Of Dreams

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Originally uploaded by Minas Morgul.

Dear TomHa,
You wake up, rub your eyes a little, roll up the curtains, grab your spectacles from the cupboard and whoala! A gigantic mountain greets you a very fine morning ahead. You turn to the other side, whoala! Another spectacular view awaits you. Mountains are about the most beautiful things that one can ever set sight on on this green green earth. I was lucky to have seen them, was lucky to have scaled them, was lucky that I was that lucky. However, 好景不常在, you get back to your home and then reality strikes you down hard, and fast. That's life.

Some people asked me why the heck do I want to risk life and limb to climb mountains. To challenge myself physically? Not quite. I am not like some of my canoeing team mates who enjoy torturing themselves. I hate running, I hate climbing stairs, I hate everything that I had done to my body at the expense of the comfort of sitting in front of the TV eating my favourite keropok. Yes, I am a weirdo and yet I do these things, to the extreme that I do them more than maybe others do. Am I making sense? I doubt so, but sometimes, in life, you just carry on doing something just because the momentum is there and you just cannot stop. It is like being stuck on a maths question and you just do not want to give up, wasting precious hours and papers and ink to find that in the end, you had just missed out on one freaking square root. Perhaps, again, I am the only one.

Back to the question again. Why mountaineering of all sports? Because I want to relive all that I had seen in my geography texts. Geography is about the single subject that I had taken and enjoyed thoroughly. Although I must concede that in the end, i am still rather weak in it, failing to recognise a serac or a morraine from topo maps or just the simple differentiation of cumulus and nimbus clouds. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. No matter. geography is about the most beautiful subject that I had ever taken, and I want to experience the beauty first hand. The Kiwis are a lucky bunch of people.

I have so many things that I want to do, and seriously I am finding myself with a serious lack of time. I still have not complete my tour of South East Asia, having only went to Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, if you want to count that as well. Also, given that I don't really consider myself having toured Thailand completely, I still have so many more to go! I'll like to have a look at the Mekong, want to go to Indonesia to see their terraced plantations, go Brunei to see oil (Although a lot of people say I would get the chance once I go back to SAF), go to Cambodia to see lost ruins, go Vietnam for I cannot remember what, and also Myanmmar and Laos, and Philipines! To see their cliffs and what-nots. I live in a very colorful region, and that's something that I should feel lucky about, should I not? Interested in joining me?

I like Nepal, and I would try all in my calibre to get my feet on their soil, but somehow, whether I make it or not does not seem to matter anymore. I am already mountain-trained, as long as I revise with myself constantly, the skills will forever be there. Afterall, I do not think that plate tectonics will ever move faster than my lifetime to displace away those mountains.

So what's the point of this entry? As I ask myself everytime I finish writing an entry. Hmm.. dream big. When I watched LOTR, I told myself that I will go to NZ. Dream became reality and I am very happy. Dream big... Dream... I am tired... Yawns... Nights and Big Dreams!