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Hey there again!
In Cameron Highlans we became a tip from Faizal to climb on gunung tahan, the highest mountain in peninsula malaysia. From the first second we liked the idea and so we went by minibus to Merapoh, a little village at the entry to Taman Negara, a national park were the Gunung Tahan is located. A few kilometers behind Merapoh, we slept one night in a dorm room with many malay guyz who just finished the tour (the beds there were mouldy but there were no other...).
Next day in the morning we met our guide, I think his name was JD or he wanted to be called JD. Our luggage was checked by the park officials, especially plastic bags and cans and after that we went by pickup to the beginning of the mountain tour. The first day brought us to our first campsite. It took us about four ours walking, the description says that we will need about 5 to 6 hours so we walked quite fast (it was about 13km through the jungle). At the camp site we built our tents and had dinner, in the evening we played Mulatschack and had a bondfire. This evening was very nice and because of the exhausting hike we all slept well.
At the second day things grew harder. The description said 9 to 10 hours walking, we did it in eight hours. Despite this good time it was very hard, wether it was very steep upwards or very steep downwards which means we made a lot of altitude - to both directions. On the last few kilometers (from 15km) it started to rain. The whole path (the rain didn't matter, it was the same before) was muddy, which made it really tough! The second campsite was (thank god) on stoneground (one of the two places on the whole mountain with stoneground, the second one was at the peak...). in the evening it rained and so we went to sleep early. I think I was the only one who slept well this night, Hias and the guide felt quite cold and Max and Anita got wet because it didn't stop raining.
We got up early on the third day and went to the peak in the early morning, really amazing (haha). The mountain was 2187m high but the jungle grows until the peak and it was muddy everywhere. we did our way down back to the first campsite, through the mud and all the altitude back (upwards and downwards). At the last four km, after we had done 11km from the second campsite and after the way to the peak and back, it started to rain like hell. The whole path became an ancle-deep river, very nice when moral is down anyhow because of the mud. all the small rivers we had to cross turned into knee-deep torrent, all we did was running to the campsite, wet to our underwear. This night we slept all four in one tent and Max suffered from fever. Our moral was as down as we were wet and dirty.
Next day started better, Max was fit again and our moral had risen overnight. We packed our seven things and ran out the jungle, in three hours instead of expectet 5 or 6! (it was very muddy again, mountaineering in malaysia is different...)
As we crossed the bridge over the last river - the step back to civilisation - the first thing we did was yelling and huging each other, as we had just completed the toughest tour of our lifetime (remember Killi will join us in Perth). No one was harmed except Hias' feet, who were really swollen and wounded, as the trekking sandals he wore rubbed them up like hell. Also JD, who is a quite kind of guy shouted out his hapiness and what made us really proud, he told everyone how great our hiking skills where -> back at Taman Negara Office they hardly believed how fast we did the track. What made us really happy too was the fact that JD invited us to his house so we stayed their for some hours watching TV but the didn't drink the beer we had dreamed of in the jungle.
We decided to stay at Taman Negara (the dorm room not the jungle) one more night. The morning of the 28th of may JD awaked us with his typical Minglish (Malay English) 'Hey, have breakfast Merapoh with me?' 'Yes in 10 minutes' 'Oookaaaay'. After breakfast we killed some time playing Mulatschak and UNO and caught the 4:40 (3:40 was 3 hours delayed 4:40 arrived on time just typicall for Malysian Railway (KTM) train to Gua Musang to change to the Express Train to Kuala Lumpur there.
Hiking Gunung Tahan was a big mix of feelings. As we hiked we hated it but now as we look back we think it was one of our best travelexperiences so far.
Yours, Mike and Hias
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