On Skiing and Singlish

CHARMONIX - MONT BLANC

18 - 23 March 2008

Chamonix is a popular winter sports resort in France. The 1924 Winter Olympics were held here. As the highest European mountain west of Russia, Mont Blanc (4808m) holds a special allure for mountain climbers, and Jon Krakauer, in an essay in his collection Eiger Dreams, described the town as "the death-sport capital of the world" because Chamonix serves as an ideal playground for almost all types of outdoor activity, especially in their more extreme variants, such as ice climbing, rock climbing, extreme skiing, paragliding, rafting, canyoning... Chamonix is also a haven for advanced skiing and snowboarding... the valley has about six separate ski areas... Many of these provide challenging terrain, especially off-piste, with runs down to Switzerland. (wikipedia.org)

the pretty town of chamonix, lying in the valley surrounded by towering french alps

so much for a first ski experience.

i must say that i've been spoilt. to a world-class ski resort, with advanced pistes (runs). thanks ah, petrified me with fear and forced me to learn faster. i was the only person on the trip who has never gone skiiing before. david & sarah have been skiiing since they were like 6 or something; james picked it up a few years ago; jimbo is an expert snowboarder; wibke is on her 2nd ski trip, but learning snowboarding this time. i was on my own.

carol goes skiing

we flew into geneva airport on 18th (tues) night, where james & sarah (david's sister & brother-in-law) picked us, Jimbo & Wibke (their friends) up and whisked us off in the rented MPV, to Les Houches, the heart of the Chamonix valley. there, a very pleasant apartment awaited us. we settled in, and skiing was to begin bright and early the next day.

our living quarters!

armed with our ski passes (special prices for etudiants - students- yay!), and our skis (blue for the boy and pink for the girl)

ski-rack loaded!

pretty snowflakes on the car

learning skiiing was really painful. james taught me for the 1st morning at a beginner's area, and then i got a 1-hour lesson while everyone else had lunch. that was it. in the afternoon, we zipped off to 'la flegere', where we had to take a huge gondola (cable-car) up 1000 - 2000 + metres. everyone tried to stick together on the first run down the green (lowest level of difficulty) slope, but i took too long and kept falling down that they all just went ahead without me. david waited around and helped me put on my skis again each time they fell off, but i still took mighty long. like 45 mins to cover 1.2km, as opposed to 10 mins. after 2 runs, i told david to go ahead without me, so he went on the blue (2nd lowest of difficulty) and red (advanced, a notch above blue) runs with sarah & james. i struggled along, and repeated the same run on my own. that was my achievement for the day.

james: ski instructor par excellence

clockwise from top left: (1, 4, 5) the place we went (2&3) the chairlifts, (6) signs ata cross junction showing where to go. i'll take the green, thanks.

