The Adventure of Mount Kinabalu (8 - 13 Apr 2011)

The program was set last November, where initially I replaced one member in the group who was unable to make it.

The flight was on Friday, but I leave Perlis on Wednesday. Haha! Talking about snake king huh! I did asked permission from Prof to take leave, he didn't allow me to go in the first place because of the bad weather (and he insisted!!), but granted it anyway since it was all arranged and there's no way I'm going to withdraw myself!

Summary of the trip:

1. The Mount Kinabalu Conquest

Although we went to KK on Friday, we spent a night at KK park on Saturday, and the uphill trip began only on Sunday to Laban Rata 半山.


^This is our driver, Ah Han.

He was the one 'convincing' us NOT to take the Mesilau route.
FYI, there's two routes going to Laban Rata: Timpohon and Mesilau. Mesilau is well known of its longer journey (6km vs 4km) and its beautiful panorama view, and is highly recommended from mountaineering enthusiasts. Timpohon is the easy, inclining route with shorter distance.

Why? As rain has been harshly invading KK for the past few days, he said Mesilau route would be very slippery and muddy, and will give us extremely hard time on our first day, not to mention the hardship will affect our ascend to summit the next early morning (2 am!). Besides, Timpohon would be a better option for first timer according to him lah.

Considering the different physical fitness level of our group, we decided to go for Timpohon route. I was actually freaked out when Ah Han said Mesilau has a descend-down-the-valley-and-ascend route, which was my most feared nightmare.


^The gigantic mountain behind me is Mount Kinabalu!!


^All smile at the beginning of the journey.

We had two tour guides/porters with us, Upson (pronounced 'absent') and Lasius. They are brothers.

The weather was OK when we ascending to Laban Rata, for the first 4km. It's all about rocky stairs and stairs and inclining and going up and ascending.

By the time we leave Pondok Layang-Layang (4th rest point on Timpohon route, the end of the easy 4km and beginning of the tough 2km), the harder challenge awaits! It's all rocks, big and small, high and low, tough and hard. To make things worse...


^It started raining!

My official time for Timpohon Gate - Laban Rata: 5 hrs 20 min.

Dinner was served at 4.30pm, and after the meal, I nearly cried when I saw the stairs going up to our rest place, Gunting Lagadan Hut.

LCC suffered altitude sickness and had headache, he dozed off after swallowing pills for altitude sickness. I couldn't sleep well, maybe because it was merely 8.00pm !? and I had 4 warm bags 暖包 on my pocket to warm them (my pocket works but not theirs... weird~). I was sweating under the long john and blanket although it's 3-6°C.

Still unable to sleep well, while LCC naturally woke up after a nice long sleep, we prepared ourselves at 1am, and headed to the canteen at 2am for supper. I have been hungry ever single time ever since I gone up the mountain, not to mention the unlimited farts and tummy wind.

The ascend started at 2.30am, with Lasius and Upson escorting us from behind. LCC's headache getting more serious when we got higher, so more stops and more rest time.

I suddenly had the urge to speed off at about 7.5km, so I leave them behind, and was the first in our group to reach the summit at approximately 5.45 am! Sun is rising!

God must have love me very much, it was no rain at all, sunny and nice weather! :))

Stupid me for not bringing any camera, so I had to wait for them in the freezing windy morning to take pictures.


^Spot me in light blue :)


^This two dudes managed to arrive finally


^Giving a nice kick on South Peak! :p


^I love this the most! Look so freaking yao yeng~~~

When the sun rise high up, and it's getting hotter and hotter, we started descending. This time, I could see clearly the route that I've taken uphill. It's pretty scary!


^Group photo before descending from Laban Rata

Anyway, God loved me for the morning session only. On our way down, it's raining and raining and non-stop raining, driving all of us crazy!!


^Group photo with our certificate :)
From right: Yung, LCC, me, Wai2, Jim, Lasius, Shawn, Rena and Upson

One mission complete!

P/S: I have to say this, Mount Nuang is harder than Mount KK, seriously. Mount Kinabalu surpassed by its height (twice taller than Nuang), but Nuang definitely win over the difficulty level. My point of view lah~


2. Sight-seeing around Api/Kota Kinabalu

Yung is such a darling great host, he took us around town for food and sight-seeing. The last 2 days were suffering for all of us, for we dragged our sore legs around town and looked funny when we walked! Haha~


^Yayasan Sabah. We did a number of crazy stuffs there


^Philippine market


^Musical Fountain


^Sunset at Tanjung Aru


3. FOOD!!

This one is definitely cannot be missed one~!!

My tummy was freaking happy too, but not for the last 2 days as it's 'that time of the month' and I had no appetite. :(( Such a waste!!



^Sang Yuk Mien 家香生肉面
The noddle tastes like Hokkien mee.


^富源 Fu Yuan bread. They called it 88?
The bread is tender and soft, nice~ Not to forget their Teh C too!


^Avocado juice
The taste was OK, maybe because mine has a very strong milk taste, so I only sipped few mouth of the pure avocado.



^Coconut crab!
No we did not eat this. It is very expensive! RM15/100g, it's about RM200 per crab! The name is given because they climb trees and eat coconuts.



^... ... ...
I had a bad tummy day, I couldn't get the name of the shop, or any specific name for the mee and soup and stuffs... But it tastes really nice though!


^Seafood~ :))

We couldn't have any crab because it was out of stock on our last night at a seafood restaurant. Anyway, the seafood was great!



I had great fun!! :)



And, hard to say, I might come again to challenge the Mesilau route! Who knows right~

Comments

Anonymous said…
New lords, new laws.

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