When we initially planned out our trip to SE Asia one of the main reasons for coming to Borneo was to climb mt Kinabalu, which is the highest mountain in SE Asia at 4095.2m above sea level. The climb takes 2 days with the first day spent with an ascent to Laban Rata, the hostel at 3200m high. We arrived in good time after just over 4 hours of trekking and had an icy cold shower before an early night in order to get some sleep before our early rise the next morning for the final ascent.
At 2am when our alarm went off we began wondering why we had decided to put ourselves through this! We managed to get up and after some coffee began the final climb which is quite steep and involves climbing up the bare granite rock using a rope in complete darkness. In the final 30m we both began to feel the effects of the altitude and felt a little dizzy but we persevered and arrived at the top in plenty of time for the sunrise. The view was fantastic and luckily there were not many people on the mountain that morning. There were a group of Malaysian men that had carried up some poles and a canvas which erected a giant book replica; we never quite found out the reason why!
The climb down the mountain was worse than the way up as we could now see the huge drop that we needed to climb down and the stone was quite slippy. We both fell over once or twice but managed to make it down in one piece!
After paying for various permits/guide/hostel it's quite an expensive mountain to climb but it was worth it just for the view at the top, plus we were given certificates at the bottom!!