In a couple of weeks’ time, I’ll be leading a group of students to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), under the YMCA volunteer program. People have told me it’s a waste of my limited annual leave, to be having 2 weeks off to go somewhere without a jacuzzi. To that, I roll my eyeballs.
I like the kind of getaway where no wi-fi network can reach me, no emails can bother me, no facebook notifications can poke me. I like the feeling of being unreachable, but knowing that I’ll come back to it all. It makes me relish it even more.
ABC is also a good place for me to gain some altitude in my system. Albeit only 4000m, it’s better than sitting on my arse at sea level. Trekking with the students might potentially be interesting, I’ve never worked with 15-year-olds before (erm, besides the tuition kid I simple translated her history text into English for). During our last Bukit Timah session, we did the Dairy Farm Loop and those kids really impressed me with how much energy they have.
I don’t remember having this much energy when I was 15, I remember reading a lot of books at the upper deck of SBS buses. I remember hating the school’s compulsory outdoor adventure camp where seniors tortured us like ants. That didn’t leave me much room to enjoy the great outdoors.
If I could re-live my life when I was 15, I wonder what I’d change…
With the team, Esther went on to climb and summit mountains in far-flung corners of the world, including Mt Aylmer (2,699m) in New Zealand; Mera Peak (6,476m) in Nepal; Er Feng (5,276m) in China; Mustagh Ata (7,546m) in Central Asia, and Mt Everest (8,850m) in Nepal.