There a back again. A Coulson's Tale.

Cherating turned out to be slightly more exciting than I have given it credit for. It was a quaint little surf town that the Lonely Planet described as "our first impression was that the town was dieing." We found a nice guest house more of a bungalow than anything and stuffed ourselves with amazing food! We enjoyed the beach, caught up on some emails, wandered around the small town and waited for Sheryl to meet up with her old school mate from Malaysia to go surfing!

We met up with her school mate who set the ladies up on surf boards but it was too small for me to care to try (as in not even 1 foot waves and only white wash) so I contented myself with pictures and helping the ladies. The water was probably something ridiculous like 26 degrees or more. The hottest water I have ever been in! I was doing handstands on sand bars almost 100 meters out because it was so shallow as well. While helping the ladies I saw heaps of jelly fish in the rip and had a minor sting on my hang. It hurt surprisingly more than I had expected. After a little while of helping the ladies I found myself in a fight with an even bigger stinger. The first had been fist sized and red so it was easy to see. This next one was about a meter long at least and invisible. I know it was about that long because it stung from my ankle, up to my calf, then across half of the left side of my chest and across my right forearm. I had been standing in the water so it was quite a big guy. I was more shocked at first and startled then anything so I naturally used my uninjured hand to push whatever was hurting me away which wasn't the best idea and despite freeing myself from the jellyfish, ended up stinging half of my left hand. I told the girls I was not helping them anymore and got out of the water.

For those of you never stung. It is surprisingly more painful than you would expect. Imagine you pick up a piece of metal that has been in the fire and it burns you. It initially feels like that. Then it feels like it is itching, you have needles firing into your skin, and a swelling burning feel from the hot metal. Not much fun. One of the girls got stung on her thighs only the size of a tooney and that ended the day for her.I ended up having to piss on myself because the town had no vinegar and surprisingly it does help t take away the sting. That was over a week ago and the burn mark from the stinger are fading away into bumpy nothingness.... finally.

We left Cherating soon after that and headed to Kuala Lumpur (KL). We checked into a guest house one of our friends from Langkowi was staying in and met up with Sheryl's sister. We ate food and traveled to a night market where we tried various fruits we had never had before and spent the night laughing and giggling over the funny faces made from the sour or absolutely disgusting fruit we tried. Durian is among the worst and smells like vomit and tastes worse. We went to check out the shopping mall and the giant twin towers KL is so well known for and I must admit they were rather impressive. Massive structures lit up toering in the sky. Pictures weren't even allowed in the mall at the towers base for security purposes.

The next day we left to the Batu Caves which contains a temple up in a dolomitized cave that was just absolutely massive. Well over 150 meters high in the cave. Monkeys were everywhere and roamed the temple stealing food or drinking people's coke that they had stolen.

We made a stop at a mosque called Sha'lam (I think that is how it is spelt). It was an absolute mission to get to but had the four tallest marinettes in the world and we could only go in certain parts because we were not muslim. We had to cover ourselves in robes as well and it basically looked like I had 4 wives when all of the girls were fully dressed. I wasn't complaining =) But four wives... imagine how interesting life would be. Any who, it was fun and we didn't even stay that long inside the temple. We spent mroe time waiting for the noon service to be over to get to wander around inside. It was really neat especially since I haven't done too much in the way of religious adventures.

There was a torrential down pour and we ran for refuge under the bus stop and then went downtown to finish some shopping for or mountain adventure to Kinabalu.

We flew during mid-day to Kota Kinabalu and found a cheap hostel quite quickly and just prepared ourselves for the massive climb in the days to come. We went to the night market to eat food and found many of our favorite dishes and tried some unique Malaysian cuisine such as a shish-kabob of chicken hearts which turned out to be good had hard centers where the valves were but were quite delicious... once you could get over the fact it was a heart.

We headed up high into the mountain range of Kinabalu where we set about ensuring our trip was organized, arranged transport, filled out forms and paid for accomodation etc on the hill. We found a cheap hostel ($7 CAD instead of the $50-100 CAD at the bottom of the hill) and watched movies, hydrating and relaxing with an early night start in mind to get halfway up to our accomodation.

