So there, we are now back in Singapore , one work day has passed. How was the trip? many of you must be eager to know, so lets begin!

Participants in this Trip :
Josephine aka Jo (Trip Organizer)
Chong Han
Rush
Florence
Jennifer
Angie (my mum)
Bee Har
Susan
Priscilla
Lih Yu
Chee Siang

Day 1 , 28th October 2008, 0400hr

Here we are, 4am waiting outside Thomson CC(Community Center) for our transport to Senai Airport in Johor, Malaysia. Turns out our driver who is coming down from Johor itself to pick us up forgot about the trip until Jo our trip organizer called him. Was told he would take about 45mins to reach us, that would put our departure time at around 5am. Still not too bad since our flight is at 7.20am in Senai, and to reach there would take about 1hour max.

While waiting for the mini bus to arrive, some of us went to grab a bite for breakfast while some of us stayed behind to look after the bags, chit chat and filled up our “White Cards” required by the Malaysia Customs for travelers.

Time went by and just as we were getting tired of waiting, our transport arrived! Quickly we loaded up our bags and ourselves into the bus to get on with the journey.

Every one from the lack of sleep was all pretty silent during the ride, catching whatever number of winks we can get before arriving at Woodlands Checkpoint.

When we did arrive at Woodlands Checkpoint, we were all treated to something special! Because we were a bus and not allowed to use the car lanes, we moved to the bus lanes, BUT! the passenger clearing point was not opened yet and the customs officers told us to alight from our bus and queue up to clear the immigration via the bus clearing point! All of us were both surprised as well as amused as each one of us was queuing up and there were more large buses coming up behind, we could see the face of the closest bus driver, it was all foul up as he had to wait for the 11 of us to clear before his turn! Unfortunately, no photography was allowed at that point so try to imagine yourself being in the queue with buses behind you and moving at walking pace creeping along!

All cleared at Woodlands, we proceeded to Johor side, things went smoothly and incident free here.

It was back to catching 40 winks again as we speed along to Senai Airport.

A very basic airport this is granted it’s still under lots of renovation, above is the outer hall of the airport, it’s about 5 minutes walk to the check-in area.

Here we go, walking across the tarmac to board our plane, yeah it’s the ol’ skool style of boarding even thought sky bridges were available but it’s not in operation maybe because we are flying budget airline so everything cut out, but it’s ok no biggie walking a bit and getting nice photos from the ground! (p.s it’s actually illegal to take photos on airport tarmacs, no idea why though)

Here we go, finally lifted off and heading towards Kota Kinabalu, here’s a view of the airport area at about 457.235m above sea level

The flight of 2.5hrs was pretty uneventful with no major turbulence or passengers picking fights etc… *yawn* most of the passengers were sleeping as it is still only 0816hrs…and we are cruising along at 11989.251m above sea level at a speed of about 800km/hr

Touch down at Kota Kinabalu airport on time at about 0919hrs. As per Senai airport, Kota Kinabalu Terminal 2 is even more basic then Senai, it doesn’t even have Sky Bridges. A stroll along the tarmac was to be it.
Strangely enough, all Air Asia planes have this wheel chair sign painted on their engines…makes one wonder why…

Met up with Timmy from City Park Lodge, split into 2 groups and took a short 10min hop on the mini bus to our hotel. Pretty nice hotel with free internet(wireless as well!) TV and warm water all provided. Here’s(below) the main lobby area where all of us just dumped our bags waiting for our room allocation

Our Room, 102, very spacious and clean layout with a big bathroom, the rest who compared their Double room to our Triple room, all said that ours is much bigger then theirs, we did not see what is the size of the Double rooms so no comments on that.

Ok, unloaded, unpacked , time for lunch! We are all hungry by this time. Grabbed our cameras, valuables and off we went exploring the area and looking for food. Oh we went our way from the rest of the group as they headed off for some river rafting fun.

Walking around abit, we came to this coffee shop (Ding Hao) which is just round the corner to our hotel, here we settled down and had our meal, Mum(Angie) had some malay kuey which did not taste nice, while waiting for our orders of Noodles. Overall taste was ok but guess being hungry makes everything taste nice!

