Advertisement
Published: December 12th 2005
Edit Blog Post
Left Phuket for Kuala Lumpar, then straight down to Kota Kinabalu. From here transfer to Kinabalu National Park, Malaysia's first world heritage site. Night before arriving here, we had to eat in some dodgy little café and ended eating "nightmare chicken"! This chicken was disgusting, gristle and bone, and literally had one piece each before sacking it off. Come bedtime and the nightmares start! Really vivid ones for both me and arnie and it was clearly from that chicken! Owner must have seen the Westerner's and decided to play some games!
Anyway the time had come for Mt Kinabalu, got all our kit sorted and started the climb along with some Swedes and a couple of other guys. Night before we had a brief where they basically said that it was monsoon season and chances are it would rain and be cloudy at the top, which would really put a dampener on things when we reached the peak. Started climb at about 9am and weather was good! Best start possible, aimed to get up to our resthouse for the night before the rain set in. The first climb was just unrelenting steps on rocks and trees for 6km. Good weather
for the climb, still slightly warm though! The last 1km up to the resthouse killed us, very hard work. Made even worse when you see tiny locals carrying logs and supplies up the mountain without much problem! Took about 4.5- 5 hours to get up to Laban Rata, our resthouse for the night. Weather was suprisingly still clear, although it was changing every minute from clear to mist and back again, stunning views from here, watching the sun set from above the clouds is pretty cool. Went to bed at 6pm as had to be up at 2am to start the climb to the summit! This is where it got hard.... it was cold (although still not as cold as England even up here!) and the air was thin, the last 3km to the summit is just a constant granite slope upwards with thick white rope to drag yourself up on. It got to the stage where you are just on the side of the mountain with a torch, no one else around, just dragging yourself on your front and resting every 20 steps or so!! The photos really don't do this thing justice! Eventually reached the summit at about
5am in time for sunrise. We were so lucky with the weather, really clear and just sat in the cold at the peak waiting for sunrise... Such a good feeling watching that sunrise knowing that you can't get any higher for absolutely miles. Hopefully the photos look good! Then it was time for the descent- this ruined us as much as the climb! My legs were complete jelly and i was struggling with even the smallest step, 9km later we were back to the start point, job done! I am writing this about 5 days later and i still struggle with steps!!
Headed off to Poring Hot Springs to rest our weary legs to find that "hot springs" means "square tub of boiling sulphur, hot enough to blister your skin", even the locals shied away! Still had a few days before our flight back to Singapore so headed to Sandakan on the East coast of Sabah, not much going on here- Muslim countryies aren't the liveliest in the evenings- sat in a bar on our own in a power cut just to get a beer to reward ourselves for the mountain! After speaking to a few people we went
to Semporna, which is close to Sipadan- one of the world's best dive sites. Started off planning to do a few fun dives, but Semporna is such a hole we ended up doing our Advanced Open Water Course just to pass the time! This dive site is amazing, turtles and sharks everywhere- so much fun chasing turtles and sneaking up on sharks! Quite spooky as well, the island is on a drop off so the coral goes out for about 10/20 metres then it is just a vertical wall of coral going down 2000m! Quite cool diving into caves and seeing skull and crossbones do not enter signs. Both of us managed to get stung by coral for getting a bit too eager on the photo opportunities! As part of the advanced course we had to dive to 30m, navigate, dive in currents and use a camera etc, hopefully got a few good turtle snaps!! And (parents!) it is the cheapest place in the world as well apparently, so money well spent!!
The kids out here are so funny, literally every single one you walk past says "hello" or "hello man" and the really small ones just stare at
Arnie- comedy. You can tell they're just thinking- who the hell is that lanky ginger?! He is head and foot above everyone on the island, and obviously they don't see too many gingers!
Arrived in Aus a couple of days ago to meet up with Joe. Really nice house in quite a small town, just been chilling and drinking alot... Went to Canberra today to look around and heading to Melbourne at weekend. Joe and Arnie say hi by the way.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0436s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Bernie
non-member comment
Hey Nick I'm so jealous you got to ride on elephant! jusrt had a proper look at your site sounds like your having a wicked time! howz oz? Bxxx