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13,455 Feet To Sunrise
Mount KInabalu, Malaysia |
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Five weeks before the climb, Diane, a fellow mountaineer friend, buzzed me up online and asked me if i might be interested to join them to Mt. Kinabalu. I said of course i'd be very interested, the right question was, will i be able to go with them... financially speaking that is. Mt. Kinabalu just happen to be sitting inconveniently on the Malaysian island of Sabah so i know that it wont be a 500 peso climb and i’ve already reserved my extra stash for a pricy dive in a island just off camarines sur, not to mention i got bills to pay. So i said no to Diane... but not for long. |
After a couple of weeks, i found myself convincing my ApexTerra mates Rommel and Vilma to come and join the said climb with me. A slot was already reserved for me and there were two more available. After some very inviting jpegs and a promise that it'll be worth it, they both gave in to the temptation hehe. We were all now set, well except me, my passport was yet to be renewed and i only have three more weeks to get a fresh one. A couple of absences and hours of waiting in long lines, i finally got it. Time suddenly slowed down a couple of nots, or maybe, i was just really anxious to get away to Malaysia. |
Weeks passed. It was now friday, the seventh of october. I went straight to Shopwise pasong tamo after my work to buy some trail food and stuff. I tried my best to budget my remaining cash so i'd still have some extra for pocket money. I was almost broke because the camarines dive pulled thru and if i hadn’t given up the chance to scuba dive with Miss Cindy Curleto a week before this, I would have had zero cash for the climb. I only bought 3 packs of milo bars, instant porridge, wheat bread and a can of peanut butter. I figure these would, hopefully, get me through the whole climb hehe. I then went home and packed my mountaineering and diving equipments. |
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Saturday. I woke up around 5 in the morning. The meeting time was set at 6am and we were to meet at Camp-O shop in Cityland 8, which was conveniently just a 30 second walk from my place. Took a bath and rechecked my stuff, passport and everything. I chose not to bring my 60 liter backpack and just opted to bring my daypack and my huge mares duffel bag. Sir Omar, having already climbed kinabalu, told us in the preclimb that we wont be needing huge backpacks for the climb because we would be leaving our extra things in the Kinabalu park. After double checking everything, i went down and headed to cityland 8 to meet the group. |
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The hired van that will take us to Clark International Airport was already parked along the building entrance. Diane and Angel were already there, sitting comfortably inside the van, Sir Omar in the other hand was loading their packs in the back. A few minutes later, Pablo arrived, followed shortly by 3 other guests. After a few good morning chit chats, we left makati. We then picked up Rommel, Vilma and Doctora in 711 kamuning. We were 12 in all, four guys and eight women. Excited smiles etched in every faces. Some of them slept on the trip to clark. Rommel, vilma, pablo, diane, angel and me on the other hand were very busy cracking corny jokes and laughing our lungs out. We stopped at Dau to have breakfast then continued on the trip. |
We arrived at Clark, (which i found out, was now named Diosdado Macapagal International Airport) around 10am. Our departure time was at 11:40am so we were pretty early. Got our baggage’s checked and patched things up with the immigration people. It was my first time to fly from clark, a small and modest airport compared to our terminal 2 here in manila. Air Asia, the malaysian carrier that we were booked for, only flies from Clark. No Manila flights. We waited inside, people bound for Singapore were already boarding, it made me more anxious. It wasn’t my first time to fly but i was pretty excited to get my ass on that pressurized tube and see mt. kinabalu from above. And guess what, after a couple of hours of smooth flight, we did saw Mt. Kinabalu from up there. |
| Its dark silhouette peaked through the thick patches of clouds like a medieval castle engulfed by an evil mist. This is not to exaggerate things, but it was nothing like i’ve ever seen. Even from hundreds of meters above it, its upper stone face looked very formidable and would certainly need some serious scaling. The plane captain buzzed on the speakers and spoke in high-speed bahasa melayu language, i tried to guess what he was saying. (yeah like i know how to speak malaysian) He then spoke in english and told us that we were preparing to land, i hurriedly finished my in flight soda and put the tray table up. I smiled. We were already at Kota Kinabalu! |
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The plane taxied in just a matter minutes and we all got off in a flash. Kota Kinabalu's airport is quite small, i think even smaller than of clarks. Immigration talks again, passports stamped, hired a van and we were off to the main city area. We went to a local mall to have our peso bills exchanged for ringgits, the malaysian currency. 1 riggit costs around 15 pesos. After having our money changed and others getting some late lunch, we finally head off to Kinabalu Park. We will be staying there for the night. The van zigzagged on the steep road to the park. The majestic southern face of mt.kinabalu was intimidating along the way. It took us a couple of hours to get there. |
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It was already around 6pm when we arrived at Kinabalu Park Office. We registered our group, reserved a ride to timpohon gate for the next morning and arranged our guides for the following two days. After getting it all done and heaps of pictures taken, we boarded the van again to take us to Asrama Menggilan, one of the parks many lodges. We bid our filipino-looking van driver goodbye and went inside the lodge. The place wasn’t fancy or anything but it was a tidy ass place. And it got a great view of the towering mountain to the north. Our room was huge, it has 6 double decked beds so it accommodated all 12 of us just perfectly. |
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mt. kinabalu's south peak |
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