After lunch we walked to CenterPoint and looked around…typical Shopping center which did not really attract us, but one thing we noticed is that for every 1 shop the next is a mobile phone shop! Indeed there 1/2 the shops in the first level is selling mobile phones and services. Seems like Bangkok’s MBK shopping center on a smaller scale…

As we were finding our way our of the building, we saw this tee shirt embridory shop, checked around with the shop owners, turns out that the prices are very cheap! Embridoring names is only RM4! no limits of characters unlike in Singapore’s Beach Road Army Market where it cost 50 singapore cents PER character…

I did up my site URL on a seperate cloth so that I can sew/glue it to my D300’s strap :P, Mum got herself a Mount Kinabalu embroided badge with the date of our climb.

Headed back to hotel to get some rest as we were all pretty tired. Slept from about 2pm till 5.30pm and waited outside our room(which is the hotel’s lobby!) for the rest of the group for dinner.

Walked on a overhead bridge towards the Central Market and when we looked down at the road, there were quite a few roadside hawker stalls and durian stalls, tempted we went down to have a look and ended up ordering 3 fruits that was shared amount 7 of us! haha it left us craving for more but we decided not to fill ourselves up and to try what other stalls had to offer.

After the durian mini feast, we caught up with the rest who were eating fried carrot cake. Every one sampled a bit from their dish and it was really nice! So with out hesitating, Angie went to order a plate without chilli as it was too spicy with chilli. After watching the stall owner cook up our order and it being served, we all dug in, delicious was to say the least! The usual carrot cake in Singapore has only carrot cake, eggs and preserved raddish, but this fella’s had generous servings of spring onions and bean sprouts! nice!

While we were eating Jo went to buy some yam cake(?), not too bad it had a creamy texture but it’s not salty enough. Feeling thirsty we bought Lou Han Guo drink from the neighboring stall, nice drink just sweet and tasty enough with some dried longan flesh inside. All had their fill of food already, we moved on, it was dark by now.

Stopped by some stalls selling mangoes and some of us went to haggle with prices and the rest just stood there waiting. Some how or rather, the 3 of us(Me,Lih Yu and my mum) got seperated from the group and we wandered by ourselves. Walking around a bit we realise we are back at CenterPoint shipping center and decided to go back to the embriodery shop to collect our stuff.

Next stop, Central Market…

Huge open air market selling everything there is from spices to raw fish to sea shells with strange looking sea plants that look like mini grapes and foul smelling/looking sea creatures in packets…yucks…we moved out of the area quickily as it was really smelly. We bought a huge pomelo that cost only RM3 but aside from being big and juicy, it was not really sweet and had very little taste to it.

Moving in the direct towards our hotel, we passed by the Handicraft Market and took a walk inside.

Every shop was basically selling almost the same items, either bead necklaces, or shell made items and small leather pouches…nothing really interesting here but it’s cram very cramed and hot. Moved around looking throught most of the stalls trying to find our way out, suprisingly GPS signal is quite strong. No guessing the roof is probably just a thin sheet of zinc or in some places just a piece of tarp only.

Once out of the handicraft shop, we headed back to our hotel with a detour into the shopping center we passed by earlier(just beside the roadside hawkers) and having a look inside. Nothing much so we left.

Went to “The Store” supermarket opposite our hotel to buy a 5.5l bottle of drinking water and some food to munch on.

Finally back in our room, we took our showers and tucked into bed watching TV and eating our stuffs.

So much activity for a day left us really tired and we all turned in pretty early.

That’s end of day one, wait up for day 2!

Day 2 , 29th October 2008

Woke up at about 9am all 3 of us, washed up and feeling hungry.

Went downstairs and just next door on the left was a coffee shop, the first stall had all it’s various dishes laid out and the owner was already asking us what we wanted. Since we had not ate at this shop before, we decided to give it a try. I had kway teow & noodle with egg and hot dog, Lih Yu had beehoon with egg and ngoh hiang, Mum had nasi lemak and da bao.

