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Christ Church Secondary Girls Team at Everest Base Camp April 2009
05 June 2009
The EBC Girls were back!
Known as the Centre of Interest in Outdoor Education, Christ Church Secondary School started planning for an 18 day trek to Everest Base Camp since last year. Emulating after the Singapore Women Everest Team, this adventure team was made up of 3 female teachers (Ms Puah, Mrs Ang, Ms Tay), 6 girls (Cherry, Wenting, Yuki, Xin Fang, Priscilla & Cheryl) and a female trip leader from YMCA. They have only one goal – to trek to Everest Base Camp (5360m) and meet up with the Singapore Women Everest Team (perhaps).
It was an honor for Divine to be given the opportunity to collaborate with the school again for the third time in their outdoor adventures. We were very excited about bringing the girls to the Everest Base Camp and back safely.
During the trip briefing at the beginning of the year, many parents were listening intently what to expect for their daughters who were training rigorously then. Deepak, being the representative official from Nepal Tourism Board, gave parents more insights to Nepal and its mountains. No questions went unanswered, we were glad we gained their support and understanding by the end of the session. Thereafter, our efforts were focused on making all arrangements to ensure the girls’ successful journey to the Base Camp.
In March, Deepak and I were back in Kathmandu for work and home visit. We met the team upon their arrival. Not leaving anything to chance, we conducted yet another detailed briefing over lunch and made sure everyone absorbed the information and was well-prepared. Everyone was excited about the impending journey even though they had seen photo slides and were briefed by their teachers. I should have videoed their little ‘Diamox* Ceremony’ over dinner. I have not seen anything as hilarious as what they did – must ‘yum seng’ with the Diamox pill* before swallowing!
(*Note: Diamox is the most tried and tested drug for altitude sickness prevention.)
The EBC Trek we had planned for the group was a well-paced one including acclimatization days and buffer for possible flight delay. As the altitude got higher, the more challenging it got for them. We were back in Singapore during the course of their trek but monitored the journey everyday. Their chief guide Tin would call us from various phone points to report safety.
After almost trekking for almost 10 days, 6 of them made it to the Everest Base Camp (5360m) and met up with the Singapore Women Everest Team. The experience of having made it there and meeting up with their mentors was exhilarating! For these teenagers who grew up in the tropics, I would say it was no mean feat.
They had seen for themselves how a Base Camp dotted with expedition tents looked like, experienced the wonders of standing triumph at the foothill of Mount Everest and understood in this journey that nothing is impossible if they set their hearts to it. It was truly an experience of a lifetime for them.
It must have felt surreal upon return to the city. The team was back in Singapore on 13 April. Guess what? They are now known as the ‘EBC Girls’ in school and I believe whom many regard as role models because of what they achieved.
With the victorious return of our very own Singapore Women Everest Team and the inspiring journey made by the Christ Church team, I wondered, what would our very own Everest be?
Perhaps we can take a moment, think about a seemingly impossible task for ourselves and set our mind (or heart) to achieve it? I am sure the achievement will impact and change the way we live.
For now, these amazing EBC Girls seem to be aiming for Island or Mera Peak next.
Click here to see the girls’ gorgeous album of their Everest journey.
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IN THE MEDIA
Singapore women reach Everest Base Camp
Posted: 09 April 2009 1036 hrs
Nepal: The team of Singapore women climbers have reached Everest Base Camp, bringing them closer in their attempt to scale Everest.
In an update emailed from the camp which stands at 5300 metres above sea-level the women said they were spending time getting acclimatised.
"After close to five years of preparation, we're finally here!" said a member of the NATAS SWET team in an email sent through a communication platform set up with support from Singapore telecommunications firm SingTel.
The six-member team ascended Everest Base Camp (EBC) from Lobuche high camp (5,200m) climbing over rocks and boulders in the darkness.
Although the team's EBC 'home' for the next two months is at a height of 5,300m which is higher than most mountains in the European Alps, it didn't prevent visitors from dropping by.
Giving the women a pleasant surprise were students and teachers from Singapore's Christ Church Secondary School. They had treked hills to pay the visit which saw the students leaving littles notes written on song sheets while the teens made their journey to meet the Everest team.
"This journey was meant to inspire and instill confidence in the students and as a gesture of encouragement to the team" said a member of Singapore's first women Everest team.
"We were immensely touched and inspired by their visit... We were very encouraged by this and impressed by the strength and perseverance they have displayed in making their way here.
They said that this was their little way of reminding us of Singapore, but to us, their presence have already brought 'home' to us, right here in the Himalayas."
