So, it's been about a week since I arrived at the previously-mentioned overseas camp, and I have to say that it's been a pretty new experience. It's winter here, and while that in itself is nothing new to me, I've never been to a country in winter while in servitude (bleh) of the army. It's always been "IT'S HOT OUTSIDE BUT IT'S AN OVEN INSIDE MY VEHICLE WHY GOD WHY DO YOU TORTURE ME SO?!" or something along those lines. But I digress. It's winter.
And it's FREEZING.
Now, that may sound like a good thing considering how many times I've come remarkably close to melting into a puddle of unidentifiable glop on the ground, but this level of cold is insanity especially when you're driving a vehicle that has, for lack of a better phrase, a goddamn puny amount of proper cover. Hurtling along straight roads while freezing winds and rain slaps our faces and other areas of exposed skin doesn't seem very conducive to a long life. The temperature is tolerable, but the constant wind and rain is more than enough to make the happy campers of this camp rather... unhappy. The one fun thing about this cold, though, is the ability to see your breath rising into the air.
Now, people should never underestimate what army personnel do when they're supremely bored. While someone stood by the side smoking a cigarette, the rest of us huddled together to see whose breath was the most visible and hence the closest competitor for the cigarette smoke.
So while the smoker took a single huff and puff, the rest of us took like a billion.
"HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF HUFF PUFF *whew* so how was my breath?"
"... I couldn't really see it. The cigarette smoke was blocking my view."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
And we discovered, much to our immense amusement and glee, that our breath was not the only thing that gave off visible water vapor. I leave the rest up to your imagination.
Also, while driving around near the camp, I came across several rather interesting locations, all of which I have taken the liberty to name. They are all original and fantastic names, I tell you!
Silent Hill (hur hur)
It was really early in the morning when we (1 other person in my vehicle, and myself) came across this hill. The fog was pretty thick at the bottom, but visibility was still quite okay, so we decided to take our awesome cross-country-capable vehicle and give it a spin on the hill. When we were approaching the top, however, we realized that we had underestimated the power of the fog. By the time we hit the top, visibility had been reduced to about 20 meters ahead, and that, in addition to the knowledge that there were sheer cliffs on both sides of the road, made our little joy trip quite suddenly not-so-joyous.
Sound had been reduced to a bare minimum, other than the rumbling of our engine, we could not hear anything else - not the wind, not the rustling of the leaves, not the crunching of rocks as our vehicle rolled past, nothing. It was rather akin to driving through a cloud, on a cloud. Even the roaring of the vehicle sounded distant, echoing in the fog. Oh, and did I mention there were sharp turns?
Said sharp turns had a most annoying tendency to materialize out of the fog, leading to panic, screaming, and frantic spinning of the steering wheel to avoid plunging off a cliff to certain doom. Thank god my brakes were working fine, contrary to what I had imagined (as mentioned in the previous entry) Otherwise, I would typing up a rather different entry, and from a very different place (hell comes to mind, although I'm not sure if I would be permitted to use a computer in the afterlife. Hmmm...)
About 30 minutes, 12 sharp turns and a million new strands of white hair later, we managed to find our way off the accursed Silent Hill, only to find that we had arrived at a dead end...
And had to go in reverse back up the trail.
If the fog weren't there, I'm sure the locals would have been pretty surprised to see the sky turn blue from all the expletives we expelled.
Rollback Hill and the Road to Nowhere (sounds like a cheesy storybook title)
Once we got off Silent Hill and had a little break to calm our nerves, we headed down the road to yet another hill. This one we christened Rollback Hill simply because of the ridiculous amounts of steep slopes we had to climb up, pushing our vehicle to its limit. Many a times we encountered a hairpin turn while on a steep ascent, and had to reverse our vehicle so that we could clear the bend. However, each time we stopped on the slopes to engage the reverse or first gear (and in some instances, the differential lock, if that term makes any sense to you) our vehicle would roll back alarmingly.
Cue much stomping on the brake pedal and the frantic yanking of the handbrake.
Come to think of it, I might have damaged my vehicle, considering the amount of force I put behind each stomp and yank (I had to nurse cramps when we managed to reach a rest point later) Whoops!
