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Revision to the previous post: SOCJOT stands for Support-arms Officer Cadets Jungle Orientation Training.
Anyway training in Brunei has been rather enriching and fruitful. The jungle terrain there is so different from Singapore and Tekong both in terms of vegetation and relief (especially the latter) and I've learnt a lot about navigation. Training there is tough and relax at the same time, because the 9-day trip only has basically 4 days of outfield training and the remaining 5 days are used for travelling, recreation or just stoning in bunk.
Day 0: Preparation
Caught a stupid flu that morning, and reported at Changi Terminal 2 at midnight with a red nose which I need to blow every 10 minutes T_T
Day 1: Travelling + Orientation
- 1.5 hours flight - 40min bus - 3 hours ferry - 20min bus -> arrive at SAF Jungle Training School
- unload luggage, go for an orientation around the camp and then just settle in.
Day 2: Introduction
- Pace course (to gauge our pacing for judging distances during navigation)
- midday Jungle Orientation Walk
The walk was actually quite tiring cos the relief is very steep and the weather is super hot. A lot of people fell out along the way cos they couldn't acclimatise to the heat. I also felt my heart pulsating at like twice my normal rate which I think is cos I'm exerting myself while I'm still sick with flu. After I finished the jungle walk, I was contemplating whether to go report sick or not but I hecked it in the end because I wanted to complete the training that was to come.
Day 3: Guided Navex
All the instructors there are really pro people with lots of badges and tabs. The chief commander and all the warrant officers there are commando rangers, and the captain which took my team for Guided Navex had a Recon and Sniper tab :O Anw as the name applies, we just did some navigation with the captain supervising and guiding us, giving us pointers along the way.
Day 4 [Outfield Begins]: Ex NOMAD (i.e. Unguided Navex)
We left camp at dawn, reached our start point at 0830, and found our first checkpoint at 1030hrs. Then, we gave up finding the second checkpoint, sat down for lunch at 1130 and made our way to the endpoint.
After we moved off from lunch, we continued in our general direction NNE while walking along the ridgeline. Somehow, i think we missed a right turn and the ridgeline veered west and then southwest. As none of us wanted to backtrack, we just kept going and in the end took a super long route to the end point. At the last part when we were near our checkpoint but couldn't find an accessible path, we had to bash straight down a ravine and climb again to reach the other side. It was a really crazy climb x_x The slope was like 80 degrees and we had to get down on all fours and use our hands to grab any vines or roots in our sight.
We reached our end point at 0430 and then harboured for the night. Later we found out that another team made it from our same checkpoint to the endpoint in only 1 hour using the correct route. We freaking took 6 hours -.- Sian.
Day 5: Ex Mountain Rat i.e. climb up Mount Biang
We were made to stay at the endpoint unti 1100hrs before we can move up as a time penalty for not completing the second checkpoint. After we were fetched to the start point for the climb, we started moving off at 1330hrs.
1330: move off from start point and into the jungle
1445: reached the river crossing point at around the foot of the mountain
1540: refilled our water, crossed the river and moved off
1630: after going up and down countless knolls, i felt my right knee starting to give way
1650: omg wtheck 88 degrees slope. why isn't this ending
1710: reached the summit. collapsed on the floor
Climbing up Mount Biang was the most shag experience I ever had since I enlisted into army. There were a million knolls along the way and scaling and descending them was so energy sapping. It shouldn't have been that bad, but our instructor was determined to return by the next day and we had to harbour by nightfall at 5pm and hence he just led us and chionged. We didn't rest much in between and I think my flu also made it worse, because in my usual condition, I wouldn't have gotten tired so easily. I was like Charlotte during Mount Ophir, puffing my nose every few minutes and keeping the tissue in a ziplock bag by my side x) I really felt like giving up at around 1630 when my knees started to give way, but everyone else kept going and so I kept up too.
Reaching the summit was like the awesomest feeling ever. And then dinner that night beside a fire with hot maggie mee and a heated up ration pack was like the most fantabulous dinner I had in my life. Seriously.
Day 6: Descent from Mount Biang
We descended in the opposite side of the mountain as our ascent. Descending was much easier because instead of spending effort to push yourself up to the next step, now you just need to drop yourself downwards using gravity. After we descended, we reached a river, took a boat to the other side, hopped on a bus, and went back to camp.
Day 7 and 8: Relax in bunk
I swore a bed never felt so good. After sleeping on hard ground for 2 nights and going through that hellish climb, when I first clambered onto my bed and relaxed my whole body, the feeling was just orgasmic.
Anyway for two days we did basically nothing but packed our luggage and slept in bunk. Our warrant officers also gave us frequent canteen breaks and I ate so many chips, burgers and more chocolate bars than I could count with both hands. I was really degrading into some fat sloth, until on Day 8 evening, our instructors told all of us to go do pullups and I only did 6, faring the worst among all the engineers T_T No one else did less than 10. I was so depressed that I sworn off junk foot and went on a diet for the remaining of the trip
Day 9: R&R
Rest and Recreation! We did a guided tour around Brunei, went to The Mall, watched Captain America for S$4, rested temporarily in another SAF Camp in Brunei, and then proceeded to the airport and flew back here :)
---
On a side note, here's a list of my conquests of mountains. Hopefully next time as recreation I can go scale mountains during vactions and explore other beauties like Kinabalu, McKinley, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro and K2 :DDD
1. Mount Panti, Malaysia, 2002: 513m
2. Mount Ophir, Malaysia, 2009: 1276m
3. Mount Biang, Brunei, 2011: 473m (with FBO)
Anyway training in Brunei has been rather enriching and fruitful. The jungle terrain there is so different from Singapore and Tekong both in terms of vegetation and relief (especially the latter) and I've learnt a lot about navigation. Training there is tough and relax at the same time, because the 9-day trip only has basically 4 days of outfield training and the remaining 5 days are used for travelling, recreation or just stoning in bunk.
