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BORNEO
I had travelled over to Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, for one reason only - to climb Mount Kinabalu. As soon as I saw the words in the guide book 'highest point in...' I quite simply had to go.
The first couple of nights were spent in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah's capital, which is actually a lovely little city, although I have to say I was quite disappointed to find that Borneo had any civilisation on it at all. I thought it would all be jungle and a muddy air strip like it was in Gorillas In The Mist. In actual fact, the airport did have a sealed runway and a terminal building, although I can't help but wonder if it would have been easier and quicker to actually reach the city on foot via the jungle as opposed to waiting for the bus. Apparently the airport bus doesn't have a timetable - it just comes as and when. Sounds quite like the 85/86 to Chorlton to be honest. Anyway, after about an hour I agreed to share a taxi with the Welsh, which admitedly was dirt cheap anyway but still not what you want to be doing with a dwindling budget. Having said that, one can always find funds for beer when necessary so that evening myself and the Welsh got a bit merry on the old lager.
The predictable result of this was to spend the next day sitting and erm, well just sitting really, oh and watching of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen from a bench by the harbour overlooking the South China Sea.
My home in Kota Kinabalu was Lucy's Homestay, which is arguably the nicest and friendliest guesthouse I have ever stayed in anywhere. Lucy was a middle aged Bornean native and was just lovely. She would make cups of tea, do your washing and lend you jackets when it rained. I felt so relaxed here that I could have quite happily stayed for months.
My activities in Kota Kinabalu mainly consisted of galavanting around town and trying to barter with the dodgy boat drivers to take me to the island I could see offshore for about an eighth of the already quite low price they were asking. As this predictably failed, I spent the rest of my time siting and reading on the balcony at Lucy's, basically having a natter with anyone who happened to be around, including the cat. I also did quite a lot of eating out to pass the time, which often presented quite amusing ways to entertain one's self. On one particularly notable occasion whilst waiting for the much anticipated spag bol that was to fuel the next days climb up Gulang Mount Kinabalu, I was content to record the days events in my journal. However, said meal requires the use of two hands for consumption unless you want to end up looking a bit special and so it was decided that a game would be more appropriate. Today's game would be to wait for the waiter to finish laying up a nearby table and then remove a fork and hide it in the wine rack. Predictably the waiter would think what a silly b***** he was for forgetting to put down a fork and duly returned with another one. Once again, however, the fork would 'miraculously' disappear and I would become engaged in my book whilst those pesky Japanese on a nearby table would be suspected of the dastardly trick and more likely than not would have their desserts spat in. Clearly 8 years in catering affected me badly and sending me to a church school removed more morals than it created, but to be fair the waiter looked a bit like he could do with the extra exercise anyway so I classed it as doing him a favour.
GUNANG (MOUNT) KINABALU
I was really really really excited about climbing Mt Kinabalu and it was the whole reason for coming to Borneo in the first place so I was up at 6am on the Saturday and rearing to go. Paul, who I was staying with and who also wanted to do the climb was up and ready also, although unfortunately the old digestive system wan't quite working as it should be shall we say so we didn't quite make the 7am bus. We were hoping to simply catch the next one but the term bus 'service' is applied rather loosley in Kota Kinabalu so we eventually settled on sharing a private minibus with some other stricken travellers. Normally we would have been ripped off something chronic, but fortunately one of the girls we met did the thing I have ALWAYS wanted to do - she listened to the taxi drivers spouting off a load of old rubbish about us tourists and then a couple of minutes later turned round and had a proper go at them in fluent Malay! The look on their faces was the stuff of legend - and it got us to the park gates on time and under budget.
For the climb up the mountain, it's compulsory to be accompanied by a guide. In fairness I can see how some inexperienced climbers may find it useful, but frankly ours was the biggest waste of money ever as he was tired out long before us and we charged on up without him after only the first kilometre. We only saw him again because we stopped for the world's longest lunch whilst the American's played frisbee (as you do). I came to the conclusion that perhaps the forced use of mountain guides was a novel solution to unemployment and wondered why Maggie Thatcher hadn't thought of it for Snowdon after the mines were closed.
