Recently a group of my classmates and schoolmates organized a trekking trip all the way to the snow mountains of the Sichuan province in China this late autumn season. They had planned the trip about 3 months ahead. They bought all the gears and the necessary apparels and did some tall building climbing training before they embarked on the challenge. While I was taking on a new assignment here in Kemaman, I hesitated quite a while on whether to join them because it is a new job for me here and also the days to be away was about 15 days, a bit too long. It was really a "not to be missed" opportunity that after so many years we left school and we were able to gather so many of them and to do sight-seeing in a foreign land and have fun together.
Coincidently Air Asia airline announced the inaugural flight on 20th October 2009 to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. And the online booking of Air Asia was easy and quick, and most of all, to and fro air ticket was only Rm559. That was really a good deal and I finally made a compromise and firmed up my mind to join them only for the last 3 days of their trekking journey at the renowned resort of Jiuzhaigou.
Their trekking trip included camping in snowing mountains and also the need to go very natural as there are no amenities, toilets and hotels whatsoever along the most part of the track. They had to climb hills and wade through snow covered track, scaled up and down above 4000 m of high altitude snow mountains, experienced mountain sickness etc. The only consolation they had, should there be any emergency, was the presence of a medical specialist doctor as one of the team members. They probably entered the Jiuzhaigou resort through trekking in from the back entrance while I flew in and went in from the main entrance by taxi. One of our classmates opted to give up the trip and went home alone as the journey was proven to be just too much for him to endure. Surprisingly there were 3 Singaporean women and 1 Malaysian lady participated in the adventure. They managed to persevere through the entire gruesome journey, though the team had actually decided to deviate and cut short the last trekking portion and went straight in to the resort one day earlier than scheduled. I arrived at the right timing to catch up with them otherwise I would have to wait one whole day alone in the hotel for their arrival if they sticked on to the original schedule. This made the trip more interesting and we had more time to tour Jiuzhaigou more thoroughly.
Jiuzhaigou is almost a paradise on earth and is beyond words to describe its beauty. Photographs taken are so beautiful that one could think that they are just paintings, a place too good to be true. I had posed in some of the photos just to convince myself and others to look at those shots taken are real, and not some manipulation of the digital images.
This was really a wonderful trip and I enjoyed it very much!
Pictures paint a thousand words, these are the web albums for your viewing:
http://picasaweb.google.com/martinleefh/mltvTE02#
http://picasaweb.google.com/martinleefh/mltvTE#
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