We met up at about 8AM with our guide and began the climb. It wasn't too bad of a climb because the trail was rather well defined but there were very steep stairs, uneven steps, rocky sections, very steep rocky sections and of course a little bit of rain part way up. The total ascent up about 6km took about 4.5 hours. I was pretty knackered by that time but the ladies I am traveling with had a horrible time and generally hated life quite severely by that point in time. Finding the accommodation was a very welcomed sight and quite the accomplishment in itself. We had a nap then went down for the buffet dinner, had our food while enjoying the sunset then were in bed by around 6PM believe it or not.

We didn't or rather couldn't get to bed for a few hours despite our weariness but got up at 1:30 AM to have breakfast and begin the climb to the top of the mountain in the dark to see the sunrise. We left at 2:30AM and arrived at 5:30AM. It was a climb of only 2.7km but it takes a little longer since it is pitch black and the girls were hating life even more this day. The first part of the climb is up a rocky river bed filled with steep steep stairs and slippery footing until you arrive at the granite face of the mountain (after about 800m) which basically meant you had to pull yourself up the side of the mountain with a thick rope the entire way to the summit. It was interesting to see the line of about 60-80+ people along the rocky face making a snake of head lamps that you could see for almost a km all the way back to the guest houses on the mountain.

The last stretch was grueling as it was several hundred meters up a straight cliff face with few places to stop and you could really feel your thighs getting a solid workout. We arrived at the top with about 1/2 an hour to spare and just relaxed until the sun came up but sadly it was hidden by the clouds though it was still pretty spectacular. The best part about being up on the top of the mountain, once you could get over people being loud and screaming with either joy or talking loudly, was the pure silence. No wind. No rustling or leaves. No babbling of water. Just pure silence. I couldn't enjoy it as much as I had hoped because it was hard when you were distracted by people but I really enjoyed it.

We took pictures of Brick up top, I brought my Canadian flag so I flew it proudly, and then descended without getting to enjoy it as much as I'd hoped but our guide was hurrying us along, likely because we were a slow group and had to make the almost 9km descent that day which would take quite a while. The path down was easier in the daylight and didn't seem as long though it was still quite a difficult trek because now it used different muscles on the way down. The girls definitely didn't appreciate life the entire way down but deep down somewhere I think that they were quite happy to have achieved something so difficult and awe inspiring.

We got back in about 2.5 hours to the on hill accommodation, ate our buffet breakfast, then began the descent down the mountain which only took 4 hours. Four hours that the girls loved life. They seemed cheerier on the way up for some reason ;).

We got to the bottom, ate lunch again (all our food from when we left up the mountain was provided) then left to go back to Kota Kinabalu and sleep away our exhaustion. Some people did this trip in one day and I honestly don't know how you could. It was such a difficult climb or maybe we were just very unfit. There is a yearly marathon up the mountain to the peak with the record being 2 hours and 47 minutes to the summit and 2 hours to get down. I was quite thankful to be with the group I was because I could take plenty of breaks even when I wasn't too tired and had an excuse. I only think I would have shaved 2 hours off the total climb because it wasn't the easiest of climbs.

The next day was horrible. My legs haven't hurt that much in ages. But the pain was welcome as it has been a while since I have worked out. Sheryl and her sister Jenn both were sick that night, maybe from altitude sickness or over exertion but weren't too well off the next day. Nicole hated life and didn't want to move and has bought me lunch since I opted to carry her bags for her on several occasions.

We waited all day watching movies and eating food until our flight to Jakarta to begin our expedition towards Bali! It was a welcome highlight of our day to get our minds off of the pain and off we went. It was sad to give Sabah (Malaysian Borneo) such a short time to see it, I very well may go back because it was cheap, had a good feel, very friendly and plenty to do. Raflesia flowers, great dive sights, rapids, fishing and definitely some very nice water to swim in. I think that this trip is mostly turning into a trip that will help me get an idea where I want to come back and do in more detail. This means I will want to bring people back with me so you had better come with me!

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