Schools Groups

In July 2008, 15 students and 2 staff from Sutton Valence School’s combined cadet force travelled to Brunei where they stayed on the Army Base in Seria. The holiday included jungle survival training with the British Army and working at a school for mentally and physically handicapped children, as well as enjoying the local sights.

Flights, ground transportation and additional excursions were arranged by Medway Travel, based in Maidstone, Kent. The excursions included: Cinema Trip to The Empire Hotel, Brunei Shell Tour, Water Village with Wildlife Excursion, Sultan’s Birthday Trip, Brunei Heritage Tour and Temburong River Rafting. A final 3 nights’ stay at The Nexus Resort in Koto Kinabalu was also arranged at the end of their army life experience.

As part of Medway Travel’s commitment to engage with the local community and schools, students were encouraged to write an essay about their adventure holiday. The reports were then entered into a competition and the winners – Eleanor van Leeuwen from Kingswood and Josh Dearing from East Sutton – were presented with prizes of book tokens and travel guides by Medway Travel. Here are their reports:

Eleanor van Leeuwen

In July 2008 for two and half weeks, fifteen cadets from Sutton Valence CCF travelled to Brunei. We took the flight from London to Dubai and then on to Brunei, which totalled seventeen long hours. In our time there we participated in many different things, from helping the local community to trekking the jungle.

All of us who went on the trip saw an amazing country and had an experience that we will remember forever. Brunei is situated on the island of Borneo which is in Indonesia. The climate is very different to chilly England with temperatures reaching up to 40° C. Humidity is high throughout the year due to high temperature and rainfall, with an average of 2800 mm of rain per year.

Brunei’s Sultan is his Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, he was crowned on 1st August 1968. His birthday is on the 15th of July, which happened in the time we were there. Everyone in the country celebrates his birthday by having banners of him and announcements of his birthday everywhere. Every home would have the flag of Brunei flying in the month of July, in honour for his birthday.

Brunei’s main source of income is supplying large amounts of oil to the company Shell. So the money from this, the Sultan uses for paying for the peoples education and health, also some of their homes and cars. We went to the oil museum where we were told about Brunei’s oil and also had a science part with lots of activities, like a tornado box, brain wave detector to a gyroscope. it was very amusing and we could have spent all day there.

In our first week we had the challenge of trying to adapt to this extreme environment. We had a lovely tour guide called Mohammed who showed us his beautiful country. We experienced the culture by attending local markets and shopping malls, which we found to be surprisingly cheap in comparison to England. One Bruneian dollar is the same as 33p. We tasted the oriental delicacies and bought hand-made gifts from the stalls.

We visited the main mosque of Brunei funded and attended by the Sultan and his wives – oh yes, the sultan has two wives. We attended the Brunei museum which was very interesting, telling the life so far of the current Sultan and the lives of previous Sultans. It even displayed gifts given to the Sultan from other countries.

One night we went along to a local restaurant, recommended by some of the Gurkha officers. With basic English not spoken, ordering our meal for seventeen was a struggle. Food just seemed to be coming out of the kitchen endlessly. We all left with full stomachs.

My favourite part of this week was sailing on a boat and visiting a water village. The entire village was built on stilts and the people there are only connected to the land by their boats. They even had a mosque in the village. We were invited into one of these homes, from the outside it seemed to be very weathered and worn. Inside was an absolute surprise of extravagant carpets and paintings, gold-paint trimmed the walls and huge comfy sofas and chairs. They had made us cakes which we all tucked into and finished very quickly.

We had a few trips to the beach which was enjoyed by us all; except for the fact that we had to go in full swimming suits and t-shirts due to the Muslim religion there. The water was very murky and had the appearance of an English sea but felt like you were jumping in to a huge hot bath.

