The Beauty Of Yellow Mountain

You have probably seen such scenes on chinese paintings- those odd shape mountain outcrops, jagged-edge cliffs, mist-shrouded peaks, solitary pavilion, stunted and twisted pine trees that simply grow out of the mountain face. It is just too fanciful to be true. You would be pardon to say that they are just figments of imagination of the artists. (I have one such painting hanging on the wall which i bought for a mere RM5 in Yunnan, China). When my travel agent insisted that they are for real (tour fare refunded if otherwise), I jumped on the tour wagon and look what i have found:

Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) is reputed to be the most beautiful mountain in China, sidelining the other five sacred mountains. It was included in the list of Unesco World Heritage Site in 1990 for its natural beauty and its role as a habitat for rare and threatened species.

Egypt - Land of The Pharaohs

This is one of my favourite photographs. Yes, it is the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza plateau in Egypt, the oldest and the sole surviving seven wonders of the ancient world. I had anticipated a long and arduous coach ride from our hotel but in less than an hour, the hugh pyramid loomed right in front of us! Two other smaller pyramids houses the tomb of Khufu's successors respectively, that of Khafre and Menkaure. There is also the the Great Sphinx, a gigantic structure of a human-headed lion. The compound of the sphinx is out of bound for tourits. We had to jostle our way in to this platform for a nice photo shot. Beautiful, isn't it? Life is beautiful! (photo taken in November 2003)