Royal Rangers Selangor #6

Monday, August 26, 2013

Survival + Lepak Camp 2013

There will come a time in every young ranger's life where they'll be put in the jungle and forced to survive. No warmth, no food, no shelter. The question is... Will they make it out... Alive??

Okay.. they're actually given a live chicken per team. Check it out!

Wonder if they cooked it for dinner or kept it as pet??
Wonder what survival camp is really like?
Wonder how much of an oddball your ranger friends really are?

Briefing before being sent into the jungle



Read the afterthought of our fellow survivors!
No better way to know what really happened than from the rangers themselves ;)

Ranger Shannon Yong
At the start of surviving, we (along with Erwin) neglected collecting firewood to focus on a flimsy shelter and a short-term fire. The most mentally challenging time was the slaughter. I wouldn't have imagined myself killing a live animal but I was driven by hunger. As the night advanced, so did our fire die. We were forced to move up where all the other campers were. Thankfully, fellow campers, Nick, Matthias, Hans and Adam helped us pull through the night. Did I mention Erwin didn't eat his chicken, and was burping all night? On the hard bamboo bed, we managed to get a little bit of sleep while changing shifts, and at 7 o'clock, our rescuers, the commanders saw our fire and we were rescued. The camp was physically and mentally tiring. there were a few times I got really fed up and lashed it out on my teammate but everything ended on a good note. Whatever happened at camp, stays there! And, if you're trying to survive, shelter first! DO NOT neglect firewood.

Ranger Travis Ching
The next day after survival, in the chalet, the moment I close my eyes I see fire, probably because I crashed at Matthias's shelter and my head was just inches away from the fire leaving my brain traumatized. Man, fire never seemed so horrible.
The night of day 2 (lepak camp) was great, we played some games and was introduced to the game of the '9 slippers'. We had fun cracking our brains for the solution. But the night only got better when I introduced bluff into the equation, it was legend-wait-for-it-dary! Commander 'Piak Ju' was saying 'single five' for a few rounds and it got stuck in my head lol. Anyways it was a great experience and I very much appreciated the fact that my school friend joined me.
P.S. Erwin, your burps are seriously disgusting.

Ranger Krystal Lee
First off we get to choose our team members but that didn’t make any difference. I was teamed with Melanie and Celeste as we were the only girls. So we built our shelter and… it didn’t work. With the help of Cmdr Kenny we managed to build a better shelter and it turned out quite nice but the sad part is we cannot stay in our shelter  thanks to some unfortunate incident that had to come and ruin our survival experience!!! But we didn’t get to stay in the chalet with the cmdrs ok… We were at the pondok near the chalet but we did get some Sheppard’s pie from the cmdrs, *snickers* Ok, that aside, after building our shelter it’s  CHICKEN KILLING TIME!!!!!! The time I’ve been waiting for! I know it’s weird and y’all might think I’m creepy but I was really looking forward to kill chicken!!!  And I found out that Melanie was also very excited to kill chicken. So Mel and I were like secretly excited to kill the chicken. The chicken killing part was really nice and for me it was the highlight of the whole camp! I killed, skinned, gutted, cleaned the whole chicken by myself thanks to William who was too chickened to kill the chicken. The gutting part was the most disgusting part of the chicken killing process. The inside of the chicken was so warm, gooey, bloody and eww…. my hand smelt like chicken the whole night! After killing our chickens, we built our fire. The chickens dropped into the fire a few times because the grill we made was made out of bamboos and sticks(bad idea) kept catching on fire, aluminium foil caught on fire, the chickens were covered with ashes like “black pepper” chicken but it still tasted really nice. After eating our chicken we extinguished our fire and we headed down to the pondok leaving our nicely built shelter and all the firewood we gathered. All in all, it was a great experience and I have no regrets coming to this camp. And I would like to thank all the cmdrs that made this camp possible.

Ranger Adam Ng
Well... Firstly! I would like to thank our commanders for all their help and effort for this camp! Secondly, I would like to share what I’ve learnt throughout this camp. Well, to the next batch of Rangers that will be coming for survival camp! Here's a few advice, never neglect firewood! "It’s never enough!" Well, collecting firewood and maintaining the fire are two different things. Team work is very important! A special thanks to Hans, Calvin Low, Scott, Kenneth, Jia Wei, Travis and Matthias for staying up all night trying to make the fire stay for 12 hrs... And lastly, Shelter isn’t that important when u are sleepy. So spend more time collecting firewood. I NEVER regretted a bit going to survival camp!