Day 0: Preparation
Caught a stupid flu that morning, and reported at Changi Terminal 2 at midnight with a red nose which I need to blow every 10 minutes T_T
Day 1: Travelling + Orientation
- 1.5 hours flight - 40min bus - 3 hours ferry - 20min bus -> arrive at SAF Jungle Training School
- unload luggage, go for an orientation around the camp and then just settle in.
Day 2: Introduction
- Pace course (to gauge our pacing for judging distances during navigation)
- midday Jungle Orientation Walk
The walk was actually quite tiring cos the relief is very steep and the weather is super hot. A lot of people fell out along the way cos they couldn't acclimatise to the heat. I also felt my heart pulsating at like twice my normal rate which I think is cos I'm exerting myself while I'm still sick with flu. After I finished the jungle walk, I was contemplating whether to go report sick or not but I hecked it in the end because I wanted to complete the training that was to come.
Day 3: Guided Navex
All the instructors there are really pro people with lots of badges and tabs. The chief commander and all the warrant officers there are commando rangers, and the captain which took my team for Guided Navex had a Recon and Sniper tab :O Anw as the name applies, we just did some navigation with the captain supervising and guiding us, giving us pointers along the way.
Day 4 [Outfield Begins]: Ex NOMAD (i.e. Unguided Navex)
We left camp at dawn, reached our start point at 0830, and found our first checkpoint at 1030hrs. Then, we gave up finding the second checkpoint, sat down for lunch at 1130 and made our way to the endpoint.
After we moved off from lunch, we continued in our general direction NNE while walking along the ridgeline. Somehow, i think we missed a right turn and the ridgeline veered west and then southwest. As none of us wanted to backtrack, we just kept going and in the end took a super long route to the end point. At the last part when we were near our checkpoint but couldn't find an accessible path, we had to bash straight down a ravine and climb again to reach the other side. It was a really crazy climb x_x The slope was like 80 degrees and we had to get down on all fours and use our hands to grab any vines or roots in our sight.
We reached our end point at 0430 and then harboured for the night. Later we found out that another team made it from our same checkpoint to the endpoint in only 1 hour using the correct route. We freaking took 6 hours -.- Sian.
Day 5: Ex Mountain Rat i.e. climb up Mount Biang
We were made to stay at the endpoint unti 1100hrs before we can move up as a time penalty for not completing the second checkpoint. After we were fetched to the start point for the climb, we started moving off at 1330hrs.
1330: move off from start point and into the jungle
1445: reached the river crossing point at around the foot of the mountain
1540: refilled our water, crossed the river and moved off
1630: after going up and down countless knolls, i felt my right knee starting to give way
1650: omg wtheck 88 degrees slope. why isn't this ending
1710: reached the summit. collapsed on the floor
Climbing up Mount Biang was the most shag experience I ever had since I enlisted into army. There were a million knolls along the way and scaling and descending them was so energy sapping. It shouldn't have been that bad, but our instructor was determined to return by the next day and we had to harbour by nightfall at 5pm and hence he just led us and chionged. We didn't rest much in between and I think my flu also made it worse, because in my usual condition, I wouldn't have gotten tired so easily. I was like Charlotte during Mount Ophir, puffing my nose every few minutes and keeping the tissue in a ziplock bag by my side x) I really felt like giving up at around 1630 when my knees started to give way, but everyone else kept going and so I kept up too.
Reaching the summit was like the awesomest feeling ever. And then dinner that night beside a fire with hot maggie mee and a heated up ration pack was like the most fantabulous dinner I had in my life. Seriously.
Day 6: Descent from Mount Biang
We descended in the opposite side of the mountain as our ascent. Descending was much easier because instead of spending effort to push yourself up to the next step, now you just need to drop yourself downwards using gravity. After we descended, we reached a river, took a boat to the other side, hopped on a bus, and went back to camp.
Day 7 and 8: Relax in bunk
I swore a bed never felt so good. After sleeping on hard ground for 2 nights and going through that hellish climb, when I first clambered onto my bed and relaxed my whole body, the feeling was just orgasmic.
Anyway for two days we did basically nothing but packed our luggage and slept in bunk. Our warrant officers also gave us frequent canteen breaks and I ate so many chips, burgers and more chocolate bars than I could count with both hands. I was really degrading into some fat sloth, until on Day 8 evening, our instructors told all of us to go do pullups and I only did 6, faring the worst among all the engineers T_T No one else did less than 10. I was so depressed that I sworn off junk foot and went on a diet for the remaining of the trip
Day 9: R&R
Rest and Recreation! We did a guided tour around Brunei, went to The Mall, watched Captain America for S$4, rested temporarily in another SAF Camp in Brunei, and then proceeded to the airport and flew back here :)
---
On a side note, here's a list of my conquests of mountains. Hopefully next time as recreation I can go scale mountains during vactions and explore other beauties like Kinabalu, McKinley, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro and K2 :DDD
1. Mount Panti, Malaysia, 2002: 513m
2. Mount Ophir, Malaysia, 2009: 1276m
3. Mount Biang, Brunei, 2011: 473m (with FBO)
posted by hongrui at
8/03/2011 08:50:00 PM
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