There was this old uncle that came by asking what we wanted to drink, mum had kopi-O while both of us had Milk in water, what we wanted was condensed milk mixed with water but they gave us milk powder mixed with water instead…and the uncle can still say very good very healthy see even the baby on the next table is drinking it…duh…

Finishing up breakfast, we walked heading NNE direction, passed by a book store and went in to have a look. As all 3 of us like to read, we were staying longer and longer in there…deciding it was time to move on, told Lih Yu and Mum to lets get out and continue our walk around the place.

We went to the beach side but being 10.30am, the sun was already very strong akin to Singapore’s mid day sun…

Nothing much to see as all the boats were out ferrying passengers or fishing and it was too bright to take nice photos. We left after a couple of minutes after feeling the sun rays really burning on our skin.

Signal Hill Observatory was our next destination, perched on the side of a hill just behind the town, I quickly marked out the place on the GPS and had it lead us to it. From the roads, it seems it’s just a stone’s throw away to it, but actually walking there is a long way about 1.5km away up winding roads in the hill. 3 of us just walked slowly, we walked through the ‘ Australian Place ‘ and although the Atkinson Clock Tower was suppose to be a destination after the Observatory, we had to pass by the clock tower before reaching the road leading to the Observatory.

A few shots and read up on the history, we continued the walk to the observatory. Took us about 15mins to reach the place.

No idea why it was given the lable of Observatory as it look more like a viewing or lookout station. Rested a while here and we moved off again further up hill, the rest of the way till the end of this hill road was another 1.4km away leading into another part of Kota Kinabalu town but where it was less popular. We walked up till it was turning down hill but as the roads were just wide enough for 2 cars on different directions, we deicded not to go on and just turn back. There is this fenced up Government Flat…looks nothing like what our HDB flats are then again Government flats…are they for public or government servants?

On our way up we spotted a path leading up to the road, and this time while returning we decided to try out the path and see where it leads to. It was less than 5minutes and we were back in ‘ Australian Place ‘! a really short short cut! but it is not noticable if you have not been there before as the entrance to this cut is behind Borneo Backpacker Lodge. For easier identification, if you see a sports wear/goods shop, face Atkinson tower so that the shop is on ur left and turn left into the lane and continue walking in , once pass the building , the path is visible already.

On our way back to Jalan Tun Rakaz road, we passed by this rustic kopitiam named ” Museum Kopitiam ”
Mum wanted to go in and take a look at the photos hanging at the back of the restaurant so we waited for her outside until she popped out again asking if we wanted to have a drink inside. All went in and mum ordered their charcoal kopi, while the 2 of us had supposely variations of lime juice, but it turns out the same visually as well as taste wise…wonder what’s the variation in that…still it was refreshingly sweet and hint of salty due to the preserved plums inside.

Mum and Lih Yu went round looking at the photos and spotted our MM Lee in a couple of the photos! Other than that, looked around at the antiques in the shop there was nothing much already…i would not even say it’s close to a exhibition let alone to claim it as a museum, true enough it had a plaque on the outside that says it was officially laid in 2005 stating the kopitiam’s efforts in showcasing the history, but I think it would be more appropriate to call it a ‘ Themed Kopitiam’ rather than using museum.

Slowly we wandered around towards the general direction of our hotel and we came by this goreng pisang stall, both mum and Lih Yu wanted to try but seems to be held by by unknown reasons. While they were deciding, I was watching the lady owner dipping sliced bananas into batter and throwing them into a huge wok for deep frying.

Looking at the time it was way past our normal lunch time and we are starting to feel hungry now…decided to try out their KFC we headed towards it. Ordered 2 sets of 3pcs chicken and slowly ate them while waiting for time to pass so that we can head back to the beach to take sunset photos.

This fella was sleeping when we arrived, was still sleeping when we left KFC…and just woke up when we finished our sunset shots… that’s 1.5hrs and only he knows how long before we arrived he started sleeping, but seems like it’s very comfortable and had a nice nap!

Great skies and a fantastic sunset we had, with egrets flying all around and picking out fresh fish from the sea for dinner! Too bad I did not bring along my 18-135mm lens for any close up shots but than again…I’ll prefer having the ultra wide lens for capturing sunsets!

