Back at the Kampung, we had our lunch (more rice with curry chicken!), idled about for a short while before we made our way to the base of Gunung Stong.

Did some warm-up exercises before we finally begun our trek. The first half of the trek was the toughest; definitely not used to carrying such a heavy load moving upwards. I can't remember how many times exactly where I ran out of breath and almost lost my balance. Thank goodness Doug was behind (literally) me the entire time, he pushed me back whenever I seemed like I was going to fall backwards.

I can't express how grateful I am too, towards all the other ODAC members (rl & jh) for giving great encouragement. All the "Jia You", "little bit more", "we can do it", sharing of lame jokes did help to distract me from getting breathless (again). And so did the lightening of my backpack.

We finally reached base camp (just beside the waterfall) after a 1.5/2 hours trek up. Words can't describe the kind of relief that swept through me when we finally saw the wooden sign that said "Welcome to Base Camp".

Got into our groups and pitched our tents, hammocks and settled into them. After a short debrief,  we climbed our ways down to the waterfall where almost everyone had a go at the 'giant slide'.

The ride down though short (I thought it was), was exhilerating. It was no doubt a lot of fun! So there we go, one of the highlights of this trip, the giant slide.

Headed back to our tents, dried ourselves and got down to preparation of dinner. Our group had Cheese "Baked" Rice, Sausage Omelette, Instant Ramen, Sweet & Sour Fish and some Japanese Fried Chicken. Sumptuous? You bet! Faced some problems trying to finish up, and I guess I became the 'solution' to that problem in 'guess the number game'. Ra, so much for trying to cut down on food intake (I really didn't want to use the filthy toilet).

Made our way down to the "Viewing Gallery" to wash our pans and mess tins, before we gave the toilet a little visit. Gigantic black ants were crawling around on the floor in the tiny cubicle; nabei I swear they're the biggest ants I've ever seen in my 20 years.

Flooded the floors with insect repellent before we were finally able to use it (tried really hard to ignore that stench in there, many of the users never flush la).

Got back to the tents' area and Doug and I decided that we were going to sleep in my hammock. Discovered the might of the humble green sheet of canvas that night; it can hold both of us in there with no problems!

Can't say it's the most comfortable thing to do, 2 people squeezing in one hammock, but I guess both of us found a comfortable position each. Looked up at the sky and saw a starry blanket despite the branches of trees all around us covering much of it. It was a great feeling, nonetheless.

With the wind brushing lightly across our skin, one leg hanging out of our swinging 'coccon' each, we talked about random things (hey, under the stars!), chuckled over silly stuff before we slowly drifted off to sleep, but not before planting a goodnight kiss each on the other's forehead.