All Jumbled Up: Sabah trip

Behold the longest and most winding post ever..nearly slept off while typing all this stuff. LOL!!

The famous south peak

Finally my one week trip to Sabah was over. The lesson i learned from this trip was there will be no more adventurous vacation for me in the next few years unless i think life is too long to live. All my vacation from now on will be just laying on the beach with a good book. That will be it.

Having dinner in a restaurant named Welcome Restaurant.

On the first day i arrived in Kota Kinabalu, i was let to explore the city on my own before the gang arrived. I requested a map from the tourist information office and the look at the city scared me. Everywhere seems so far away. I asked the person if i could walk from the bus terminal to the apartment i was staying. She told me it would be a fifteen minutes walk. With all the luggage with me, i opt for a taxi. When i got there, i felt cheated of my 30 ringgit. The bus terminal was 5 minutes away from where i stayed. *fainted*

Sesatgang on the sand of Sapi island.

We walked around centre point and warisan square. I nearly got lost in the shopping mall itself because it was quite a maze structure. Talk about bad architecture planning. We talked to a shopkeeper and she promoted us to buy 'kuih cincin' which she claimed only can be found in Sabah. We got a taste of it and bought a few packets which i found later at a higher price compare to the ones i found in the market. Shucks..i got conned by a sweet mouth auntie. I shall consider the extra money i paid was for the extra information i asked. I bought Sabah tea all the way from Sabah for my colleagues and later found that it was sold in baling mini market. OMG..i nearly fainted when i saw the tea in the mini market. Luckily, i bought it at fixed priced. If i was to buy it at a higher price, seriously, i will kill myself.

Kid ser and yum min reliving their childhood memories. playing sands like kids.

By the time the gang arrived i had turned myself into a sabahan. Kota Kinabalu city wasn't a big city and you could easily walk around. I greeted them at the airport and send them in a taxi to the apartment. Since it was already night time, it wasn't safe to sit a bus. Like the tourist information officer said, the bus wasn't reliable. it could be a 5 minutes wait or it could be an hour wait. We had a late dinner as usual in a nearby restaurant. Everytime we were together as a gang, funny things will happen and this time we had dinner as romantic as u can imagine. A candle light dinner minus the romance and the high class 3 course meal. It was dark, hot, stuffy AND LOUD! The fuse in the restaurant got burnt or something because there was no electricity. We called it a day after that because everyone was obviously tired after the flight.

At kinabalu park but i had no idea which part we were at. All hype and ready to conquer the mountain.

The next day we went to pulau manukan and sapi. We started the day by a long walk along the coast to the jetty. Its like walking from one end to the other end. I didn't expect it to be so far but what the heck at least we got to see kota kinabalu city come to life in the morning. One thing that i noticed was, all the people had the same colour skin tone. Its quite hard to differentiate the race. Must be the hot sun, the unshaded pedestrian walk and the beaches. Surprisingly, we didn't saw any indians around. Normally i see your skin tone and then proceed to converse in an appropriate language. When i was there, heck i don't care what race you are i will converse in malay because i can't differentiate and i can pretend to be a malay because i look like one. Sometimes i pretend to be a malay when people speak to me in pure dialect because i sucked in languages. All my languages were mixed with bits of malay, english and mandarin.

at the foot of the kiau view trail

We reached the jetty and got on one of the many motorboats docked there. Off we went to manukan island. Its one of the four island in the tunku abdul rahman marine reserved park. I find manukan island quite beautiful although it was the biggest and commercialize island among the four. The beach was long and it had soft white sand. Because of its size, the beach was not crowded. Everyone had their own space unlike sapi island, a smaller, non commercialized and crowded beach. The moment we arrived, we were greeted by the marine park officer. Paid our entry fees and was greeted by another beach activity sales person. We signed up for banana boat and i was excited because i never been on a banana boat before. My excitement turned scared when i was on the banana boat itself. We were transported to a deeper sea to avoid any water traffic. My 1st fall from the banana boat was like one hundred people slapping my face at the same time. Bugger why did i pay money to get slapped?! I got slapped another four times and the last one was the hardest. One thing i learned from this was no matter how hard you balanced the banana boat, it will overturned. So just let go of your hands in the first place so that instead of a hundred people slapped, you might reduced it to 20 people. Aha!

the map of the trails up the peak.