Once we had reached the summit, and began our descent, we came across a positively deadly stretch of road. It was totally overgrown with vegetation, the track and its surroundings were a total enigma to us. Hence the name - The Road to Nowhere. My good chump the passenger got off the vehicle and tentatively prodded along a few steps ahead, testing the ground, making sure it was solid and not gaseous, lest I found myself driving through the vegetation only to see the ground speeding towards me from 500 feet away.
After several heartstopping moments, we finally got out of the Road to Nowhere, and proceeded merrily along on our way, ignoring the distant scream and crash that came from behind us about 10 minutes later (just kidding)
Temple Road and the Ghost Town
Near our camp is a long stretch of road that lies right beside this humongous temple. And along this road, on both sides, stands row upon row of deity statues, which gives the road a very protected and divine feeling indeed. At night though, it's pretty creepy. The statues seemed to be watching our every move, as though waiting for us to commit a sin so they could go all "HALT! THUS FAR HAST THOU COMETH, BUT THOU SHALT PROCEED NO FURTHER!" and stuff and bring down heavenly wrath on our sinful asses.
The strange thing though, was that right after Temple Road was a town, and it seemed a deserted one at that. There were no signs of life at all, other than a few cars parked along the road (they didn't budge all through the week, though) There was a grand college in the vicinity, but no matter what time we seemed to drive past the place, we could never sight any students.
Creepy.
I shall stop my entry here and update another time, for my time on this computer is running out. Damn this stupid pay-per-use machine!
Till next time!
It's been a year since I was enlisted (most unwillingly) into the army, and at times (almost all the time, actually) I wonder: why doesn't the stupid army just dump its crappy old broken down vehicles and get new ones? And also: why are there these stupid devices that prevent you from going at more than 50kmph?
It boggles the mind.
People are always grouching that army drivers are demons on the roads once they get their own cars, that army drivers don't give a rat's ass about regulations and basic courtesy on the roads (as if you people do, MEH.) They complain that army vehicles are dinky and basically eyesores, and that the drivers hog the roads, casually going at a speed a drunken baby in his pram could easily overtake.
People, people, people... while I agree that army vehicles are dinky, it is not that we want to go at such stupid speeds. Believe me, it's even more frustrating for us than it is for you - it's hair-tearingly maddening to see the landscape crawling by, and even more so seeing heavy vehicles, especially those supposed to be really slow, speeding past us. Put yourself in our shoes for a moment before you go bitching, whining and showing off that wonderfully rude gesture of yours, eh? Little wonder it is that army drivers tend to speed once they get a hold of a vehicle that does not have that devilish, much hated little speed device.
It's something along the lines of: "WHOO! I CAN GO FASTER THAN 50! I'VE NEVER GONE FASTER THAN 50 BEFORE! YAAAAY! 60! 70! 80! 100! 120! Whoa, hey, I'm not used to this speed.. and... and WHERE DID THAT WALL COME FRO-" *crash*
And let me say this: if there were no repercussions, I would take a sledgehammer this instant, and go smash up the vehicles myself. Army vehicles are like the bane of my existence. Just a few days ago, one came remarkably close to cutting my decidedly short and not-quite-rich life to an end. You see, I was cruising (figuratively speaking, it was more like crawling) along a highway, and had to change lanes due to a blockage in the road ahead. While switching (here it gets slightly technical), I decided to change gears, but the moment I put the gear into neutral and stepped on the clutch pedal, my vehicle stalled and started careening happily down the highway.
I think the screams of my various passengers (and myself) could be heard throughout the entire country. I quickly started up the engine again, but the moment I stepped on the clutch to engage a gear (any gear!) it stalled again, and resumed its wondrous adventure down the middle of two lanes, where cars were speeding past on my right. The tension was thick, I tell you.
About 4 start-ups and a bazillion vehicles speeding past far too close to my vehicle for any form of comfort, the vehicle hung in between stalling and running just a split second longer than usual, and I managed to engage the goddamned gear. Cue much cheering and relief (as well as a few shifty looks at certain spots that looked like they had been soiled)
Finally, we managed to exit the Speeding Highway of Probable Death, and rolled to a stop in front of a traffic junction, where we all paused to catch our breaths and congratulate one another on having escaped certain doom. And then a passenger just so happened to bring up the topic of my flying to an overseas camp up in the mountains to support a unit.
"Hey, what will happen if you were going down the mountain trail, and the engine died like that?"
...
I haven't slept very well since then.
DAMN YOU, ARMY VEHICLES!
DAMN YOUUU!