On Wednesday we packed our things and set out East across Borneo to the base of Mount Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Malaysia. I was expecting to see a lot of beautiful scenery during the five hour drive (as it is pretty much across the entire state) but I was really disheartened to drive by seemingly nonstop palm plantations. See, the reason all these orangutans are almost extinct is because the jungles are being clear cut to make way for palm tree plantations to produce palm oil (so be an activist and don’t buy products with palm oil!). In between the plantations there were a lot of little villages, including the hometown of John, our resident guide. He told me that the villages are all self sustained and in the middle of nowhere. When he was growing up there weren’t even any roads that went through it. Just footpaths and rivers. It’s weird to see the way the communities have developed, there’s no middle ground. Everyone lives in these corrugated tin shacks on stilts and they do their laundry by hand and grow their own food but they also have satellite dishes, fancy wardrobes, the newest cell phones and huge SUVs. I’ll have to try to get a picture of one of the markets because the contrast is just so funny. I just feel so touristy when I take pictures in public, especially because everyone’s always looking at you.
Anyhoo, we show up at the foot of this mountain around 5pm and praise the Lord! It was like a perfect windy evening in PEI. Sarah and I were completely ecstatic. Finally, no more profuse sweating! The Brits were a little less enthused, but pssh. It takes two days to climb the mountain so we stayed at this little hotel so we could get up at the crack of dawn to start hiking. Apparently the only people that stay at this hotel are people climbing the mountain and bird watching. I say this because there were only three groups of people there: some elderly British birdwatchers, a bunch of Australian schoolboys (also climbing) and us. Most places in Malaysia seem to only offer dinner at one set time, so wherever you’re staying, you generally meet everyone else staying there as well… Which is a sweet deal because you get to meet everyone and large groups of young women seem to get a lot of free stuff sent their way. In this case: cake. Mmhmm. Okay, so the night was hilarious and no one slept (although we tried valiantly). I thought for sure our last-minute training session would have had us sleeping like babies. Eating cake, chips and chocolate while dubbing over Malay soap operas helps, right? I should have known we were destined for failure.
Alright, Thursday the 12th and there is a bit of dread hanging over the breakfast table. Even the Aussies’ flamboyant hairstyles are floppy and undone. The big piece of advice everyone keeps giving us is “don’t get too excited” which is clearly a problem for me because I am way too excitable in the dullest of situations. Everyone has vowed to not walk close to me because apparently my overexcitement and giggling is the catching type. I am in for a lonely two days. IRREGARDLESS, we load up and head to Kinabalu Park to buy energy bars (which in Malaysia are just Snickers) and meet our guides. Now, pulling up to meet our guides was one of those moments where I wish my life was a reality TV show so that everyone could experience it, but edited how I saw it. See, this is an 8km climb we’re about to head on. 13,000 feet. Very steep. Very hard. A lot of potential hazards. When you think “mountain guide” you think “burly mountain man that can carry at least four cars on his back”. So when John points out our guides: two pint-sized and goofy grinning guys, you start to feel a bit more dread. Seriously, these guys were shorter than me, definitely weighed less and were already breaking the first rule of not being excited. They were waving and smiling in a way that looked more like they had just won The Price is Right. To make matters worse, as we get out of the car, John points out the top of the mountain (rather, he points up at a 90 degree angle towards nothing but cloud) and says “Oh, that’s not good. I hope you brought a change of clothes.” If I had not been told that there was a huge mountain looming in front of me, I would have had no idea that there even was a mountain there. Nothing but cloud. But still, Sarah and I were pretty excited that it felt like Canada. Even looked like Canada. Windy, green and totally overcast. Home sweet home. So John goes to register us and we do some feeble attempts at stretching (I generally prefer to go into situations like this completely unprepared, because then if it’s hard or it sucks, you never actually know how much harder or suckier it’s gonna get, so it’s just a big, sucky surprise). Fast forward to 8:45am and we’re stocked with Snickers and walking sticks (mine was named Punchy, bonus points to