The team of led by student development officer Jane Lee, 24; training facilitator Sim Yihui, 26; copywriter Esther Tan, 26; pharmaceutical-product specialist Lee Lihui, 27; business owner Joanne Soo, 38; and army officer Lee Peh Gee,32; embarked on their historic climb on March 21.
Click here to read original post on Channel News Asia online.
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In search of Marpha Apples
13 May 2009
While in Nepal, we decided to visit Jomsom.
The Jomsom Trek is a classic trek, essentially the final third of the Annapurna Circuit and the gateway to Mustang. It follows the Kali Gandaki Valley between the soaring peak of Annapurna & Dhaulagiri and finally emerges to the north of the main Himalayan range, on the dry, desert- like Tibetan Plateau. A several days walk beyond Jomsom will take trekkers to the final destination, Muktinath, the holy temple. This trek allows access to the high mountains of the Himalayas within a reasonable time frame and without ascending to extreme altitude.
Our highlight of the trip was to visit Marpha village situated in Nepal's Kali Gandaki Valley, the deepest valley in the world. One of the most beautiful stops on the Annapurna Circuit trek, Marpha is known as the "capital of apples". Surrounded by apple orchards and fields where mainly buckwheat, potatoes and maize are grown, the Thakali people of Marpha make a living from animal husbandry, trade and tourism. You cannot miss Marpha apples or its products while in Marpha. There were apple brandy, apple pies, apple juice, apple cidar, apple rings etc. However, it was not the apple season when we were there but we still had the apple juice. They must be the best apple juice I ever had in my life. The distinctive fragrance was unmistakable. In fact, we often try to buy Marpha apples even in Kathmandu and Pokhara.
Nowadays, the Jomsom area is getting more accessible. One is able to drive a jeep or ride a motorcycle from Beni all the way up to Muktinath. It can be a rather interesting sight to see trekkers walking alongside vehicles on their trek!
Back to Himalayan Inn in Jomsom, Deepak was lounging out in the living room area, reading newspapers and having his hot chocolate. It was a really heart-warming sight to see him in a relaxed mode, I thought, this Nepali man hardly rest on his laurels even during off-peak seasons. We were back in Pokhara by flight the next day and continued our work holiday.
Click here to view our Jomsom trek album.
Click here to view a Jomson trek itinerary.
Important Tip for Jomsom Trek:
The wind is very strong along the Jomsom trek. It is important to bring a good shawl to cover your face and keep yourself warm on the trek.
NEW ITINERARY!
4 Wheel Drive Adventure to Lower Mustang
In view of the easy accessibility to Jomsom and beyond, we have created a new itinerary for anyone who is interested in a 4-wheel-drive journey to Lower Mustang. It is suitable for families too if you are looking for some hassle-free adventure!
Click here to view our new 4-wheel-drive itinerary to Jomsom.
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2008
29 December 2008
Hi all,
Namaste!
It’s been a truly rewarding and exciting year for us in 2008 at Divine.
For a start, more of you avid travellers and trekkers seeked us out to plan your trips to Nepal and around the Himalaya. It was our pleasure to have you travel with us and thank you for trusting us with your travel and trekking plans. It has been very enjoyable discussing your trips with you and even more so when you returned to share your travel tales with us. Thank you very much for all your feedback, photos, gifts and most of all, friendship. To those of you who recommended your friends and families to us, we thank you deeply for your support and hope we have served you all well.
To all teachers, despite the hefty planning, admin and operation work for each of our projects together, we salute you for your professionalism and tireless enthusiasm! Thank you for your constant feedback, sharing and trust. It is always a great learning experience as we work together to shape programs, learning objectives and travel needs for our students. Your insights are invaluable and we hope to incorporate more of them in next year’s programs. Besides, sports and CIP in the village schools, we are exploring cultural exchange programs and arrangement with the local Nepali schools in the city. We will continue to refine and explore new programs so they are customised to meet your objectives and remain relevant to your students’ learning needs.
This year we incorporated Divine as a private limited company and moved our office from Paya Ubi to Serangoon Avenue 4. We obtained our travel license and are working from a fully equipped home office. We always try our best to keep our office in pristine condition until the arrival of new travel brochures! Well, right now, the Kashmir collaterals are sitting in one corner right behind Deepak’s space. Interestingly, most of you are keen to check out our new office and we most certainly welcome you! I am trying to learn how to brew a good cup of masala tea so we can welcome you with a touch of Nepal when you next visit us.
