Windy beach Long Hai beach! Yes, it means "Dragon Beach" (it’s only a name, no dragon there). The trip was organised by the people in my department and therefore, there wasn’t so many people sign up for the trip, about 80 students and luckily, I could sign up for free.

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Although it was only a 2 day – trip, there were a lot of things to do with it. As soon as we arrived, we were taken to some historical sites which are located on the mountain! I think you can refer from that we must to get there by walking up to the mountain. It wasn’t actually mountain climbing because there is a narrow pathway leads to the top of the mountain. However, it was a bit adventurous as well, for example, on the halfway, we saw a snake lying on a branch of a tree ;O. However, we didn’t make it to the top of the mountain. At first, we planned to go into the caves on the mountain but the leader estimated that there wouldn’t be enough air for 80 people in there so we’d better walk down the mountain before everyone were too tired to move. We didn’t prepare much for the trip, some wore slippers, and not so many people brought enough water to drink. Leaving the mountains, we went straight to the seaside and had lunch there. After that, we set up the tents by the seashore and played some games to warm up the atmosphere. At night, we set up a fire in the dark night and made a circle around the fire (like in the film) and danced and sang and grilled yams by the fire. There were three teachers with us in this trip, including the department’s manager but he was completely different from the one we know in the university. You know, he even told us about ghost stories in the dark night that made the students were scared stiff and after we had had enough the scary stories, another teacher told us some funny stories and she always started the story with a sentence like this, “Another real story I’ve ever experienced was the one…” I think her life must be full of drama. After that, we had a big game at midnight and this one was considered as the most terrified game. We had to go near the seaside and walked pretty far away from our camping place to play the ghost game. You can refer from that it was all about ghost topic at that night (it would be more suitable if it was celebrated at Halloween!). Some of my tent mates were really into that topic and they kept talking about the things they had seen or heard or played, something like sitting a table with a group and called on the spirit of a dead person. They asked questions which the cup answered for the spirit by moving on the words. I’ve heard a lot about it but I’ve never played it by myself and some suggested playing this game but some refused because they didn’t want to spoil the night by playing this spooky game. But we had another game instead and in this game, the teacher who told humour stories just a few moments before pretended to be a ghost and I had to say she was really scary in the thick made-up! I didn’t carry on this game until the end, it was not because I was horrified by the ghost but because the rubbish on the seaside was a problem to the barefoot. It was so dreadful I didn’t take any slippers with me (and my shoes were soggy) and so some of the students and I left the game after stepping on some sharp objects that I couldn’t identify what’s what in the darkness. I hope it wouldn’t a throw – away needle ;(.( or I have to have blood tested). Maybe the shells… then we went back to the tent. We had no problems with the mosquitoes because we did bring a tube of anti-mosquitoes lotion to put on our skin so that they must be away from us. The only thing of which we are afraid is the strong wind. You know, it made one of the tents wipe up at midnight. People had to set it up again! It was a windy night with lots of wind blowing very hard into our tents. You can see from the pictures that it wasn’t a very warm place to stay. It was worse that not many people took the blankets and in my tents, there were only 2 people brought it and the solution was sharing the blankets with others, 5 people per blanket. In a funny way, some students said it was like the refugees (I think it is quite true for this situation). But it didn’t help much and I even put on some layers of shirts and wore the socks (but not the colourful ones). We were luckier than other tents because there weren’t any blankets in some tents and they had to stay awake all night. But finally we were able to overcome that night and could see the dawn on the very early morning. We were woken by the shout (but not the woman screamed as your trip). Instead, we were woken by the shout of the leader. She told us, “Wake up, it’s morning, the sun is rising” but I heard someone from the next tent spoke out, “but the moon is still there”. I thought he continued to sleep because the moon hadn’t completely disappeared ;). This following morning, the leaders and the teachers together would visit the families who have influenced by the Durian storm (the late of last year, 2006) and I volunteered to take photos while they were talking with the family. Although I wasn’t the one directly giving the gifts to the local families, I felt very rewarding because of it. They were happy and welcomed our presence at their houses cordially and it felt as if I did help a bit ;).. Then we went back to the seaside where the students were playing the games. This time the students decided to take a sweet revenge on the manager by throwing him into the sea (just for fun) and he was wet from top to toe in his nice clothes and then they rolled him in the flours and sand which made him get a white face. Then they played this game with others! I didn’t have time to take pictures this time because I was too busy to hide away from them or they would do the same to me. On the way back home, the coach did stop for the students buying seafood, the specialities from the sea. It was a great trip, especially the windy night which lets us know how it is like to live by the seaside or to walk up and down the mountains but I’m still wondering what’s on the other side of the mountains because we really haven’t finished the path (I should have asked one of the local people there). Perhaps I must carry on another trip the other time to get the answer.