anyone who can tell me why) and heading out onto the path where it, of course, starts raining. Why? Because we’re in a cloud. Oigh. The path is mainly very steep steps made naturally with tree roots and rocks with the occasional man-made wobbly staircase. It’s very twisty and despite the rain, very pretty. There’s a large waterfall and plenty of spots to look out over the countryside on a clear day (I assume, we just see cloud). The main thing I will stress about the climb was that it was very steep. Did I mention that I’m terribly afraid of heights and terribly asthmatic? This whole “climbing a mountain thing” is mainly a way for me to say screw you to both my asthma and vertigo. But I guess I’ve gotta get to the top before the whole “screw you” feeling kicks in, because I was pretty wheezy and apprehensive within the first ten minutes. Occasionally we stop to let some haggard looking folks come down past us or some ridiculously fit trainers run up past us. Every year there’s a race up and down the mountain and the winning time is somewhere around three hours! Then there are these poor guys carrying huge steel beams to God knows what height. As we get to the 2km rest shelter we see our first competitors. (I know, we weren’t in a race… but… we were. …I was. I just get so dang excited by friendly competition!) The competitors are a group of obviously prepared and high tech gear wearing North Koreans. They’re all wearing matching fancy ponchos and under the ponchos pretty big packs. I can’t see what’s in ‘em but I can only assume fabulous gadgets. One lady’s back has opera music coming from it. Like, seriously. These people were prepared. But I figure we can take ‘em. They leave just as we get there after exchanging a few smiles. Just as we get settled the next group of competitors arrive: the Aussie boys. Clearly just as ill-prepared as we are, some are even wearing shorts. But a lot of them obviously share the same spirit Sarah and I do and are laughing and having a good time. (Being ‘excited’, if you will). They head off before us and I am not impressed. I tell our guides, James and Binky, that we must leave immediately and that we’re in a race so we head off. Around kilometer 4 the “sucky surprise” that I spoke of earlier just keeps on surprising. After every step it’s like, “Really? Another one?” Thankfully the path is twisty enough that you never see enough of it ahead of you to be too daunted. Plus, your head is always down so that you don’t take a fall (there may be steps, but they’re not exactly up to par) and James, our guide up front (with Sarah and I always in tow) keeps a steady pace. I swear, they never even break a sweat the entire time. So after a friendly exchange of words at around kilometer 3, we feel it’s safe to say that the Aussies knew we were in a race. “Are you guys going on now, then?” “Yup. See ya at the top… bitches.” “What, is this a race or something?” “…maybe.” So I figured they might step up their game after that, but I was completely unprepared for the attack that came at the kilometre four rest shelter. The North Koreans were still huddled together (it was VERY cold by this point) when we showed up, but upon my entrance one of the men stood up, yelled “WONDAH WOMAAANNNN!!!! You know TAE KWON DOE?!?!” and just started kicking and chopping and Tae Kwon Doeing in my general direction. Well, I say general direction, but he was actually just standing right in front of me. Completely flabbergasted I looked around, the groups had split up a bit so there was only Sarah, James, three Aussies and four other Koreans, all of whom looked greatly amused, if not a little shocked. One of the other Korean men yelled “Stand! Fight!!” so… I stood and said, “Ahh… you know Rocky??” and proceeded to sing the Rocky theme and punch wildly. See, I’d been singing Rocky (very faintly) and shadowboxing (very small-like) at all of the rest shelters so maybe that’s why this man thought I was Wonder Woman. I have doubts that it was due to my obvious physical prowess. So anyhoo, halfway up a mountain in Malaysia I had my first fight. I’m not really sure who won or how it ended, but based on the one photo of the event: he was really lookin’ to kick some ass. So… after I wipe the blood off my cuffs we head out again. [I am really lovin’ the present/past tense thing I’ve got going here.] Blah, blah, blah, life sucks, the mountain is really steep and cold and it starts pouring rain. Not just any rain, it’s monsoon season and we’re 5km up a mountain. Still, I refuse to be any more than five feet behind James, our sprite of a leader and he commands smiling at all times. The mountain is definitely a lot scarier up here. Less trees, more rocky areas and a LOT of wind. I’m half terrified just thinking about walking back down tomorrow and praying that I don’t get altitude sickness, because the last thing I wanna