Blogs from Mount Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 3

Catching the minibus to Kinabablu NP was surprisingly easy, i made the bus full so there was no hanging around and we headed straight off to the National Park. Having told the driver where i wanted dropping off i thought it would be simple, but i forgot i'm in Borneo and nothing to do with public transport is ever simple! The driver missed the drop off point for Kinabalu Mountain Lodge and arrived at the park where he thought i would happily walk the 1km back to where he should have dropped me off then the 1km up the drive way to the lodge. He turned around and took me back. Kinabalu Mountain lodge is in a perfect setting, views over the mountains and into the valley below, vegie garden and its much cooler than the ... read more

Mount Kinabalu We flew out of Singapore into Kota Kinabula, Sabah in Malaysian Borneo. We transferred into our hotel which was next to yet another shopping mall. The next morning I set off to climb Mout Kinabalu a 4,095m (13,500ft) mountain about a 2hr drive outside of Kota Kinabalu. The day started out on the wet side and I kept raining for the whole day. We started walking from the Timpohon gate at 1,860m with my two Swiss walking companions and our 2 guides. The walk up apart from being wet was out of the way fairly quickly and we settled down in our dorms at about 3pm and as it was chilly we stayed there until we made our summit attempt at 2am the next day. It had stopped raining – hurray!! We set off ... read more

Well we needed all the sleep we could get for a 2 am wakeup but unfortunately it was not easy to sleep. It a combination of the altitude and cold is what our guide said. Matt and James both said they got a bit of sleep and I think i dosed for maybe an hour but it was not ideal. I had a nagging headache from probably from the altitude and lack of sleep but I was going to the top no matter what. James unfortunately woke up with a splitting headache and decided not to go for the summit. Matt and I went out and had a couple pieces of toast and some tea while we sat with our guide. Most groups left between 2 and 2:45 but our guide said we could leave at ... read more

I think i might have missed a day of blogging in Kota Kinabalu but I lost track having to write these after the fact. We had no internet in Mount Kinabalu. We woke up early to catch the 7:30 bus to Mount Kinabalu. Matt hadnt looked at his travel book for a place to stay so we relied on mine. It mentioned one hostel at the base of the mountain that is pretty cheap so we told the bus driver to drop us off there. Unfortunately it was 2km from the base of the mountain so we ate a quick breakfast then grabbed all our stuff and started hiking to the mountain. Matt's book had one place that was 500m from the bottom so we figured we only had to walk 1500 meters. Again luck was ... read more

Day 7 Off to Kota Kinabalu Today we got a bit of a lie in before we left Sepilok to catch a flight from Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu. We booked into an extremely nice boutique hotel called Eden 54. Extremely nice and Ling Ling on the reception couldn’t be more helpful. Kota Kinabalu is a really nice place. Very modern, with a distinctly colonial feel. But on the sea front there is a huge fish market, fruit and veg market and a large barbeque area where you can eat wonderful fish barbequed in front of you. Day 8 Today we went out to a little island off the coast of Kota Kinabalu by speed boat for Stuart to go Scuba diving, He did 3 dives but he said that the water wasn’t as clear as he ... read more