As this country had given us such pleasure and experience we thought we should return the favour and help the local community. In Brunei an organisation called KATA which is a charity that helps the local disabled children by teaching them. There are three of these schools in Brunei - Tu Tung, BSB and Kualabelait, and we were lucky enough to be able to help all three. We helped them by doing jobs that the volunteers there just don’t have time to do, like painting the outside of the buildings to make them nicer for the children and visitors to the schools. At one of the schools the Bruneian press came and interviewed us to be in the Bruneian paper, all about our time out there. This was very amusing when we found out we were put on the front page a couple of days later.

In our next week of the trip we spent four days in the Jungle teamed up with the Surrey ACF accompanied by some of the Gurkha Army. It was such magical places that even a good photo couldn’t let you appreciate the magnificence of the tall trees which allowed the twinkling sun beam through the large leaves. It made you feel so insignificant in comparison with this wonderful environment, at the same time being claustrophobic and loud with a constant background noise of alarm beetles. The jungle was difficult with the intense humidity and your body producing an enormous amount of sweat, soaking your kit. Mosquitoes attacked our skin and left us scratching all day and all night. Despite all of the discomfort I loved it and it really tested your character.

We spent the first two and a half days being taught by the Gurkha’s how to survive in the jungle, from setting animal traps for food to building our own shelter. The Gurkha’s are the most positive thinking and enthusiastic people I think I have ever met and they seemed to get everyone up and running and discarding our aches and pains we were split into three sections and rotated round to each ‘class room’ to be taught the next survival lesson.

My favourite lesson was making a shelter, learning all the techniques and tricks to keeping you safe at night. It was very interesting to find out how you navigate in the jungle as there are no land marks which we are used to helping us navigate in England. It was all done by using a compass and counting our steps which we worked out before hand to see how many metres we had walked as we had worked out how many steps equalled so many metres.

On the third day and night in the jungle we had to put our knowledge into practice by making our own animal and water traps and shelter for our section with only our webbing to survive on. This was great fun and we all bonded with everyone in our section and the Gurkha’s that were there for help. I was in section 1 (the best section) with Sergeant Bell in command of us (my favourite Gurkha). He showed us how to use a kukri but none of us could get a tree down as quickly as he could but it didn’t stop us trying.

We all survived but I ended up suffering from dehydration by not drinking the five litres per day recommendation. This was one of the main lessons I learnt from being in the jungle…DRINK WATER!

The following morning we cleared our campsite and then went back to the main ‘classroom’ and waited for our ride in the helicopter. There were two helicopters that came to collect us. It was a twenty minute ride but felt like a lifetime. We hovered over the great rainforest making us appreciate its size. It left us all speechless and over whelmed at how stunning and breath-taking the view was. It made me marvel at the beauty of our world and how mortifying that man could ever harm it.

Our last days were spent at an amazing five star hotel in Malaysia, with a private beach, swimming pools, shops, spa, restaurants and golf course. It suited all of us! We spent one of these days at an orang-utan sanctuary in Sarawak. This meant another plane journey. We walked into the outskirts of the rainforest on a giant bridge that was through the orang-utan’s habitat, allowing us to come right up close to them. They were so big and interesting to watch as their behaviour is so similar to humans. Especially some of the boys on the trip!

As a group we are all very different, different interests, different ages and different friendship groups. This could have been a disadvantage but we all became close friends and our personalities complimented each others. helping make the trip an enjoyable one. If I could do it all again I would with no second thought. I have learnt so much, from how to survive in a jungle, the culture of Brunei, the Gurkha army and a lot about myself.

I am so thankful of the welcoming and friendly community of Brunei and the Gurkha army who have taught me things I will never forget.

Brunei is full of culture, beauty, history and lovely people. I’m so lucky I have experience this country if you ever get the opportunity to visit. DO IT!

Josh Dearing

Our trip of a life time to Brunei this July had been painstakingly planed for over a year. Captain Millbery from Sutton Valence school CCF had managed to put together an exciting expedition into the jungle with the help of the Royal Gurkha Regiment (1RGR) to this small but wealthy country. The trip came with the added benefit of seeing other parts of the country, which would include several visits including another fight to Malaysia to the orangutan sanctuary, and to help a local children charity.