do is have to go down this mountain in this weather in the dark. Finally we make it to our mountain lodge and of course, it is not the mountain lodge we expect. Now… I wasn’t fully expecting a Canadian ski mountain lodge… but I guess I just had nothing else to expect. No roaring fire but impressive nonetheless, considering it was three storeys with electricity, hot showers and a cafeteria. Unimpressive, however, was that it was NOT our lodge. We had to go another 200 metres up this dang mountain in the open, pelting rain to a smaller, UNHEATED lodge, but of course they only told us this when I asked, AFTER we had all “settled”. Even more unimpressive was that I had just taken my “hot shower” (lies!) and put on my only driest outfit: soaked leggings and a large sweater I had to rent for ten ringgits. Everything I had been wearing was soaked and everything inside my bag was too. It was pretty miserable, like coming in after sledding, taking off all your wet clothing and realizing you’re still outside. A word to the wise: if you ever climb Mount Kinabalu, don’t sit next to the door at the lodge. Anyhoo, after a bite to eat and some overpriced plastic poncho purchases, we headed back out. The whole experience has now turned into one of those so-terrible-it’s-hilarious and I’m-laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying-because-I-sort-of-just-want-to-cry things. Best of times, worst of times, y’know? So we get to our lodge and find our rooms. There are nine of us and the rooms are shared with four bunks in each. By the luck of the draw I end up being the odd man out in a room with three strangers/Binky gave me the key to that one. But the other three people apparently didn’t make it up the mountain ‘cause I end up with a sweet bachelor pad (although I don’t realize this until 2am). Sleep on the mountain is pretty unattainable. It was just so cold and you can’t even close the windows all the way. And if you stay in room 9 Aussie kids will knock on the door angrily because they think it’s room 10 and that their friends have locked them out.
Okay, so now! To the exciting part! 2am and there is more knocking on my door, but this time it’s James and Binky giggling. They’ve got dry clothes for me and the whole lodge is a bustle. To summit or not to summit is the big question. There are still two kilometres to the top and the wind has not let up. There are still mini-rivers of rain coming down the mountain. One of the Aussie kids, who so kindly knocked on my door in the middle of the night, is all dressed up with nowhere to go. It has been deemed unsafe by their guides to continue to the top. James and Binky are moreso interested in cracking jokes than telling us straight whether or not we can make it to the top. Anita, one of our group, who is heading to Nepal after Malaysia says she came all this way so she’s going. Sarah and I say, if the guides have to go up the mountain anyway, we might as well go too. I can tell you right now, I’ll never be here again. Plus, there were huge spiders/cockroaches in the room and I was finally feeling warm with excitement and dry clothes. Twenty minutes and one long distance relationship later, Team Summit is ready to go to the top. Now this… this is entirely different than the rest of the mountain. For one, it’s pitch dark. Two, it’s a lot more steep. Three, there is a general feeling of complete disarray and discomfort. There is but one path to the top and about a hundred poor souls, all equipped with headlamps, trying to scramble up it. About five minutes in I declare that I immediately regret my decision. See, the great/terrible thing about James and Binky is that they never take you seriously, so my declaration is met only with giggles and more jokes. I guess I’m still climbing. And it’s true, there’s nowhere else for me to go anyway. There are people behind me still clambering to get to the top and seeing as how there is nothing but a rock wall to my left and a sheer drop to my right, I have nowhere to go but up. That weird human-animal instinct is slightly suffocating. Like being stuck in the middle of a rugby huddle or something. No one’s thinking clearly anymore. Why the hell are we doing this? I admit, I was feeling a little crazed. But I’m sooo scared of heights! It was really scary! Finally we make it to kilometre seven, where there’s a tiny booth with a tiny person in it taking note of who’s going up and whether or not they’ve made it back down yet. I tell him I’ll see him in a couple of minutes. By this point we can only walk about ten steps before we need to rest again. It’s very slow going. Plus, you have to factor in my constant miss-stepping because my vertigo and the cold have caused me to start shaking. I somehow managed to break my camera too (just the screen though, so I can still take pictures… I just won’t know what of until I upload