The Main Building (Stores, Office, Cookhouse)

OBBD was situated along a river with most of its facilities on one side, and our "sleeping quarters" (tents) pitched on the other side. So how do we cross? By a suspended bridge!

At OBBD we were grouped according to Watches named after important people in Brunei's History. My watch, Nakoda Ragam, included Sallehan, Hisham, Noor Izhar, Seyed, Zheng Zhi Cheng, Glenn, Gabriel Lim, Gabriel Cai, Keith, Adzmin, Wei Wen, Su Yuan Qiu, Francis, Chua (from Rota 1), Ben and Sofian. On the First night I stepped forward to become Store IC a.k.a. Logistics IC. Somehow or other or because we never did select an official leader for our watch, I ended up being the OIC too. Very stressful I tell you!

My Watch

Our very first night was already eventful. Around midnight, the instructors conducted an Emergency drill and informed us as well that the Bruneian Army was likely to be activated that night and may land in the open space where we pitched our tents. My group was the unluckiest because we were situated in the area nearest to the probable helicopter landing site.

All night we kept waking up to the drones of helicopters, thinking whether we'd have to move, and when me and my tentmates finally dozed off, soldiers finally appeared and instructed us to move. urgh!!

DAY TWO

Morning started with PT followed by introduction to safety procedures for water activities and the chilling morning dip. We then had our 6km kayaking using inflatable kayaks. I miss kayaking. I feel like getting my 2 stars, which I should have by now had TK paid for my course..

In the evening we prepared for our trekking expedition which would start on..

DAY THREE

We started our expedition around 8am. I'm gone for Mt Ophir Expedition and OBS so I was quite prepared.. somewhat. It was still very exhausting. And so we trudged along the trail to Bukit Lutut, camping at Mutong 2. When dawn broke, it was..

DAY FOUR

Continued our trek uphill. Early on our trek we met the base personnels' team. They had camped at the peak and were now returning back to the campsite. It was a turning point somewhat, because we started questioning, how they managed it and why couldn't we do something similar. (Note: They took a different route so we were going in opposite directions but nonetheless they were fast.) We know experience was the major difference but now we were determined to be the fastest NSF team. (Which we were eventually. The other teams either had casualties and had to detour or were very late).

In the Jungle

We camped at Batu Usuk that night and took the opportunity to bathe in the River, washing away sweat and grime accumulated over 2 days worth of trekking.

DAY FIVE

Started off with the tyrolean traverse, a mountaineering technique of crossing over obstacles such as rivers using ropes and pulley systems. When our instructor, Hj Tahari, told us to 'make up' e.g. keep the equipment, we took a boat ride down Sungai Temburong on temuai, a fast sleek craft built for such rivers.

Our watch's morale was quite high by then. We cleaned and kept our equipment and then prepared for our Solo night - a night camping in the jungle isolated. We started around 4pm. Upon reaching my spot, I set up my basha in the rain and made myself as comfortable as I could under such conditions. It was also an interesting experience writing on wet paper. Honestly, my experience wasn't so bad because despite not using any insect repellent nor torchlights, having a mosquito coil made a major difference. For the first time in my life, I slept in complete darkness, with only a small, faint red dot from the coil the only thing I saw in my waking hours..

Temuai boats

DAY SIX

Woke up quite early and unpitch quickly. While waiting for my instructors to bring us back, I thought a lot and did some exercises. I think it was around 8am when I finally returned to OBBD. In the afternoon we had a 10km run. For the rest of Saturday, we cleared our stores. Our watch was lucky because we did not "lose" anything. At night, we got our certificates, I bought a red polo tee and got ready to go back home.

DAY SEVEN

Yay! We were finally making our way back home! Retraced all our steps back to the jetty, took the boat back, bus back to the airport and board the Brunei Airline back to the Red Dot on the Map I call home. Touched down, cleared immigrations around 1pm, had McD lunch and went back home, where I played games, watched TV, rest, chat, and sleep late.

Back to CDA.

In a couple of hours I'd be resuming training. Back to normalcy.. somewhat..

My Instructors: Chu Ai from Singapore and Hj Tahari from Brunei