Mt Kinabalu

ooh... Mt Kinabalu is just so majestic and bold... i can't believe how beautiful it is until i first set my sights on it. It stands out. It's a pity that it takes almost all your energy to go up the mountain.

Baby & I went up Mt Kinabalu (we still get it mixed up and kept on calling it Mt KK - mental note only 1 K) last Tuesday. We rushed through to get there just in time before the close the gate.

Someone told us that there's a 7am bus from KK to Kinabalu park.. We thought we are pretty smart by checking out the bus station 2 days prior to the travelling date. We reached the bus stop by 6.50am. The bus was even there before 7am. however, the bus does not leave until it's full or until 8.30am (whichever comes earlier). perhaps we should take the sandakan bound bus instead of the ranau bus... dunno where we went wrong. Anyway, by the time we realised the bus ain't going to leave anytime soon (that's 7.30am by that time), so we went to catch a cab to the park.

Cab drivers too don't leave until the cab is full unless you want to hire the whole cab. This cab driver, Jimmy was very skillful. His speedometer wasn't even working and he skillfully race through the mountain passes to get us to the park in time for us to register for our climb.

Our climb was pretty tiring.. forgot that we can hire a porter to carry our stuff. Poor baby and I. had to carry our backpack (around 10 kgs) and another small pack for 3 kms up the mountain before someone whom we met up the trail suggested that we pay our guide to be our porter. Our guide/porter is so cute... he carries a lil foldaway umbrella with him. i dont' think i ever see any grown up males in the urban city with that sort of umbrella... not the typical black foldaway umbrella... his is those colourful ones with cartoon characters on it.

we reached laban rata (our midway rest house) just before 5, in time to catch the sunset... you can see the clouds and rest of the Crocker Ranges in the near distance. Had our dinner by 6 and was tucked in bed by 7.30pm. Woke up at 2am to start preparing for our summit climb. had chicken wings taht we bought from KK (Supposed to be our dinner the previous night). started our climb at 2.40am but had to turn back at 3.30am because of the rain and wind. Apparently the wind was 150km/h. water was rushing in and flooding the final hut before we get to climb the summit. Bah... of all days... it rained on the day we had to climb!

came back down, feeling dejected went back to bed. woke up at 7am had breakfast and then prepare for our descend. reached the kinabalu park some 3 hours later.

walk like a stiff penguin for the next 3 days. why oh why did i put myself through this type of torture??? anyway, i love the mountain... love the cheese & mushroom omellete there. who says the price of food is expensive in the park?