[00:11.39]Reading
[00:15.05]JOURNEY DOWN THE MEKONG
[00:20.01]PART 1 THE DREAM AND THE PLAN
[00:26.17]My name is Wang Kun.
[00:29.94]Since middle school,
[00:33.70]my sister Wang Wei and I have dreamed about taking a great bike trip.
[00:40.18]When we graduated from college,we finally got the chance to do it.
[00:46.84]It was my sister who first had the idea to cycle along the Mekong River
[00:53.29]from where it begins to where it ends.
[00:57.86]She loves to go for long bike rides in the countryside.
[01:03.32]Two years ago she bought an expensive mountain bike.
[01:08.68]Then she persuaded me to byu one.
[01:12.93]Last year,she visited our cousins,Dao Wei and Yu Hang at their college in Kunming
[01:21.68]They are Dai and grew up in western Yunnan Province near the Lancang River,
[01:28.95]the Chinese part of the river that is called the Mekong River
[01:35.01]before flowing in other countries.
[01:39.68]Wang Wei soon got them interested in cycling too.
[01:45.85]Wang Wei can be really stubborn.
[01:50.60]Although she didn't know the best way of getting to places,
[01:56.24]she insisted that we find the source of the river and begin our journey there.
[02:03.01]She told me that she wanted to do the trip properly.
[02:08.37]Now,I know that the proper way is always her way.
[02:14.74]I asked her whether she had looked at a map yet.
[02:19.89]Of course,she hadn't; my sister doesn't care about details.
[02:26.55]So I told her that the source of the Mekong is in Qinghai province.
[02:33.21]She gave me a determined look - the kind that said she wouldn't change her mind.
[02:40.65]When I told her that our journey would begin at an altitude of more than 5,000 metres,
[02:48.91]she seemed to be excited about it.
[02:53.48]When I told her the air would be hard to breathe and it would be very cold,
[03:00.92]she said it would be an interesting experience.
[03:05.60]I know my sister well.
[03:09.86]Once she has made up her mind,nothing can change it.Finally,I had to give in.
[03:18.40]Several months before our trip,Wang Wei and I went to the library.
[03:25.35]We found a large atlas with good maps that showed details of the world's geography
[03:32.61]I kept asking her,"When are we leaving and when are we coming back?"
[03:39.38]From the atlas we could see that the Mekong River
[03:44.03]begins at a glacier on a Tibtan mountain.
[03:49.07]At first,the river is small,and the water is clear and cold.
[03:56.62]Then it begings to move quickly.
[04:01.06]It becomes rapids as it passes through deep valleys,
[04:07.01]travelling across western Yunnan Province.
[04:12.06]Sometimes the river enters wide valleys and becomes a waterfall.
[04:18.51]We were both surprised to learn that half of the river is in China.
[04:25.48]After it leaves China and the high altitudes,
[04:30.73]the Mekong becomes wide,brown and warm.
[04:35.49]As it enters Southeast Asia,it travels slowly through hills and low valleys,
[04:42.75]and the plains where rice grows.
[04:46.90]At last,the river's delta enters the South China Sea.
[04:53.75]Using Language
[05:02.81]Reading and speaking
[05:07.49]JOURNEY DOWN THE MEKONG
[05:11.64]PART 2 A NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS
[05:17.70]Although it was autumn,the snow had already begun to fall in Tibet.
[05:25.15]Our legs felt so heavy and cold,we thought they were ice.
[05:31.52]Have you ever seen snowmen ride bicycles?
[05:37.27]Wang Wei was in front of me,as usual.
[05:42.33]I knew I didn't need to encourage her.
[05:47.19]To climb the mountain road was hard work but to go down the hills was great fun.
[05:54.64]When we reached a valley,it became much warmer.
[06:00.52]We had to change from our caps,coats,gloves and trousers into T-shirts and shorts.
[06:08.98]Then,as we reached the colder altitudes,we had to change again.
[06:15.51]In the early evening,we stopped to make camp.
[06:21.75]First we put up our tents and then we ate.
[06:27.81]After supper,Wang Wei went to sleep but I stayed awake.
[06:34.97]At midnight,the sky became clear and the stars were bright
[06:41.74]It was so quiet in the mountains that night-there was almost no wind,
[06:49.10]only the sound of the fire.
[06:53.26]We have already travelled so far.
[06:58.01]We are reaching Dali in Yunnan Province
[07:02.87]where our cousins Dao Wei and Yu Hang will join us.
