My most unforgetable camping trip

Camping at Palau Tekong.

Together with classmates from other classes of UATS at East Coast Park/Palau Tekong

Recalling the incidents, that we were almost drown, sent shivers down my spine.

If not that we grabbed had a piece of  log, some of us might never see the light of the day.

Another children author Enid Blyton adventures series, except it were for real. I hope that the photos taken by Mike were still in good condition. He the only one to have brought the camera at that time.

Few of my classmates get together from other classes from Upper Aljunied Technical School, decided to camp overnight in Palau Tekong. They were numerous of us from different classes of Sec 3 and Sec 4 some outside friends of Kim Han and Jason .

We want to take a week camping trip, but decided to call it a day after five days. Because of the difficult weather conditions and we were worn out.

A schoolmate Kim Han's grandmother stayed there. He brought us to his grandmother's house to pluck some coconuts. I volunteered to climb up.

I climbed up on top of the tree and kicked the coconuts down one by one. I got bitten by some ants as a result.

A friend of Kim Han, who was not our classmates also came along, was so engrossed kept blasting and repeating the twin Ming Choo sisters,  songs again and again,which he got infatuated, with the recorder.

They were hot favourite at that time. In their heydays, thousands of youngsters were captivated by their mixtures of old hits and their youth and getai .

Nevertheless due to various incidents which our lives were in danger. Overall is still considered one of my happiest moments in my life and one of my most adrenalin thumping experineces. I had always recalled the trip. I was nearly killed.

Kim Han  warned us not to go to the stream nearby as there were crocodiles and the currents were swift, some were killed there.

There were reports in the newspaper that children were drown in the P Tekong sea.

After so many years friendships I still in contact with my classmate Mike. Which I recently met him at a shopping centre, he had married a Swedish wife. Jason a Malaysian married a Singaporean, usually the opposite.

We went to Changi for a Chinese New Year midnight Dim Sum dinner.

I love to read Mark Twain books on adventures. But my life was not less adventurous.

In an incident a group of us, decided to walk to a small island some distance away from the beach. It was low tide then, but things began to change swiftly the tide raised rapidly, suddenly we were caught stranded, with tide raising above our neck.

All of us were panic-stricken, we were grabbing anything whenever we can.

I thought I could be drowned. But luckily we found a piece of wood, so I and one of them, managed to paddled with our legs, safety back to the beach, what a close call. Fortunately, the few of us were not drowned.

Another incident is a group of persons who camp nearby, tricked us to go to a meeting with the promise of some free meals. Later we found out that they are having a dispute with another gang and tricked us there.

Fortunately there were no incidents.

I can still remember the immense pleasure of waking up early in the morning to watch the beautiful morning sunrise across the naked sea on the island and the atmospheric conditions, set to made it some of the happiest and most memorable moments of my life.

The rustic surrounding and calm, brought immense fresh memories.

It think probably it is because the air was least contaminated there.

As the night began to fall Mike took out a guitar and kept strumming and singing, together we joined in to sing chitchat till the wee hours.


His favourites are western ladies, so it was not surprised, for him to marry one.

As the night fall the amazing beautiful full moon came out. What an unforgettable experiences. Till today I still can recalled it.

Whenever I recalled this memorable trip I always remember the spectacular views of the perfect full moon seen on possibly the best place that is an island. This was the perfect time to go as this was the time when moon was full with the combination of the rustic circumstances.

In the morning we walk around the beach, its an interesting sights lots of creatures crabs, starfish and various other shellfishes were crawling around the beach, which is low tide and the water is quite clear. We can easily see fishes swimming around. We tried to catch some but in vain.

Sometimes we would trekked up the hills. Some campers prefer to camp in solitude surrounded by bushes. So they built their camps up on the hills with little campers around.

At the end of the fifth day the rainy weather condition worn us out. Some of us got to stand with the raincoat outside. The two camps we built simply doesn't had enough rooms for all of us. I had to go back home with my swimming trunks because all my pants were spoilt.

We planned to stay there a week but after 5 days we called it a day.

We cooked our own food there. Trying to set up fire to cook the foods were nearly impossible because of the windy conditions. Whenever I recalled the trip my adrenalin will started to pump.

Little did we realised before we started our trip that there were so many thrilling incidents.

The trip was just like taking a meal with many different tastes hot sweet, sour & spicy etc, with lots of ingredients. The drama was probably good enough for some exciting action movies, we had seen.

The anticipation of fun and adventures overided the concern for safety.

In case of those who don't. know about P. Tekong, it is Singapore 2ND largest island, it was used for training the army and is off limit in some areas. There were numerous reports of ghosts been spotted there.

For a group of like us teenagers to take a camping trip there on our own without any adult supervisions. I think I would not recommend it.