'll do everything ourselves - climbing, belaying, abseiling etc. Since there's two of us, we equally took turns to climb and belay.
After all the practicing and stuff, the first mission was to help Chadel in his lead climbing, to put the ropes so that we can climb afterwards - "top rope climbing". I was the belayer, gan jiong-ed because of all the giving and taking slack, but I think I did a great job HAHA si ai bin!!
After everything was done, it's finally our turn! There's two 'routes' for us to climb on the same hill, but with different difficulties. The first one was called 'Falcon', the easier one.
^went up about a quarter but panting like a cow liao! -_-
P/S: as I said in the Tabur West post, I used the wrong techniques. Instead of using the legs to push myself up which is the best way and helped save energy, I tend to focus on my grip and insist of pulling myself up, which is very energy wasting and create huge tension burden on my arms. So the first round of climbing was very tiring, and I even gripped the rope to pull which was a bad bad habit.
^Finally, pusingan pertama tamat! Spot me please...
Abseiling down with the help of Hafiz as belayer (meaning he was the one feeding me rope and lowering me).
Next, my turn belaying Hafiz.
^*Full concentration*!!
Sifu always ask us to look at camera and smile on quite inappropriate moment... -_-
In the beginning, I stated Hafiz as a Big Liar was because, he mentioned this was his very first outdoor event, but he is so NOT like one. He's moving up like a speeding bullet!!
After gao dim-ed the first climb, we moved to the second climb which was at the left side of Falcon, the 'Lion King'. Noted: although the climbs are all at the same side of hill, the structures of the rock and stuff can be very different.
It gave me a very very hard time, I still not doing it the correct way (use legs instead of hands, push instead of pull) and I failed the very first difficult part for about 4-5 times! :( Pity Hafiz, he must be tired belaying and 'rescuing' me from falling.
As the 'hinge' of the toprope was actually at the left side of where we're climbing up, I also knocked my back against the rock when I swung to the left. It didn't hurt, just some scratch at the back.
Anyhow, mana boleh give up!? It's the spirit that made Chadel impressed too. Wahahaha! :p
^The very first difficult phase finally done!
^Push! push! push! Look so awkward...
^Finally arrived! Fuuuuu~~~~
First climb done. We had a simple lunch before moving on to the second round of climbing again. This time around, we would be abseiling down the hill by ourselves, meaning we control the speed, the amount of rope to let go etc.
^Sifu 'made' Hafiz accept the challenge of 'Open Book' a term used to describe when the hill split to two like an opening book
Poor fella, he had a tough time getting up from there! while me overlooked from below
I challenged the Falcon again, and i slowly adapting the feeling of 'pushing', I moved a lot faster, even sifu wanted to give me saman for speeding! :p
^Getting ready to go down! Abseiling is my favorite!!
Rest for a little while again, and we came to the final truth - the Chimney.
The Chimney is located higher up the platform we climbed on earlier, and the tricky part is because its surface is smooth without much cracks or anything to grab or step on, we need to find our way up. Of course lah, sifu always help.
^Getting ready for the Chimney!
...and, without you knowing it...
^CAK!! I'm up here already!!
As if it's really that easy ah... -____-
Everything we've learned and done was for this final thrill - abseil off 30m ledge!
It's about 15 storeys high!! (Assuming 1 floor = 2 metres) It's a little higher than the building the 'Malaysia Romeo' if-you-know-what-I-mean jumped off. I really salute his courage of jumping off from that height, because, even with the devices and stuff, I can feel fear inside myself leh when standing by at the edge!
^Going down luh~~~
Oh yes, before I forget, the reason I said sifu always take pictures at the 'inappropriate' time was because, minutes before I went to that spot on the picture above, which when I was standing by at the edge, in the 'L' position to go down, he asked me to smile and took my picture, then he kinda shouted:"You are not smiling!!" =..= Dude, 30m 不是开玩笑的噢~~
^One group photo to call it a day boring V AGAIN!
One of the best souvenir for this event was:
^Tada~~
2 significant leeches bites (escaped from Tabur's leeches, but not this time), 1 not so significant leech bite, some added wound on the existing scratches from Tabur, and many more 黑青 all over the legs. Arms and hands escaped from injury, just some small cuts and scratch, but the muscle pain is the one killing me -___-
If people don't know what I'm up to, they would think I kena 家暴-ed kot. Haha!! I was abused by mother nature!!!
Although it gives me pain and wound, although 'Tabur West and rock climbing 不是开玩笑的噢!', I had my greatest fun! I hope more to come argh!!!
Oh yes, one more thing.
