Cameron's

I ended up only rolling in bed till it was time to get up the night before, whee.

The travelers: Dr. Cathy, Dr. Charles, Tse Yuan, Lee Yiung and I.
Time I left home: 5:30 am
Time I left home (I came back for my camera -_-) : 5:40 am.

List of events
- Met Tse Yuan and Lee Yiung at bus stand at 5:50 am
- Done with breakfast with them about 6:15 am
- Travel to the bosses (get lost around her area stupidly etc) reaching about 7:15 am
- Left to pick Dr. Charles at Gombak station about 7:30 am and up up we went
- Thrown left and right like a trio (Tse Yuan, me and Lee Yiung) of pin balls in the backseat by their driving all the way up Cameron's *blueah*
- Felt like shit in car, for I was in the middle and my short legs were feeling severely uncomfortable, they hurt like crap and I can't stretch.
- Reached Cameron's Gunung Brinchang about 10:30 am
- Sampled at 3 streams for my project and climbed all about the hills for Lee Yiung's, which was fun.
- Only Boss Cathy sampled from the last river as it was actually forbidden to enter (she sneaked in) the area, because...

the rotten sign said "Dilarang masuk, voltan tinggi"

Gotta appreciate what my supervisor does to get me good samples *salutes Dr Cathy*

Time for a few (are you kidding?) pictures

Site 1: My first sampling site; Sungai Pertang (altitude approximately 1800m)

I gotta say, the place is cooling and the air is so fresh, it's actually a blessing just to be up there doing nothing. The stream water was extremely cold; feels similar to what you'd get from a water cooler. The measured water temperature was only 15 degrees Celcius though, and I soiled my shoes after the 3 sites; it was falling apart and I had to wear Tse Yuan's spare slippers home >_<>

Dr. Cathy with the sampling net, braving the daunting climb up the rocky stream. We were to randomly collect whole submerged leaves and leaf litter etc.
Cathy and Charles (who was workin on the pH or dissolved oxygen meter)
More of the stream, I gotta thank everyone for helping me out with the sampling, really.

Stream

Why do I keep seeing her around? This was quite high up the stream by the way.
Lee Yiung with net and Dr. Charles in the background.

Site 2: Roadside hills, Pitcher plant site for Lee Yiung

Dr. Charles is amazing. He could spot pitcher plants at the side of the hill while driving, when us normal folk took a few minutes even when we were DOWN from the car, straining our eyes, searching for those evasive plants. Pitcher plants are being harvested to be sold by the way, and it's rather stupid that they sell it in KL since they won't last more than a few weeks. The climate's too hot, and even if you aircon it, it won't be humid enough.

First pitcher plant sighting; that's the car that brought us up.
And this was how it looked like. There were 2 species, a whitish one found higher up in trees and the purplish (I think it's called Sarracenia) one that's usually lower on trees, I forgot their scientific names. I think this sample had maggots, a centipede and some other bugs in the juice inside. If you're wondering, the biggest pitchers we saw had a diameter (at largest point) of about 3 inches, and is about 15-18 cm long. Check a ruler, these are estimates based on my excellent memory. ITrust the guy who forgot to bring his camera on first departure

And this was the other species further up. We had to climb a fair bit to get up there, and these tend to clump together, so there were usually about 5-6 nearby each other (by the way, it was fun to climb, got us in touch with our ape-ish instincts).

If you've ever wondered how a pitcher plant looked like inside.. (wish I had the chance to take the first pitcher's insides, you'll see the centipede etc if I did). Oh, if you're wondering, that lil white-coloured, vertically-oriented thing right above the darker middle area is some kinda fly larvae (Dipteran larvae according to Dr. Amazing Cathy). Fellas who did GEN3030, it pretty much looked like the Drosophila larvae we were looking at during labs actually, wriggling up and down the pitcher. This was bigger though, about a centimeter in length.

One of the bigass pitcher's we saw up the hills.(Clockwise from top left): 1. The rim of the pitcher plant, also known as the 'peristome', 2. view from the top of the lid of the pitcher, 3. view of underside of the lid, which contained little fine hairs to trap insects, according to Dr. Charles, 4. the soft pair of lil spines that run down the length of the pitcher, also known as the 'wings'.

This was actually the site we wandered about most, and was probably the most fun since it involved the most climbing and had quite a myriad of things to see. We even saw..

Bones!Believed to be from a dog, since Dr. Cathy found (and collected) the canine's mouthpart (for her daughter who collects them). It seems her daughter has quite a collection of these bones from different animals which can be rather creepy depending what perspective you're looking at it fromRest in peace *Woof*

More from this site, which was actually a forest reserve (we saw a sign when we were higher up in the climb)
This would've looked a lot nicer had my camera been better with lighting. It was supposed to look all dark and musty, but the stupid camera automatically 'balanced' it, pfft. Mossy, entangled branches everywhere, looks perfect.
Fungi and moss on a branch.
Rare ginger flower, Tse Yuan says.
Close up.
"Baby you're all that I need, when you're lying here in my arms. I'm finding it hard to believe, we're in heaven"

Fossilized elephant.

High up the climb; a landing you won't want to fall off from. Breathtaking view from up there, a lil misty and very pretty.
Another shot of the landing.
View from the landing.
Fossilized Rhinoceros.

Site 3: Sungai Pertang 2 (the other end of the first river); my second sampling site

Not many pictures here, I nearly fell a few times because 1. A brittle branch I was grabbing to climb up broke, 2. The edge of the river was crumbly, sandy rock, and broke when I stepped on it, 3. I jumped right onto an area where the sand really sinks when you step on it. No, it's not because of my weight, OKAY!?

After all that, we went to a burger stall in Tanah Rata (if I'm not mistaken) for our 'burger lembu special' which miraculously turned into normal burger lembus. I guess we just weren't special enough to get the special cow burgers. That's where I noticed I had the most torn-down shoes among the pack (Tse Yuan, Lee Yiung and I).

He wore boots that are not shown here for the sampling parts. Experienced, unlike..
Lee Yiung and..
...I. The damage isn't all that obvious from here, but my right sole was almost gone and ths sides were covered in sludge/mud, a lil lazy to put up so many pictures of my destroyed shoes. The same pair I wore to work as a waiter, goodbye, I say.

Wrapped up the trip with dinner in Kota Damansara with TY and LY, even bumped into Tajang (as usual, in black T-shirt, black cap and blue jeans) and gf. Went home, bathed, and went out to meet the gang in Poing's house again. I must be mad, I was dead tired. But it gets better, I went for basketball (an hour late) 9am this morning after sleeping at 2am last night, I slept away my whole afternoon, only because I had to.

All in all, the trip was good. I felt really in touch with nature, which is good. I loved the smell of clean air in the forest and high up the hills (not when the stupid ****in lorries and busses kept pumping CO, CO2 and soot into your windows though) and all that super cold stream water and climbing about like apes was real fun. A lil more experienced now, and I need new shoes for such trips, since TY said I may end up being a demo for one of the trips to Gombak (I may need more samples) etc. Ah, I thank Shen again for pushing me into this, sorry for not getting you your strawberries, we didn't get to stop anywhere where they're sold.

I'm late again, I lost track of time. Dinner time with Jin, Laverne and Jin Seon, here I come.

*RUSH*