Monkeys and Mountains in Borneo

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Kuala Lumpur is such a modern city, unlike any others we've been to in SE Asia, except perhaps Bangkok but without the millions of motos and tuk-tuks belching out noxious black smoke. As a result KL is astoundingly clean, well appears to apart from when you look at the horizon to a haze of beige yellow smog, but the streets are litter free and the pavement sewer covers relatively intact, thus avoiding the daily danger of a warm sewage bath that is such a hazard in many other asian towns. Added to this Sophie and I checked into a really smart designer 5-star hotel thanks to a Christmas present for Sophie, so we were properly set up for a few days. No more roaches, cold showers, skanky beds and bedding and hello - air conditioning, room service, TV, minibar, flushing toilet and best of all - WINDOWS! We were up on the 19th floor so had amazing views over KL, including the KL Tower. The opposite direction which we could see from the bar is the staggeringly high twin Petronas Towers (now second highest in the world I think) which are lit up really well at night. One morning we went on a tour up to the viewing plaform which is on the bridge linking the two towers, about 170m up (still only about 1/3 of the way up though) for pretty good views. Otherwise we went to the National Museum with loads of Malaysian history (odd that) and culture and also China town with loads of fake watches, DVDs, clothes and the usual. We've had the most incredible thunderstorms with torrential rain that sometimes lasts for hours but apart from that it's just been so hot and sticky with high humidity all day. Lastly on the final day, feeling hungover from the bottle of Sangsom we finished off the previous night, we headed up the KL Tower, a giant communications mast where you can view the city from about 400m up. Worryingly from the binoculors at the top you could see right into our hotel room. Amazing night time views though so hopefully everyone was just concentrating on that instead.

The following day Sophie and I travelled to KL airport where she caught her flight home via Bangkok and I got my plane to Borneo. I had been warned that the weeks of heavy rain in Borneo meant that there was a chance that my jungle trip (which I was to be going on the following day) would be cancelled because the camp was flooded. I phoned from the airport and this was still the case so instead of heading to the camp I went to Sandakan town. The town, which was just getting dark feels like it's been forgotten by the rest of Malaysia. It is one of the most horrible places I've been to. The hotel I found after a couple of other full ones is also one of the dirtiest and horrible I've stayed in, not made any more pleasent by memories of the recent 5-star hotel in KL. The town smells, it's got no attractions (bar the attraction named The One Hundred Steps, which although admitedly I've not checked it out, I imagine is just one hundred steps), there's litter everywhere and there's no decent places to eat. Still the people are nice as always so that's to it's credit. I did manage to get to Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre where they look after orphaned and injured orangutans, hopefully one day releasing them to the wild. The bus there was delayed by traffic so I arrived a few minutes after the start of feeding time, by which time the bigger primates had left. There was, however, a couple of young orangutans still hanging around as well as some other monkeys. The ornagutans have such human expressions and mannerisms that they are fascinating to watch.

The following day I joined a trip out into the rainforest for the night. This involved a long 4x4 drive down a deeply pot holed and extremely muddy road that sunk the wheels of the Landcruiser up to it's axles. We eventually got through and arrived at the lodge. The accomadation sat right on the banks of the Kinabatagan river which was in full flow with all the rain that's been falling everyday. Every so often a log would float down the river with a white stork perching on it, catching a lift downstream. Just as it decided to rain very heavily we went out on our boat trip...in an open boat (erm...it's a RAINforest) so we all got soaked to the skin within seconds of getting in the boat. The other thing is that when it's raining the clearly more intelligent animals go and hide deep in the forest somewhere so for the first hour and a half we just sat in our little boat shivering only occasionally seeing a large kingfisher or snake hanging in a tree. Just as we were all getting very fed up the rain stopped and we went out into the main river where we saw troops of small grey macaque monkeys and the bizarre looking proboscis monkeys with their long noses.

Thankful to leave Sandakan I caught a bus to Kota Kinabalu (KK) and as soon as had I arrived I decided that instead of hanging around this pleasent city for a couple of days I'd go and climb Mt Kinabalu (the highest in Asia). The next morning I got a bus straight out again and joined up with a Kiwi girl who was on the same bus as me. We were allocated a 'guide' between us and began the climb. The plan is to do it over 24 hours. You climb the first 6kms or 1300 vertical metres to Laban Rata, where the overnighting huts are based, in the first day. The path is very steep all the way with continual steps cut into it making it very hard work, the humidity and increasing altitude not helping, not to mention the preceeding months of catching tuk-tuks everywhere and too much beer. We were both pretty exhausted by the time we reached the huts, and very wet and cold as it had been heavily raining for several hours. Our guide Wilfred was nowhere to be seen as we had literally left him behind within the first ten minutes and not seen him for the rest of the day. He eventually turned up over an hour and a half later than us looking knackered. Caroline (the Kiwi) and I aren't particularly fit but that guy does that for a living! So we weren't too happy at having to fork out for a compulsary guide who was less useful than a chocolate teapot. The huts were basic and the food extortionate but then they are built at over 3000m and the food has to be carried up by incredibley stong and fit porters with legs like tree trunks so it's more than fair enough. We were soaking wet though as was my 'dry' change of clothes and we had no way of warming up or really drying our clothes so we shivered our way through the evening in the unheated hut. The next morning we were rudely awoken at 2am to do the summit climb before sunrise. Wilfred picked us up (well he collected me, forgetting to get Caroline from the same building he was staying in so had to go back for her!) and set off a little late, just after 3am. The climbing (more stumbling in the darkness and hanging off ropes fixed to the rocky ground than true climbing) was more difficult than the previous day and the effect of the altitude began to take effect with it becoming real effort just to keep up a good rhythm for more than a few steps. About two and a half hours of struggling up dark rock faces we finally reached the summit (4090m), although we were so tired we found it hard to believe we were finally there and had to check it was the top. The stars were the most incredibly bright I've ever seen, and so close too. The starlight relected off the layer of cloud that ringed the mountain giving an erie top of the world feeling. The sun hadn't yet started to rise and it was properly cold as we waited. We both had all our layers on but we soon felt even to cold to move. About half an hour of waiting the sun began to peek over the horizon, a stunning sight. Oh yeah and Wilfred had just managed to arrive too. We waited around for the sun to rise higher, staying as long as we could bare the cold and set off down. The terrain that had been invisible in the darkness was now lit by the sunlight, a strange landscape of pillows of cooled lava but incredible to look at. The sunlight had risen by now to illuminate the summit we had just be sitting on behind us. We walked down much faster but the intention was to make it to the bottom by lunch time. The walking got more and more tiresome as it dragged on and was just as tiring as the climbing and hard on the knees as you consistantly had to step off large steps and rocks. We were relieved to finally reach the bottom, this time with Wilfred in tow, who seemed happier going down than up. We got back to KK tired and happy to be able to get a decent rest and feed and happy that we had succeded.

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Photos

The view from our hotel room
KL Tower

The Bathroom
Anyone seen the film Saw? Remind you of it? Oh and in case you can't make it out, it's the shower

Jungle trail
The monkeys are hiding in those trees somewhere

Freezing on the summit
but happy to be there