On the 6th of July the real adventure stated at 5.30 am in the quad at Sutton Valence. After just a relatively short trip of 90 minutes to London Heathrow where we boarded our fight to Brunei, which was to last 15 hours!

Once landed we were greeted by Captain Suresh who was in charge of us in the time we were in Brunei. We got on a bus that took us to our home for the next two and a half weeks in the 1RGR Garrison. The garrison was placed in a town called Seria, the base was very nice and the facilities were just as good as they are in England.

The first day we rested from the long journey that all in all took over a day, we got used to the temperature but the humidity was very over powering. The group visited the local shops which had all the essentials that we needed for the next few days. The week consisted mainly of helping a children’s charity called KACA which we visited three of their schools. We undertook painting as well as cleaning work in all the schools. Everyone found it very rewarding as we were having a good time and the same time we were helping children in need of help and making their schools look even better.

At the end of the first week and the beginning of the second week we started doing training, the group went for a day on the jungle range using the army issue SA80, this was the first time some of us, including me have used this gun so were nervous. The Gurkhas taught us in depth how to us the rifle and how to clean the gas parts. The solders where extremely good with us and took their time to explain different aspects, on the range their help was greatly appreciated by all. Once on the range we were wearing full kit including webbing, Bergen and a helmet, the helmets still had the names of the soldiers that had worn them months earlier when in combat in the Hellman province. The day went down really well and boosted moral for those who were comprehensive about the jungle phase, which was most of us!

After 2 days of training which included a swim test in full combats, which was very physical hard but looking back on it once we climbed out it was really fun. We spent some time in the classroom learning about the risk from all natural aspects in the jungle. After learning the possible dangers from the wildlife we headed outside in to the helicopter area, the garrison planed a helicopter evacuation to so us what to do in case of anything happening to any of us.

After all this we were ready for the jungle phase. We were woken on a Tuesday morning and after a rushed breakfast we were loaded on to a coach and 30 minutes down the road the entrance to area C was near. There was torrential rain that day and the rain was flooding down the road into the jungle. This meant that we had to get a lift by the trucks which were filled with our Bergans the rest of the 2 miles. Once in the area we were given a task right away, the task was to learn how to navigate through the jungle which is hard as you have to trust your compass as there is no physical land marks that can be seen. We were separated into three groups of eight and set off into the unknown. On the first day we only walked about 1 mile through the jungle taking it in turns at the front to be the first ones to get covered in spider webs and the spiders! After the excises we were taught how to set up our hammocks and we did so helping each other in the task. I personally found the first night fine except for the cold that was around the early hours of the morning and the sheer pitch black sky.

The second day consisted of the groups going round to several different stands which the Gurkhas had set up for us. We learnt skills such as collection of water and food, how to set traps and how to build a shelter that we were going to put in to practice in the next day. I found traps building very fun as we learnt something that most people don’t know how to make as well as using a blow pipe to hit targets.

These skills were to be used on the third day and after another chilly night under the trees were we were taking part in a 24 hour survival exercise, this would entail each group surviving on only essential items. We fished for our food but only catching 3 fish was really not enough to feed us all! It took the whole day to build our shelter big enough for all eight of us and also to build two traps for wild animals and two water traps to collect water. This certainly was the highlight of the whole trip and the cadets and I enjoyed this part on the jungle phase. The following morning the trip became even better as the helicopters circled above a clearing in the jungle and then landed one by one taking around five cadets per chopper. The ride home was amazing flying over the jungle and seeing what we had been in for the last four days, and seeing Seria from the sky and the garrison was breath-taking.

Once back on base we washed kit and handed back all our issued kit back to the base, then cleaned ourselves as not washing for nearly a week with a humidity up in the 90% range it doesn't smell to good! We said our goodbyes to all the solders that had been so welcoming to us and giving up their rest period from their tour in Afghanistan.

The trip was finished off with three day of R and R in Malaysia in which we were lucky enough to go to an orangutan sanctuary and see them in their own habitat.

This has been the best trip I have been on and it would be an understatement to say that the group and I thoroughly enjoyed it.