Singapore to Sabah, Borneo

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The past fortnight has seen us tasting (often literally) our first experiences of Asia. After easing our way in with three days in Singapore - a high-rise, shopping mall blend of East and West, we flew to Sabah part of Malaysian Borneo. We spent a few days in the WW2 destroyed capital, Kota Kinabalu, and a couple on the South China Sea before the main event - our attempt to conquer SE Asia's highest peak, Mt Kinabalu.

The walk is a deceptively easy sounding 8.2KM with a 2,250m ascent tackled over 2 days. On day one we met our guide at 8am and hiked 6 of the KMs and 1,600m of the up to the mountain refuge of Laban Rata. It was hard work but we knew that the really tough part was yet to come. Day 2 saw us walking by 3am using head torches to shine the very steep way. Our speed slowed to 1KM every hour and a half as we tackled steps and ropes. With altitude sickness and fatigue kicking in making the summit seemed increasingly unlikely but we decided to keep going until sunrise mainly to keep the cold at bay. Incredibly our speed picked up and as it became light (there was no sunrise) we realised we were just 100m from the summit. Unfortunately the mist had come in, we could see nothing and local wisdom told us it would stay like that for the rest of the day - the hardest physical effort I have ever made had been in vain!

However, local wisdom can be wrong and 10 minutes later the mists rolled away leaving us with amazing views acrosss Borneo and of the incredible mountain. Although the down would prove to be as hard as the up and our legs would take 4 days to recover the views had made it all worthwhile.

From there we headed to Sepilok to see the famous 'Wild man of Borneo' at a rehabilitation centre for orphaned Orang-utans. Young Orang-utans cannot survive without their parents and this centre, on the edge of the jungle, teaches them basic survival techniques such as swinging in the trees and eating. Twice a day they feed and the public are allowed in to view this.

All in all we are enjoying being in Asia, are loving the food and starting to come to terms with the heat, humidity and tropical downpours.

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