Mount Kinabalu - reaching for the skies
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2007
1
12
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Kota Kinabalu,
Malaysia
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Hello everyone! We're back from our ascent of Southeast Asia's biggest Mountain: Gunung Kinabalu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of astounding natural beauty. Its highest (Low's) peak is 4096m high. This makes it the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea.
It was already markedly cold at the park headquarters at 1500 meters. We hired a guide and transport to the less frequently walked and more scenic Mesilau track to ascend to the Laban Rata hut at the "base camp" at 3300m altitude. You honestly don't need a guide, but you're not allowed to climb without one. If you watch some of the teenage asian clowns trying to scale the mountain with no clue or suitable gear it's understandable they made guides a mandatory prerequisite for the climb
The tailors' mile Kota Kinabalu
. After all, a few people plummet to their deaths on that very mountain every year. Our guide, Nordin, was very nice. He is also one of the few peope I've ever met with calves bigger than mine (we'll post a picture...). This is no wonder as he scales the mountain twice a week and, having done this for 7 years now, has conquered the mountain about 800 times so far! The first day we gained 1800 meters of altitude over 8 km. The second day we started walking at 2:45 a.m. in the dark under a beautiful starlit sky (the first time I've seen the Southern Cross in 4 years!). We followed the parade of flashlights and a white rope to the summit and reached it just in time for a stunning sunrise! That was well worth the effort of the climb. Soon after sunrise the clouds lifted from the valleys and closed in fast.
After a breakfast back at the "base camp" and a quick snooze we descended to the start of the standard Timpohon trek. On the way we found different species of pitcher plants along the way. I think I've said all there is to say about these fascinating insect-eating plants in our entry to the Cameron Highlands. There are also several species of orchids to be found at high altitudes on the mountain and several plant species unique to Kinabalu National Park
Kota Kinabalu Cultural Village
. We also saw a few frogs, mountain black eyes (birds) and mountain black birds. Going up the mountain you pass through 4 distinct vegetation zones: highland jungle, mossy forest (due to the prevalent cloud cover at this level), subalpine shrubs and naked granite with a bit of lichen.
At the base of the trail we decided to walk another 5 miles through the jungle back to Park headquarters via the Liwasu Trek rather than take the bus back. Bad choice: halfway down the 5 km trek we were surprised by thunderstorms of monsoon strength and were completely soaked through by the time we arrived at our unheated lodge. Our poor roommate Christine had to bear the musty stench of makeshift clotheslines full of soaked clothes. Yergh!
Altogether we did pretty well, considering we braved 2600m of altitude up and then down again and covered over 17km walking distance in those two days. We had very little muscle ache at the end of the trek (this was to set in over the next two days...) and now have another colourful certificate for our toilet wall.
We met a bunch of lovely people on that mountain: Preti and Jason from Tuscon, Arizona
Desert stall on Kota Kinabalu market
. Jason is used to this by now: he has an uncanny resemblance to the dude (Lebowsky). For those of you who haven't seen The Big Lebowsky, it's highly recommeded viewing. He tells me that there is an annual Lebowsky convention in Louisville, Kentucky (home of the "slugger" baseball bat and the horse-racing derby). Also (rare!) multilingual Frenchman Emanuel and his lovely Chinese girlfriend Siu Juen (if I spelt that correctly it should mean beautiful snow). We also saw our mushroom enthusiasts Briony and Nabil again with whom we'd already spent quality time at the Kinabatangan River. Briony brought her parents from Sidney along and we were impressed that they made it to the summit, too. It may be worth knowing that the youngest person on the summit was 5, the oldest 97 years old. The speed record (climb and descent back to the bottom) lies at 2 hours 30ish, held by a whacky Italian, a competitor at the annual Kinabalu mountain racing challenge, one station on a world-wide 7 peak mountain sprint circuit held every year.To recover we went to the Poring Hot Springs. This is an outdoor area where you can sit in tiled Japanese-style bathtubs that you fill with scorching hot sulfuric thermal water. It's like a liquid sauna. When you're worn out you just jump in the cold pool and then crawl back into the soothing heat of your tub for the next "sauna-session". It's open all night and night time is actually the best place to hang out there as the locals are gone and it's nice and quiet
Rafflesia in bloom (80 cm across)
. They also have a nice canopy walkway suspended high in the trees 41 meters above the ground. We were there at 6:30 in the morning and saw two lemur monkeys calmbering around. Again we met a bunch of lovely travellers: Dion from Australia, Evelyn from Bali/USA and Kathrin from Germany as well as the lovely Australian couple we'd already shared a minibus with on the way to the park. We were lucky to see a Raflesia in bloom outside the Poring park gates. What's that? you ask. Well, it's the biggest flower in the world by far. The specimen we saw was 80 cm at least in diameter. It's a tree root parasite that takes 4 years to develop it's blossom bud to then bloom for only 5 days. It emits the stench of rotting flesh which then attracts flies to pollinate it before it dies again.
Today in Kota Kinabalu we've gone and found Bjoern a friend. Bjoern cannot always come on all of our trips so he let us know he was lonely at times and sick of playing solitaire games. So we found him a proboscis monkey as a friend. That's the ones with the beer belly and the big nose. Because of his sideburns we named him Lemmy. Bjoern and Lemmy have a ball of a time together. Lemmy doesn't even mind losing all the games Bjoern teaches him, as long as he's got enough beer...
Out trecking
We spent all afternoon on the streets and markets to watch the locals celebrate Hari Raya. This festival marks the end of Ramadan fasting and is celebrated for up to 1 month. The first day is very special: the faithful congregate in the mosque in the morning donning their finest silk. The ladies' robes look exhuberantly colourful, and some men look very dapper. But the majority of lads look decidedly silly in what appears to be silk pyjamas worn in bright daylight in public. No disrespect, the outfit makes you smile even more when watching the lads in
PJs overconfidently strutting their broadest walk, checking the fit of their sunglasses in every shop window. A sight to behold!
Traditionally people travel back totheir home towns to celebrate Hari Raya with their families, so in a way it's like Christmas. Here in town people just seem to gather at random street or shopping mall corners and just stand there without any discernable purpose. The radios blast out an unlimited supply of mushy Hari Raya songs. Also all shops (apart from the few actually owned by Malays) are open and nowadays Hari Raya is a consumer event. A Malay told us that shops here only ever close at Chinese New Year. That's because the Chinese (largely Cantonese) minority own pretty much all stores.
So now we've got our last night in Malaysia. Tomorrow it's back from Kota Kinabalu to Johor Baru and then Singapore from where we'll fly to Hong Kong the next day.
