Day 6: Last Day in Sabah

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Sorry for a long delay from Day 5 post. Life is getting very very hard and stress. But without writing day 6, things get incomplete :)

Day 6 is quite a resting day to all of us, after getting down from the mountain. Most of us have sore legs, that makes walking so pain!

The flight is at 7pm, so basically we had half day to walk around. We had a breakfast at Gaya Street, is Curry Mee. How to say? It’s different. The noodle is special, which looks like cintan mee, but it’s not.

The street of Gaya in the morning. Motocycle is rare thing at there.

The new mall, Suria Sabah. It’s still not yet fully open, with a lot empty shop lots. By that time has book fair with dirt cheap book, so I got 1 humour book, which until now I also not yet finish reading :(

X-Plorer Backpackers, our stay places. Got to check out by 1pm, haiz… Good bye! i will miss the people~

 
The transparent toilet, cool~

 
Lunch was Dumpling with Century Egg noodle. Not that impressive, and expensive… chop tourist one!

 
This is the central market. It’s full range of souvenirs, like pearls, handcrafts, batik, aiya, all sort of traditional toys and keychains. Do some head count, then bought some gifts to friends.

 
After some “long” and tired walk, is time to sit down and have some drink. Coconut drink is all time favourite. I still don’t know where they got that much of coconuts, and the whole street is selling the same drink, same price… Weird.

1 coconut is RM2.50, for cold one is RM3.00. Each of us ordered 1 coconut, drink till very full, a very satisfy one!

Some fruit I don’t know the name… With very weird taste, yuck.

 
People is playing chess under tree, so “happening”.

 

The guy at X-Plorer helped us hired a taxi to the Airport, RM25 just for a damn 10 minutes drive. If next time I am jobless, I will drive taxi in Penang.

 
At the airport, I saw clown fish, Nemo.

 
With his friend, Dolly. (ignore the uncle behind)

 
And another ugly friend.

 
See what Dolly is doing…? Ha.

 

The flight departed at 7pm, and reached KLIA at 9:30pm, roughly. Everyone was tired, but this trip is very significant to me.

1. This is the first destination that I been in my travel list, still have many more pending.
2. This is my 100% self sponsored trip, thanks to my boss who pay for my work~ Whole trip spent about RM1200 include 2 ways flight. And in the future, all will be self sponsored.
3. Whole trip was planned with Nana using Google, GPS, and read forums, and all bookings are done directly with the service, no agents involved. Cut cost~
4. First time encounter wild boars family, scare the shit out of us.
5. Thanks to mom who called me every night.
6. Thanks to Bobby, Nana, and Kelvin to be so sporting to say “YES! Let’s go!”
7. Thanks to my Sony Ericsson C905 phone camera.
8. Thanks to the weather to be so cooperative during our mountain hiking.
9. Thanks everyone who make my day so bright, in my worst ever mood of my life… Thanks.

Sometimes not because you can sacrifice, you can work so hard, you can fall down and climb up again, will come with success. By the time you persuade for something or someone, must set a ‘give-up’ point, else, the one get hurt will be yourself, and no one will feel pity towards you.

So, Kinabalu Trip is done.

I can sense my next trip could be Singapore and Korea, wohoo!!!!!  

5th Day: To the Peak!

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Last night slept at about 8pm, even is very early, the tiredness just pawned us.

Our bed is double deck bed, I slept upper deck, while Bobby slept lower deck. Each person has a wool blanket, comfort. I thought it will be very cold at night, so I wore gloves and thick jacket that I will use to hike tomorrow. Very soon, I am in dream.

About 12am, I woke up, caused by nightmare. Actually the room quite warm, maybe is because the blanket is thick, so I removed my jacket and gloves, basically, top less. It’s getting so hard to fall asleep, because the air is quite thin and low oxygen. I notice my breathing rate getting so fast, even myself is not moving!

After rolled for 2 more hours, I get off the bed for early breakfast.

Our guide told us, if it rains, and too dangerous, we got to turn back… No~~ Please don’t rain~ But see the below clear sky, there is no cloud~ wahaha. We are lucky.