That was it, after shooting sunsets already we headed back to hotel room to rest and prepare for our climb the next day!

Emptied out our bags and replaced the contents with sweaters, windbreakers, goretex etc…sorting out water rations and energy giving foods to eat along the way up last check on our headlights etc…we had to ensure all that we needed was packed and those not needed was stowed in the large check in bag to be kept in the hotel’s storeroom while we are away.

We were informed that we will be taking the Timpohon Route as Susan has not recovered fully from her sickness and that way we could reach Laban Rata faster.

Finally all packed and showered, it’s time to hit the sacks as we had to get up at 5am the next morning!

That’s all for Day 2, stay tuned for more!

Day 3, 30th October 2008, 0534hr

Having simple breakfast of bread and tea/coffee provided by the hotel at 5.34am. With all our climbing gear and stuff all double checked and re-checked again to make sure nothing was left out. Every one was still feeling sleepy at this moment. Our targeted no move time is 0600hrs which we’ll split into 2 groups in 2 mini buses. We went with the first group so that we have more time at Kinabalu Park HQ area to take photos.

We were informed the ride was going to take about 2hrs. One last visit to the toilet and off we went each carrying our own bag down to the bus and sat inside, now that the blood circulation in us got gonig, we were pretty excited about the day!

Just before the bus hit uphill road towards Mount KK, we had a refuel and toilet break at a petrol station. Can you spot Mount KK in the photo below?

Yup it’s that not-worth-a-second-look peak in between the lamp post and Shell’s signboard. Really doesn’t look high and challenging at all from here about 32km direct line of sight away.

Along the drive up to KK HQ, we were treated to spectacular views of the landscape, but as we were speeding along trying to make up for lost time, it was quiet a challenge for any one with a camera to take photos of the surroundings in a bumpy fast moving vehicle!

View of the peak of Mount KK from 10km away! We are getting really close to the mighty mountain now!

Reached KK Park HQ in about 15-20mins later and Jo went off to complete the registration for the group. We went off to the toilet for a leak and walked around a bit to take photos of the place. There are quite a lot of people milling around the area waiting for registration, guides etc… busy place overall.

Here’s the two of us “Guarding” Mount Kinabalu trail map haha!

1/2 group photo, L to R : Chee Siang , Rush , Bee Har , Priscilla , Lih Yu, Angie

Pondok Timpohon or Timpohon Shelter, starting point of the climb, here is where the first checkpoint is, where a member of the park staff will check off each climber against our climbing pass.

Climbing down a flight of, think about 50 steps, and a little into the trail, we saw Carson’s Fall, just a small water fall along the trail.

Starting of the trail for the first about 4km, everything is similar to what we get in our local nature reserves, tall trees, bare earth track. The major difference is, it’s cool not hot and humid like in Singapore.

Slowly as we ticked of km after km, the trail is actually slowly changing from just bare soil to lumpy rock trail.

At every rest shelter if one looks up to the ceiling, there is this length of wooden structure with ropes, this is actually a stretcher for carrying those injured down to the base. Asking around the guides, we got to know that the cost for being stretchered down, every km covered cost RM150, I would say the price is fair as it’s not according to the weight of the injured person(compared to porters charging by the KG for carrying your stuff) but by the KM that is being charged, no mean feat to carry an injured person down the dangerous trail and still having to ensure the injured doesn’t suffer anymore mishaps.

Now we are starting to feel tired already and it’s just 4km into the trail only…so far we have covered about 873.78m vertically(current altitude is 2751.166m)…Here’s the junction where Mersilau trail joints to the Timpohon trail, from here on it’s just called the Submit Trail.

Now is the evening more tiring part of the climb…facing cold weather with wind chill making it even cloder, clouds drifting in and making things slightly damp. Feeling hungry but at the same time don’t feel like eating…all along we were occasionally munching on sweets, chocolates and nuts but we did not have something salty to eat and we although did not seem to sweat much , our body is still loosing salt through all that workout and we have none to replace it.

