splat on your face,

conqured Mount FANSIPAN!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

okay i am back in Singapore already
lucky it is still cold out here in Singapore
or else i dono how i am going to adapt to the weather here
okay as can see from the above picture i went to Vietnam with ODAC for an expedition
to climb Mount Fansipan!
at Vietnam, Ha Noi, Lao Cai, Sapa

was a different experience from the OCIP trip
but i think i learned something new whenever i went abroad
maybe because going abroad force me to think and reflect
learn more about others and myself

this time i think i was more of a tourist and mountain climber than a traveller
but still i learned from this experience
the people in Vietnam
their culture
their life
their livelihood

the Club bonded more i guess
i think it wouold be good if there is another expedition where everyone in the club go together
JUST the club
i think that will bond us and make us understand each other better
so it is a pity that those going for UK or OCIP didnt get the chance to go to Mt. Fansipan

went to watch the water puppet show
it was amazing
it is like watching magic show like this you know!
how they moved the puppet but you could not see what moved it
it is like it got its own life and is moving by itself because light is refracted by the water
simply amazing!

we went to visit Mr. Ho Chi Min's Body the next day
it is heartening to see people from all walk of life coming together to pay their respect to their late leader
from kidergarden kids to old army soldiers
simply amazing
it is also amazing to know that the body is kept there for more than 40 years already

next we went to take a train to Lao Cai
it was a long ride there
the trip took around 9 hours
i wasnt really feeling very well the first few days cause of sore throat and i think i caught a cold
so went on the comfortable train
but didnt really sleep much
woke up every hour
anyway i need to share room with 3 girls on the train cause i am the odd one out

then bused to sapa
super duper cold there
plus the fact that i am not feeling well
it is worse man
but after the bus ride and the motion sickness and the throwing out
i actually felt better
and the noodle soup with chicken did me a big favour too!

HA!
look how man layer i am wearing man!
1st-long john
2nd-saints pe tee shirt
3rd-ocip tee shirt
-beanie
4th-hoodie
5th-windbreaker
-thermal gloves

and it was still super cold
you can see smoke coming out from your mouth when you talked!
so thats the start of the trek

but once we start walking
our body are warm enough and we will shed until left 2 layers
haha!

along the way we saw millons of sign like this but that doent mean we are nearing...

stayed at 2200m above sea level for a night
it was super cold so no one actually have a good sleep
next day wake up we went up to the summit
it is easy to say now but the climb up was the most tiring thing i have done in my life
what is 10km man!
you can see it written all over my face!
reached there at around 1230pm
just nice that day was my mum's birthday so i called her on the SUMMIT
cool right!

HAHA!
conqured Mount Fansipan
Vietnam highest peak and East Asia's highest peak
look how happy i am!
reaching the top
totally ignorance of the fact that going down is worse then gonig up the mountain!