Friday, December 09, 2005

moUnT OpHIR

mOUnt oPhIR
Disapointment. What a word to start commenting on a trip right? I went on the trip with great anticipation, hoping to reach the summit and enjoy the scenery from the mountain top. But, due to the large group size the time we took to scale the mountain is dragged and prolonged. At that rate of scaling, we were unable to reach the summit at the targetted time and get down before dusk. In the end, we ended up scaling only half the mountain,descending earlier than expected. Sigh.. the whole purpose of the trip was defeated. Who to blame??? Mainly the planning com, partly the physical strength of the members. Not everyone will have the same physical strength, that is something to be anticipated by the trip i/c, as such, group size should be kept small so that it is easier and more safe to travel as well. Smaller group is definitely easier to handle and the higher the chance of conquering the mountain. But, from the maximum pax of 18 people, it was increased to 27, almost up by 10 people. Technically speaking, this group is too big. Frankly speaking, if this big group consist of fun and interactive people, things would not have been that bad. But, it is just our luck to get a clique-ish lot who does not seem too wiling to mingle around other than be with their own group of friends. The leader also made no attempt to break the ice, niether did he ask for a buddy system to ensure the safety of his participants. Call himself a leader, call himself an i/c. Lousy is what i have to say to him. Though i have no experience leading a group of people on an overseas trip, some of the bear minimum that should have been done was just not quite there. Will u leave an injured participant alone to the care of a guide to bring her downhill and leave her all alone there while the rest of the members scale the mountain? Not to say that i do not trust the guide, but, who knows what will happen to her? Even after she is brought safely to our base camp, she is there to be alone in the wild for the rest of the 6 to 7 hours. Moreover, it is her first attempt on such a trip.
Anyway, the trip was not such a gone case when these unhappiness graudually pushed the non-clique-ish people together. And due to this, we made new friends and had a lot of fun on our own. I turned out to be the "rebellious" lot in the trip, but it is simply no point sticking to a half-hearted i/c leaving most of the task of leading to his counterpart while he enjoys his small honeymoon and unfair share of authority. bleahhhhh..Got to know a bunch of nice and really cute people..they include Libin,Pangren,Richard,bert and yenleng..Frank and jovial is what i like about them. At the end of the 2nd day, the 5 of them, together with me and fang, ended up booking a resort room, had our heavenly toilet and bed, leaving the wild and the natural to the group of anti-socials.. To be fair to all, not all of them are that anti-social, but all i can say is that they do influence one another and in general, they just send a negative signal to stop me from being friendly. Grrr..
Nonetheless, the last one and a half days were fun because of the new friends fang and i had made. We sang, ate and crapped our way..Under the guidance of bert, we left the group at larkin terminal and headed for our own seafood feast! muhahaha.. yum yum.. it is so nice.. the stingray, the sambal sotong, the he bo..whahaha..
Reached home at 1142 there about finally. Not to think about the disappointments, i have enjoyed holiday! Though a twist from what i have initially expected.

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