Early in the morning of 22 Novemeber 2008 (Sat), I woke up around 4 am and rechecked what I need to bring along for my battle, The Battle to Reach the Top of Mt Kinabalu. Then together with my friends from Indah Permai, we waited at the bus sop. It was raining and it made me anxious that at Mt Kinanbalu also raining and we will not allow climbing. The bus was late and made Beng Hin to call him a lot of time. Oh, the driver could not wake up…
Although we reached the Mesilau later than we expected (around 9am), Beng Hin and the others quickly settled the registration for all the 24 Fighters. We all got a name tag with our name on it and a number. Besides, we also had given the lunch pack which consisted of egg, two sausages, sandwich, fried chicken wing and a bottle of mineral water. Although we should some how happy as we were given food, but most of us felt that the lunch pack was an extra burden for us. Heavy bah!
With that we started our journey to the enemy base, the Mt Kinabalu peak, Low’s Peak. As the troop was guided by three guides, the most experienced guide was at the back of 24 people. For all of us, our first target was to reach Laban Rata before 5pm to have our buffet dinner. However for the starting of the journey, there was a few of the Fighters started to feel not well. Maybe they could not adapt to the change of atmosphere or the pressure they felt or… A lot of maybe but important there were people accompany others, took care of each others, gave support and encouraged each other to take one more step forward and get nearer to Laban Rata.
On the journey, 24 Fighters became in three or more groups as the speed and stamina for different people were different. Beng Hin and I were at the back of all people to make sure everyone can at least reach Laban Rata. On the way up, there was rain. We wore our raincoat. At the start, I also wore my yellow raincoat but very soon I took off the raincoat as I felt very uncomfortable and sticky. I changed to umbrella. Umbrella during hiking?! Cannot imagine, right? This also was my response when I listened to the tip given by my course mate, Hui Pin, who managed to reach the peak of Mt. Kinabalu. However, can’t deny, I felt taking umbrella is better than wearing raincoat. Besides, all the guides were using umbrella too.
On the way, there were a lot of pondok (rest point) and we will very happy to see one in front of us as we can rest for awhile, recharge, and drink and eat. But we knew that we cannot rest too much as we will become more tired and lazy to continue our journey. I noticed that we, the group at the last were farer and farer to the group at the front. So we walked and climbed faster and finally at the pondok, we met the group in front of us. Once we sat down, the front group started to move. It happened for many pondok.
5 in the afternoon already, we were still far from Laban Rata. A lot of us were became exhausted and discouraged and wanted to give up. However a few of us kept encourage and gave support to them to move forward. Moving upward a mountain for more than 7 hours really was the first time. 2 more hours the buffet dinner will finish. Besides we heard from the guide said that the first group already reached the Laban Rata.
Finally we reached Laban Rata at 9 in the night. We took our packed dinner pack as the buffet finished already and quickly went to sleep. Just 4 more hours then we need to wake up and climb again.
We woke up 1.30am and went to gather. We ate some biscuit and listened to a short briefing then the journey continued. Just 18 people still wanted to challenge the Summit Trail. At the beginning of the journey, we just climbed stairs with slow pace as there were a lot of people hence it like traffic jam. After the stairs, we started to experience different type of challenge. We started to use rope to climb in the dark and with only our torch light, slippery path, cold and lack of air. We all almost on our own pace and own our own ,as around me, there was no one that I knew.
As the cool, heavy and tiring body of mine was trying it best to take one more step ahead and nearer to the top of Mt Kinabalu, some already reached the top and some still behind me. The thought of “why paying so much (RM 330) to torture myself?” kept popping up. But I knew that I must reach the peak no matter what.
YIPEE!! I finally reached the Low’s Peak and there already had a lot of people. Everyone was busy taking photograph with the Low’s Peak sign board. The sunrise was what we were rushed for but that moment, at the peak we just saw a lot of cloud and couldn’t saw the sunrise. Some of us already felt very cold and ask to continue the journey back to Laban Rata. Hence, we quickly took a group photo.
For me, I suddenly felt very tired on the journey back to Laban Rata. Tired and low in energy were what I felt. I sat down and took some glucose drink prepared from my friends and ate some Tiger biscuit. After a short rest, five of us continued. As I still lacked of energy, hence a few steps I took, I stopped for awhile. With the slow and unsteady steps, I finally reached Laban Rata around 10am. The journey down from the peak was harder for me compare to climb up to the peak as my feet and knee needed to absorb a lot of pressure.
At Laban Rata, we all took our breakfast, and took a rest then we were being instructed to start going down from Laban Rata to Tempohon Gate. The Tempohon trail was filled with stairs, not so well built stairs. Again, my knee needed to work hard. The path was rocks, mud and seldom have pavement. The path was also river as that time the rain was heavy. With the journey started at around 11am, we all reached the Tempohon at 3pm. We quickly on boarded our school bus and headed to the Kinabalu park to take our Buffet Lunch at 3.30pm.
That buffet, we ate a lot as a lot choices available for us to choose from. We enjoyed the buffet to the fullest and we prepared to go back to UMS. In the bus, we get two certificates for those that reached the top and one for those that reached Laban Rata. All felt asleep in the way back to UMS and woke up at Kingfisher when we were needed to change school bus with Labuan trip (also organized by the UMS Chung Ling Ex-student Club) people.
The whole battle with Mount Kinabalu was a new challenge and experience for me. At that time, I thought that I will never try it again to climb the Mt Kinabalu. But now, I have the desire to experience once more! For those that haven’t tried it before should train oneself and give it a try.
YIPEE!! I finally reached the Low’s Peak and there already had a lot of people. Everyone was busy taking photograph with the Low’s Peak sign board. The sunrise was what we were rushed for but that moment, at the peak we just saw a lot of cloud and couldn’t saw the sunrise. Some of us already felt very cold and ask to continue the journey back to Laban Rata. Hence, we quickly took a group photo.
For me, I suddenly felt very tired on the journey back to Laban Rata. Tired and low in energy were what I felt. I sat down and took some glucose drink prepared from my friends and ate some Tiger biscuit. After a short rest, five of us continued. As I still lacked of energy, hence a few steps I took, I stopped for awhile. With the slow and unsteady steps, I finally reached Laban Rata around 10am. The journey down from the peak was harder for me compare to climb up to the peak as my feet and knee needed to absorb a lot of pressure.
At Laban Rata, we all took our breakfast, and took a rest then we were being instructed to start going down from Laban Rata to Tempohon Gate. The Tempohon trail was filled with stairs, not so well built stairs. Again, my knee needed to work hard. The path was rocks, mud and seldom have pavement. The path was also river as that time the rain was heavy. With the journey started at around 11am, we all reached the Tempohon at 3pm. We quickly on boarded our school bus and headed to the Kinabalu park to take our Buffet Lunch at 3.30pm.
That buffet, we ate a lot as a lot choices available for us to choose from. We enjoyed the buffet to the fullest and we prepared to go back to UMS. In the bus, we get two certificates for those that reached the top and one for those that reached Laban Rata. All felt asleep in the way back to UMS and woke up at Kingfisher when we were needed to change school bus with Labuan trip (also organized by the UMS Chung Ling Ex-student Club) people.
The whole battle with Mount Kinabalu was a new challenge and experience for me. At that time, I thought that I will never try it again to climb the Mt Kinabalu. But now, I have the desire to experience once more! For those that haven’t tried it before should train oneself and give it a try.
Written By: Jian Ming, 31 December 2008 (Wed), 17.39
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