Not much photos after the Timpohon/Mersilau junction as we wanted to concentrate on getting to Laban Rata before dark. With about 1km left, the trail has now changed to trees that are barely taller than us and instead of brown rock trail, it is changing into granite boulder trail…luckily for us the weather held up fine all the way, imagine if there was a downpour and we had to walk on such trail…can’t imagine how slippery it would be…

Finally at 1630hrs we reached Laban Rata, really tired and hungry now. Luckily coming in through the door on the right side of the photo, we saw our group of climbers who reached earlier and proceeded to take off our bags, that is when Jo said we should go up to Pendan Hut to unload our stuff in the hotel and come back down for dinner. Two of us decided since we have not really rested much might as well just get over with it and come back down for dinner where we can sit longer and don’t have to haul our stuff up in the dark,

Here’s the bit of rope work to get up to Pendant Hut our lodging for the night. Behind Lih Yu, the yellow roofed building, that’s Laban Rata guest house, the place where we had to go down for dinner. Looks to be quite some distance from us but essentially once we get down this rock face, it’s only a few steps away.

We took our time to unpacked freshen up while waiting for the sun to set. We could feel the temperature dipping a bit and winds blowing stronger and colder already.

Wonderful evening, sadly my photos do not do justice to the awesome views that was present! The best view is still through one’s eyes, as no matter what camera lens is used…it cannot duplicate the wideness our eyes can see without distortion…above photo is already from an ultra wide angle lens but still seems it had a very narrow view one has to be up there physically to really take in the awesome views, the feeling as no photos can provide the actual feel of being in the place.

Dinner at Laban Rata was buffet style but as it was packed with climbers, most of the dishes were already polished cleaned…both of us manage to fill ourselves with whatever was available…made hot sweet tea for both of us. It’s a great feeling having hot sweet tea in a cold place!

After dinner went back to Pendan Hut, Rush was sitting at the stone face acclimatising to the low oxygen air, Lih Yu wanted to go toilet so I sat down with Rush to admire the view of the night sky and the cool temperatures. Chatted with Rush while Lih Yu went back to the hotel room to rest. The sky was already pitch black and a check of the time showed it was only 1915hrs. One thing we noticed at Kota Kinabalu, the sun rises earlier and sets earlier as well! Even in town, by 0730hrs it seems like 0900hrs in Singapore! the same can be said in reverse for the sun set part of the day.

Anyway we were called back into the hotel for our Via Ferrata briefing and training. We were briefed by the trainers from Mountain Torq on which via ferrata route we will be taking, cut off timings and last but not least, how to wear the harness and helmet and use of the karabiner followed by a simple practice of doing the walk.

That concludes our Day 3 , all of us went to bed trying to get as much sleep as possible for the challenge that awaits us in a few hours, the Climb To The SUBMIT!…

Day 4, 31st October 2008, 0115hr

Woken up by my alarm clock at 0115hr , seeing no one was away I just laid there for a while, about 10minutes later, I heard a knock on our bunk door, went over to open the door, the via ferrata trainer was there to greet me, greeted him back and close the door, switched on the lights as well. Now folks started waking up one by one. Went over to Lih Yu to wake her up as well.

All still quite stoned from the lack of sleep and the tiredness we were left with yesterday, every one moved at turtle pace in getting ready… Me and Lih Yu went down to the toilet to put on our contact lenses and went up hop into the sleeping bag to put on our pantyhose for added protection from the cold. Me being the first time wearing had quite a lot of trouble getting the thing to fit properly, even when done, it felt weird as it was tight but luckily not constricting. Anyway quickily pulled on my pants and stuff as we were running late already.

A few of the group members decide not to attempt the submit climb for personal/medical reasons, so we were left with 8 climbers

Went out side to the dining area, both of us grabbed a slice of bread to eat and off we were to wear our boots and start the climb to Low’s Peak.

No prizes for guessing why there’s no photos. It’s pitch black at this time of the night, cold(mind you, temprature was 9.7°C with strong winds). As we started the climb it was feeling chilly for me but already very cold for Lih Yu. We just kept on moving and after a while when we started generating body heat, she was feeling better but I was starting to boil…off came my gloves…

As I was used to being ‘tortured’ like this in the army, I had no issues keeping an alert mind and was feeling fresh, but Lih Yu and a few others were suffering terribly, one of our team members vomited a few times and later was escorted back to the hotel to recover. AMS or acute mountain sickness(which is caused by lack of oxygen in the air) is begining to rear it’s ugly head in everyone.

