i've never been one for the great outdoors. and i'm not referring to the moment when you unlock your front door only to see your next door neighbor watering her chilli plants. i'm talking about those big endless patches of green rolling plains, raintrees, treetop walks, swamp trails, golf courses, places where you can use words like 'Angsana' and 'Flame of the Forest' without sounding like a botanist or a spa fanatic. whatever shit that God intended natural to be. of course, you could always be technical and say that God intended for a few chosen chaps to be homosexuals and that going to a gay spa is bloody natural. but let's not head in that direction (and in that direction, i'm talking about a certain club in City Hall that involves towels; or the lack of it).

anything that involves plenty of sunlight with no shelter in sight, yeap, that's the great outdoors. and frankly speaking, there's nothing even great about the outdoors. the outdoors produces nightmarish visuals of sweaty people in camo prints, and several 'M's that i shun with great disdain. them being things like mud, mosquitoes, monkeys, marshes, military, etc. all of them things turn me off faster than you can say 'Malaysia'. doesn't apply to Mmmmmmmmmmmmen though. okay lah, Mmmmmmmost MMMMMMMMen.

so it was with some surprise that i found myself deciding to apply for an overseas posting during my stint with the previous organization. before i joined that organization, i swore that if i could fight for it, i would never get deployed to a unit where discipline and all the macho manly regimental crap is the rule of the day. no strict rules imposing critical standards on the way i live. no narrow-minded choices coming from the superiors. and definitely not too much of the outdoors. and no sunlight if it's possible. and air-conditioning 24/7 please. and a good pay to boot. and free lodging. and not forgetting somewhere with a good canteen. and a perk would be somewhere with plenty of eye candy. looking back, with each criteria that i imposed upon my choice of deployment, the chances of getting the ideal one slowly faded into oblivion. i sourced around for units that i could be posted to. and lo and behold, i've found what they call the 'overseas posting' with a possible opening for me as a medic.

now, i've heard horror stories about people getting these overseas postings, only to end up with plenty of guard duties with no shelter and outdoor deployments. i've personally known a friend who came back from a Thailand posting with what my organization buddies used to call 'Chakra Arms' (inspiration garnered from ninja anime, NARUTO). people with uber-tanned forearms and deltoids whiter than Michael Jackson's face. he looked like he was charging the chakra into the arms and intended to release it with a karate chop that had a red aura to it (he was so skinny that he prolly could only chop alfalfa with it). nearly 3 months post-overseas deployment, the chakra has dissipated entirely. either the tan has a very extended half-life or alfalfa season just isn't here yet.

thus, it was with such apprehension that i received my Brunei posting. the general advice i gathered from overseas veterans was to bring plenty of things to do. well, i think i came relatively prepared. i arrived in Brunei with A LOT of books, a laptop and a video ipod filled with 24GB of gay-porn (the screen cracked and then i eventually lost it in Brunei; trend to note: i'm always losing my gay-porn collection, i'm at my 6th collection currently). but i have to admit. 13 months there totally changed my perception of the outdoors. true enough, there were endless guard duties and outdoor deployments. but the beauty and irony of it was that i somehow ended up being the overall-in-charge of planning these duties and deployments for my department. i know some of my overseas colleagues from Brunei read my blog (and are still reading it), so here's a confession: i plan your monthly detailing around my gym schedule! yah i know, i'm a chee bye for doing this. but i let you pick your off days before i plan the gym schedule okay! plus you're free to swap with anybody else if you're not up to it! and i am always more than willing to swap. so there.

so, with a relatively flexible schedule to do whatever i wanted, i decided to do several silly things, one of them which was to attempt the climbing a particular mountain in Brunei (apparently the country's most famous one; can't remember why it's famous though). other organization units from Singapore who come to Brunei have to climb this mountain. i was attached to one of them as a medic and it lasted for 4 days and 3 nights, i think. most of it is still a blur. i remember a lot of rain. a lot of brown and green. a lot of 6/8/10/more than the number of digits i have-legged creepy crawlies. there were ants bigger than the average male nipple. centipedes. cockroaches. sandfly bites. rashes. constipation. protein bars. suicidal thoughts. enough said. i thought the peak would have been much more exciting given that everyone was always gushing about how breath-taking it was. little did i know that it was just some lame clearing where fellow organization mates inscribed and carved their mark on the tree trunks. well at least they were telling the truth when they said it was breath-taking. climbing up the endless slopes and steppes was like spending 9 hours on a stair-master at your local heartlander gym (there are no hot men in sight). aiyah, at least the clearing got no sunlight. so can't complain.

the picture above was taken towards the end of my posting. if you're wondering and really insist on knowing: NO, i didn't catch the badly strung-up monitor lizard. somebody else did. but they were still alive and apparently, the one who caught them lizards intended to serve them up with some western grill and sambal for dinner. yes, people at my organization are wierd and bizarre. but i guess this picture meant a lot to me. the other chap in the picture was someone i pretty much enjoyed hanging out with in a straight video-gamer kinda way. we took turns playing Role-Playing games. we enjoyed anime. he brought plenty of hentai back from Singapore. i reaped the benefits of it. plus we had plenty of instant noodle with pork cube meals slow-cooked over a bunsen burner. sentimental.

at the point of time when this picture was taken, i think i was at the peak of enjoying my stay in Brunei. it was canteen for breakfast and dinner. gym 5 days a week (not that it helped) and protein shakes for lunch. morning jogs and DVD movies every night back in our rooms. waking up every morning at 6am, it was all quiet and full of morning air. very minimal sounds of SUVs and traffic lights (there are no traffic lights at the island where i stayed) and buses. it was all good. and reflecting the exact sentiments of Nelly Furtado, all good things always have to come to an end. 13 months later, i was back in Singapore again. thrown back into the hustle and bustle of life. it was distressing, knowing that i would never have a similar experience to the laid-back and non-judgmental life unless i decide to migrate there for good.

which i know i'll never because there are no clubs with references to towels there. and too much sunlight still.

---