Days 101-106: Kinabalu
Before heading to the steamy jungles of Borneo, Marcus decided it was time for a haircut. With $2 clippers from the supermarket in hand, he began to craft his masterpiece. It was not long before he realized that something wasn’t quite right. So he asked Kel for help, and it wasn’t long after that we realized something had gone horribly wrong…
Supermarket haircut – not worth the $2.
Thankfully there are places to help repair this kind of “creative” haircut.
We spent a couple of days in Kota Kinabalu (Kinabalu city, also known as “KK”). We came to KK to climb Mt. Kinabalu – at 4095m in height it is purported to be the tallest mountain in S.E. Asia. Within a couple hours of landing, we went to the only reservation center, and were informed that the earliest we could reserve a dorm bed on the mountain was over a week away. We left in despair, since it wouldn’t give us time to get out of the country before our visas expired. We returned a while later, to look at the pictures of the mountain we would be unable to climb. As we were headed towards the door, the very helpful lady (hanging up her phone) informed us there was a cancellation. The short story is we were able to book dorm beds in the park and on the mountain. Hip-hip hooray! So we spent a day in KK failing to buy leech socks, but successfully getting gloves and ski hats. And off we went to the World Heritage site of Mt. Kinabalu National Park.
Park headquarters is at 1600m. We arrived in the morning, and went on a short hike to help acclimatize. After carbo loading at the resturant, we nestled all snug in our dorm beds with a bunch of other summit hopefuls.
Day 1
06:20 – awakened to the sweet sounds of everyone rustling plastic bags and someone vomitting quite loudly in the mens room (three rooms away).
06:45 – arrive at cafeteria, which is closed (sign says 6:30am…).
06:51 – cafeteria opens, carbo load some more.
07:20 – check in at the (required) guide station; request an English speaking guide who knows about flora and fauna; get assigned Jaldi (who speaks excellent English and ended up being a fantastic guide).
08:30 – en route to the beginning of the trail, a last minute stop for the all important item: TP.
08:45 – start the hike by passing an intimidating sign. Fastest ascent and descent of Mt. Kinabalu (by an Italian) in 2 hours and 40 minutes. How bad could it be?
10:00 – stop at one of the 7 rest huts (with toilets and trash bins) and see a few (very fat) squirrels about.
10:25 – Jaldi points out some of the coolest plants Marcus has ever seen. Pitcher plants, also known as Nepenthes, of all sorts of varieties. Marcus’ favorite was the nepenthes kinabaluensis which was endemic to this mountain.
11:45 – the jungle is thick with fog and clouds, and had a bit of an eerie feel.
12:12 – a light rain starts.
12:19 – stop at a rest hut, along with many others, and don raincoats.
12:22 – rain picks up, and doesn’t stop. The pitcher plants were all full.
13:40 – Kelly starts talking like Stevie in “Malcom in the Middle” … “Want.. M&M’s… please.”
14:05 – arrive at Laban Rata, the resturant and mountain accomodation at 3300m. At five hours and 20 minutes to go just 6 of the 17.4km, the record was in no danger of being broken this day.
14:20 – having got our dorm room key for the hut we were staying in, and secured a sleeping bag rental, we consumed a wonderfully warm cup of milo (just like hot cocoa with no sugar), fried noodles, and sweet corn soup.
14:40 – head uphill to our dorm-hut. While clean and spacious, it was unheated. Secure our things and head back down to the only heated building on the mountain – the resturant.
18:50 – order dinner: pasta with tomato sauce, fried rice, and an orange soda.
19:20 – head back uphill to the cold dorm.
19:30 – start boiling water, to refill our bottles in the large communal kitchen.
19:33 – start dancing in the center of the kitchen, carefully watching two rats – one large and fat, the other his normal sized brother – scamper about the outskirts of the kitchen.
19:37 – kind Chinese man starts a conversation (him speaking only Chinese and us only English) indicating we are welcome to the boiling water in another kettle. Kelly squeals and dances as the fat rat heads straight for our conversing group. Marcus squeals louder (and, ahem, with higher pitch) as the fat rat scampers over his shoe. He blames the high pitch on the thin air.
20:05 – Marcus hears woman scream. In the room next door, the woman’s restroom, Kelly was mid pee when the fat rat came up next to her shoe (he was the size of her shoe!).
20:09 – lights out. It was so cold that both Kelly and Marcus had every item of clothing on while in the sleeping bag and/or under multiple blankets. It’s a first for wearing gloves to bed, though the ski cap was fashionable.
“Day” 2
01:30 – alarms go off, and people get up.
01:50 – thankfully the rain had stopped while we were asleep and we headed downhill to the restuarant.
02:00 – consume more carbs at the (open from 2-3am) resturant.
03:00 – Jaldi meets us at our hut, and with our headlamps on we begin the final ascent to the summit – only 2.7km away.
03:15 – we see people heading back down the mountain. Jaldi told us later that about 10% of people don’t make it to the summit for one reason or another.
03:20 – we’ve stripped down to t-shirts because we’re exerting ourselves.
03:40 – get to dangerous rope part, and give gloves a thorough soaking from the wet ropes.
05:00 – Kelly’s glasses fog up from the heavy cloud cover.
05:15 – summit!
05:17 – every clothing item we own is back on us as we wait for sunrise.
05:30 – sunrise, though the clouds were winning the battle (meaning we saw nada).
05:55 – take photo with Jaldi, letting him know we’ll give up waiting for the clouds to break at 6am.
05:58 – clouds break, leading to loud cheers at the summit. The Sulu Sea is in the distance.
06:37 – shortly after heading down, Jaldi points out a peak that is on the one ringgit bill.
07:11 – going down on the less dangerous ropes part.
10:25 – pausing at the hut where we saw squirrels yesterday, Kel looks about to see if she can see any more. Nope, just a rat.
11:58 – arrive back at the trailhead, passing the sign that said “2 hours and 40 minutes” for the record. Laughter at how inhuman that feat was!
And all that before lunch!
Nothing more satisfying than knocking back a well-earned cold one…
Tags: Malaysia
Kelly & Marcus
June 25th, 2005 at 7:17 am
Hope you saved some Lamb & Mint chips to go with the Kickapoo Joy Juice.
Cool pictures.
June 25th, 2005 at 7:20 am
WOW! What an awesome adventure! So glad you were in no hurry to break the record….
So have rats gone to the top of the list replacing spiders???
Can’t wait to hear what dad and Jon have to say about the hair, not to mention a few other things!
Many hugs xoxox
June 28th, 2005 at 6:58 am
It’s my understanding that in the mountains of Indonesia, the peace sign translates roughly to: “Wow, these two jokers are clearly not Italian. I wonder if I am going to have to carry them all the way down the mountain too.”
June 28th, 2005 at 7:11 am
you guys are awesome! keep uploading…i’m loving reading about your adventures..
stay safe 🙂
June 29th, 2005 at 3:15 am
Suzi – no Lamb & Mint (regretably), but we have had both ketcup and curry flavored potato chips. Yum!
Lynn – Spiders are still #1. Rats are just ugly squirrels.
Jon – Since we were in Malaysia, it means: “Rarely have I seen such feats of super-human climbing ability!” At least we didn’t need to hire porters. On the way up, however, we got passed by old ladies carrying 40kg loads strapped to their heads.
Lata – Hey! Great to hear from you. Hope all is well with you and the other Marcus. 🙂