This is the star view in the morning, thanks to Nana’s super DSLR camera. I had never see this star cloud in my life before… so beautiful…

So we start the hike. Plants are getting short, like the one below.

In the first part of journey, the floor is quite slippery due to some stream water. My knee joints were pain, like the kind of rainy day pain, aka 风湿. Some terrain are manmade stair cases, thanks for making our life easier~

Until some point, there is no more stair case, and plants left grass only. The terrain is granite stone like you see above, with ropes to support us go up.

This is the way they locate the ropes into the stone, by screwing in.

The last part of the journey is not easy. I feel, the hardest part is not because your muscle pain, but is the thin air. I hardly walk more than 100 steps without taking a rest, and got to keep remind myself to breath faster and deeper.

The only motivation for me to keep going is to reach the peak on time, and see the clearest sunrise ever~ Was together with Bobby, but after hike for a while, Bobby is gone! Left me with some strangers…

Must keep moving.

At 5:56am, I reached Low’s Peak~ Sunlight has appear a little by that time.

Another side of the view.

Yea, finally~ While hiking, I not yet feel the coldness, maybe is the heat in my body; but when stop at the peak, I can feel the coldness on my lips and face, cold! My wool gloves are not working…

Around 6:10am, Bobby Reached. See his face, cold till numb.

Awesome view!

 
The sun rise is so beautiful. In our normal routine, we can never have chance to see sunrise at 10am (the time I wake up usually), that moment I feel a kind of “finally..!”. Maybe is after so much hard work, the beautifulness make me wanna cry~

 
Sooner, Nana and Kelvin arrived too. It’s time to go down, it’s cold!

 
Mini lake.

 

 
The famous peak of Mount Kinabalu.

 
 
Above the cloud~

 
This is the rope that guided us along the journey.

 

 
Nana hiking down slowly with his DSLR behind.

Coming down is making me dizzy. Maybe is because body lack of mineral, or water, or anything. While hiking in dark with only 1 head gear, we can’t see how steep the terrain is; when the sunrise, the terrain is scary… Going downward is quite dangerous. We saw Laban Rata from far, but no matter how long we hike, it’s still that far… And finally~

After breakfast, is time to check out from Laban Rata, there is still another 4 hours journey to the park entrance at Timpohon, damn.

 
Going downward is killing most of us, it hurts toes and knees.

 
Along the downward journey, we noticed porter carried supplies from bottom to above.

 
Check this, empty gas tank. Even the full one is also carry in the same way with legs! Bobby got stunned.

 
This 2 kakak is carrying food supply to Laban Rata. I asked them:

Me: Kak, ini berat tak?

Kakak: Berat.

Me: Berapa kilo ar?

Kakak: Saya punye 27kg, yang itu orang 30kg lebih.

Me: hebat…

Respect.

 
Squirrels are everywhere on the mountain. They appear at the places with human, like resting stop, hoping human give them some food. They are attracted by the left over food in rubbish bin too.

Forest~ This is so big different with the peak.

 


On our way down, it rained. Luckily we brought raincoat. The atmosphere is misty.

 
Carson Fall, a mini waterfall. This is near to the exit ~

Reached the exit at about 2:56pm. Finally, I had did something I feel satisfied in my life.

 
The food at Kinabalu Park is awesome. Maybe we are too hungry. Never feel so delicious before~

 
Certificate for reaching the peak.

 
Certificate for hiking from Mesilau Gate, wahaha.

This is one cool great experience for us. I not sure if this will be the last time I hike, or there will be another in the future.

For this journey, we used 7 hours from Mesilau Gate to Laban Rata; 3 hours to the peak; going down to Laban Rata for anothe 3 hours, and from Laban Rata to Timpohon Gate is another 3 and half hours.

Total up of 16 and half hours. Never exercise so long before! But everything is worth the price. I need to have something significant in my life, as proof that I live before~

 

 

**FYI, Mount Kinabalu still far away from Top 100 Tallest Peak in the world.