Manage to take this shot while Lih Yu was resting. Remarkable how my Nikon D300 at ISO 6400 is able to control noise, I suspect this is due to the cold weather helping to keep the CMOS sensor cold enough to prevent build up of too much noise! This shot was focused and captured in only the available light from Lih Yu’s and my head light which don’t amount to much light at all! Ok enough of the tech talk lets get back to climbing.

As we reached Sayat Sayat check point, the highest and last check point before reaching the submit, we managed to catchup with Florence and a few others. Rested a while and I took off my balaclava as it was making my head really hot!…comical sight…everyone else was trying to keep warm and there I am trying to keep cool…no idea why but it just is. I ended up not wearing the balaclava for almost the rest of the climb.

Having left the stubby trees and over the rock face, we now face more challenges, although the submit area is relatively smooth with a steady uphill graident, it was the strong winds that made things really bad for Lih Yu, I could understand that as myself even after wearing gloves the wind was cutting through it in no time and my hands were cold as well.

Florence, Bee Har , Jo and ourselves were stopping to rest every couple of meters to catch our breath back.
We could not really see around us as it was still pitch black, we can only see the line of headlights in front and behind us

By the time we reachd the 8km mark, it was about 0630hrs and it’s as bright as if it were 7+ going 8am already!

Here we are standing 3890.518m above sea level and would you believe it, it’s only 0605hrs! and it’s so bright already! At this point we are only a short distance to the 8km marker after which there is about 500m more to the submit.

There we are, the KM 8 marker post and there’s Lih Yu resting with another mountain guide beside her wating on for another climber. Here’s where things got really tough for Lih Yu, we pressed on for a couple hundred more meters to the point where it was starting to go upslope again and just another could hundred more meters to the submit, Lih Yu was totally exhausted and AMS was wearing her down even more.

We sat down and rested, but that was it Lih Yu was just too tired to go on, so we just headed back down again. After a while my mum caught up with us as the came down from the submit, told me that she’ll take over looking after Lih Yu and asked me to continue up to the submit myself.

After much thought…(me and Li Yu initially agreed that either we go up together if not turn back together) I ran up to the submit, hoping to take photos and show them to Lih Yu. Running at this altitude is just crazy but manage to run all the way past the KM8 marker and really had to slow down to a walk and I was panting like crazy…met up with Venjohn, our rear guide and he said “Lets run up” so again I ran with him mind you, not those speed dash it was more like a jog… as we reached the upslope to the submit I really could not run anymore and just walk with John, trying my best to keep up with his brisk pace was quite tough…

From the start of the up slope looking up to the submit seems like a short distance, but actually getting there is a lot tougher than it looks. See how tiny those climbers on their way up to the submit on the bottom left corner and those tiny specks on the peak? that’s how far away and how huge things are at the submit

Finally got up to Low’s Peak, sadly clouds had moved in and covered pretty much everything and all I could see was a sea of grey. Stayed for a while as Jo reminded me the group’s moving down to KK Park at 12pm and we have to all be ready to move out by then.

Getting down from the submit is another challenge itself, steep with nothing to hold on every step has to be carefully thought out, but after a while following John and also wanting to get back to Lih Yu faster, I started to get used to just steping on the rock edges and walk down pretty quickily! It’s actually quite ok just needed to overcome the initial fear of falling over…

Met up with Rush who was lepaking around enjoying the place while “waiting” for me (eh thanks man!) on our way down took a few shots around be fore moving on.

From where we stood, I could hardly notice Sayat Sayat hut but John could actually see my mum and Lih Yu! Amazing eye sight! Sayat Sayat hut is circled in red in the photo above, the guy in orange jacket and orange bag is Rush.

Continue descending towards Laban Rata, Lih Yu was feeling much better after resting and being in lower altitude. We reached back to Pendan Hut about 1030hrs and went about packing up our stuff with me getting rid of all the warm clothings as I couldn’t stand the heat already.

