Well its been a complete roller coaster of a trip (surprisingly.. ive never been on one....) In their mid semester break my friends.. Mandeep, Raj, Rahul, Ishita, Shrey and Neeraj (some of them infamous from a previous ghost search adventure) decide to take a "relaxing" break to Cameroon Highlands in Malaysia. I, who is desperately in need of a break of a hectic Investment Bankers life (LOL), take a leave from office to join them in there search for an adventure packed "interesting" trip.. (not too much time later.. all of us are praying to God to make this trip boring.. )
so after a long journey of almost 8 hours we reach our destination, where a tactful sales woman for a local tour agency lures us into seemingly exciting - agro tour and night jungle trekking (which some of us dont want to.. in consideration of the female folk.. but after considerable deliberations and neeraj's intimidation - we are forced to.)
considering rahul's appetite for photos at almost any place (provided we give him time to pose) we spend a bright sunny morning (which is a welcome relief given the cool breeze) happily clicking photos in the tea plantations, terrace farms, flower nurseries etc...
The real adventure starts with our trip to a nearby waterfall... After spending some time navigating through rocks in the middle of the water..clicking photos and having good fun.. we return to the local village to have dinner when suddenly ishita realises that her wallet is not with her... All this while she thought it was all a prank but with the sudden realisation that it is indeed missing, we all panick and request our driver (who was really nice to have helped us out all the way) to take us back to the waterfall in search of the missing wallet. Whats more disturbing, is the fact that Ishita's student pass and embarkation cards are there in the wallet - meaning she would not be able to enter back to Singapore if it gets lost...
On reaching the waterfall, the driver and some other people from the tour company refuse to accompany us further . Their reason - "This place has spirits.. Even animals dont wander there at night.. You think we would go ?? ".. However, considering our desperate situation, we all decide that its definitely worth the risk. With our flashlights on, we go in as two groups, talking to each other continuously on the phone .. Most of us are really scared, we hold on to each other really tight and look around in the dense bushes - raj and neeraj even go down into the freezing cold water... after about an hour of searching to no avail we decide to go back lest we get into a bigger mess if someone gets hurt...
On reaching a nearby police station, we are greeted by not so friendly police officers who unfortunately do not understand a lot of english. Our driver then assumes the role of our translator and helps us communicate with them. In typical "Indian police" fashion, we are told that the area where the incident happened does not fall under their jurisdiction and that we would have to go to another police station to file a report (Later another officer told us that foreigners in trouble can file a complain anywhere... those officers were just running away from their responsibility.... not very new to an Indian ear... but the Singaporeans with us weren't very pleased :P)
Along all this, I assumed the role of calling up key "contacts" :P to get any help that we could. When people were not picking up.. they were sent SOS messages (an example ... "Dude... Sparsh here .... can you please pick up your phone or call me back.. Its VERY VERY urgent.. ")... Ultimately we decided to contact the Immigration and Checkpoints authority to issue a one time entry visa which would resolve our problems for the time being...
Next morning saw another frantic search at the waterfall .. (thanks again to our very kind driver.. having dropped us back to the hotel at 1130 pm he managed to pick us up again at 7 in the morning...).... So desperate to find the wallet, the likes of me and mandeep started looking at rocks in the water as if they were the wallet and poor raj had to wet his feet in the ice cold water........ But unfortunately we finally gave up and decided to visit the local police yet once again..
If this was not enough, as soon as we got to the main road, a bike lost control and skid into our vehicle exactly at the point where i was sitting.. Being involved in an accident for the first time in my life, I was terrified.. Raj again came to the rescue as he was the one who pulled my head away from the window, else I would not be writing this blog. .. Thank you soooo much.... Fortunately the driver dint get hurt.. By this time all of us were like really disturbed and some started attributing our misfortunes to the ghosts of the waterfall and some to "coming in other people's eyes " (kissi ki nazar lag gayi) .....
I really dont know why, but everyone was still in the mood for some more adventure by agreeing to go for a night jungle trek. Having done trekking a few times before, I was totally against the idea, but was vetoed down by the rest.. :(... Our prayers for a boring trip actually came true, as teh trek was really easy and it actually turned out to be pretty boring.. Or maybe it was just the fact that overexcitement in the last 24 hours made everything normal seem so boring..
The next morning, our bus supposed to get us back to Singapore actually left WITHOUT us.... By now we were so used to all this, we calmly called up the tour operator and they sent a van to pick us up and take us to the bus which was waiting at a nearby town. Everyone inside the bus was quite irritated as all of us had earned the reputation of being a noisy sing-along group....... The trip back was filled with constant nagging from the driver, who would shout "SIT DOWN" on the PA system as soon as anyone got up... and considering my restless antics... most of the time it was me .. hehe....
This trip has been a real adventure after a really really long time. However, if any of my manorite friend from grade 6 who accompanied me to the school stream back then, could probably relate to something similar.. :) But it was brilliant fun, and in the end as raj asked me.. I would rate the trip a 9/10...
So cheers to all those who survived (both in the trip and this incredibly long post)... :)
Sparsh