This rock climbing event, or they called it 'Rock Intro Experience' (RIE), is a program organized by Learning Adventure, under supervision of highly experienced instructor, low instructor participant ratio, well equipped technical gears and devices, and a simple yet detailed lecture and talk about the gears, knots, do and don'ts etc, ensuring participants enjoy their rock climbing experience in a safe and controlled environment (unless you yourselves wanna gao gao zhan around). They have a list of outdoor skills programs for you to choose from, depending on your interest and liking. I would definitely going to join again when I have the time to come to KL!
P/S: If you happen to read this, and you are interested to join one of their programs, don't forget to tell them you know it through me, and my participant number is LA0026. It's for some 'personal' reason wahahahha!
P/P/S: No, this is not an advertorial, and I don't receive any advertising payment from them. It's something I find very interesting, and I joined it myself to experience it, and it's really fun. Who am I to write advertorial!? =..=
After registering, paying the deposit and kept in touch with the instructor, Chadel, I couldn't wait for the day to come!
Despite being a little tired and a little muscle ache from the Tabur West hike a day before, I was not reconciled to FFK and quit! :) Another reason was because I paid for the deposit liao... RM60 wei...
Since I don't know the way (and, yes, I was lazy to drive too), our instructor, Chadel, picked me up from 1Utama, and convoyed with Hafiz, the other participant, to Rawang.
Oh yes, by the way, there was three of us in the event: Participants - me and Hafiz the 'big liar'; Instructor: Chadel.
After signing the necessary waiver form, packed up gears and stuff, off we went to the challenge.
Bukit Takun is a rocky hill located at Templers Park, Rawang, near a uber high-class housing estate. The only access into the hill is hiking, and since the housing estate's community doesn't allow random cars to go into their area, so we had to park our car at the guard house and walked from there.
Just before I thought tar road was nothing and not to mention those huge mansions have adorable dogs!! Although they barked like there's no tomorrow..., the hike up Bukit Takun made my jaw dropped wee bit. It's like walking in my grandfather's orchard, that kind of earth, but with steep grade, and the earth was quite loose too. According to Chadel, if there's rain, the whole place will become mud slide, and I didn't doubt him at all.
When we walked past a struggling fig tree (I hope I get the spelling right...) and I wanted to take a picture, something on the camera screen frustrated me. Clever me, I brought a fully charged camera, but forgot about the memory card.
... AaaAarRaaRRgGgGGgghhHHhhHHh ...
Zha dao-ed, I could only depend on Chadel to take the pictures. Plus, I will be a little awkward and shy to do those dramatic posing and emotions when a stranger or should I say, new friend :) takes my picture, and especially using his camera, not mine. So, boh bien lo, all the pictures you see have those boring 'V' and the awkward smiles... -____-
^First hike phase done - boring V
First hike phase was the most difficult. It's very steep, has soft ground, and nothing to hold. My thigh still hurt a little, so it's quite terrible lah.
Chadel showed us around the place, there's a hole where bats live in it, we were able to see 2-3 only. Then, the hike continued for another 15 minutes, and we finally arrived the rock climbing site.
The first ever lesson was to learn about how to tie a knot, the tools, gears, equipments and stuff about rock climbing, how to wear the seat harness, how to tie knots (Flemish bend or figure-8 is the most common one), how to tie this to that, how to handle the rope etc.
Chadel is one good educator: patient, careful, wise, enthusiast, funny (most important haha!)
Next was the "top rope" belaying practice.
"Top rope" means the 'hinge' of rope is from above. I'm so shitty in explanation -_-
Belay is the action, from below or top, to give slack (feeding rope to climber), take in slack ('tension' up the rope), and lowering the climber. Meaning, when you ever watch or see people doing, on poster, on TV or whatsoever, the person 'seems like' hanging on the climber is called belayer, the one who kinda hold the climber's life in his/her hand. There's also some "mock falls" to get the feeeeel.
And, I bet you don't really understand any shit I'm talking about. You try once, then you'll know! HAHA!
All these training is to meet the objective of this activity: we'll do everything ourselves - climbing, belaying, abseiling etc. Since there's two of us, we equally took turns to climb and belay.
After all the practicing and stuff, the first mission was to help Chadel in his lead climbing, to put the ropes so that we can climb afterwards - "top rope climbing". I was the belayer, gan jiong-ed because of all the giving and taking slack, but I think I did a great job HAHA si ai bin!!
After everything was done, it's finally our turn! There's two 'routes' for us to climb on the same hill, but with different difficulties. The first one was called 'Falcon', the easier one.
^went up about a quarter but panting like a cow liao! -_-
P/S: as I said in the Tabur West post, I used the wrong techniques. Instead of using the legs to push myself up which is the best way and helped save energy, I tend to focus on my grip and insist of pulling myself up, which is very energy wasting and create huge tension burden on my arms. So the first round of climbing was very tiring, and I even gripped the rope to pull which was a bad bad habit.
