Mt Kinabalu - Day 2 (Part 1)

No alarm clocks needed.. we all woke up to a bright sun shining morning. After a simple breakfast of fried beehoon and fried hor fan, and downed with a tall glass of tea, we were all set to start the hike. I was particularly impatient after yesterday's impressive views. 5 minutes ride on the van brought us to Mesilau Gate - the very starting point of our hike.


The map.. although it will be pretty useless *if* anyone were to get lost.


Norm's so happy, you can hardly see his eyes! :p


Our strong team of 13 with 3 guides cum porters.

And so, finally at 9.30am, when we have finally loaded our lunch packs (provided for giving an additional 2 kg!!) and RM5 hiking stick (which I guarded with all my life throughout the entire climb), we were all set to go. With the peak in sight, we strive ahead with high spirits and full of vigour - all ready to conquer the mountain.



The track to the first kilometre, initially looks like this - jungle like!



Honestly, the first kilometre was pretty tough. The track was rocky steep and it is always a harder process to get your body 'engine' to warm up. Nonetheless, I managed to put a smile for the 1st km.



We met a few others at the 1st pondok which we had our 1st of many many breaks...







Capped with my 12years old X-Files cap, and my good ol' black box, we made it to the 2nd kilometre with average difficulty. It was easier as the route was geographically more 'user-friendly' (i.e. kinder to your legs! :p)





However, much to my surprise (and horror!) we consumed a lot more water than I anticipated. Just 2km, and between the two of us, we have finished 1.5L water! That left us with just 1.5L of isotonic drink and another 1.5L of H2O to last us the rest of 8km.

From the 2nd km to the 3rd km, I was perplexed. My legs were happy that we were heading downhill, but I was a little worried that we might be heading down the wrong track! Weren't we supposed to head upwards, instead of downwards?

"Don't worry, we are going the right way". So said the veteran who was doing this for the 3rd time.

Geezzz... why all the effort of climbing so hard uphill for the first 2km only to scale down again?!

But we did pass quite a nice stream of waterfall on the way to the 3rd km.




And it's again up to Norm's ingenious idea - what goes into your Sprite? :)

We got to the 3rd km with little problem.


Norm's fingers illustrating what marks the 3rd km.




Hanging bridge at Jambatan Gantung (kipuyut).

Played with the little black box at this point of time and ended up trying to take self portraits :)


After several attempts, this is the only successful one.

Mt Kinabalu - Day 1

13th February 2009


Air Asia took us safely to Kota Kinabalu with *no* delay. With a group of 13 of us, it didn't take us long to check-in to an apartment at Api-Api. Having only slept at 4am, we woke up, anticipating excitedly what Sabah will offer us for our first meal there.





To our disappointment, the roti bakar was far from satisfying. The bread was 'hard' and the peanut butter filling was a poor substitute for the traditional kaya. We were quite surprised that they don't have kaya there! Sarawak kwonlo noodle was quite nice though. Lean BBQ pork and roast pork on top of springy sarawak noodles was quite tasty. But better yet was the pork dumpling - slippery wonton skin with well seasoned filling - just the way I like it. MMmmm :)

With more time to kill before our van comes to take us to Kinabalu Park in Kundasang, 3 hours ride away from KK city, we headed to a nearby pub to chill out.



(Yes.. we had iced lemon tea, and according to Norm, the chef was 'thirsty' too!)

Cool breezy weather and clear blue skies made our hopes soar for a great hike the next day upon arriving at Kundasang. We spent the night at Garden Fairies Resort and managed to catch 'sneak preview' of the magnificent view that is in store for us in the near hours away.



Looking at the other side of the hill, we have evergreens and the ranges at the background. Flowers bloom so fresh and bright at almost every patch of greens you can find.




I caught Norm totally engrossed testing out his 'new' lens...


And lo and behold - pretty blue flowers were the results :)

With just brunch sometime during late morning, we were all pretty famished waiting for dinner. Scheduled to be served at 7pm, we had 50 minutes of free time. The girls rather wait for dinner (and resorted to camwhoring) than to risk being a few minutes late if they were to take showers!


(ooppss! The girls AND the boy :p)

Dinner was a sit down meal of 8 dishes. It was tasty enough to keep the hungry mouths satisfied for the evening.