At the end of year 2007, Deepak was appointed the Honourary PR Representative of the Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) in Singapore. We got real busy managing “Naturally Nepal Evening”, a roadshow and networking session for tour agents and operators at Traders Hotel. We had the pleasure of the Singapore Women Everest Team joining us at the event and introduced the iron ladies to the NTB officials. We helped organised a Nepalese song and dance item for Fairfield Methodist Secondary School when the school celebrated International Friendship Day. In August, NTB participated at the inaugural ITB Asia 2008, the largest travel trade show held in Suntec Convention Hall. Again, we helped put together the exhibition booth and had a successful presence at the event. In between events, Deepak played host to the Tourism Minister, NTB CEO and other NTB officials who came by Singapore.
On the media front, it has been an exciting time for us too. In 2007, NTUC Lifestyle magazine featured Nepal as the travel destination in its November issue on both its Chinese and English magazines. We met up again with the Chinese editorial team this time. We shall not reveal the content of the feature article but you can watch out for it in the February 09 issue of NTUC Lifestyle. We also appeared in ST Life! Travel to advice on last minute getaway to Nepal. You can view these articles in http://www.nepalexplore.com/media.asp. We were also approached to assist as a fixer for an episode on the ‘Culture X’ series in September (shown on Arts Central, now known as ‘OKTO’). It was great fun for our team in Singapore and Nepal as we made travel arrangements, co-ordinated the project, arranged for acting cast and even our staff doubled up as the main cast! Some of you may have recognised Subas and Tshering and wondered how come they were on TV…you were not seeing things, they were indeed filming for the documentary series! You can view the process here at http://divinesingapore.blogspot.com/2008/08/filming-in-nepal.html
Since the inauguration of our blog, many of you have shared that you enjoyed reading our blog. Thank you for visiting our blog. Despite running crazy schedules at work, we will continue to keep the stories coming in. Guess what, the best part of maintaining the Divine Blog is that we never run out of stories! As much as we enjoyed writing it, the constant challenge is to ensure consistency in uploading them. Usually we are not able to do so in Nepal due to extremely slow uploading speed. Hence, the lapse of inputs while we are away. :P That said, although our inputs may not be real time, the contents are certainly REAL and heartwarming. So, keep reading!
Moving on to 2009, while we work on other tourism-related projects and look to extend our marketing efforts to more parts of Europe and Asia, we also hope to open up more destinations. We also discovered many of you first timers favoured doing the easy trek route in Nepal. We will explore more easy treks so you can enjoy the great outdoors and nature in a stress-free manner. Obviously the toilets and showers will not be as comfortable as home but hey, ain’t this what adventure is all about? :)
That said, we do hope you would graduate from the easy trek routes and take the step to explore the other popular treks around Annapurna, Langtang and even Everest regions. If you talk to those who have been, the gleam in their eyes and the excitement in their speech will definitely spur you with a “Why not?” With a good sense of humour, some curiosity and belief in your ability, you can certainly achieve what many of us have. If you have been dreaming about doing THE trek and are unsure or have no time for guide books, talk to us. Let us help you turn your dream into reality and look back with a smile.
As for corporate clients, we are happy to continue customising your travel itinerary for that very important corporate retreat! Well, the price of air tickets are not exactly in our favour now. However, we are optimistic for next year as we begin planning new corporate trips in Spring (March to May) and look forward to falling ticket prices to the Himalayan countries!
As the end of the season and the year draws near, we are also looking forward to a much needed rest over the yuletide holidays. It is always good to be home – of course we meant Singapore – we look forward to meet up all of you either for good food or kopi and most of all, we would love to spend some time with our family and usher in the new year. Of course, for those of you who have been waiting for our return to discuss your trips, it is business as usual at our Serangoon office. We are closed on public holidays but will be contactable anytime. We will be away before the Chinese New Year but no worries, we will update our travel schedule when it is near.
Till then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. Enjoy your holidays to the fullest and see you soon!
Yours truly,
Deepak and Alice
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Journey to Island Peak
20 November 2008
On 13 September, our team of four – Deepak, myself, Ham and Jenifer, embarked on our dream excursion to Island Peak.
Deepak has trekked around the various regions in Nepal but has never been to Island Peak. Ham is a regular in Nepal and has attempted Dhaulagiri (8167m, seventh highest mountain in the world). Jenifer has trekked around India, Sikkim, Tibet and Nepal. I did not intend to climb Island Peak but tagged along for pure fun!
Our trek took us to Lukla – Phakding – Monjo – Josalle – Namche Bazaar – Tengboche – Pangboche – Dingbuche – Chukung – Base Camp – High Camp – Island Peak. We returned via the same route.