Anyway, we did a bit of snorkelling and i got my 1st sun burnt in many years. I regretted for not bringing my own snorkels because the one that i rented, the water kept coming into the mouth piece. I took two breath in the water and my mouth was full of water. All the while i was snorkeling, i need to surfaced up and blow out the water like a freaking whale. I was happy that we could swim out from the beach to the coral site unlike some places where i had to sit boat out to the middle of nowhere and jump in. It was a fun and relaxing day. The weather was terrific. Some of us learned how to swim, some of us got poked by sea urchin, some of us fell in love with the sea and swim with the living creatures of the sea, some of us pretend to be dizzy in the middle of the sea to save energy from swimming back to shore and left it to the lifeguard's job, some of us cant resist the sea and nothing can stopped them from jumping into the sea, some of us just enjoyed the people around them.

at poring hotspring.

On the third day, we had our breakfast in a place called lintas. Getting there was easy because of the tremendous taxi around the city but getting back to the city was one hell of a headache. I assumed lintas was a residential area and its hard for anyone to flag a taxi. We end up at a bus stand and took a bus back to the bus terminal. I felt like transported back to primary school where i have to sit a bus with a conductor inside and big sliding windows on each side. It was funny because the moment i went up the bus i was trying to pay the driver. The driver and conductor was looking at me like i was a psycho. We switched to a modern city bus to get to warisan merdeka at the bus terminal. By the time we got there, the sun was at its highest. Did our last minute shopping preparation for the hike up mount kinabalu. We searched high and low, all the shopping mall along the coast for a power/engergy/granola bar and we can conclude that there's no such thing in sabah. All the walking that day was a was a good warm up before the actual hike day. I find the filipino market along the coast an interesting place. If the weather wasn't so hot and market wasn't so close up, i might actually enjoyed and spent more time getting lost in the maze structured market. Everyone was getting edgy from the hot weather so we end up at a coconut water stall to enjoy the refreshing coconut water. seriously with that weather, someone will die of heat stroke. Towards the night we went to tanjung aru for a breeze walk but instead of walking, we end up sitting on the same spot. hang out and monkeyed around for a while before we went home.

after coming down from canopy walk.

Woke up early the next morning to checked out of the apartment because its the day we start our journey to kinabalu park. Surprisingly i was one of the last one to gather eventhough we gathered just outside of our apartment. Everyone was hype and excited. The night before, packing the bags was a nightmare. Of all the trips i went this packing was the toughest. I had no idea what to pack. I looked at the two bags i packed. one was full of food which i could survived on for a week if i was lost on the mountain. The other was full of winter jackets. Even if i was lost, i probably would still die of hypothermia because the bag of winter jacket was carried by the porter and all i have on was a thin shirt and shorts.

The hike up to bishop hostel.

We went to poring hotspring at kinabalu park at 2pm and had our lunch at a malay stall. It was a bad idea to be at a hotspring when the sun was so high which was why we ended up doing the canopy walk. All of us was warned that we need to hike 800 meters in 20 minutes to reach the canopy. YES..we need to do it in twenty minutes if not, we wouldn't be able to get down in time. Those who think they were not fit enough to do it weren't encourage to go but eventually everyone was up for it. It was like a test of stamina before the big climb. I was huffing and puffing my way up trying to catch up with the fit ones. It was a fast climb. When i was about to give up and have second thoughts on the possibility of me reaching the peak of mount kinabalu with such weak stamina, i saw the canopy. We weren't allowed to take picture at the canopy walk because of the cheap ticket we bought. There were 2 kind of tickets available, the more expensive ones where u can snapped away with your camera and the cheaper ones without taking any pictures. It was logical because you pay more to stand longer on the canopy to pose rather than just walking and getting over with it. All of us had different kind of experience up there on the canopy. Some of us were scared to death, some of us were enjoying the greenery, some of us felt indifference and some of us just wanted to scared others by rocking the canopy so hard.

bishop hostel. deserted but pleasant.

