Borneo - Into Thin Air

The destination for the midterm break was the Malay state Sabah in Borneo. So in the early hours of September 22nd, we (my travel buddies + a number of other students from NUS) went to the airport to take our flight to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah. Our flight was delayed by 7 hours... so we had the unique chance to explore the airport in detail and catch up on sleep. Great. And comfy!

When we finally arrived in KK (Malays just love abriviations...) me and my travel buddies were pretty disappointed: we had arrangements to climb Mt. Kinabalu (4.100m) for that day and there was no way we could make it to the mountain in time. After a few telcons we got confirmed that we could climb on Sunday. So we went to the Kinabalu National Park - in which the mountain is located - and checked into the lovely Pine Resort, directly facing the amazing silhouette of Mt. Kinabalu. The crisp cool air was a welcomed change to Singapore's humid climate.

On Saturday we made our way to the 'famous' Hot Springs, a place where apparently hot sulfuric water comes out of the ground and offers pleasure to the visitors. Reading up on the issue in the Lonely Planet, we found out that the springs were constructed by the Japanese during WW2. Not that bad, but when we finally arrived the whole thing was rather disappointing: the sulfur was a pain in the nose and the baths not really appealing. Luckily there were other things to see: we went to a butterfly farm which was really interesting, went up into the trees on a canopy walk and checked out a nice waterfall. Sweaty and in need of relaxation we decided to actually make use of the Hot Springs, but in a Jacuzzi! Nice…

On Sunday we got up early so we had enough time to make the first passage to the base camp (3272m). We were allocated to a guide, Julius, a tiny local, who was a friendly fellow and very agile on the rocks, but almost of no use when it came to explaining stuff. So we started our ascent at 10.30am and proceeded with a good pace up the path, taking breaks in regular intervals. The weather conditions were good, as was the team’s mood. During the breaks we enjoyed the magnificent view down into the surroundings and we observed with interest the people making their descent from the mountain, especially a group of friends from NUS: they went up the rock on Saturday and got into really bad weather, but still managed to make it to the top. But the view was miserable…

We arrived at the base camp around 2.15pm and we were quite proud of us to have made it in only about 4 hours. What you don’t know: the professionals do ascent and descent in less than 2 hours. We saw loads of them, practicing for the annual ‘Climbathon’. They are nuts! They run up the 2500 steps (yes my friends, we are tough!) to the base camp and…. go directly up to the summit, only to run down the mountain right after reaching the top! That’s mad, but some of them were even madder: they did the whole thing using flip flops! Flip flops the German way: with socks! Couldn’t believe our eyes…

Well, we needed some rest when arriving at the base camp, so we had dinner and pretty soon after went to our bunk beds. It was freezing up there and it took us some time to heat up our rental sleeping bags. We got up at 2am to make the ascent in time to see the sunrise from the summit. Kristoffer couldn’t sleep the whole night and was a bit feverish, but he was still up for it! That I call commitment! We had a quick breakfast, managed to get hold of little Julius (he was not more than 150cm, but he was quick!) and started climbing at 2.45am. Compared to the path up to the base camp, the way up to the summit was more challenging: we sometimes had to use ropes to make our way up steep passages, it was dark, freezing and there were quite a lot of people sometimes blocking our way. Yes, we were pretty fast again! We started late (normally people start around 2am) and still made it in good time to the summit. We even managed to get a nice place all the way up. The summit was crowded with people, from a distance it must have looked like an ant-hill. Everyone was freezing but nobody cared because the view was SO amazing! I felt I was alive, but I realised how unimportant each of us is.
The sky was pretty clear and the few clouds created breath-taking colors in combination with the rising sun… but have a look yourself.

Actually everyone but one was freezing: Sandra decided to change her wet clothes in 4100m, a wise decision! That way she probably enjoyed the view much more and was able to take those beautiful pictures. Anyway, we were stunned and felt that the exhausting ascent was really for a reason. Who else has been on top of the highest mountain between the Himalaya and Papua New Guinea? Ha, thought so!

Well, after 30min Kristoffer and I were afraid of freezing to death, so we climbed from the summit, enjoying running down the rocks like crazy while clinging to the ropes. Great fun! Sandra and Aurélie decided to do a photo session.

The descent to the base camp was no problem at first. We were enthusiastic and proud and a tad bit overeager: we basically ran down the mountain. Suddenly Sandra slipped, fell, twisted her ankles and bruised her knees. Luckily she is as tough as my brother, who normally closes wounds by burning them with a few matches (You copied that from Rambo, you copycat!). She got a stabilizing sock (don’t know what these thingies are called) and continued her decent, slow, but steady! After arriving at the base camp we had some food and hot drinks. Kristoffer taped her ankle and I gave her knees a Tiger balm massage. I just love that stuff, although it is probably nothing more than a fragrant placebo…

On our way down from the base camp we got caught in a heavy rain that turned the path into a muddy waterway. We were well equipped with ponchos and other stuff so we continued climbing down. Sandra was obviously in pain and by trying to put pressure off her ankle she overstrained her knee; poor she could only hobble down the mountain while the rain was pouring down on us. By the way, little Julius, smart as he was, came up with the strategy of resting in the shelters (little huts along the way) for as long as possible and to then run after us like crazy… we were mad at him, Sandra was threatening to report him to the park authorities and I was feeling like pushing him into eternity.

When we finally made it down to the starting point, I was really impressed by how brave she acted. I never had a twisted ankle, but I exactly know what pain in the knee can mean!

We met up with Kristoffer and Aurélie, who literally ran down the mountain in order to get out of the heavy rain, had some food, decided that the climb has been amazing and organized our transportation to the Sepilok Orang-Utan rehabilitation center.

We ended up not reporting little Julius to the park authorities. He carried Sandra’s backpack on the last part of the descent and he actually showed us a pitcher plant! Guess he is currently sitting in a shelter, chatting with his colleagues or jumping from stone to stone like a mad mountain goat.