Hmm actually that's a good point. Well let's just say that I have little knowledge about camping out then. After four days in Bintan, Indonesia, I am perhaps slightly better off than before. If there's anyone out there who thinks that he knows a lot about campsites and stuff, well you should read this.
Presenting to you CampABLE in Bintan, Indonesia!
Yes that was the name of our campsite - which I find it stupid because contrary to what their name suggests, "campABLE" is a pretty much uncampable ground. This is because 1) it is susceptible to rain and the tents get flooded (which sucks, campsites should be rainproof), 2) there are roots all over the place and one might get a twisted ankle easily should he/she be careless and 3) they have PATHETIC facilities.
Today I will be talking briefly on points 1 and 2 and further expounding on point 3. Of course it's good to let some Singaporean brats have a taste of suffering the problems faced by our poor Indonesian counterparts but the hygiene was terrible. Are we going to learn things through poor hygiene? I say noooooo... but then again that only proves that I'm behaving more and more like a Singaporean brat so yes I admit I deserve that treatment. Still, now that I'm back, it doesn't mean I can't blog about it aha!
POINT 1: SUSCEPTIBILITY TO RAIN
Now I'm sure you'd all have seen rain before so I'm not going to include a picture here. If you still don't know what is rain like, go stare out of your window until you see water falling from the sky and maybe you'll have your answer. Alternatively, you could go to http://sg.yahoo.com and search under "Pictures" - Rain - Ar, eh, ai, en, that's how you spell "rain". Then you'd have lots of images there and if you STILL don't get what is rain, you'll never get it so just quit it will you.
Basically, rain does not go well with tents. Especially if you are going to sleep inside the tent. Well unfortunately it rained while we were in Bintan and so our tents got affected (ie FLOODED DAMN IT). This can only prove that 1) our pitching of the tents sucks, 2) it rained real heavy or 3) both. Still, since everyone's tent got flooded I figured it's probably due to the weather. My point is that we came to CCAL Camp to learn about Kouzes-Posner leadership (ya righttttt), not to get our tent flooded and catch the common cold.
Therefore if they could not provide us with excellent conducive study areas like the hotel rooms in the resort opposite the campsite, the least they could do is stop the rain. Or they jolly well go build a roof on top of the whole campsite. I know it's not easy, but it's not easy sleeping in water either. Now if anyone's going to bring up the idea of the water-bed, let me remind you that the water is IN the bed, not forming the bed.
So there. CampABLE and its bad non-rainproof system.
POINT 2: ROOTS
Well taking the ground to be the x-axis and taking the tree roots to be, well, roots, I think there are plenty of intersections. It's as if the graph plotted has powers of 124863572 or 248233156 or 87607922356, or better known as infinity. These sneaky devices planted on the ground serves to trip you and damage your ankles seriously. Having an ankle problem before, I declare CampABLE a dangerous ground to stay in because of the treacherous terrain. What's more the PE Department doesn't make it easier by making mother-big tentages in the middle of nowhere, and when you have big tents you get ropes all over the place.
Which yet again, aids in tripping people up. After making this long trip to Bintan, I think it's too much of them to expect us to trip again. Thus it's most certainly unreasonable to ask us to camp here where every damn thing's so trippable. Speaking of which, I think CampABLE can change its name to many other things with the same suffix -ABLE: perhaps like tripp-ABLE, flood-ABLE, dirty-ABLE, etc.
I figure you might be sick of my ranting so I'll move on to my diagrams.
POINT 3: CAMP FACILITIES
The most important and basic function of a human is to use the toilet. Don't try to dispute that because you know you can't live without a toilet for a day. (Actually you can but you'll have to pee behind rocks which is highly disturbing and you can't shower there so you get my drift.)
So basically - I was looking forward to having nice little toilets at the camp. After all with such crappy places to sleep in and to eat in, one might think that we deserve at least nice places to relieve ourselves right?
WRONG. Oh very WRONG.
There was a toilet briefing on the first day of camp and I almost forgone my dinner after that. Since I had such a bad experience, let me share it with you by illustrating the situation there. I promise you that this is nothing but the truth.
Just imagine. Dirty blue tiles all over the floor, then when you open the door to the cubicle.. you get the shit that is above. Now I admit I might use the word "shit" a little too freely, but you could take it in the literal sense. Some inconsiderate bugger who decides not to flush (ie pour water into the toilet bowl) will kill your appetite easily.
Oh and what's more the camp commandant didn't allow shoes in the toilet. Means if the inconsiderate bugger were to be slightly more inconsiderate and does his business outside the cubicle..
Just think about it. Since the toilet is so damn dirty anyway, how much more dirt can we bring in by wearing our shoes? Okay granted we might bring sand/mud in from outside, but would you rather step on things that come from inside your body or things that come from outside the body?
I'm being disgusting here. Bear with me for a while. Thankfully for you, you've got an Alt-F4 to put an end to this misery. Me? The only Alt-F4 I had was to mutter F for 4 bloody days that seemed like eternity. Especially when I needed the toilet. Ughhhhhhh!
Anyway moving on, the next picture shows your intelligent Indonesian architecture:
There's this bloody big door for dunno what purpose and uh, the showers were right behind it. I think the picture says it all. The cubicles were to the right and I tended to avoid it as far as I could, which meant that I usually shower more than anything. Of course, I usually took the showers on the furthest left to avoid the smell. Basically you just have to know that the toilet was some haven for dung beetles and gays.
Tsk just look at the communal showers. Enough to make your mama's boy cry and say "I don't wannnnnnnna batheeeee!" By the way the changing area is also near the door, which is quite what the heck. The door is also rather wide, around the size of like two Moses Lims. Meaning if a few girls happen to pass by the door while you're changing up for the next activity it's GG and 有目共睹 for all of them.
Plus when you see the communal showers you must also consider that PE teachers shower that. Imagine showering with your PE teacher. That's just. WRONG!
Now you think you have what it takes to be a camper? First you try bearing the stench of the no-flush system (because frankly who bothers with flushing), and next you try showering next to your PE teacher. Oh and not to mention you have to deal with lizard shit all over the place.
Okay so after all these questioning, I figure you must be tired of hearing the nonsense required to become a top-notch camper at CampABLE. So I'm going to dedicate a special picture for our loyal readers of TCS. A picture of BATH-TIME at the camp whoooooooo!
Given my excellent photographic memory and my sketching skills, I am able to provide you with a comprehensive sketch of what's it like.
Here goes:
Yep so hope you enjoyed the CampABLE special on TCS. Damn it, during the camp when I thought of TCS, I was like thinking of adding a "YA" behind the TCS to make TCSYA - Toilets Can Steal Your Appetite. If you do come to this camp one day (like if you are some super sadistic idiot who wants to torture yourself), tell me what I've reported is true.
Sigh - perhaps the best type of campers are those in soccer.
(PS All that I've reported applies strictly and only to the boys' toilets of the camp because quite obviously, I haven't been to the girls' one and have no desire to do so. Although it might be very different from our trash, I seriously doubt it very much. I don't know if they've got that big door and showers behind it but just take my word for it that YOU DON'T WANNA KNOW!)
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