I have delayed this long enough I guess. So, like what I promised, a blow by blow account of how the trip went.
So the trip consisted of 7 people. Mr Lau Waye Young, Mr Randy Pang, Mr Bernard Goh, Mr, Boon Kiat,
Miss Mr Leong Jin Hua, Mr Sheah Yih and yours truly.
A few days before the trip, Lau took a flight from KL to Miri where I was supposed to act the chauffeur and get his ass back into Brunei. The trip to Miri was two fold, to fetch Lau and to buy some items necessary for the climb up Mt Kinabalu. Bought gloves, padded long pants and hiking boots there. A tip for those of you who are thinking about doing the same, I would recommend you to do the same, especially the ankle high hiking boots. Saved me from a lot of grief during the climb and descend. It all went well and we arrived home safely and he spent a night at my place. Can't really remember what else happened that day jeez...
Next day all of us congregated at Pang's crib to run through our plans, list of equipment and monetary issues. Some of us converted some dollars to ringgits with Pang's mom who gave us a very "reasonable" rate. *coughs* Also took some time to give the vehicles a general check-up. We were all supposed to retire early that night for the journey the next day but I dunno why but just couldn't make myself fall asleep. Was really worried about not being awake enough to drive tomorrow but since I couldn't help it, watched a movie and played some games to spend the time until finally dozing off.
So come sun rise, we all picked up our bags, threw them into the cars, had some breakfast and finally taking pics with our custom made - ♠ ÎňĐệί ♠™ - flag, we set off to the border. Meeting minimal traffic, we managed to get to KK in six hours with a stop for lunch in a town whose name I forgot. As you might know, we were divided into two vehicles- Pang's 4*4 and my red car. Pang was driving Jin, Boon and Bernard who switched rides for some parts of the journey and I was entrusted with the lives of Lau and SY. When we were driving through a town along the way, Lau, SY and I decided to stop by Sugarbun while Pang's car decided to go to KFC. We kept in touch thru the walkie-talkies until one point when we stopped hearing any replies from them . Shrugging it off, we decided to finish our meal before going in search for the others in KFC which we did. Finding the KFC in town, we went in and to our surprise, they weren't there. What ensued was a few frantic presses to the panic button of the walkie talkie to no reply. Puzzled we decided to use our other form of communication which isn't as cheap as the other. We called them, and to our surprise there were on the road to the next town. Perplexed, we questioned them about what happened to stopping by KFC and then after some explaining we figured out that they missed seeing the KFC in the last town. VERy lol inducing moment there.
Drove to next town (which was about 30-40 mins away), collected them from their KFC where we promptly started to trade insults as usual. Mostly aimed at Jin, which is again as usual. After that it was just one last final drive to KK where we started to have fun have fun zig zagging at top speeds between cars along the 4 lane highways. A malaysian Perdana joined in our over-taking sprees and we promptly gave showed it the finer points of high speed swervings + route picking. And then SY shouted in surprise that the high powered V6 proton is actually being driven by a girl! "Holy shit, not bad for a girl" was shouted into the walkie talkie. Considering the price of fuel in Malaysia, its surprising how she was gassing her V6 beast after us without any considerations. But then we lost sight of her after forcing our way between the spacing of two cars. Oh well :) At least made someone happy that day (she was smiling the whole time).
Had some trouble finding a hotel that day. All the hotels in town were fully occupied and we had to go a bit further out of town to Beverly Hotel. Had Burger King for dinner I think... and went for a movie in the cinema above Centerpoint. It was a freaking mistake.
Let me ask you this. What happens automatically whenever you enter a cinema? You become quiet right? You also stop taking phone calls. Apparently not for the people of KK. People all around us were talking all the way through the bloody movie. This guy behind me even made calls. THREE FREAKING TIMES! Second time he did it, I couldn't stop myself and made a sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sound until his called finished. Thinking its the last call he would make/pick-up, I settled back into the movie. THEN his phone ringed again and he picked it up. Jesus. I promptly went back to my shhhhhh-ing and eventually got so fed up I bounced up from slouching in my seat to an almost standing position, making a bang on the arm rests. I knew I couldn't turn back to look at him without losing my patience cos I knew he is a la-kia and to me, beating up a bum which la-kias all are ain't a crime. Sensing that my limit was reached, Bernard (who knows my volcanic moods) turned back to stare at the slime. We could hear his girl telling him to stop the call and not mess with us in malay. Ah the satisfaction from that pleading voice. She probably knew his life can just be bought like a peanut by any of us there. At least she is sensible. When the movie ended we all got up from our seats and I was staring at the guy, crushing up an empty bottle with my fist, daring him to look at me. Sadly he didn't, or that night would have been of more fun.
That night we also bought another important piece of equipment which we were lacking, portable light sources. Got myself a trusty headlamp which proved its usefulness to be worth its 190 tag several times over.
