|
|
||||||
| Author : sue_and_nathan | Diary name : yearaway | ||
| 14 Jul 2001 : Kinabalu National Park, Sabah - Malaysia | |||
| I came, I saw, I nearly conquered | |||
| Sitting at my desk at work I often dreamt of those lazy days relaxing in a far flung coffee bar, sipping cappucino and watching the world go by. On the road we seem to always have a busy schedule. There's always so much to see and do and we don't want to miss a thing. But, today is one of those rare lazy days. We are sitting in a waterfront coffeeshop in Kuching trying to watch the sunset. I say trying, as there is a commotion going on at the table next to us. It seems they are attempting to film a commercial, which must be on it's millionth take and I reckon they will be here till midnight at this rate. I am wondering what we should charge for our walk-on part?! Anyway, after our jungle tour and orangutan encounter we had a couple of days free in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, before my folks arrived for a fortnight holiday. So, we decided to fit in an attempt at the highest mountain in South East Asia, Mount Kinabalu. On the bus to Kinabalu National Park HQ, the starting point of our climb, we chat to a Malay lady who informs us that she has seven children. 'I like children,'she says. I ask if she is trying for a football team, but apparentely she was after a girl and kept getting boys. During the course of our chat we amazed her with the fact that in the UK we have boil-in-the-bag rice, 'My friends will be so impressed when I tell them what I learnt today,' she said! The park HQ is at 1500m above sea level so it is a little cooler and less humid than most places we've been to so far. We sat in the cafe all afternoon and looked up at the intimidating view of the mountain we were set to climb the next day. When we bought our park permit we were reminded that the date was the 12th of July. I noticed Sue frowning in concentration which slowly changed to a bewildered look and eventually emerged into a look of disbelief. 'But, today is Thursday, so that makes it Friday 13th tomorrow and we're planning on climbing a mountain!' We went to sleep that night trying to convince ourselves that we aren't in anyway superstitious, touch wood! We took a bus the next morning to the Timpohon Gate, which marks the beginning of the climb at 1800m. Our guide for the climb was a guy called David - he does this every day which explains why his legs are the thickness of tree trunks! The other two people in our group, Yoko and Anna, start off with us, but that's the last we see of them until the final resthouse. We seemed to make a good start as we kept in front of David. It was quite disheartening when we learnt that he was supposed to go as slow as the slowest in his group! The Laban Rata Resthouse is at 3300m , at the end of a 6km walk and consisting of 2500 steps and long upward stretches. There are rest shelters (pondoks) with water and toilets at regular intervals along the way. We stopped at every one of them for a Mars Bar and a chat to fellow climbers while our legs got a chance to recover. We met the MD of a furniture company who was encouraging his employees to climb as a teambuilding exercise (very different from what Sue had been used to at the Alzheimers Society where they took them off to a Quaker retreat for a couple of days now and then to teambuild!) We mentioned our honeymoon and he reminded us that the climb was a test of stamina so it would also be a good test of our staying power at our marriage! After the first 2km Sue announced that this was a stupid idea and that it was too hard to reach the top so she was turning back. Surprisingly, for the next 2km she was totally exhilarated by the climb and the views. We ascended through the cloud line to be greeted by the silence of the mountain. Our heavy panting in the quiet, thin air was almost deafening. The final 2km were, well...utterly tortuous. Our legs had turned to jelly hours ago, by now we could hardly feel them, but somehow they plodded on with a mind of their own. The final approach to the resthouse seemed to last for hours and I'm sure it was getting further away at one point! But, five and a half hours after we had started, we arrived at the Laban Rata Resthouse, our home for the night. We cheered and punched the sky at our accomplishment and admired the amazing views of the valley very far below us. 2am the next day marked the start of the 3 hour climb to the summit in the dark to catch the sunrise. Our legs and lungs were in pretty bad shape, so after about ten minutes of struggling and panting we realised that we simply weren't up to it and turned back. It was very hard to admit defeat. Sad and disappointed we went back to our cold hut for a couple of hours kip before making our way down. Only about 20 percent of the climbers reached the summit and seeing the state of some of them on their return we began to think that perhaps ours had been the wiser choice. After all, we had got further than we ever expected so that was a great achievement in itself. As the MD reminded us at breakfast, 'You don't want to do yourselves in. After all, you are on your honeymoon!' | |||