Kota Kinabalu

Date: 24 November, 2007

Kota Kinabalu, Gunung Kinabalu and Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park

Our primary target for this trip is to conquer the peak of Gunung Kinabalu. Known to be the highest mountain in South East Asia and also the Kinabalu Park which is listed in the Unesco Heritage Site.

Kinabalu Park

After so much hassle on the air (one of us suddenly decided to go nuts), I have managed to calms things down at the airport and continue to make our move to Kundasang. We have rented a Proton Saga for the whole trip. It’s a long way trip from Kota Kinabalu and we arrived a few hours later at the Kinabalu Park Headquarters. After confirming our bookings and paid for the guide and permit, we’re off to our cabin. The climate is cold at 4 degrees Celsius and the room has no heater, at least there is hot water. As a malai chai, I really not use to this kind of weather. The resort is so beautiful and the surrounding is serene and green. We went to bed early that night as to prepare for tomorrow’s journey.

Trekking

Woke up early that morning, As and Era complains that they cannot bath in such cold weather, me neither. After breakfast, we headed to the Park HQ and our handsome guide (the girls think so!) named Roger Sipat greeted us. Well he is a Kadazan Dusun and his father also works there before him. I suggested to the girls that Roger has a resemblance of Yem (laugh), but the girls say that I am just jealous. Era has annoyed me by refusing to bring her bigger backpack to assist me on the trip after agreeing previously. Again, I gave in; men are supposed to assist the woman don’t they? We were brought to the gate buy a shuttle van and starts trekking to Laban Rata. I can safely say that the trek is clear and easy compare to the rainforest in the peninsular. We can see there are lots of Mat Salleh coming here and from what I heard they loves the place. On the way up, the scenery is out of this world and I can’t wait to reach the peak.

Laban Rata

After four and a half hours walking, we reach Laban Rata. It was drizzling then and the coldness is unimaginable. The Mat Salleh and the Korean are use to this though and just gave me a cheeky smile. When we reach our hostel that is the Gunting Lagadan Hut, the strong winds starts to blow. We took off our wet cloth and wear a few layers of t-shirt to avoid the cold. Again, there is no heater here and I started to wonder. I cannot sleep the whole evening and we were supposed to trek up at 2.30am. I can feel that we are ill equipped to weather this storm. The cold wind is getting stronger by the minute and carries some water with it.

The Gunung Kinabalu Peak

Our guide Roger, has strongly advice us to cancel the trip due to the bad weather, but as always, hard headed, I refuse and ignore his plead. I've said to him that we love the challenge and wanted to have it a go, guess what happen? Bad call. Well, what is install for us is one of the most challenging experiences in our life. For the first time in any trip that I felt our safety had been jeopardize. With the cold wind continuously hitting us together with the cold rain, I felt exhausted and drained. I'm not able to take care of myself let alone the other team member. The easy trek up became a nightmare trek, there is nothing we can see in the storm and our flimsy rain jacket cannot stop the wind from hitting our body. Era meanwhile has again turned into a zombie (laugh).

As we reached Sayat Sayat, half way point to the peak, As headlamp became unusable and most probably our camera don’t works either. In the storm, I can hear Roger getting angry and uttered the word "sendiri pandai naik, sendiri pandai turun". I have said to myself, no we can’t give, we have come a long way, the Mat Salleh and the Korean don’t give up, so why should we? Malaysia Boleh!!. I gave Ija and Era some words of encouragement as they seem to be completely drained. I told myself, we could do it. We trek slowly and as I managed to get to about 200 meters from the peak suddenly the storm hit really hard and my view of Ija and As totally gone. There is when I have decided to stop as the situation have been life threatening. I prayed Roger would be able to take care of Ija and As. With a tinge of sadness I asked Era to forget it and turn back.

On the way down, and when the weather cleared, I am happy to see Roger, Ija and As are safe. Miraculously, Ija and As managed to reach the peak. Ija and Era is quite happy when Roger took them down the mountain with words of encouragement borrowed from the Titanic film "kau pegang kuat-kuat ya, kalau kau jatuh, aku jatuh sama". Well, thats certaintly keeps the girls going. Thank God, by 9.30am we're back at Gunting Lagadan Hut. As we did not have dry cloth and the place has no heater, we continue to trek down and by 3.00pm we reached Kinabalu Park. Before we left, I thank Roger Sipat, our guide for taking good care of us.

Summer Lodge and Filipino Market

After that incredible experience, we continue our journey to Kota Kinabalu town and scrap our plan to go to Poring. I guess we are quite worn off after facing such extreme ordeal. We checked in at Summer Lodge. Most of the tenant here are Mat Salleh backpacker. Nice, clean and cheap place to be. After having a nice seafood dinner at Kg Air we headed to bed. In the morning, I had a shocked and disappointed when some of our item send for laundry found missing. Well, that’s life, after lodging a formal complaint we headed to the famous Filipino Market. The market is called by that name because most of the trader there are from Philippines. They trade a lot of things such as handicraft and jewellery. As and Ija is really interested with the swarosky crystal bracelets and spend quite a lot on them.

Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park

By 2.00pm we were off to Jeselton jetty and book a boat trip to Pulau Sapi. Roberto, the marine park guide, accompanies us. We are disappointed as the water is murky (cause of the weather, I presumed) and we have not been able to see a thing while snorkeling. Most of the coral have been destroyed. Roberto did guide us to go to deeper water and still we were unable to see anything. By 5.00pm we headed back to KK and went on to the airport.

Conclude
I can really say, despite everything we went through, this is still by far the best trip to date by the Cool Trekkers. I am proud of the girls and hope we will be able to beat this in our future trip.

Gunung Bunga Buah

10 November,2007
Gunung Bunga Buah
AhKam, Hazamat, Erra Coklat & me

Well, finally the cool-trekkers have something to do after a long hiatus. This time we're going to climb the Gunung Bunga Buah or known as Gunung Dua Bukit to our fellow member Dasran. Anyway, it is quite a risk to take to large size trekkers on such a `dangerous' trip. Thank god we have Erra Coklat with us, if they gets hungry they always can have Erra as snack hahaha.. Incredibly, Ah Kam now known as Zombie Bukit and Dasran the burung murai man has managed to reach the peak in 4 hours. Salute to the first timer. Anyway on the way back they have failed miserabaly, it took us almost 6 hours to complete. Well this is the first time the cool-trekkers needs to rely on handphone light to trek down a mountain. Anyway my mata ayam is quite useless during night time. Maklumlah mata ayam. But we manage to use Erra's mata kelawar and safely reach down by 7.45pm. There's a lesson to be learned here, firstly remember to take with u a usable torch light and also some cotton instead of a disposable underwear. Bongok Erra said.

Hazamat, Hazamat and Borat

Borat, Coklat & AhKam masa belum pewai.

Dasran sedang mengenang nasib.

AhKam dan Erra sorok seluar koyak

Lintah dan Pacat Betina syok kat AhKam

Gunung Lebah with Ad

Trekker - Ad
Gunung Lebah, Tanjung Malim
7 April 2007

Ad with her Pendaki Bebas (bebas dari bini kot) has conquer the peak of Gunung Lebah (1522 meter). For our info, they did not find any lebah up there (kumbang jantan banyak arrr...). Without any clear trail (hutan dara la katakan), using the parang, compass and topo map they have manage to find their way to the top. Horeyyyy...to Ad our top trekker.

Hotel Pos Keding
Sungai slim.....orang pon slim gak hahaha.
Batu Belah Batu Bertangkup arr.
Bahan buat Jamu Rapat, Kacip Fatimah hahaha.
Gadiz litar Adlyna, Yati, Sha, Ad and Yati
Padan la cepat sampai, main tipu rupanya.
Sauna lepas trekking dengan Sha.
Daus, Syed dan Ad petai di puncak.

Santuari Sungai Chiling with Erra

Trekker - Erra Coklat
Santuari Sungai Chiling
8 April 2007

Today, Erra and the Orang(s) Gunung Kuala Lumpur has temporarily stop climbing the mountain. They have decided to check out the river and waterfalls instead. They went to one of the popular picnic spot in Kuala Kubu that is Sungai Chill-ing (sejuk kot sungainya).

The entrance.....wellcome.
Pantang nampak air.....hantu air nih.

Orang Gunung kena tukar nama hari ni ke Orang Sungai ahaks.

Hmm..Erra ngan sapa tuh?

Tu dia Sungai `Chill-ing'

Erra posing, stokin dia pon nak enter frame.

Kledang Challenge

28 April, 2007

Kledang Challenge 2007

The objective is just to complete this endurance compass race. The race starts at the foot hill of Gunung Kledang at Menglembu and finishes at Kg Bekor, Manong. We need to finish the race in 24 hours.

Pre Race

For starter, none of us knew how to use a compass to navigate. But organizer manages to give a crash course prior to the race. That night after lots of ucapan by the organizer and some briefing we were given a camping site to sleep. Anyway, we choose to sleep on the pavement at the stadium. I guess that is not a good idea, we don’t have much sleep that night and feel groggy in the morning. At 7.00am we were transported by lorry to the foothill and another set of ucapan from the politician ensue. I have decided that we will bring some essential item during the race, as we may have to sleep in the jungle that night. Some of the pro participant don’t even bring anything accept a backpack stored with water. I did not want to take that kind of risk as we are inexperience and at least we would have some equipment with us in case we are stranded.

