I am going to make a statement that is a little bit perasan/ delusional here but please don’t hate me, ok?
I THINK A LOT OF PEOPLE IS INSPIRED TO CLIMB MOUNT KINABALU BECAUSE OF ME! BECAUSE OF THE THINGS THEY READ IN THIS WEBSITE AND HOW COOL I MADE IT SEEM BY CELEBRATING MY BIRTHDAY ON THE SUMMIT.
Aww, stop that vomiting blood already!!! But these people, they don’t know the truth.
Azman has created a new travel blog – Diyanazman Travel Blog and he wrote a journal of our trip to the summit. It is almost like a diary and I believe those who would like to climb Mount Kinabalu can get a tip or two from the entries. Do visit; leave your comments and queries. Soon there will be more of our travelling stories in there.
But for now, I am giving you a little something to get you more inspired than you already are:-
What to expect when climbing Mount Kinabalu
Day1 -You start very early in the morning, you climb up up up happily before your calves catch fire. And they burn so fiercely you wonder if your blood can actually be an alternative energy. You continue climbing. By the time you cannot feel your knees, you start swearing. Then you start to hate the world but you continue anyway. You still believe that you are strong. After some time you regret about bringing the extra underwear. Do you know that on mountains, little lacy undie can weigh a tonne? In fact, you might wish you just didn’t wear any undie at all! Things can be so heavy!
You keep on going. As fatigue kicks in, you begin to regret the whole trip. Then you want to vomit, then your legs ache like you were gonna die of leg ache. But you have gone so far you just need to keep going…
You look at the sign board. YOU HAVE CLIMBED 0.5KILOMETERS ONLY! There are 7.5kilometers more to go. UPRIGHT!
That is when you start to mutter obscenities to the writers of diyanazman.com. You start to use a lot of bad bad words to them for writing about climbing the mountain like ITS SO DAMN COOL?!! Like its so damn easy, wake up one day and just freaking go to the mountain to celebrate some stupid birthday until YOU FEEL LIKE YOU WANNA GO TOO?! Dammmittt….
But you keep your cool and you continue to climb. After a few more kilometers you find it hard to breath, then you feel dizzy, then you break your back, then you were sorry you were born. You feel so tired. Despite the cool weather, you are sweating profusely. You scream for your mom but your mom can’t hear you. Then you cry your way up until you arrive at Laban Rata.
Where you will be spending the night.
Day 2- You wake up at 2am. In the temperature that fits for penguins and walruses you start the journey to the summit. In the chilly darkness you wear thick clothes. But the heat you body generates from all the climbing was burning inside you. You head spins. The air so thin you can hardly breathe. Around you one by one people succumb to surrender. If you are lucky you don’t get a headache, because altitude sickness can make you join them back to Laban Rata where you can sit in the warm room sipping hot cocoa AS A LOSER. But you don’t want no cocoa. You have gone this far and if Diyana the Retired Drama Queen can do it so can you!
From Laban Rata onwards you will be rock climbing. At some parts you will need to inch on narrow edges while holding on the ropes. It is cold but you take off you gloves, you need your sense of touch more than you need to keep you hands warm. In the darkness, your visions limited, you move slowly and nervously because you know if you fall, you will be going up. To heaven. Or to the hospital, lets not think of the worst shall we.
As you reach higher altitude the air gets thinner, yet the wind blows hard. You are tired. You need to stop after every few steps. Your legs hurt. Your feet hurt. Your back hurt. Your head hurt. You want to stop and rest but you do not want to miss the sunrise from the peak. You push your body harder. Other people are reaching the peak. You can see their torchlight flickering from afar. You want to join them. So you move your body, climb over huge blocks of rocks and occasionally you need help from people to pull you up or push you from behind.
The sun begin to rise. You are getting nearer to the peak. You think you can make it. You believe you can make it unless you take a wrong step and break a bone. You try not to do that. You also try not to pray for a helicopter to come and fetch you up because though your brain lack oxygen, you know helicopters don’t answer mental calls.
As the day gets brighter, you can see how how beautiful is the creation of God. How the rocks create magnificent contour, how the sky seems to color ever so gloriously. How the clouds float beneath you. And you continue panting for breath as you climb.
And you finally make it! You are at the summit! You look at the rising sun, you look at the shadow of the mountain the falls onto the valley and villages beneath. You wonder what the people down there are doing?
Then you took some photos and that’s it. Its time go come down.
The journey down is torture. It is pure fusion of anguish, tormenting pain and fatigue. You will now get to know a new sensation of hurting that you have never felt before. Your feet, your calves, your knee, your thighs, your groin; hurt like mad! You keep on hoping you see the end of the trail after next bend but the trail just never ends. You will need the walking stick. It helps.
You may want to cry. You would kill to stop but you must not. Don’t let your muscles rest, because once your body relax, it doesn’t want to go through the torture anymore.
REMEMBER THIS, TRY NOT TO REST ON YOUR WAY DOWN. Just keep going until you reach the first base where the bus will pick you up. But the time you are awarded with your certificate, your knees had turned into jelly.
On your way back to wherever you came from, at the Kota Kinabalu airport, you can identify who had been hiking Mount Kinabalu recently. Though you can’t tell if they reach the summit or not, you can definitely tell by the smell of Ammeltz YoKo YoKo and the way they walk. Like a rape victim from the family of frogs.
You too will be walking funny for the next two weeks. Even Zombie Kampung Pisang have more grace then you. At least they are just not graceful. But you, you are not only walking awkward, BUT IN PAIN!
Congratulations! At least you reach the top of South East Asia.
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So that is pretty much what to expect when climbing Gunung Kinabalu. I wish you good luck and all the best. Try not to get any injuries. Try not to surrender.
I bet now you are thinking what kinda lunatics who would wanna celebrate birthdays by going through all that torture? Pergi tengok wayang aje tak boleh ke? Dah la tu ada hati pulak nak panjat lagi? Siap nak bawak anak pulak tu.. Besemangat tunggu anak masuk 5-6 tahun supaya boleh pergi lagi… Gila la orang camni…
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