The Mountain.

1st day. 9th January 2007.

Jolted awake at 5.30am, wondering why is the bleeding alarm is ringing so early when there's no school. Then it passively occured through my head that i'm gonna miss the Kota-Kinabalu bound plane if i don't get up. Got out of bed and next thing, i'm at LCCT's McDs waiting for the rest of the slow-pokes. That's how my Kinabalu, Sabah class trip started. It was gonna be a 5-day thing. Arrived at Summer Lodge, downtown at about 12pm, ate lunch then went to the Monsopiad Cultural village. A Murut Headhunter village, to be precise. those skulls displayed there are all warrior skulls. Cool. Went for seafood was on the dinner menu at Tanjung Aru beach later on. Pooled abit then watched Arsenal thrash the living crap outta Liverpool 6-3 at Anfield woohoo!! Not once but twice!! What is there to say?? In your face la u Liverpool scouses! But the downside of it is i didn't sleep a wink and my conscience somewhat told me i'm gonna suffer alot later on in the day when hiking up Mount Kinabalu. A total distance of 8km from bottom to peak. It was gonna be an arduous climb, both physically and mentally challenging. And given my sad state of the lack of sleep, i wasn't really looking forward for it, really.

2nd day. 10th January 2007.

Reached Kinabalu Park at 11am. Even the temperature here was colder than Genting. And the climb hasn't even started yet. We were told to wear shorts and t-shirts for the first part of the climb. What utter nonsense. All of us were already decked out in sweaters, windbreakers and all. Lol. Was there for awhile to get our insurance, climbing permits and other important documents done. The plan was to climb up to Laban Rata, spend a night there and then continue the climb to Low’s peak at 2am the following morning. Estimated to reach Laban Rata at 5.30pm, rest for a couple of hours before starting the more tricky and demanding climb up to the peak. Seems like we were in for a torrid time. Not good, for a start. Subsequently, we took a bus to Timpohon Gate, the place where our climb was gonna start. We officially started our climb up at 1pm. It was not to bad at first, but the trail became more and more harder to trek. The fact that it was raining relentlessly didn’t helped a bit too. It only lowered the already low temperature. I guess the only fixation that was on everybody’s minds that time was…where is the next damn resting hut??

After approximately 4hrs of hiking, at about 5pm, we finally reached Laban Rata aka “heaven” (named such due to lack of oxygen in brain and given the sorry state we were all in). Its the main resthouse and the place where we would spend the night. Temperature was 9.9 Celcius. Pretty cold. Only 4 of us had reached Laban Rata though, because everyone hiked at their own pace so during the climb everybody sorta split. After 5pm, our fellas started to arrive at “heaven” lol. But by 8pm, the girls haven’t arrived yet and it is already completely dark outside (it gets dark by 6.30pm up there) so got worried and all. But in the end, they arrived after 9pm lol with the aid of 2 guides. Thank God.

Had dinnerr then quickly retired to bed to catch some beauty sleep, since those hours of sleep are as precious as money to me, at that point. Time was 8.30pm.

3rd day. 11th January 2007

Slept for only 5hrs though. Woke up at 2am for the tough climb to the peak. Found out that out of 36 of us, only 14 decided to climb to the peak, which was logical since everyone hasn’t recovered yet from the long climb up. At the eleventh-hour only I decided to go along, after much pondering and weighing out my success or possible doom lol. 1st group left, and I was in the 2nd group. Each group had 2 guides and 7 people. Started the climb around 2.45am. Low’s peak was only 2km away, but it will take us 3hrs or more to get there, depending on our speed. Overall, the climb was a misery. Maybe because of sleep deficiency, half awake state of being and zero energy caused me to describe it this way. But when Low’s Peak was reached at 6am, the feeling of satisfaction was good. The temperature there was around 1 Celcius. At least all the pain and suffering of overstrained muscles, broken toenails, cramps, nausea and sheer exhaustion wasn’t in vain. Was only there for 10 minutes though, since thunderclouds were hovering above us and it was advisable to descend before the rains come. The mountain was all rock. So, if the rains come, water would surge down the mountain, not exactly a smart time to descent.

The view from the peak of Mount Kinabalu. Its so serene...

The descent from Low's Peak. Me, Tristan, Ah Lian, Jason and Joel.

The descent down was worse then the ascent, because now we had to use our on bodyweight to stop from accelerating forward, and the tension in our muscles was bad. Halfway down, the rains came. And it made our descent worse. All of us were soaking wet in our shoes and pants and the temperature didn’t offer much comfort. Finally, reached “heaven” (Laban Rata, but “heaven” much more meaningful now) at about 9am. Wanted to rest awhile but found out that those who didn’t climbed to the peak has already started their journey down from Laban Rata. So we sad case fellas couldn’t rest at all. We packed our bags, had breakfast and trudged down the remaining 6km down the mountain. Legs felt as if on fire. But nothing can be done about it. Felt like a walking zombie all the way down.

Finally reached Kinabalu Park at about 4.30pm. Rested awhile there before going back to Summer Lodge to bathe (yeah, no one has bathed for the past 2 days. There was no hot water up there. Water touched with one finger was enough to tell your body that u can live without bathing that day) and have dinner. After that chilled awhile before retiring to bed. Ah. Love the bed.

4th day. 12th January 2007.

Today we went to Manukan Island. By speedboat. Only 20 minutes from mainland. Pretty nice island. Crystal clear waters, sandy beaches. Fine place to rest and relax, and see jap chicks. Hehe. Sure did. Splashed around at the beach for the remaining day. Had dinner. Fooled around before going to bed at 3am.

5th day. 13th January 2007

Took a lot of photos today. Went back to the mainland to have lunch and then wait for flight time. 1st flight left at 5.20pm. I was in the 2nd flight, which was to leave at 6.20pm. Stupid thing got delayed till 7.45pm. What to do, Air Asia la. Arrived at LCCT at 10.30pm. Went home and watched Arsenal overcome Blackburn 2-0 at Ewood Park. They seem to be having a good run of wins lately. But anyway, its destination dreamland for me.