Back Row L to R : Jo, Florence, Rush, Bee Har , Uncle Chong Han
Front Row L to R : Angie, Lih Yu , Chee Siang

By 1200hrs all of us were  done , 3 ladies went ahead first with the rest in the second group, we manage to have a group photo before moving off.

Climbing down is no easier than going up, as we all agreed going up is actually easier then going down!
Going down with our packs placed a lot of stress and pressure on our knees and toes, as toes were banged to the front of our boots with each down step…we had to try to land on the ball or flat of our foot in order to minimize impact on our toes.

It is just painful going down we ticked of KMs much slower than when we came up. To top it all off…Lih Yu had slightly sprained her left ankle and the sky decided to pour buckets non stop! It started raining at about 1430hrs-1500hrs and continued till about 2100hrs at night…making our way back down in pouring rain and cold is extremely not fun at all…even all that exertion we are not generating body heat … as we did not put on any rain coat I was very worried about LIh Yu getting hypothermia as we are drenched from head to toe and winds are cold rain is cold and even I myself is shivering…

Finally at about 1830hrs we reached Timpohon Gate…and as expected we face the $#%^$^ stairs climb up! It was the killer…to think we reached already yet we got to climb so many steps up at the end of our strength…sigh…no choice slowly step by step we climbed up to the cheers of the rest of the group waiting for us. At last displayed our cilmbing pass to the staff in charge and we have finally successfully completed the cream of our trip!

Went to change into some dry cloths and all of us hopped back into 2 mini buses and was shuttled back to town. All of us were dead tired and were sleeping soundly most of the way. Not sure what is wrong with the driver…the air con was not even turned on to circulate air inside the vehicle, yes cold we were but there’s not a good reason to not turn on the air conditioner to circulate air! I was starting to feel really bad , wanting to throw up all the time.

Soon the others were roused from their sleep due to this problem as well. It was then some one told the driver to turn on the air con and although it make the situation slightly better but it was still too late for me…I ended up trying to supress the vomit feeling all the way till we alighted.

Happy to have removed ourselves from the vehicle, up we went to change and bath and head for dinner.
A warm bath really made things feel great after soaking for so many hours in the cold freezing rain.

By time we finished our dinner it was 2145hrs and we initially wanted to go to “The Store” supermarket to get drinking water and Lih Yu was still hungry, so mum went to get the water while me and Lih Yu hopped over to KFC for some chickens, tried their Specy Crispy which is the same as our local “Firey BBQ” flavor

Back at the hotel, we ate our fill and sleeped.

Reflections : What a day we had dead beat tired and finally eaten some food, we’ve had nothing by 1 proper meal since the start of our climb and were really hungry and cold. Feets were not aching yet for me but the rest were suffering already. Overall it taxed us physically and mentally to complete the climb. Great achivements all round especially for Lih Yu for having the courage to go against all odds and suffering to get to where she was!

Day 5, 1st November 2008

Slept well for the night! We all woke up about 0900hrs and started packing up our bags for the return back to Singapore this evening. A note from Jo was sliped in under our room door telling us they were meeting at 11.30am for some japanese cusine.

We fussed over our stuff packing things as best as we could. Finally all was done and we went out to the lobby to wait for the rest. One by one they came only Rush and Chong Han did not join in as they were still sleeping. Jo told us that their rooms had to be vacated as there were other guest that would be taking over soon and all their stuff were to be placed in our rooms.

Luckily for us, all our stuff were packed saved for a few clothing items left out to dry in the air con. When every one got their stuff into our room, we left for lunch. Taking a wrong turn at first before heading down the correct street to where the restaurant is.

According to Jo, just two months earlier when she led another group here, the prices were cheap but now two months later, prices went up, but it was still cheaper compared to Singapore in terms of price vs portion served. They were really generous portions for food served and it was very filling!