^Finally, pusingan pertama tamat! Spot me please...
Abseiling down with the help of Hafiz as belayer (meaning he was the one feeding me rope and lowering me).
Next, my turn belaying Hafiz.
^*Full concentration*!!
Sifu always ask us to look at camera and smile on quite inappropriate moment... -_-
In the beginning, I stated Hafiz as a Big Liar was because, he mentioned this was his very first outdoor event, but he is so NOT like one. He's moving up like a speeding bullet!!
After gao dim-ed the first climb, we moved to the second climb which was at the left side of Falcon, the 'Lion King'. Noted: although the climbs are all at the same side of hill, the structures of the rock and stuff can be very different.
It gave me a very very hard time, I still not doing it the correct way (use legs instead of hands, push instead of pull) and I failed the very first difficult part for about 4-5 times! :( Pity Hafiz, he must be tired belaying and 'rescuing' me from falling.
As the 'hinge' of the toprope was actually at the left side of where we're climbing up, I also knocked my back against the rock when I swung to the left. It didn't hurt, just some scratch at the back.
Anyhow, mana boleh give up!? It's the spirit that made Chadel impressed too. Wahahaha! :p
^The very first difficult phase finally done!
^Push! push! push! Look so awkward...
^Finally arrived! Fuuuuu~~~~
First climb done. We had a simple lunch before moving on to the second round of climbing again. This time around, we would be abseiling down the hill by ourselves, meaning we control the speed, the amount of rope to let go etc.
^Sifu 'made' Hafiz accept the challenge of 'Open Book' a term used to describe when the hill split to two like an opening book
Poor fella, he had a tough time getting up from there! while me overlooked from below
I challenged the Falcon again, and i slowly adapting the feeling of 'pushing', I moved a lot faster, even sifu wanted to give me saman for speeding! :p
^Getting ready to go down! Abseiling is my favorite!!
Rest for a little while again, and we came to the final truth - the Chimney.
The Chimney is located higher up the platform we climbed on earlier, and the tricky part is because its surface is smooth without much cracks or anything to grab or step on, we need to find our way up. Of course lah, sifu always help.
^Getting ready for the Chimney!
...and, without you knowing it...
^CAK!! I'm up here already!!
As if it's really that easy ah... -____-
Everything we've learned and done was for this final thrill - abseil off 30m ledge!
It's about 15 storeys high!! (Assuming 1 floor = 2 metres) It's a little higher than the building the 'Malaysia Romeo' if-you-know-what-I-mean jumped off. I really salute his courage of jumping off from that height, because, even with the devices and stuff, I can feel fear inside myself leh when standing by at the edge!
^Going down luh~~~
Oh yes, before I forget, the reason I said sifu always take pictures at the 'inappropriate' time was because, minutes before I went to that spot on the picture above, which when I was standing by at the edge, in the 'L' position to go down, he asked me to smile and took my picture, then he kinda shouted:"You are not smiling!!" =..= Dude, 30m 不是开玩笑的噢~~
^One group photo to call it a day boring V AGAIN!
One of the best souvenir for this event was:
^Tada~~
2 significant leeches bites (escaped from Tabur's leeches, but not this time), 1 not so significant leech bite, some added wound on the existing scratches from Tabur, and many more 黑青 all over the legs. Arms and hands escaped from injury, just some small cuts and scratch, but the muscle pain is the one killing me -___-
If people don't know what I'm up to, they would think I kena 家暴-ed kot. Haha!! I was abused by mother nature!!!
Although it gives me pain and wound, although 'Tabur West and rock climbing 不是开玩笑的噢!', I had my greatest fun! I hope more to come argh!!!
...but going back to the boringland soon!! :(
Oh yes, one more thing.
This rock climbing event, or they called it 'Rock Intro Experience' (RIE), is a program organized by Learning Adventure, under supervision of highly experienced instructor, low instructor participant ratio, well equipped technical gears and devices, and a simple yet detailed lecture and talk about the gears, knots, do and don'ts etc, ensuring participants enjoy their rock climbing experience in a safe and controlled environment (unless you yourselves wanna gao gao zhan around). They have a list of outdoor skills programs for you to choose from, depending on your interest and liking. I would definitely going to join again when I have the time to come to KL!
P/S: If you happen to read this, and you are interested to join one of their programs, don't forget to tell them you know it through me, and my participant number is LA0026. It's for some 'personal' reason wahahahha!
P/P/S: No, this is not an advertorial, and I don't receive any advertising payment from them. It's something I find very interesting, and I joined it myself to experience it, and it's really fun. Who am I to write advertorial!? =..=
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