The Race

The race started late almost at 9.00am. We were made to climb the Gunung Kledang using a road heading toward a telecommunication tower. I hate this kind of terrain and it is kind of boring. Along the way when I have a breather, I met an old man with his daughter having their routine climb. As he looks at me panting, he gave me these advice `jangan makan mcdonald dan minum coke, selalu training’ (chuckle). So the old man can do it, so can I. Nearing the top of the mountain, there’s a detour to the dense jungle, so the adventure begins.

I guess we are in the last group to reach the top. Our first turn is really a bad decision, we’re on a cliff and the terrain is very steep. At the end, I have decided to turn back and follow the path cleared by the other teams. The trail is confusing, the compass is confusing too, I started to doubt our ability to navigate through this. After a few hours we manage get out of the jungle to an old logging path. Tired and disoriented and at this point of time I fell down and hurt my ankle. Era tried to ease the pain by putting some deep heat cream on it but Ija swiftly took over (giggle).

After some rest, we move on to palm oil plantation estate. It is vast and we need to walk under the hot sun, correspondingly our temperature is going up and argument erupts. I have to apologize to others to cool things down. To make matter worse Era turns into her favorite mode, that is the zombie mode, Ija pants tore at her backside and needs a change, As is in no mood to joke and there is not a single person or animals sighted.

We walk and walk and walk until we reach the end of the palm oil plantation and finally entered a rubber plantation where we found lots of mosquitoes. It is heartening to experience the daily hardship that a rubber tapper needs to endure. To my relief, after an hour or so we reach a tarred road and met some orang asli on the way. They showed us the direction to the main road and our confidence restored. At last we finally bump into another team just in front of us. They are carrying heavy backpack and looks like a ninja turtle (chuckle). Ija started to taunt them `engkorang tak lari, kita potong’. To my surprise, they started to run. So we do too. After a short chase we manage to overtake them. At least we’re not last (laugh). Somewhere, at the end of the road we met Haji Johar (the organizer) and his assistance that took out a video cam to record our feat. We reached the finishing line after 10 hours of grueling trek. The team that we just beat is the warden from Jabatan Penjara. The woman in team is fuming mad as she is being duped to carry so much in their backpack as to justify the need to camp in the jungle. At the end of the day none of the teams needs to camp inside the jungle that night.

After the Race

Again we were given a site to camp at a school compound at Kg Bekor. After one sleepless night at the stadium and a grueling race, I have decided to call Yop to pick us up. He obliged and while waiting, I took the time to have dinner at the school canteen and what do you know, my favorite dishes the Gulai Tempoyak is being served. We have a good sleep that night at Yop house in Ipoh, the girls really appreciates it. In the morning, after a sumptuous breakfast of roti canai, Yop send us to the stadium to pick our car. Then, we’re headed back to Kg Bekor (singing) for the prize giving ceremony.

Conclude

What we have learned from this experience are: -
In a compass run, it is easier to follow the path of others instead of making your own.
Do not bring too much luggage (laugh).
Make sure your girl friends don’t touch you when you’re injured (grin).
Try not to get angry during a race.
Make sure that you’re fit or you will become a Zombie.
Do have a good night sleep prior to a race (we should rent a room!)
It’s good to have a relative like Yop!
Anyway, we certainly having fun and can’t wait to do this all over again (minus the argument of course).

Gunung Gap and Ulu Semangkok with Erra

Trekker - Erra Coklat
7 April 2007
Gunung Gap and Ulu Semangkok

Our Erra follows Orang Gunung Kuala Lumpur to the peak of Gunung Gap and Ulu Semangkok (5,473 feet). It tooks about 2 hours to reach the higher peak (Ulu Semangkok) and the journey to the top is consider easy as it is a day trip and you don't have to carry any equipment to the top (kebetulan pacat pun tak bekerja hari tu).

Erra sedang memanjat pohon `moktek'.

Pemandangan dari puncak Gap.

Erra dan Amoi Eco-Extreme Challenge

Camping di tepi jalan bersama Cuna dan Din

Makan masakan Nina Spy...hmm ayam dara masak merah.

Posing sebelum pewai

Berlumba ngan awe donde Syukri

Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park with Erra and Jue!

Trekkers - Erra and Jue!
Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park
Kota Kinabalu
26 March 2007

Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park is a park off the coast of the island of Borneo Malaysia made up of five islands namely Gaya, Manukan, Sapi, Sulug and Mamutik. The island are the most popular destination for snorkeling in Kota Kinabalu. Situated about 3 to 8 km from Kota Kinabalu and is reachable by boat in 20 minutes. Our trekkers has managed to visit three of the Island. What do they do over there, well plenty as you can see below.

dugong pakai spek.

Ikan kembung dan ikan talapia di Pulau Sapi

LCCT mamutik

canteknyaaaaa. Tak canteknyaaaa....

Bersedia untuk menyelam.....Ikan-ikan kelaparan makan maggie.

wa wa we wa....satu-satunya gambar seksi dan gambar lelaki dalam blog kali ini..hahaha.

skill berenang apa nih?