The Star , Saturday , 17 September 2005
48th Merdeka Celebration - Mount Ararat,Turkey
PETALING JAYA: Scaling mountains is a breeze for T. Ravichandran, but not when he climbed up Mount Ararat in Turkey.
The TR Group of Companies managing director felt a sense of pride when he reached the peak of the 5,137m high mountain on Merdeka day and planted the Jalur Gemilang.
Ravichandran
had on Aug 29 joined 30 hikers from different countries in the National Day -
Victory Climb to scale the snow-capped mountain.
It was a very special experience for me because for the first time I was not only climbing for myself but for my country and other Malaysians, the 40-year-old said.
The group was led by Turkish climber Mehmet Emin Ayhan, whose country celebrated its National Day on Aug 30.
Other participating countries included Iran, Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Croatia and Turkey.
Ravichandran said the climb was very challenging when he was about to reach the peak as he was trying to finish in second place.
He said a Croatian and an Iranian beat him to the top.
I was holding the national flag in my hand and when I finally reached the top and planted the flag, I knew I had made a great achievement - made Malaysia proud on Merdeka day, he said.
He returned to Malaysia on Sept 2 and planned to climb Mount Everest next year.
This article is originally copied from THE STAR newspaper.