Krithika- Confessions of an Outdoor Person

My actual Malaysia Week experience was really fun and awesome. Even though I did things that I had never done before, I adapted to these challenges, environment and situation well because my group and I helped each other so if one of us were in a horrible situation (like overcoming the fear of crabs and mudskippers in the mud), we could always depend on each other for help.

Anne Schmidt- five words...

Hi I’m Anne, five words that describe me are rambunctious, creative, random, funny, and lost.
I’m really excited for Malaysia week and I can’t wait for the bon-fire… not to mention I lose everything.

Challenges of an Outdoor Person- Rachel

Malaysia Week was fantastic. I loved the Orang-Asli village. It was fun and interesting. I was concerned that I might have offended the local villagers, to make sure that I didn’t offend the locals I watched how people were around them and what they avoided doing. I managed to spent a few hours with them without offending them. During those short hours the locals showed us how to use the blow darts and we got to teach them to use the stationary we brought them. One of the other challenges that we faced that day was the long walk to the village; the sun was baking us to death, but then we got picked up by a pickup truck. Malaysia Week was so fun!

Nikhil - Challenges of an Outdoor Person

My actual experience of Malaysia Week turned out to be really, really good. I think it was the best site ever. The best thing was that we got open-air rainforest toilets at our site, The Roots. We also got to live in tree houses, but really special ones, we had beds, cool air, comfy pillows, and an amazing bathroom where I could see stars. One fun thing was that I got to snorkel for the first time. This was a challenge for me because I didn't know how to snorkel so I went slowly at first and I held on to my life jacket until I felt better. Another challenge for me was planting a sapling in the mangroves. We went on a boat, had a great lunch and then we stepped off the boat and slurped into the mud - it felt squishy and made lots of 'windy' noises! We had to fight the big crabs and the mudskippers for space to walk in. At first this was really scary but after a while I got used to it and I enjoyed the mudfight with my friends.

Nikhil - Challenges of an Outdoor Person

My actual experience of Malaysia Week turned out to be really, really good. I think it was the best site ever. The best thing was that we got open-air rainforest toilets at our site, The Roots. We also got to live in tree houses, but really special ones, we had beds, cool air, comfy pillows, and an amazing bathroom where I could see stars. One fun thing was that I got to snorkel for the first time. This was a challenge for me because I didn't know how to snorkel so I went slowly at first and I held on to my life jacket until I felt better. Another challenge for me was planting a sapling in the mangroves. We went on a boat, had a great lunch and then we stepped off the boat and slurped into the mud - it felt squishy and made lots of 'windy' noises! We had to fight the big crabs and the mudskippers for space to walk in. At first this was really scary but after a while I got used to it and I enjoyed the mudfight with my friends.

Challanges of an Outdoor Person - Gita

My actual experience of Malaysia Week turned out to be really awesome. Everyone was really friendly, the food was really good, but the challenge for me was snorkeling. I was a little bit seasick and my head ached so I floated and took a rest when I felt ill. When I felt really ill, I stayed closer to Joey (my ‘buddy’) and Ligia. Roots Idol was very awesome!

Gita

Anne schmidt- challenges of an outdoor person

My experience in Malaysia week turned out to be AWESOME! I didn’t want to go back home! I really had nothing to worry about unless it was the huge red ants. At the beach there were red ants that would bite, and it drove me crazy! So instead of staying ob the sand I went to the water to hang out were the ants couldn't get to me. But I had so much more fun that I’d expected. I really had no need to be scared. And as for the ants, I forgot about those during Malaysia week.

Some advice for the people next year that go to this sight is that Tanjung Rambutan is really a pampering Malaysia week sight so there is not much to worry about. And mangroves aren’t scary either! They’re really nothing to fuss about because there’s absolutely nothing that can hurt you (including leeches!). So there’s nothing to be anxious about… unless you dislike crabs!

Niqui: Challenges of an Outdoor Person

I am really anxious about the activities we are going to do because I always like going through something challenging and having a chance to overcome it. I’m also looking forward to the performance at the end of the party. The last thing I really want to do is to have an entire week of nothing but giving the Earth back what we had taken.

My actual experience turned out to be better than I imagined. Trudging through the muddy mangrove was one of the best events of Malaysia Week, as was the bus ride that included massages and massaging. The final night performance was harder to accomplish than I thought (WHAT SONG!?!) but altogether, MW was fantastic.

The best advice that I can offer to someone who will go to Tanjung Rambutan next year is don’t worry. The only problems you might have are snorkeling without getting dizzy (this can be solved if you drink plenty of water before going snorkeling because you will get very thirsty then get a headache) and panicking in the mangrove. The crabs can barely hurt you, so just ignore then. Don’t try to run from them because doing that will destroy their homes and you could kill a lot of crabs. They can only pinch you with all they have and still not do any damage while you can crush them without noticing.

ARI∑ - Challenges of an Outdoor Person

My actual experience turned out to be awesome! We went to a mangrove, snorkeling and exploring Old Town Ipoh. We went snorkeling at the coast of Pulau Pankor. This was my first time snorkeling. I felt very sick after the snorkeling trip. I think the most challenging day was planting a sapling tree. Also we planted the tree in the mud. I helped two people through the mud. At the last day we went to Ipoh and we walked around Old Town. The people from Roots treated us for lunch. It was an exciting trip. Also there were no leeches.

Surbhit - Challenges of an Outdoor Person

My actual experience turned out to be great! It was a lot of fun in the mangroves and in the swimming pool at Roots. We had no leeches and great food on our site. We had a lot of fun. The best part about Malaysia Week was the mangroves and where we lived (in tree houses). I also liked the sapling planting in the mangroves where we had a huge mud fight. It was so great to pick up the mud in our hand and see all the small crabs in the mud. After the mud fight we all washed off in the mangrove water and then jumped back on the boat. I will always remember that day. The challenge was that I was a bit scared of all the crabs but I tried not to think about them and followed where my team mates had already stepped because the crabs had run away from those places.

Surbhit

Daniel- Challenges of an out-door person

My actual experience turned out to be AMAZING!!!

The only challenge was the fact that I needed to learn some Malay in order to communicate and be able to do activities with the children at the Orang Asli village, as nearly none of them could speak English. The way I overcame this was by asking Qistina and Richard questions on how to say some words in Malay. Some of the sentences that I managed to learn were: Siapa nama kamu?(What is your name?), Apa ini dalam Bahasa Malayu?(What is this in Malay?).