My Little Adventure In The Wilderness

13th July 2009

The production crew, the 12 contestants of gadis melayu and myself the host all gathered at Sri Pentas before departing to Gopeng, Perak by bus to shoot for the second episode of the reality show Gadis Melayu Musim Ke 2.

The shoot began during the journey itself and it went well.

We reached Gopeng and stopped by at a Homestay to meet some of the village people and was greeted by our location sponsors and Tourism Malaysia. It was like a gesture to welcome all of us and we were served local delicacies while the crew took this opportunity to shoot how these girls relate to the old folks and mingled with them. Yes, that counts.

Then we headed to our resort and was transported in four wheel drives because the road to the resort was very narrow and steep and the girls were transported in a small err opened roof ...lorry...in the hot sun. Yes , part of the tests.

We were so excited to get to the resort to freshen up and to start our shoot as fast as possible.

Then finally we arrived at the resort and received a warm greeting from the manager of the resort. Nevertheless I was actually expecting a different type of ambience but it was quite 'laid back' in every sense of it. Then i realized that it was actually an 'eco resort' , everything is 'au naturel' , back to nature.. it was really peaceful and quiet except that you can hear some birds chirping and monkeys on the loose...!

My mind started wondering and wondering and wondering further... this can't be it coz i hate jungles, animals and quietness . Then the manager lead Awin , the make-up artist and myself to our room. It was a chalet very nicely built from bamboos and it looked very traditional and ethnic.. but when we opened the door.. there were only plain mattreses laid on the floor and a ceiling fan and oh ..where's the bathroom..oh no ..no bathroom and guess what it was outside the chalet! By this time both of us were covered with sweat and Awin was supposed to do my make-up and i'm supposed to change into my sponsored clothes to do the hosting .

We just sat at the staircase speechless but we tried to psycho ourselves that there must be another option to this situation and hoping that there must be another air-conditioned chalet . So we just got down to work .

There we were assembling in the hot sun . Imagine me in my Kapas Couture assemble all made up trying to put a straight face with sweat drooling down my face! But you will not be able to see this on the edited version on tv..thats the beauty of it.

After the shoot we were looking for the manager as there were no telecommunication system in the room and the whole entire resort ! I found the manager and asked him whether it was possible to change to an air conditioned chalet and luckily there was one but we had to share it with 3 other production crew of which we happily did coz both of us were not exactly the brave type.. you know. Then suddenly I thought of housekeeping services and asked the manager if he could provide us with towels. He replied ' U girls think you are coming to 5 star hotel is it?..[ with a big laugh]. Then I said 'we don't mind buying towels from you, do you sell any?' . He replied, 'yeah we do at Rm 5 ringgit only you can buy at the canteen'. So we went 'oh great thanks'.

We went straight to the canteen and asked for the towels and you know what....we just couldn't believe what we saw...they sold us 'Winnie the Pooh ' towels half the size of a normal towel and it was so thin!

I had to wipe myself 5 times to get dried up...wow what a challenge. Thought this was supposed to be a test for the contestants but we all had to go through it too!At night if any of us need to go to the toilet we had to go in pairs coz we were too scared to go alone.

Under these circumstances we had to tell ourselves that we have to make the best of the situation and just concentrate on our job tasks. That first night I couldn't sleep till morning coz I was imagining a lot of things that could happen in the jungle.....it was a torture!

The next day the girls did their first challenge which was the 'ala commando' training to test their mental and physical strength. Interesting, lots of drama.

I took a breather at the canteen trying to adjust to the situation and psyche myself that it was not that bad but then.. seconds later came this monkey on the loose towards my direction and of course before he got close I quickly ran ..and it was chasing me all over the resort and I screamed my lungs out till the canteen man realized how scared I was and he chased the monkey and finally tied him back to the tree....phew!!!

The third day was the best that I could remember. We went to a location a short drive from the resort organized by the resort where the girls were given another challenge to do Abseiling at the waterfall and rough water rafting. It was really beautiful when we got there even though I've always had this fear on being in a jungle but this time suddenly that feeling was gone and I don't know how it happened. The best part is I tried the Abseiling at the waterfall and I was not scared or nervous at all... it was an amazing feeling and I couldn't believe myself that I did it.

It was a great adventure after all and a great experience of a lifetime. The people at the resort were very friendly, warm and very accomodating towards our needs and planned the whole itinery of our shoot very efficiently and professionaly. The facilitators were very experienced and full of patience with the girls plus they enjoyed their company too heheheh.

Well above are the pics that represents the chronology of the events.