By the time we reached mesilau where we were staying for the night, it was already evening. Got down from the bus and i can feel a sudden change in temperature. It was cold. A good thing i must say after all the sun and the burnt, its time to cool things off. We stayed in a hostel called bishop which was at the end corner of the whole resort. We practically need to hike up a very steep road to get back to our hostel. What a torture for us with our big heavy backpacks. When i get into the hostel, it was sleek. Made of wood and had 8 bathrooms. Nobody needed to queued for a bathroom because the heater wasn't working properly. In a blink of an eye the person was out of the bathroom already. i thought i had the quickest and dirtiest bathe here but i was wrong. The bath i had at Laban rata wins it all. The water was ice cold. i tried testing the water with my finger and it turned iced. I am not kidding. I couldnt get my whole body in so i washed myself part by part. Such torture.

going up this steep stairs left me breathless. coming down this steep stairs left me with osteoarthritis in the future

The next day we started our hike up the 8.7km mesilau trails. With two jogging sessions as training, i was doubting if i could reach. Even if i do, i might be the last person checking in at laban rata. We reached our first notice board at 0.5km and it's easy. Every 500 metres there will be a board to show how far you've hike. The boards were a big boost to my spirit because everytime i was about to give up, i reached a notice board. I could feel my spirit lifted up and i know i just have to do this 17 times before i reached laban rata. YES 17 repetition times of nearly gave up and lifted up spirits. jeez. One way to train your emotion. By the time you get back to the city, no bitch will stir your emotion around. You are as calm as ice. LOL. At the third or fourth km, my muscles were giving up, my spirits were going down. I was halfway on the mountain and i know there there was only one way to go which was up. Slowly and painfully, we reached. The weather was terrific. There were brief rain in between but it only lasted a few seconds. Some sort like a passing cloud.

sunrise at 8km.

Had a quick dinner and jumped to bed at eight before waking up at 1 in the morning. Everyone didn't get enough sleep because the sleeping time was too early. Started our final journey to the peak at 2am. it was dark, cold and the air was thin. I had a bit of difficulty climbing up at first because i don't have a torchlight. I had to depend on other people's light. Overtime my lungs got used to the thin air and my eyes got used to the darkness, the climb became easier until i reached the part which i had to use rope. It was a 70 or 80 degree climb. I think this was where the word 'climb' came to definition. All these while we were just hiking. Climb is not a exageratted word i can guarantee. All my 5 senses were used at 110 percent during the climb. I was scared to death. I cant see properly without any light and the only light that i was depending on was from the moon. Ahh..i was so thankful god created moon to shine on us. All the feeling and making sure my feet had a good grip before i take on the next step was exhausting. It must be exhausting to be a mountain goat. I wonder if the goat ever slip during its climb.

i don't know what it's called but it's opposite south peak

The distance from laban rata to the peak was 2.7km. The goal was to get to the peak before sunrise. Did i get to the peak in time? NOPE. I gave up after 2km of climb. I could see the peak from where i rested and i could see the whole kinabalu park. It was beautiful. We rested there for half an hour before the guide convinced us to go up the peak. At 7am we reached the peak. I was happy because i knew i could do it. Anything my brother can do, i can do too. It was a concept that runs in my family. My parents were confident that i could reached the peak even without proper training and preparation because my brother did it. They weren't worry if something bad happen when i was climbing. The word dangerous never occurred to me or them because my brother was back in one piece, unhurt and untouched. It was until i was climbing down, i realized how dangerous it was. How selfish i was to risk my life and my friends who i talked them into doing this because i just want to continue to chase the tradition of achievement that runs in the family. I guess there's a lot to learn from one climb. It strengthen your character and by the end of it you became stronger and wiser. I reached the foot of the hill at 5pm. So conclusion of the hike was 8.7km of hike up which took me 7 hours on the first day and 11.4km of hike up and down which took me 16 hours on the second day. The total of 20.4km or 23 hours of walk. I pitied my legs because of the crazy idea the master had. Flew back home the next day and became a disabled person for a week. That was it, my one week of vacation in sabah.