Back from the adventure of my lifetime - Mt. Kinabalu!
Some background information for the guys out there who know nuts about this mountain.
Standing at 4095.2 meter (13,435 ft) above sea level, Mt. Kina is the tallest mountain in Sea East Asia. Kinabalu is in Sabah, East Malaysia.
Now let me share with you this experience of my lifetime (it won?t be the last!).
Day 1 of Mt. Kinabalu Expenditure.
Spent my morning in Singapore packing for my trip! Was quite a rush, as it was my first time doing prep for travel.
Went to change the much needed ringgits. Rates were not too bad, I got RM$2.22 for every SGD$1 that i exchanged!
Then took a cab to Kranji to meet up with my friend, Max.
Reached there at about 3.30pm ?
Took the Causeway Link bus to Kotaraya Bus Interchange (cost $1.30) and transit to Senai Airport Express to go to Lapangan Terbang Senai (cost RM$4).
Then took plane to Kota Kinabalu (KK) lo.
I got body check at Senai Airport.... don?t know why.... does I look like a terrorist? =/
Anyway the flight to KK took about 2+ hours, by the time I reached KK, it was already around 8-9 pm.
Did nothing much, but met up with another 7 group member who I met from Clubsnap.org, an online photography forum, at Berjaya Palace Hotel.
Basically that's my first day.
Day 2 of Mt. Kinabalu Expenditure.
Breakfast at 6am. Left the hotel for Mt Kinabalu at 6.30am.
The bus trip was around 2 hrs.
We reached Kinabalu Park Headquarters at about 8+.
The HQ stands at about 1563.8m above sea level (ASL). It was cold up there. Temperature was around what you guys can experience at Cameron Highlands or Genting Highlands.
Definitely aircon wasn?t needed at that height. ;)
There were 2 routes that you can take, to go up, Bukit Ular Trail and Mesilau Trail.
We took the shorter Bukit Ular Trail
Timpohon Gate marks the start of the adventure.
The first obstacle we met was something like this.
Of course, on seeing this, I was quite relieved, maybe this ain?t gonna be so hard after all, hehe~
500 meters into the journey, we reached Kandis Shelter.
The first km was still pretty alright, with an equal number of up and downhills, it was still manageable.
At 1.5km, we reached Ubah Shelter.
But from this shelter onwards, most of the terrains we encountered are nothing less than this?
Lowi Shelter awaits 700 meters away.
Well, although we haven?t walked too far into the journey yet, the terrain really took its toll on us nevertheless. I took a picture and it really describe the kind of emotion we were having.
But we are still determine to reach the rest house at Laban Rata.
So we continued with our journey.
We reached Mempening shelter in a while.
So far, all the shelters been quite near to each other. And of course that sets first time climbers like us, thinking, that every 1 km we walk, we can have a point to rest and sit down. Catch our breath, before we carry on.
But oh so wrong we were, the next shelter was like 1.5km away, and did I mention before that ever since the first shelter, we been going up, up and away ? I don?t really remember any downhills man? it was that depressing the terrains were on us.
But we took pride as we were already near our first destination, to be exact, we were 2 shelters away.
Walking past the Nepethes Villosa area
which stands 9000 ft to 10300 ft, we were even more determined to advance and overcome! Just a while more, and we will be resting!
The Villosa Shelter was the most ?siong?.
As the distance between it and the last one was ?miles? apart for our tired legs.
[NO PHOTO FROM HERE ONWARDS, AS THEY WERE IN SLIDES, HAVENT DEVELOP YET! SORRY!]
Near the 5.5 km mark lies Paka Shelter. Couldn?t care less cause Laban Rata Rest House lies a few hundred meters ahead.
So without doubt, we definitely proceed to Laban Rata FAST!
But it still took us about 9 hrs to reach there. YES! 9 damn hours to advance around 6 km of rough terrain.
Not to mention the temperature grew colder , and the air thinner as we ascend up.
Laban Rata rest house is around 3272.7m ASL. The thermometer read 9 deg Celsius when I reached there. So you can guess how cold I was.
Dinner was buffet style. After eating and getting warm, I went to my room.
I feel asleep within seconds due to a very bad headache that I was experiencing.
The headache was too much! I got 2 aspirin from my friend and after consuming, went back to bed? cant get to sleep? toss around for sometime? felt nauseous? went to vomit? return to bed.. Still headache? basically that was the night..
I was contemplating whether to continue my journey, to go up to the summit. With that kind of condition that I am in? I seriously wanted to give up. So I decided, I would try to sleep, and if by 2.30am, if I am feeling better , I will go up! If not? that shall be the end of my adventure.
I woke up after an hour plus. I felt good. Much lesser pain~ Not nauseous anymore~ So I can go up after all..
That shall be the start of day 3.
Write till day 2 first.
In the meantime I will think about how to write about the next few days and also go and develop my slides. ;)
not to mention upload the photos that i took and share with you guys.
these few days my blog shall be occupied with stuffs from the trip.
But I will update on the days happening too if i felt like it. keke~
