Between each placement we had 3 or 4 free days in which we went on trips if we wanted. Michelle and I chose to climb Mt. Kinabalu in our final free period. We chose to do it in monsoon season...woops!

On Day 1 it rained ALL day...and as a result of being told to pack as lightly as possible, we only had one set of clothes with us. The ascent was long, tiring and WET....but good fun! We couldn't see a thing coz of the clouds and the rain. But with waterproof and poncho most of me stayed dry. Unfortunately for Michelle, her waterproof was anything but waterproof...so she was soaked through! Bouts of altitude sickness on the way up made the climb that bit harder. Michelle, who has climbed mountains before, set a decent pace which allowed us to get up without too much problem. We kept keeping our energy levels up with good old Tiger biscuits and Creamos (GOOOOOOD!)

Our guide wasn't really needed on the first day. He spent most the time miles behind us, smoking and coughing up flem...a noise I wont miss! But he proved very useful later on as we wouldn't have made it to the summit in the pitch black without him!

At 3:30pm on day 1, we got to the resthouse. Our inital thoughts were 'yay we're here'...(the rain is still pouring down at this point!) But our guide then tells us that our accommodation is 200m further up the mountain. Cold, wet and tired...this was not good news. So we stayed at the resthouse until 7pm...when we had eaten, Michelle had dry clothes and we'd had one good game of Monopoly. We also bored a couple to death talking about the orangutans...I dont think they thought they would get THAT much detail about every orangutan we'd worked with. Evidently telling them a story about how naughty Alan was wasn't as ammusing to them as it is to us! :)

Food was GOOD, Milo was GOOD, walk to bedroom...not so good, but looking back at it, very funny. It was pitch black, 7pm at night and finally the rain had sort of stopped. Only drizzle now. We were left by our guide and told there was only one way up. So we went the only way we thought we could go (Michelle in her flip flops due to her shoes being dried!) and seemed to come to a vertical slope. We clambered up that and came to another very steep slope, but saw an accommodation which could have been ours. After several attempts at asking the people standing at the accommodation (we were point blank ignored!) we made our way up the second death slope and finally got there. Despite our concern, we couldnt stop laughing at our misfortunes!

We didn't manage to get much sleep that night due to our roomates (2 guys from KL) who insisted on talking all night and getting up going to the bathroom...together...on more than one occassion! Very strange! But despite this, we still got up at 2:30am all set to leave at 3am.

In the pitch black we started our climb to the summit. We had to use ropes for most of the last 2km. This was a scary experience as we couldn't see a thing. But our headtorches showed us a drop very close to us. (in the daylight on our way down, this drop had seemed to have disappeared...perhaps our mind playing tricks on us!)

From 3800m and upwards altitude sickness hit me quite badly, and I literally had to pigeon step to the summit. The mountain is very relentless and there is no time to acclimatise. It goes up and up and up without any flat sections. Therefore altitude sickness is very common as there really is no acclimatisation point. Despite both of us being hit by alititude sickness at some point, we made it to she summit! It was such a great feeling...and despite the cloud and mist destorying the beautiful view and hiding the sunrise - it was worth every step. A very hard mountain climb, according to Michelle, much worse than Kilimanjaro! "A once in a lifetime experience never to be done again" was our conclusion to the climb.

It was good fun, there were tough times, but a lot of laughs along the way. Michelle was brilliant to climb with as neither of us were tying to get up there in a certain amount of time. I think the words of the climb were 'its not a race' and 'bagus' meaning 'good' in malay. A nice, fast and simple word to say when our guide asked us how we were...it took up the least amount of oxygen!

The descent was fine...it took us about 3 1/2 hours and it was good to be down again! We got our certificates and were both really happy we'd done it and proud of ourselves and each other. We were going to go to the hot springs afterwards, but the idea of being drenched again and the cold temperatures put us off. We decided to go and see a rafflesia instead as they can only be found in Borneo.

Lucky for us, there were 2 blooming by the road. We went and saw them both (paid £1.50 to see each one). They weren't absolutely giant, but they were big...and they didnt smell like rotting flesh either...apparently thats only when they're dying. It is really rare to see one as they only live for 7days. We really were very lucky! Good way to end our experience.

Very glad I climbed the mountain despite the difficulty in parts. I would recommend it to anyone. I would also recommend going in non-monsoon season just so you can get the full experience with the sunrise and views...but even if you dont see them, the sense of achievement makes it all worthwhile!

Thanks Michelle for doing it with me - climbing Mt. Kinabalu - GOOD. Fancy doing Everest next?

xxxx