Ranger Celeste Tan
I was actually pretty nervous about Survival Camp because I didn't know what to expect. I was teamed up with Krystal and Melanie, and they were awesome in building the shelter and fire, big thanks to them. We had to build our shelter twice as the first one didn't work out, and the second one was pretty nice. When it was time to slaughter the chicken, it wasn't easy because the knife was blunt, but we hacked the head off eventually, and it was so warm digging in the chicken's insides, but I actually enjoyed it. WE started a fire and cooked the chicken when we got back to camp. We salted it, and although it fell into the fire twice and ash got inside, it tasted so nice and barbecuey! Some unforseen incident happened, so in the end we had to go and sleep near the commanders' chalet. It was a bit of a bad ending to our survival, but it was still a good experience nevertheless, and it taught me character as well as strength of mind. I want to thank all the guy campers who helped my team in any way, and to the commanders also for organizing this camp and watching over us that night while we slept. Thank you for making this camp experience great

Ranger Erwin Low
First I would like to thank the commanders and the rangers. I would also like to thank Shannon for helping me a lot though the camp especially the chicken part .I have to admit that I was quite chickened during the chicken part. I was afraid of the chicken cause I got attacked by a chicken when I was young. So fast forward, my teammate managed to slaughter the chicken. So we took our chicken to our shelter n started thinking how r we gonna start a fire? After a long time trying to start the fire we managed to start the fire n we started cooking our chicken. Unfortunately the breast meat drop into the fire and one of the wings were uncooked so I threw it into the fire so I partially did not eat anything. Fast forward a little more there was some sound of fire cracker which I thought was the lantern that hungry ghost festival use. So never mind we continued our survival till the next fire cracker came and we all thought were outsiders trying to disturb us, so we got our bakau wood to protect us. A while later the next fire cracker came n immediately Matthias started shouting ATTACK!!!!!!! And this Nicholas came to him n said attack yourself larh. He then took out his whistle and started blowing it. Everyone woke up except William who was still hibernating. He slept like through the whole camp n he did not eat a thing and we knew that the next day when he wakes up he is gonna be so hungry. Finally survival was over and lepak day came! We played bluff n Zic Zac. And then it was late so we cleaned up the place and head to bed 

Ranger Hans Willard
OK~ Firstly, i thought survival camp was like supsup water la~  ACTUALLY NOT! It was not what I expected it would be~  Im quite excited at that time~ I chose Adam as my partner~ we were sent into the jungle .We were quite lucky becoz we got a clear place...  after our first attempt at our shelter Cmdr Kenny said FAILED~  I was so frustrated and im like NOOOOO our hard work gone~  haha..Then at around 3.30pm we went down and collected our chickens~ Becoz i was holding the chicken i panicked a bit but it was still ok~ NOW COMES THE WORST PART~ TIME TO SLAUGHTER THE CHICKEN~ I was so nervous that time becoz i was holding the chicken~Cmdr Jojo held our chicken and he said CUT ITS HEAD OFF! .I cut like 6-7 times only the blood came out and the chicken was like dying so I cut more and the head finally came off~   i felt like a murderer~ then Adam started skinning the chicken. He didnt dare the touch the chicken so he used a leaf to cover the chicken ~ NEXT!! the GUTS!! OMG it was so disgusting and i was told to pull it out~ I remembered I was shouting when I pulled all the guts out it was SO WARM and the intestines were the worst!! Eventually we took our "murdered chicken " and head back to our shelter~ we only had 2 breast meat and also a drumstick~ After that I went and find some firewood and its still not enough ~ Finally our chicken was cooked but it was filled with ashes that Cmdr Kenny said was "herbs" ~ hahaha THE CHICKEN WAS DELICIOUS!  It was appetizing~ WE DIDN'T REGRET KILLING THAT CHICKEN BECAUSE I WAS SO HUNGRY! Later we sang songs~ WE chatted until like 12am then our fire went out becoz somebody put green leaves on our fire and we were out of FIREWOOD!!~ then Cmdrs came and saw what happened everybody was like trying to sleep but we were forced to build another fire~ I was SO FRUSTRATED as we need to find more firewood~ We built another fire ~me and Adam cant tahan dy we slept in our own shelter for like 45 minutes I was like hugging Adam's hand hahhaha~ While we were sleeping i heard fireworks~ i thought i was dreaming  THEN I OVERHEARD MATTHIAS! BLOW THE WHISTLE hahahha ~ WE suspected it was cmdrs so we didnt care much except MATTHIAS~ he was like a police~ then Cmdrs came up and did their drama ~ "We heard the whistle  , whats going on? " FAKERS! woke up and I stood at the fire for a few moments ~Finally it was 7am and Cmdr Kenny came around and we dismantled our shelter and put out the fire~ IM LIKE FINALLY I CAN SHOWER!!! Anyways, Survival Camp was phenomenal , amazing , extraodinary , fabulous and brilliant! I was so blessed to have Cmdrs that help us ~ Thank all of y'all for organinzing this CAMP! Even though IT WAS TIRING I still enjoyed myself a lot! Special thanks to all the campers that helped me~ IT WAS A TIRING BUT ALSO AND ENJOYABLE CAMP!!
Sincerely , Hans


They came. They slaughtered. They survived.
So Cheers! To all 16 of them jungle men and women.

Great job guys, we're super proud of you!
#rrsel6survival

For pictures, visit Cmdr Kenny Chin's facebook page!