Standing at the back L to R we have, Susan, Priscilla and Chee Siang.
Sitting in the front L to R , Florence, Bee Har, Jennifer, Jo, Angie and Lih Yu

After Lunch, Jo, Florence, Jennifer, Priscilla, Lih Yu and me went for massage at the building behind CenterPoint, the shop’s name is D’Touch, LIh Yu choose the Body + foot + Mani & Pedicure package which was RM105 and I had the body and foot massage which was RM65.

Total time spent was about 2hrs and by the time Lih Yu finished her package it was neary 5pm and we got to be back in the hotel for checking out and transfer to airport by 7.25pm.

We hurried back and went to “The Store” supermarket so that Lih Yu could buy some stuff back for her colleagues. We’ve not had our dinner yet and were in a fix to eat or not as the next time we had time to eat will be when we reach our homes back in Singapore which will be about 0130hrs.

Quickly we decided to dash over to Tien Tien resturant just a few doors away to have a quick chicken rice dinner and made it back to the hotel in the nick of time with a couple of minutes to spare for toilet breaks then it was time to haul everything to the mini bus and head for the airport.

Little dramas of missing mobile phones and passports dotted the end of the trip but all items except for one mobile was not receovered.

Checked in our luggage and boarded our flight some 30minutes earlier than the stated time. Flight took off at just a little past 2100hrs when our flight was originally slated to take off at 2130hrs!

Reached back to Senai Airport, Johor, West Pen. Malaysia at around 2300hrs, collected our bags and off we went to the final leg of our trip, the mini bus driver was notified of our early departure and was there on time to pick us up as we landed. Surprisingly the bus driver recognised me instead of Jo as he walked pass us!

So that was it, customs clearance was smooth and we reached back Thomson CC about 1am, all of us boarded cabs to go home and that was it, end of a great trip!

Hope to go climbing Mount Kinabalu again some day soon!

Closing on a fantastic trip…

Pre Trip :

Unknown to any one, I had went to secrently purchased a pair of wedding bands for proposing to Lih Yu on the friday before our trip, It was a pretty hair raising experience itself, having to find somthing that I think Lih Yu would like and to have it in her size as well as mine! Started enquiring around since thursday and really very luckily manage to get something from SK Jewllery from Clifford Center branch, the sales girl there was pretty great in that she went personally back to her HQ in Kaki Bukit to fetch the size of the Lady’s ring and delivered to my office together with the men’s ring.

Had to find a way to hide the ring in a very uninteresting place so no one would think about even searching so that I could keep the ring out of sight from Lih Yu! Removed the rings from the display box and wrapped it individually in facial tissue paper and placed them in a soft bag before slipping them into my travel bag.

Packing our bags was proving to be quite a challenge, we had only small backpacks and one large check in, so all our boots and winter clothing were dumped in the check in bag which ended up weighing 11kgs

Trip Proper :

Everything went well gps was recording in 1 sec intervals of everywhere we went! Glad we had got a high sensitivity unit with lots of feature that came in helpful but was previously thought to be not needed.

Many of you must be wondering about the proposal here’s the bit, everything was going as planned managed to propose to Lih Yu at 3300m in altitude which is well above any place in asia…so happy that she accepted!
So there you go!

Sunset at the water front in Kota Kinablu was really nice except it could have been in a better location, I ended up with lots of shots with the pier and boats in view which well…just dosn’t make it a nice photo.

Sunset at Laban Rata was no doubt fantastic, just wished I had a tripod! and well less clouds on that day, ah well who’s to complain when one’s taken such physical and mental beating to just get up there? Awesome splendid wonderful etc…words could not really describe the feeling of physically being there! Go climb and you’ll get what I mean when you are there!

Lodging wise, City Park Lodge was great , Pendan Hut too!

Public transport we did not try this time round due to time constrains maybe the next trip!

Prices of things/meals … not much cheaper than Singapore in fact living in Kota Kinabalu is quite expensive because everything is imported here. Wonder how the locals survive with their pay…

Post Trip :

Met up with majority of the group at Novena Square BK for a photo exchange, viewing session. Collated all the photos from everone’s camera and burned to DVDs using Rush’s laptop. Had a good time laughing and looking back at the trip that we just completed.

Great job to the organizer Jo and to the rest of the group for the fun!

Lets all stay in touch!