Lukla, the gateway to Everest, has since developed into a small town with nicely built houses, german bakeries coupled with a proper airport and control tower. Porters were queueing for assignments at the airport when we arrived due to many flight cancellations on previous days.
Every turn around the National Park brings new visual surprises, be it waterfalls, yaks, field plantations, snow peaks, rivers, bridges, towns or even the locals going about their daily lives. At Monjo, one of our porters injured his leg as he had gone drinking the night before and was not walking properly in the day. We became instant paramedics at the lodge – bringing cold water for him to soak, applying medication, bandaging and finally serving him his lunch.
The road to Namche was so long and winding that I almost gave up. Along the way, I probably became an interesting sight as other trekkers who passed by me must be thinking I was rich enough to hire two handsome Nepali guides to bring me to see Everest! (Well, who would have thought one handsome Nepali beside me is my husband and the other is our Chief Guide Rinji?) Along the way, we met a gutsy Isreali lady doctor who panted equally hard along the way to Namche and advised me to drink more ginger tea. It was always interesting how trekking brings people from different parts of the world together. It turned out we also walked a large part of the trek together from Tengbuche to Pangbuche later on.
We also had coffee and pastries at a german bakery in Namche. I would recommend the chocolate cake and hot Mocha the next time you are there. They are yummy!
The journey towards Tengbuche was rough was we encountered heavy rain and thus muddy paths. I was tired and walking with a heavy jacket on a steep slope and each step was agonising. However, the pain disappeared as soon as I arrived and saw the Tengboche Monastry standing right before my eyes. This had been what I was looking forward to in this trip. So this was where Edmund Hillary and Tenzing had come for blessings on their expedition and successfully summited Mt Everest in 1953. I came only 55 years later in 2008! We did not manage to enter the Monastry due to prayer sessions in progress. What a pity.
At Chukung, most of us experienced some headache and loss of appetite. I had a terrible headache at night and was not able to sleep. By 5:30am, Deepak decided we should go out and take in the fresh mountain air. And what a sight we saw at dawn! With the sun firing its first ray of light at the peaks, the surrounding mountains looked awesome. Turning my body from the left, there was Lotse, Island Peak, some range that looked like the Western Cwm and Ama Dablam. I stood in awe in the cold, snapping away with my camera.
Anyay, Deepak decided I should head back to Dingboche and they attempt Island Peak. In my three days of waiting at Dingboche, I met Michelle, an American who is globe trotting in the midst of work and has stayed in Singapore before. I also had a long chat with a nice Canadian guy who was into his eleventh month of his Gap Year trip. Well, you never run out of travel tales to share! I also discovered the great tasting apple pie at the lodge when five of us were having dinner one night. Out of boredom, I started to instigate the lodge owner to include curry puff as a menu item and worked my way in the kitchen with his chef to deliver the first curry puff in Dingboche. Our culinary experiment was pretty successful. Although the puff may not match our Old Chiang Kee in Singapore, it tasted really nice considering I missed home food so much! Guess what, an American-born Chinese doctor popped in the lodge just in time to taste our curry puff. He was going around the lodges to distribute flyers on free medical seminars on altitude sickness at Pheriche.
On 23 September 2008, the team left High Camp at 0200 hours to attempt the 6190m Island Peak at freezing temperatures. An arduous 14-hour climb later, Deepak and Ham, with the help of our climbing Sherpa Minma, successfully made it to the summit. It was Deepak’s 35th birthday. He has given himself the birthday present of a lifetime. Down at Dingboche, I had the apple pie ready for a post birthday-cum-summit celebration!
Upon our descent, we were lucky to get a clear view of Mt Everest before reaching Namche. By the time we reached back to Kathmandu, all we wanted was a big steak, a nice shower and our very own bed.
You can view Gallery for photos of our trip.
Read our Blog to see what went on behind the scenes!
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ITE College East at Island Peak
30 October 2008
Eight students and three teachers from ITE College East went to scale Island Peak (6160m) in Nepal this April. It was a memorable experience for everyone even as Deepak and I were stationed in Singapore tracking their progress everyday. Six of them eventually reached the peak and we were really proud and happy for the students who made it despite the cold and weariness in the long trek.
We got the pictures from Trevor, one of the lecturers who led the trip, recently and this is the one that touched me.
How did it feel like to sit on top of the peak and view the world below? You probably have to climb it yourself to get the answer.
Read about their after-thoughts in the college's newsletter.
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