I practice traditional barebow archery, with instinctive aiming and equal proficiency in left and right-handed shooting. I use a Taegeuk horn bow made by Korean master bowyer Cho Young-Seok, feather-fletched bamboo arrows, and thumb rings made of brass and of buffalo horn. My inspiration comes not from Legolas, Matt Damon, Lara Croft or Jennifer Lawrence, but from Hua Mulan.
Memorable experiences include being swept towards a naval base by high winds and waves and warned off by the military, and an excursion up a fast-flowing, crystal-clear mangrove creek at the base of a towering peak of pristine tropical rainforest shrouded by rolling mist on a remote, uninhabited island somewhere in the Malay Archipelago.
Notable rides: Singapore to Kuantan via the east coast trunk road; complete traverse of the East-West Highway which climbs to 1100m above sea level on the Titiwangsa range in northern peninsular Malaysia.

Negotiating the Plunge Pool en route to the Sarawak Chamber, Gunung Mulu National Park.
Long exposure of Kodak Tri-X film with a Nikon F.
Photo: Lin Yangchen

On the summit of Gunung Mulu (2376m), with Gunung Api (1710m) in the distance.
Photo by my Penan guide Anthony.

Following my climbing mentor Wilfred Tok at 3900m on Mount Kinabalu.

With the Singapore Adventurers' Club on the Himalayan summit of Shitidhar (5289m).


I am trained in the line intercept transect for surveying coral reefs, with research dives in the Singapore Strait and South China Sea.
I served as a crew-in-training on a voyage from Jakarta to Pontianak (Borneo) via the Belitung and Karimata islands on the schooner Four Friends under the command of Captain Warren Blake.