Nepal: Climbing Mount Everest Base Camp

By Chia Jeng Yang

For most of my National Service, I was pretty exhausted mentally and needed something fresh to help mark a new start into life. Something simple. I decided to climb Everest Base Camp. I once went on a Scouts hike. Probably the same thing.

Anyway, I was young and I was ready. This is a short window into my experience, how I did it, and what it was like.

Climbing Indonesia’s Volcano Mt. Rinjani

By Chia Jeng Yang

In December 2013, I decided to try climbing mountains for the first time in my life. To begin my foray into what would turn out to be a never-ending wanderlust, I climbed the beautiful Mt. Rinjani, located in Lombok, Indonesia, an island next to Bali. If you’re in the area, you should definitely visit Mt. Rinjani for a few awesome reasons:

• Trekking through a wide range of different terrains in the course of 3 short days, from wet jungle terrain to dry scrubland, rocky mountainous terrain, slippery volcanic sands, vast endless meadows and countryside grazing fields
• Being able to swim in the ultimate private pool – An ancient volcanic lake
• Being able to see the island of Bali located an immense 180km away while climbing Rinjani
• Due to relatively little light pollution, being able to see the entire constellations and formation of the Milky Way galaxy extremely clearly.

As a friend traveling with me described it, Rinjani is a photographer’s paradise. In fact, the 2010 National Geography Photo Contest was won by a Singaporean with a photo of Rinjani eruption