Of Mountains, Environmental Education and Zero Waste

How does your body react to altitudes that are thirty to forty times a Bukit Timah Hill’s? It screams at you with the worst headaches you will ever experience. Some nights, they get so bad that not even popping four Panadol (and ActiFast at that) can lighten the throb in your head. So you learn. You learn that prevention is better than cure. You learn from your peers to pop one tablet every four hours and wonder how many years of medical detoxification you will need before the tablets make their way out of your body. First-aid talks aside, you also come to reliaze that, while your body reacts to the harsh Himalayan environment as quickly as its winds blow, you can cheat it into believing that are you taking a descent, when the opposite is the truth. Acclimatization days are the BEST because apparently, if you put your body at an elevation level just a few hundred metres higher in the day, make a descent and then go to bed at lower altitudes, the headaches, unfortunately, don’t

Disclaimer: This guide is written based on my own experience and may not be comprehensive enough, I would suggest that you still do your own research. Since Mt. Kinabalu was privatized few years ago, the tourism business up to the mountains has been monopolized by Sutera Sanctuary Lodges (SSL), the biggest hotel operator in Sabah. A climbing package that is booked directly from SSL would cost at least RM600 (for Malaysians) and RM800 for non-Malaysians. This guide serves to help you save at least RM300 and that is only if you can allow yourself at least 5 days' stay at Kinabalu Parks and/or be prepared to not climb Mt. Kinabalu AT ALL. Be prepared to bump into lots of obstacles because there're so many tour operators waiting to con your money. //Trails// There're two trails you can follow: via Timpohon Gate (8.75km to summit) and via Mesilau Gate (10.9km to summit). Most people choose to enter via Timpohon Gate as it is the easier trail and I personally do no

The decision to go to Vietnam was when I read about Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam (more about that later) sometime ago. I thought crawling through narrow, suffocating tunnels sounded fun and it came close to War Museum in Penang which I loved! The initial plan was only to visit Vietnam, but later I learnt about the Khmer Rouge regime and decided I wanted to learn about the genocide (whether or not it was a genocide is debatable) that killed more than two million Cambodians in the 1970s. Due to time constraints, we changed our itinerary a bit but we covered Phnom Penh (Cambodia) - Siem Reap - Chau Doc (Mekong Delta, Vietnam) - Can Tho - Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam). Our lifesaver! We departed from Kuala Lumpur on 10th July and landed in Phnom Penh. Out of the few cities that we travelled to, Phnom Penh was the city that we liked least, no thanks to the deceiving tuk-tuk drivers we met. A few of them were okay, but most of them were not. Well, we only took 4-5 rides on tuk-tuks?   On the

1、学会冷血，只对对我好的人好，对某些人，简直就是浪费感情 　　 2、学会比以前快乐，即使难过，也要微笑着 　　 3、学会孤独，没有谁会把你当宝护着，世界总是孤单的 　　 4、学会坚强，其实一个人也可以活得漂亮，自己笑给自己看，自己哭给自己听 　　 5、学会忍耐，该闭嘴就闭嘴，该沉默就沉默 　　 6、学会珍惜，知心的朋友已经不多，如果再走，就真的只剩下自己了 　　 7、学会视而不见，恶心的东西选择忽视，厌恶的东西选择屏蔽，不会再有人让我不快乐 　　 8、学会满足，所谓知足常乐 　　 9、学会独立，不能再一味的麻烦别人，自己的事自己做 　　 10、学会长大，不能再那么任性，那么幼稚，那么孩子气 　　 11、学会认真，认真的对人，认真的对事 12、学会慎重，不该认识的人不要认识，不该插手的事不要插手

I missed the lecture this morning. When I went to school, Mich told me about a short video clip that was shown during lecture. It made our lecturer cried. The clip showed the different stages in a lady's life. The day she was born, how she grew up, how she met the man of her life and how they got married. And then, she was diagnosed with cancer. The doctor told her she only had 3 months left. She started to cherish life, more than she ever had. She stopped thinking of how people would look at her when she showed her affection to her husband. Afterall, he was her dearest. There was noone more important than him. Our lecturer picked up her phone and called her mother the first time she watched the clip. She told her mother she loves her. And then she started tearing in the lecture theatre. And then I cried too. There're times when I reflect on myself and let thoughts run wildly through my mind. Today is one of the days. I reflected on my life, myself and people around m

My results slip for last semester wasn't sent to my address. -_- I went to SSC to check it out. The receptionists couldn't find mine. He called the examination department and it said I had to pay $3.20 to get a new copy unless I requested 2 weeks ago. -_- It wasn't even my fault loh. Turned out I didn't save my address while updating my particulars on SAS, so when the school printed the slip the address field was empty! After a long lecture from the staff, she decided that I could get mine for free. Oh well. =.=