them). You must forgive me if this is a little melodramatic, but it was just completely ridiculous! And you have to see it through my eyes. Plus, my brain has already filed away the whole experience into the “This Didn’t Actually Happen, You Made It Up” section. And I actually was involuntarily shaking. So the wind is knocking us around and you can see straight up for an entire kilometre. It’s just sheer rock. Look down and you can see the lights of two separate cities. Far enough away that I could cover them with my open palm. Although, I have to admit that the moment I sat down I had to lie completely on my back so I couldn’t see down. I was tricked into looking down by Binky but once and that was enough for me. Plus, it was sooo beautiful to look up. You can see the stars every night in Malaysia much better than I’ve ever seen them at home, but on the top of this mountain it was stunning. Complete sensory overload, I say! It made my stomach hurt in a pretty way. But, I mean, my stomach was already wretching just being so damn high up. And how the hell am I gonna get down from here let alone get up to the top? I don’t even WANT to go up. I just wanna go down and it’s way more daunting. After I slip a few more times, James grabs my hand and walks me up the mountain. Yes, you read right: someone had to hold my hand and walk me up the mountain. In fact, someone had to hold my hand on the way down too. Embarassing? Maybe a little. Do I care? Not really. People were dropping like flies all around us. Instead of the single file line that we started in, people are all over the place just scrambling. You have to take those silly steps where you pick out a spot ahead of you where you think it looks semi-stable and then kind of propel yourself forward onto it. Oh my God, just this whole thing is soo funny and ridiculous. I know there are people that climb mountains, as like, a hobby… but really? Just soo ridiculous. Even in my horrified state, I was laughing at how silly the whole thing was. James must have thought I was crazy. But he’d been giggling the whole time anyhow so I’m not too perturbed if he did. Speaking of ridiculous… this is getting a little long, sooo… I somehow make it to 7.7 kilometres and at this point the guides decide that it is unsafe to proceed any further. Which is fine by me. When I fall over because of the wind, that’s okay. When my guides start to fall over, not okay. So Binky takes over and holds my hand all the way back down to our lodge. I don’t know if I finally got over my vertigo or if I was just so thrilled to finally be going down the mountain, but either way, on the way down I was not scared at all. In fact, I was going pretty fast, considering it felt like I was just walking straight down a wall. I was even singing at one point. I was finally able to appreciate the view on the way down as well because for one, I was actually looking at it, and two, the sun was coming up. It was really beautiful and finally a little calm. I was really shocked to see a lot of what I had to walk through to get to 7.7. On the negative side, I totally wrenched my knee and couldn’t bend it for the rest of the way down the mountain (yes, ALL the way down the mountain, it was very slow going). Anyhoo, we made it back to the lodge by 6:30, tried to get some sleep before breakfast at 7:30, but to no avail. At around 8:30 we headed back down the mountain. It was incredibly painful. But since Anita and I had really hurt ourselves and were taking up the rear, the guides had to stay with us and I managed to learn a little more Malay, in between them making fun of me. I’ve really set myself up to be made fun of a lot in Malaysia. Binky also insisted on holding my hand for all the rough parts, which was maybe unnecessary and embarrassing, but I figure I left my pride at the top so whatever. It was also pretty hilarious because at one point near the bottom we met up with Sarah who was having a rough go at it with her legs too and, well, I guess she’ll have to tell you that part. I finally made it down at around 3pm. First one up the mountain, last one down. Got home by 8:30pm. I walked up the stairs to my room, got on my bed, and didn’t leave it for four days. Apparently, if your body is working too hard on the mountain, you can actually get altitude sickness after the fact, once your body has a moment to rest. This is what happened to me. Let me tell ya: not pretty. Five days later and I’m out of bed (only because I refused to stay in it any longer) and I’m still feeling the effects. On the plus side, even though my knee and ankle are both screwy and feel like someone is twisting bubble wrap every time I move them, my muscles had a chance to rest, which none of the other girls’ did. Heehee!
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Tags: borneo, kota kinabalu, malaysia
Holy crap! Are you insane!