La Randonée (Jungle-trekking)

The azure sky, the brilliant sunlight and the chirping of the birds on the branch of the trees outside my window, all these indications lead to one hypotheses, the day is superb. But that is just an hypotheses, to testify, I have to blend myself in the nature. How to devote myself to the nature? Obviously, there is no other better experiment than to trek in the jungle-mountain-forest (a combination of these three natures of elements.)

Since the train service is well-managed here, we never hesite to take train to anywhere we intend to go, including this time. So, 11 students and 2 french teachers of mine and a friend of one of the teachers took the train to Metzeral from Colmar, in between, we pass by Colmar-St-Joseph, Logelbach, Turckheim, Wihr-au-Val-Soultzbach and Munster. It was a journey of 30 minutes. We chatted gayly in the train, basically, we chatted on any subject that we could think of. And the most funny thing was we created a cacophony of 4 languages: Malay, English, Mandarin and French in the train.

As soon as we reaced there, we started trespassing the village of Metzeral to reach the foothill which is our starting point. We are being informed that another teacher of ours, Rosie would be joining us. And when she arrived, most of the malays were shocked because she didn't only bring herself but also her beloved enormously large dog, Balou.

At the foothill

My 2 smart friends: scholars of Petronas, left: Danial from Royal Military College; right: Nithes, the natioal badminton player from Kedah.

Akmali, a funny friend of mine who sits beside me in the scientifique classes.

Left: Akmal: JPA scholar, he jokes all the time. In the middle: Danial (again). Right: Izhat: TELEKOM scholar: really good in cooking.

The arrival of Rosie marked the beginning of the journey. 1, 2, 1, 2 hop-là, off we went. The whole jungle was full of fresh air and the yellowish leaves of the trees gave a sensation of the pesence of autumn. I marched and at the same time took some pictures, not much, I admit. So, this writing will be more to sense and sensibility.

The panorama

Check out the cleanliness of the lake.

The hill is quite sloppy at the beginning and it's quite rocky, so my advice is that you really have to wear those hiking shoes in order to reduce the impact of the ground and your feet. If not, you will get hurt (obviously) and the hiking takes generally a minimum of 4 hours. Be prepared!

During the hiking, we stopped at one of the lakes before continuing our journey to the hill-top, We had our lunch there, in front of the lake. We touched the lake water, it was cooling and clean. Besides that, we saw a lot of other hikers as well, young and old, they were also doing what we did. So, I sat at the bank of the lake with Akmali, Nithes, Caroline, Patricia (organiser), Rosie, they are all my french teachers and Marc, a friend of Caroline. In the conversation, we talked about the language, Alsacien. It is the language of this region, it's a mixture between french and german, with a very funny accent. By joining the conversation, we have learned some Alsacien.

So, after 30 minute of rest, we continued our journey to the top, this time was even slopper and rockier, really have to be very careful, but it was fun though. At one point, I knew that I was approaching the hill-top, so, there was a satisfaction in me. So, a competition of becoming the first to reach the top among the boys commenced indirectly, people ran. And, finally, I was the second to arrive. I felt good. With the wind blowing strongly in your direction, you would have the feeling of being on top of the world. The feeling of "I am the conqueror of the world".

A group photo after reaching the destination.

A more complete group-photo. (With Rosie's dog). I was beside Patricia, the organiser cum my french teacher. A really fiendly lady.

There was an Auberge (a small hotel) right there, but since the things sold were few times more expensive than at the foothill, so we just stayed there for a few minutes and we descended.

On our way, we saw a lake, that became our point to rest automatically.

My friend, Thina, the JPA scholar. He is a very attentive and alert guy, he pays a lot of attention in the class and he likes posing the questions during class, the questions are generally the good ones, not a typical asian student.

The chatting continued. From time to time, people broke into laughter. I wondered what was so funny. And during the journey back, we reached a place where there was an Arc right above us. Without missing the opportunity, we took the pictures there.

Kong Yan Siong aka Prince Siong aka the maths genius and I, but sometimes a little bit stiff. By the way, he and I are the only chinese in the group. And he really creates an atmosphere of competition in studies, nice to be his friend! I am glad!

A natural one.

In about an half a hour time, we have reached the finishing line. We headed back to the train station. And in conclusion, I have learnt a lot of new things in the conversation between Patricia and me during the journey, and we have the intention to have a jungle-trekking during winter where everything will be covered by snow. Wow, how is that?

When we reached Colmar, it was already 7 pm. "Il fait entre le chien et le loup." (meaning it's already dusk). Since there wasn't any bus, we walked together back to our appartment. Seeing that the whole thing was ending soon but the memories of the rando that we have gained will stay in our head equally signified by this cliché: We left our footsteps in the jungle and we took away the good memories. Au revoir.