the next day, all the advanced skiiers were getting more adventurous. they decided on a new ski area 'le tour', which didn't even have any green slopes! so the easiest runs there were the blue ones. not good news for a noob like me. david went with me on a long blue run, which had so many bends because it went around the mountain (and my turns were still not good, i was so scared of falling off the cliffs!) so i went rather slowly; and when steepness that i've never encoutered before, combined with narrow pistes bordered by dangerous looking snow cliffs, i was defeated. of course, i went way too fast for my liking down the slope (not that i could help it) , and braking distance increases with speed, right? so when i found myself not braking in time, i started to panick, and because skiiing is so frustratingly counter-intuitive, i didn't lean forward to help myself to stop like i'm supposed to, so i stopped myself the only way i knew how - by falling down halfway down that slope. that wasn't too brilliant either, because every time i fall down, my beginner skiis will snap off to prevent me from twisting my ankle or knee. and putting on those skis again on a slope is no mean feat. david tried to help, but we still took like 10 mins or something like that to put on the skis again, which got him really frustrated. as for me, i was seriously scared. i knew that even after i put on those skis again, i still had to get down that same slope somehow. with some tears and a lot of grit, i completed that blue run. as if that trauma wasn't enough, david started to get ambitious and suggested that we go on the red piste next, because it was 'wider and only a little more steep than the blue'. i protested, but upon his re-assurances that it would be ok, i (very bravely and foolishly) went along. i did well at the beginning, but there was this really steep part where once again i panicked, and didn't turn properly, and my beginner skis snapped off again. grrr. we tried really hard to get them back on for me, but to no avail. this nice french lady even came by and offered to help, but after a few tries i decided not to hold her back, thanked her and told her to 'allez' (go). james & sarah skiied by, and tried to help as well, but couldn't. (told you it was really steep) so i decided that i would just slide all the way down. david took my skis and skiied down (yup he's good. skis are really heavy). but james & sarah said that i'll end up with a big hole on my pants if i do that so i had to walk down the slope instead. they were really sweet as to wait for me to go down a little bit before zooming their way down. but walking down a slope angled at about 60 degrees at an altitude of 2000+m was traumatising enough for me. i was ready to give up. after lunch i left david to do the more difficult red runs which were apprently very scenic (but please la, i'll be too busy concentrating on not falling down - who am i kidding, i'm simply not anywhere near there yet) and james offered to teach me for a bit on another blue and 'very wide and rather gentle run without any cliff edges'. he taught me a great deal about becoming stable on a slope and some tips on how to put on my skis by myself, which helped a lot in boosting my confidence. but of course, i was still too slow, and he left me to my own devices (i.e. bid farewell & go down the rest of the blue by myself). that slope wasn't gentle at all. i struggled, took it one turn at a time. by this time my knee and shin was already hurting like mad from all the force unfairly placed on them. i was going so slowly that david spotted me while going up on the chair-lift, he got to the top and skiied down to find me still halfway only halfway down that run. heh. at the end of the day i took the cable car back down to the valley, which david, james and sarah skied down. they were really fast too, i followed them with my eyes (and camera) all the way down and took quite a few paparazzi shots.

it's a beautiful day... along the super hard piste (yeah i didn't get to see that WHILE skiing)

skis hanging precariously outside the cable-car on the way down (yup i thought it was a nice shot)

but i have improved, and by the end of that day, if not skill-wise, i learnt confidence, the single other most important thing in skiing. fear causes falls. and i stopped falling. each time i fall, i get scared and exasperated and i want to give up; then i manage to ski properly towards the end of a run and actually feel the breeze on my face and actually enjoy myself for that short while, and i'd feel like i want to go all over again. see how it plays with my feelings? evil.

sarah and her snowboard.

kids inspire me, they look so cute all bundled up in thick ski outfits, and with their short little skis, they seem to be fearless going down the slopes. i also tried to get free lessons by following those people with instructors for a while, but they go too fast and i lose them.

girls decked in pink, and a little boy who can barely walk, learning to ski. (this is why singapore cannot have a winter olympics team)

qn: what are those people in the background looking at?

ans: this. a breath-taking spread before them.

the next day was good friday. and the weather, who has been really kind to us in giving us clear days with snowy nights so that we can ski on nice soft snow but not be hampered by poor visibility and risk of avalanches, decided to turn against us. i say it's because we didn't go to church on good friday : anyway, so david and i decided to take a day off skiing, and do some other touristy stuff like go up the 'mer de glace' (literally: sea of ice), some famous largest glacier in europe (i don't think that includes scandinavia). but the weather was so bad that they closed it, as they did with a few other ski areas. we also tried to buy the swiss pass, which would allow us to take the scenic train ride from chamonix to martigny (a town in switzerland) and from there make our way to the rest of switzerland. lo and behold, after driving around to the various train stations, we found that they didn't sell it, and that part of the train route was closed anyway because of the weather. we wanted to drive to martigny to get the pass, but was advised against doing so even with snow chains on. so many cars were skidding even at 30km/hr. thank God for safety. it was david's first time driving on the left hand, and in such heavy snowfall. to give you an idea of how heavy it was, we parked our car for say 15 mins in a lot, and when we return, we have to plod in knee-deep snow to get to the car doors. oh btw, i got a chance to practice my french quite a bit that day too, which made me very happy. haha. i miss french.

