Day 10: Dumyat Hill Walk

Yesterday at 6:00 pm, a big group of us went on an ISS organized hill walk on the giant hill behind our flats.

The big hill in the background is the one we climbed up...it looks even bigger in person!

A few others and I fell behind pretty quickly because it was a tough climb, but we pushed through and kept going.  We came to several forks in the path and had to decide which way to go to catch up to the group.  They didn't give us any clues about which path to take.  There were sheep roaming around the hill and at one point we were definitely walking along the sheep path...there were little hoof prints!  We had to walk through a cute little tunnel that looked like it came straight out of a fairy tale. 

Fairy Tale Tunnel of Branches

 Once we got to the top we thought it was too good to be true...it was way too easy for that to be all.  Then we realized we had to walk over another hill! 

Me at the half way point

We could see the rest of the group in the distance, so we kept going.  We could see the top and it didn't look too far away.  One girl passed us on her way down.  We thought she must have made it to the top and was already heading back, but she said she just gave up because it was too steep.  We took the opposite approach.  Why would we want to turn back now when we had already come so far?  We had to pass a few fences (There is no law against trespassing here...as long as you close the gate behind you, you are free to roam wherever you want.) and climb up a few more little hills, but eventually we made it to the top!  It was definitely worth it!  The views were breathtaking. 

The sheep were taunting us

One of the fences we had to climb over

I made it to the top!

Sheep at the top of the hill

I will probably never go up there again, but I am so glad I did it!  After the sitting at the top for a little while, we started our journey back down.  When we got back to our flats, we just wanted to collapse.  We ordered some Chinese food and talked for a little while before going to bed.  Today was just another (rainy) day of classes and homework, but tomorrow we will (hopefully) be going to the Edinburgh film festival!