Saturday, February 17, 2007

Kinabalu -- the experience

It is said that a picture speaks a thousand words.. trying to be different, I've included a few pictures in my "slide show".. hehehe. of course there would be more pictures, but these are the ones that I've managed to save in my thumb drive. The others all in office.

In a nutshell, it was a wonderful experience. Although it was my 2nd time to hike up Kinabalu, the experience was totally different from my first. The first time, I had to "take care" of my mom. Yes, role reversal begins early. Last time my mom would take care of me, but these days it's the other way round. Anyways.. this time, I didn't have anyone else to take care of but myself (and didn't have to rely on others too that much).

The hike up, began quite well. As the official pace-setter (nominated by Surej), I managed to bring our group to distances in good time. As with all pace-setters, you're not expected to win the race.. I did the same. Haha. dunno whether it was co-incidence or I just didn't have enough steam to finish. Needless to say, in our little group I ended up arriving last. Haha. but it's ok.

Same thing happened on the way up to the peak from Laban Rata. At this moment, all I could think of "why am i here again? what's my main objective on reaching the peak this time?" It's a killer stretch for me. However I had the guider's support throughout (thanks to the mix-up in names). He was by my side throughout until Sayat-sayat (then he left me cause he made sure that my name and number matched). After that, everyone else left me. I had to make new friends pulak.. thank goodness I'm adaptable to all groups.. haha.. angkat bakul sendiri.

Anyways reached the peak before sunrise. Saw the sunrise. Everyone said it was beautiful, wonderful, fantastic, amazing.. but truthfully, i didn't think it was that great then. Only in KL after seeing the pictures taken by the others, I have to agree.. it was all as said. Such a shame I didn't feel it then. But then again, it was cold and cold and I had to pinjam gloves and the ski-cap from Faz and Surej respectively (thanks guys!).. I couldn't think of anything else.

The walk down to Gunting Lagadan was surprisingly fast (got accused of running some more).

As we spent an extra night at Gunting Lagadan, we had many hours to kill before the next day's hike down to Timpohon. The first few hours were spent recuperating by having our much needed sleep. Then I woke up due to hunger and the cold. Walked to the kitchen with my tupperware and instant soup & noodles. Was joined by Azrul, then Surej, then Faz and a few others. We all started to bring out our ration of food and shared with everyone. Shana delighted us by cooking maggi pooled from our rations.


As it was sunny outside, I took the opportunity to dry out my towel, hiking clothes and myself on the rock just outside our dorm. It was splendid (sunny but cold). Was joined in by the others. Decided to play charades before going to dinner. The guys beat us girls by one or two points (but we kasi chance.. haha). After dinner, we went back to our dorms and packed for tomorrow's departure.

The hike down the next day was surprisingly ok (don't know if the others would agree with me). Despite my 9kg load.. i felt surprisingly energized! I dunno why. To ensure we would not get bored during the hike down, we decided to motivate ourselves by thinking of the hot shower available at Kinabalu Park. To further motivate ourselves, Azrul, Shana, Izlan and myself decided to be part of Amazing Race. That was funny.. hahaha.. it would end with the hot shower, and reaching the Kinabalu Park office.

The other agenda of the trip was white water rafting in Padas River. The journey began with a 2 hour delay of the train. Apparently the engine was spoilt and had to be replaced. Upon arrival, we changed to our swimming attire, had the safety & technical briefing and we were on our way. Unfortunately the team members on my raft were skilled enough that we didn't capsize (much to some of our disappointment :p). and to think we were all raring to capsize!

After that it was BBQ lunch and back to KK.


Thanks guys for everything.. I had great fun! Can't wait for Bali.

*Note: Pictures that initially appeared in this blog were lost during the migration to blogspot.

22 comments:

  1. hi...just back from KK???
    i am goin on Tuesday night....heheh
    bryan

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  2. how do you post the photos with auto slide in BLOG??
    bryan

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  3. hi bryan.. actually i created an animated gif with the pictures.. used photoshop :p
    they should have an auto slide tool right?
    enjoy your trip to KK. I had fun. Going again in May :p

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  4. a'ah the pace-setter! and u started the sunbathing activity too!!
    that was so best, sunbathing at a higher altitude!
    amazing!

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  5. May will be your 3rd trip to KK??? Anything special that makes u visit 3 times to kk?
    bryan

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  6. who would've thought that was possible right? best sungguh.. i'm so happy the weather was kind to us!

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  7. Wow, betul2 macam dalam novel yg i baca waktu primary school..lepas baca ur blog sempat berangan lagi sat...

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  8. i'm sorry raz but this is going to sound negative but reading this post all i could think about it the pain and ache of going up n down the darn mountain :( sorry. haha on the other hand i'm glad u had fun!! the rafting must be a blast too eh. pls pls bring me to ur dive trip in sabah!

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  9. oh and about the train? u can maybe blame abul. he's working on train in sabah or something like that ;)

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  10. its the first day of CNY, I've been very good boy, stayed at home... hehe...
    Mt. Kinabalu, many believe that there's an attraction which makes people to come back again n again. Myself, been up there 5times and again I still wanna go again. The river rafting is something I wanted to try lah... wish got chance this year.

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  11. shikin.. better make a trip to Kinabalu soon. best! pray for good weather too.
    sally.. yes, we felt the pain and ache but it was fun! i think that's why ppl still do mountain climbing. Yeah, join us for diving in Sabah. That'll be cool! so far it's me and Sue. You can join in and bring a friend along or I can try and persuade another friend to come along (easier to buddy).
    clement.. this is my last. haha. i don't want to climb up Mt Kinabalu again.. not even for my kids <-- yeah right, who am i kidding? for all you u, will be going again next year!
    bryan.. yup, will be my 3rd activity trip to KK in may. however this time, wanna go diving instead of hiking.

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  12. i must start finding these organised trips to Kinablau and sign up

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  13. yeap. bumped into him by accident. he's mostly in membakut or some other far away town out of kk i think. his company apparently fixing our train and the tracks.

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  14. better come now!! we're having good weather. no rain n not so hot. althou if we're going to island then hot weather is really what we want kan.

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  15. Raz, it has been a wonderful trip. Guess the aches and pain is something that comes hand in hand with hiking but it's all worthwhile.....to me that is : ) something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Enjoyed the entire time i was up there....what can I say, thanks to the good company I've had on this trip....made everything bearable...even the 2 hours delayed train. Weird but I wouldn't mind going up Mt KK again...hehehe

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  16. Raz, it has been a wonderful trip. Guess the aches and pain is something that comes hand in hand with hiking but it's all worthwhile.....to me that is : ) something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Enjoyed the entire time i was up there....what can I say, thanks to the good company I've had on this trip....made everything bearable...even the 2 hours delayed train. Weird but I wouldn't mind going up Mt KK again...hehehe

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  17. aaah.. it was such a nice trip... enjoyed the company immensely.. i'm glad i did it.. :)

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  18. Kudos to you too......with good company anything goes. Imagine playing charades at 11 thousand feet above sea level. What a day

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  19. Hey Raz..... yeah you were a good 'pace-setter'. Coz of you we were fast! Thanks!
    The trip was good..... the company was great. Based on my experience trekking with you .... I think you walk much faster when you lead (walking in front).
    I still think you and shana ran down from the peak....and even from laban rata to timpohon gate! hehehe

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  20. no la surej.. it was u who decided to walk at your pace. me and shana walked at tortoise pace.. esp towards the end. hehe

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