outside the main gare (train station)

little david in a sea of white. he thinks he looks really cute, therefore this picture now adorns my desktop.

we spent the rest of the evening sitting around, drinking hot chocolate, and...

building a giant snowman in the small backyard

my 3rd day of skiing was not that much better tho. this time, we went to 'les grand montets', an area only for advanced people. the rest of them were itching for more action, you see. and that area is famous of off-pistes (which means unmarked paths which have not been groomed, i.e. anywhere you want on the mountain). and once again, the greens didn't exist. that was also the day i got david really angry with me because he brought me on the blue again, and because of the heavy snowfall the night before, the runs were full of little 'snow hills', which made for a very bumpy and unpleasant ride down, which in turn caused me to keep getting stuck, and hence was very slow again. this time, he gave up on me altogether. he refused to help me when i fell. and when my poles got left some 10 metres up the slope, i had no idea how to get back up to reclaim it. i had to resort to asking strangers around to help me get up (from my awkward fallen position) and retrieve my poles. he then proceeded to miss lunch to reclaim lost time, and went on the reds and blacks (a notch above red, and also the hardest) by himself. talk about throwing a tantrum.

the last day was probably my best. i told david to leave me alone, because they had grand plans to cover 2 ski areas that day, and go all out at full-speed. i didn't want to hinder them, so i just went on my own, and ocassionally with wibke, who also asked to be left alone for the same reasons. we went back to 'le flegere', and they wanted to cross over to 'brevent' from there but the weather didn't allow it as a lot of pistes were closed. it was easter sunday, and we were unusually early on the slopes. i finally got the chance to ski on fresh powder, which felt rather good. but on a green, of course. the rest of the day, i ventured to a blue by myself a couple of times, which the pros entertained themselves by going on the blacks and off-pistes most of the day, landing themselves in heaps and heaps of snow. i was quite happy with my progress, and how far i've come. after days of being thrown out of my comfort zone, i could now conquer slopes that i never imagined i would. to end of the whole ski experience, david went with me on a super high (starting at 2396m) and long run (4+km) blue run. i was really tired by the end of it, but at least it all ended on a positive note!

that's the blue slope (yes the one with small dots of people) i went down all by myself! =) doesn't look steep from the chairlift (from which i took this picture, but believe you me, it's a lot harder when you're one of the small dots...

carol - tired after 4 days of skiing

night activities

usually, after skiiing, we would head into chamonix town for a drink or walk around, and then proceed back to cook dinner. we took turns to cook, and david and i cooked cabonera. haha. on the last night, we decided to give oursleves a treat by going to a restaurant for some french fondue and raclette. (ok, technically, james & sarah treated us). i've never had meat fondue before, it was an eye opener, and it's been ages since i had raclette, and this one was different anyway.

another view of chamonix ville

yummy raclette with a GIANT piece of cheese

before going to sleep, we'll just sit around the house, chat and laugh. the company was great. i'm really grateful for the invitation to come in the first place; and for wibke and jimbo, who made the trip so enjoyable.

our kind hosts =)

the closest thing we have to a group shot: carol, david, sarah, wibke, james (jimbo)

now for the bit about Singlish:
due to the nature of the company we were with, we had to speak proper english. it was really funny though, when people broke out into singlish purposely. wibke and david kept speaking in super extreme ah lian/beng language, which was pretty funny; everyone kept trying to make james speak singlish (yes he's a full-fledged brit who has left his ACS days far behind); jimbo was trying hard to learn singlish, he even had the oxford singlish dictionary so that he can be fluent next time he comes to singapore.

we stayed 1 day longer than we had planned to, because of the glitches in getting the swiss pass. we went back down to geneva on Monday morning, waking at an unearthly time of 4am.

after 5 days of prim and proper english, we had to switch (effortlessly) to fluent singlish.

next stop: switzerland, where luyi, bingkai and maccann were waiting. but i shall write about that after my corporate finance exam on wednesday, and try to get down to some serious studying. sigh.

chamonix-mt blanc: been there, done that.

love.