So next day we set off about mid morning to buy some final supplies before heading up the Mountain. On the way about half way up to the national park, we stopped by a restaurant which served the BEST mushrooms I ever had. And we spent most of the time soaking in the cool mountain air and insulting Jin's insistence that the restaurant is crap because of its look. Didn't know yer so shallow, Jin :P. hhaaha
Got the national park without much of a problem with the mists seeping in to block everything from view. We were assigned rooms at a newer building, Rock Hostel, with each room accommodating 4 persons. As we are 3, Pang Bernard and I had to share our room with guy from LA. Since there was still daylight, we decided to make use of the time to break into our new boots. Which was followed by a briefing by a small park warden and dinner. Before going to bed, Jin managed to pay us back for our endless busting of his nuts by winning big as the dealer for blackjack and sakikong. Can you imagine it? ALL of us lost. Not a single person won any money off him.
Did I mention how nice that mountain air was? We all woke up refreshed and ready to take on the big bad mountain. After breakfast, we met our guide and we were about to get into our shuttle to Timpohon gate for the ascend but then we decided on the spot to pay for the longer route. Told you we felt really ready. The car then dropped us off at the Mesilau trail which would take almost twice as long for us to reach Laban Rata (the place where we will sleep that night). Laughing it off, it finally started to sink in when the rains started a'fallin which further screwed up the endless ascends and descends along the route. Bernard, Pang and I pushed on until the yellow stoned portion of the trail when we left pang to wait for the others.
Bernard and I agreed, the biggest incentive or us to get to Laban Rata as quickly as possible was the food up there. We kept talking to each other between pants about what we are gonna buy once we arrive. Along the way, we over took some people who set out from Mesilau as well about 1 hour before us. Let that be a testament to how powerful a driving thought hunger can be.
Once at Laban rata we ordered lots of carbo rich roods. Then found out that we didn't have any ringgits with us. -___- So we decided to exchange just enough bruneian money to cover for the food, at a ghastly rate of 1.7? THAT'S HIGHWAY ROBBERY!
*sigh* At Laban Rata where its warm, we rested and I think I even took a nap, unsurprisingly. After about 40 plus minutes, we got up to seek for the place we would be sleeping, which is a special hut for people taking part in Via Ferrata, the Pendant Hut. There we were taught about the equipment we would be using and the safety measure to be heeded. And with that we retired early after a buffet dinner back at Laban Rata.
At about 2am, we all woke up for some final preparations. I wore two long sleeved shirts inside my sweater and the padded pants I bought in Miri. Had a quick and heavy breakfast of peanut butter and jam sandwiches and its time. In the dark of night, we were on our final ascend to the summit where Bernard saw a shooting star across the sky twice. Damn... all I saw was something like a shooting star flying past my peripheral vision, which I would not say 100% was a shooting star. :(
Several times, we stopped to wait for the stranglers of the group and parcel out choc rations and water. Then we noticed that the sun is almost up and to wait any longer and we would miss the sun rise. So Bernard and I rushed up the remainder of the way and reached the summit before the sun was up. Beautiful experience it was to stare at the surrounding land which were all shadowed slowly lighted up meters by meters. There was this european who was shouting toward the sun "oi! Do you have a watch?" Apparently he had been waiting for the sun to rise for quite sometime already. Then slowly, Pang and Lau arrived together with victorious grins lighting up their face in addition to the sun's fresh rays. We unfurled the - ♠ ÎňĐệί ♠™ - flag and took pics at the summit, shouting loudly as the pics were taken. =D
Because we had to reach a certain place on the mountain by a certain time to be able to do the Via Ferrata, we then rushed down the summit, meeting Jin on the way who was crawling the other way. We told him to hurry up if he didn't wanna miss the Via Ferrata and continued along. Further down, we collected Boon and SY who were both too tired and short of time to go for the summit and got ready for the Via Ferrata by the edge of one of the cliff faces of the mountain. Jin joined us in time to get his harness connected to our main line.
While being taught how to use the safety measure yesterday, I was decided to be the one leading the group while we do Via Ferrata because of my experience of wall climbing in Brunei. Being in the lead meant that I had to relay back to the others the places where I found to be more hazardous then normal and how to get past them. It also meant if I fell, there would only be Bernard (the second guy) to pull me back up to get a foothold and handhold. As we stepped over the edge to descend the rock face, we all agreed how crazy the drop was- it was a direct drop to the tree lines all the way to the base of the mountains. Scary. A bit.
So down we went cliff face to cliff face and finally as I rounded the corner of a wall, I saw a long bridge suspending between two rock faces with a waterfall in between. It was beautiful and the rocks far far away at the bottom of the ravine promised death to visitors. The act of getting onto and across the bridge was a shaky business, literally. We all had to thread very softly to avoid shaking the bridge too much. After I reached the other end and back onto a solid wall, I never knew I would ever be so grateful to be able to hang from a cliff. And I started thinking to myself, if this is the first bridge, what's the other one like? Remember we were briefed about the route? We were all given a very vivid description of the bridges and the second bridge sounded 10 (rounded off amount) times scarier.
I will continue the story some other time.
Shim, I hope this has satisfied your hunger, for the time being.
I swear this is like the longest post I had ever posted. *sigh*
Jon Nyau