The climb up Kinabalu is amazing and like nothing I have ever done before. It's a 2 day climb, starting off in lush tropical jungle, and as you ascend thje mountain you travel through all of the different forest types until you end up the alpine scrub close to the top and then are walking only over a moonscape like expanse of granite. Day 1 was spent slowly ascending the mountain to a camp about 3km from the summit, which you are obliged to stay at mainly to allow you to acclimatise and so prevent altitude sickness, and also so you can make the summit attempt through the night to see the sunrise. I was happy to slowly plod up the mountain taking pictures, climbing trees & making new friends along the way, whilst the American's, however, charged on up. That was their loss really beacuse they got to the top really early and sat around being bored all; day whilst we had loads of fun on the way.
As a result of the evening rain there was little else to do other than sit around eating, so I couldn't believe my luck when we arrived at the lodge and there was 2 hours left of an all you can eat buffet. Needless to say, 2 hours were spent in the restaurant. After that, and owing to the 3am start the following day, it was bedtime. Bedtime had been traumatic for me for the past 5 weeks thanks to my amazing ability to attract mosquito bites even if no one else in the vicinity was affected (sweet tasting blood apparently), but being high enough to be out of their habitat range I thought I could enjoy a night of not being devoured alive. Well how wrong I was. Of all the people in that room, the one tiny little mosquito that had stalked me all the way up the mountain decided it wanted to eat me - and this was despite employing full protective armour against such threats, which consited of super strong DEET, gloves, socks a hat & a scarf over my face. Quite unfortunate really as I was also the only one who had run out of the prohibitively expensive Malarone.
In the morning (well 3am), after liberally coating myself in tigter balm and choosing not to wash in the arctic conditions, we set off up the mountain. It was actually quite hilarious trying to gorge walk in pitch blackness and torrential rain whilst delirious from lack of sleep, and I was delighted I'd had the forethought to bring a head torch, coat and waterproof shoes. This contrasted with the Americans who had brought no torch, no jacket & canvas pumps.
Gradually as we climbed further up the mountain, the rain began to clear and the sky was covered in a blanket of stars. I wanted to get over the ridge at the top as fast as possible to see the far Northern constellations but just as I was getting there dawn was breaking and the stars started to disappear to be replaced by dazzlingly bright rays of sunshine. We only had a few minutes of visibility at the summit as the swirling clouds began to envelop the top of the mountain. It was freezing up there and the Americans were huddled under a blanket so there was some rapid Japanese tourist style photo taking and then we began the descent to the lodge for the buffet breakfast. The first part of the descent was amazing because you could see for miles over Borneo and right out to the sea and the Phillipines beyond. The second half through the foest, however, was quite laborious as the humidity was beginning to take it's toll. Fortunately, though, the thought of the third buffet in three days at park HQ kept me going strong. A full THREE hours were spent at the lunch buffet - my best performance ever at a buffet I have to say (*bows*, "thank you, thank you, there's no nead to applaud") and in this time I consumed 2 starters, soup, 2 huge mixed main courses, several desserts, countless cups of tea and assorted other beverages, & also engaged in a rather obscene amount of stuffing random food items in the bag, necissated by the lack of any remaining funds to actually purchase food with.
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Before leaving Borneo for the mission to Singapore via Johor Bahru (which I didn't stop at becuase it looked a bit grim and the bag seemed to be magically gaining mass by the second), there was still time for one more incidence of randomness to occur. Somehow, in the final night at Lucy's Homestay, I managed to bag a spot on a Malaysian cable TV travel show which was sponsored by some dodgy brand of dried and salted fish in a bag, telling everyone that eating prawns is wrong because the tread water at sewage outflows. I assume that this would make me the laughing stock of Malaysia since all they eat is either fish or decomposing chicken carcass but never the less I still felt proud of my achievement.
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