[07:08.20]We can hardly wait to see them!
[07:12.93]2.Listen to the tape and mark the rising
[07:22.31]and falling tone of each sense group and sentence.
[07:27.95]Then practise reading aloud.
[07:32.81]Listening
[07:40.67]1.Listen to Part 3 CHATTNG WITH A GIRL and tick the words you hear on the tape.
[10:28.82]2.Listen again to the tape and fill in the chart.
[10:35.59]Reading and writing
[10:43.92]Many people put their thoughts into a diary
[10:49.20]but others write about their travels in what is called a travel journal.
[10:56.17]What is the difference between the two?
[11:00.90]For one thing,a journal isn't as personal as a diary.
[11:07.25]For another, a travel journal has a different purpose.
[11:13.72]In a journal,writers also record their experiences,
[11:19.89]ideas and afterthoughts about what they have seen.
[11:25.64]While diary writers try to record how they feel very soon after things happen,
[11:33.39]journal writers try to better understand what hsa happened to them much later.
[11:40.24]Unlike a diary,a travel journal is written for lots of readers.
[11:47.29]Its topics can be different from a diary,often including people,things,
[11:54.45]and evnents less familiar to the readers.
[11:58.89]Workbook
[12:11.27]LISTENING
[12:14.43]1.Listen to Part 4 of JOURNEY DOWN THE MEKONG
[12:21.98]and tick the words you hear on the tape.
[14:10.02]2.Listen again and then answer the questions.
[14:16.97] LISTENING TASk
[14:24.84]1.Listen to Part 5.
[14:30.79]Wang Kun is describing a few of the things they saw during their tour.
[14:38.73]Pick out the correct information and then tell about their experience in Laos.
[16:58.78]2.Listen to the tape again and fill in the information on the chart.
[17:07.71]REANING TASK
[17:15.78]JOURNEY DOWN THE MEKONG
[17:20.82]PART 6 THE END OF OUR JOURNEY
[17:26.46]Cambodia was in many ways similar to Laos,although it has twice the population.
[17:33.94]At another inn,
[17:37.88]we talked with a teacher who old us that half of the people in her country
[17:43.52]country couldn't read or write.
[17:47.47]Her village couldn't even afford to build a school,
[17:52.61]so she had to teach outside under a large tent.
[17:57.58]When we said goodbye,we all felt very lucky to have studied in college.
[18:04.84]Back on the road,we passed between many hills and forests.
[18:10.77]Then we came to the plains and entered Phnom Penh,the capital of Cambodia.
[18:17.82]In many ways it looked like Vientiane and Ho Chi Minh City;
[18:24.30]it also had wide streets with trees in rows and old French houses.
[18:31.14]Unlike Vientiane,ships could travel the Mekong River here.
[18:37.81]In the centre of the city we visited the palace and saw a beautiful white elephant.
[18:45.67]It can only be seen outside the palace on special days.
[18:51.55]We ate an early supper and went to see a great temple with floors made of silver.
[18:59.10]The next morning our group slept late.
[19:03.95]We were very tired from the long bike ride the day before.
[19:09.52]Cycling in the hills had been difficult.
[19:14.95]Now our cousins had the chance to make jokes about Wang Wei and me.
[19:20.59]Perhaps,they said,they were the strong ones!
[19:26.05]We had lunch at a nice outdoor cafe,then rode out of the city.
[19:33.50]Two days later we crossed the border into Vietnam.
[19:38.36]We began to see many more people,but I wasn't surprised.
[19:44.31]I read in an atlas before our trip
[19:48.99]that Vietnam has almost seven times the population of Cambodia.
[19:55.52]We met a farmer who gave us directions
[20:00.56]and told us that he grows a new rice crop four times every year
[20:07.12]so he can feed more people.
[20:11.48]He also told us that the northern part of his country has many mountains
[20:18.64]and is much cooler than here in the south,where it is flat
[20:24.57]Although the flat land of the delta made it easier for us to cycle,
[20:30.92]we got warm very quickly.
[20:35.36]So we drank lots of water and ate lots of bananas.
[20:41.13]Soon the delta was separated by nine smaller rivers.
[20:47.48]Two days later,after we had passed thousands of rice fields,we came to the sea.
[20:54.95]We were tired but also very excited:
[20:59.99]our dream to cycle along the Mekong River had finally come true |