WHEN rocks began tumbling down on their tour bus, a Singapore group on holiday in Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan thought bad road conditions or inclement weather was to blame.

Eager to continue with their journey, the men in the group of 20 got down from the bus to help clear the rocks from the road.

They were into the second day of an eight-day tour and were on the way to Danyun Gorge, a local attraction.

They managed to go on, but did not make it past the gorge.

Along the way, SA Tours, their tour agency, phoned with the bad news - a 7.9 scale earthquake had hit the area, the rest of the itinerary had to be cancelled and they had to join another group of tourists from the agency.

Ironically, the itinerary included a visit to a 98m-long lake in Diexihaizi formed after an earthquake in 1933.

Housewife Cecilia Ng, who was with the group, said: 'Our relatives in Singapore sent SMSes and we assured them we were safe. But we were worried, there were still tremors.'

Both groups related their experience to The New Paper on Sunday after touching down at Changi Airport at 3am yesterday.

SA Tours spokesman Ruth Lim, who was there with several colleagues to welcome their customers home, told reporters that when the quake happened, her company made new arrangements to accommodate the smaller group.

U-TURN

The other group of 45 tourists, who were into the fourth day of a 10-day tour, had to turn back, after landslides and falling rocks blocked roads.

Polytechnic student Pang Sui Lin, 20, who was with this group, said they learnt of the quake while browsing in a jewellery shop.

She said: 'There was a power outage and staff in the shop began crying, saying there was an earthquake and they couldn't contact their loved ones as communications were down.

'But we thought it wasn't serious as we hadn't felt the tremors yet. We thought it was safe to proceed to our next stop in Maoxian County.'

After the U-turn, they met the smaller SA Tours group on the road.

Tour leader Wendy Zhang Wei said that as electricity at their hotel was still not restored, both groups spent the night in their buses at a military camp in an open field 200km from Wenchuan, the epicentre of the quake.

Ms Zhang, a China-born permanent resident, said the soldiers were helpful and even entertained the tourists by playing Three Kingdoms, a recent Chinese movie starring Andy Lau, on a projection screen.

Miss Pang said: 'We ate at a nearby restaurant but we didn't bathe or brush our teeth.'

DISCOMFORT

The group slept fitfully as the tremors continued and finally went to the hotel the following morning.

Miss Pang, who was travelling with her elder sister, brother and parents, wrote in her blog that she felt the bus shaking at 4.15am.

She managed to log into her blog at songsaga.blogspot.com as the hotel had a computer with Internet access.

She said: 'I blogged to let my friends and relatives know we were safe. They had SMSed me continuously to find out about my well-being.'

Ms Zhang said that at the time, leaving Jiuzhaigou quickly was the main concern.

She said: 'Outgoing flights couldn't be confirmed because the Jiuzhaigou airport was filled with people looking for flights leaving the city.'

They flew out at 8pm on Thursday, arriving at Chengdu an hour later.

They stayed in Chengdu Garden City Hotel for the night.

Their SilkAir flight was to leave at 4.15pm on Friday. But with so many emergency flights using the airport, it was delayed till 10.10pm.

When they were finally back in Singapore, Mrs Winnifred Lee, 36, a systems analyst, choked back tears when she saw her husband and two young children. She had gone on the tour with some friends and had been keeping in touch with her family.

Her husband, IT consultant David Lee, 35, said: 'The children don't really know what happened but they missed their mother. She kept reassuring them by calling home every few hours.'

Ms Lim said SA Tours will help with their travel insurance claims.

Top photo: REUNITED: Mrs Winnifred Lee was met at the airport by her two children.

This article was first published in The New Paper on May 20, 2008.