Touchdown Borneo - Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
After some 15 hrs and countless tiny trays of tiny meals and an endless day of sunlight we touched down in HongKong. It's been close to ten years since my last trip to this corner of the world yet the Hong Kong skyline never disappoints. For Lea it's her first time both on the continent and travelling in this manner. There is no doubt things have changed since I was once a Backpacker with endless amounts of time and a tight budget. I now find myself in a strange new group know as the "Flashpacker" perhaps trying to hang on to the ways I used to travel. By definition a Flashpacker is an older backpacker with deeper pockets and all the modern gizmos (did I just date myself) complete with iPhone, digital video cameras and tablets. I'm not sure if I am quite ready to embrace the new reality, however aside from all the devices it does sound alot like me. On arrival we did a quick tour of the city and settled in for the night in a posh hotel....yep doesn't sound like a Backpacker at all! The following day we took the train back to the airport for our flight to Sabah Malaysian Borneo. (Quick facts : Borneo 3rd Largest island in the world, 3 countries share it: Indonesia, Malaysia and sultan state of Brunei. Our arrival in Kota Kinabalu was uneventful other than loosing a 1cm multi tool stashed in my first aid kit to airport security in Hong Kong. We've decided to travel super light and only have carry on bags given the number of flights we have. After a bite to eat from the night market stalls we got some sleep in preparation for yet another flight to Mulu National park. Our small turbo prop plane ride to the jungle outpost was completely empty aside from us. Mulu a World Heritage Site holds the title of having the largest cave passage in the world by volume. We spent a day slithering with headlights in a muddy cave called Kenyalang. Our Malaysian guide Siria has spent her whole life in the deep jungles around Mulu her knowledge of the park, ecology and cave geology was astounding. She pointed out stick insects and other fascinating critters along the way. After doing some hand laundry back at our longhouse we returned to the park at night for a guided night walk. The night shift in the jungle is quite remarkable. Everything from giant stick bugs the size of your arm to tiny lizards looking for a meal. Without question the highlight was our guide pointing out a venomous green viper coiled in a tree a few feet off the path. I couldn't help thinking that if I was stuck out here for a night that I wouldn't get a wink of sleep in fear of what is lurking beyond the rays of my headlight. 2am it's hard to even hear your own thoughts. The jungle just outside our screened windows is alive with nocturnal life: barking frogs, crickets, and night creatures unique to theses jungles followed by torrential downpour. 8am we boarded a longboat to Wind & Clearwater caves. Stalactites, stalagmites and countless other formations are some of the reasons why this place is designated as a Unesco world heritage site. After a swim in the murky waters of the cave we retuned to the park HQ by boat in another downpour. (See attached video) In the afternoon we trekked to Deer cave. This place is truly one of those places that overwhelms a person. They say that 27 football fields fit inside the main opening of the cave. It holds title to the largest cave passage in the world. Home to 3 million bats and subsequently tonnes of guano create its own ecosystem. Epic cliffs and formation make it feel like something out of Jurassic Park. Columns of water fall hundreds of feet from the roof back lit by the light coming from the entrance. Unfortunately my camera batteries were done, regardless photos can't do justice to a place like this. After our exit we watched hundreds of thousands of bats leaving their home and disperse into the jungle for their nocturnal feed of insects. Following a morning canopy walk we headed back to the runway for our flight back to KK (Kota Kinabalu) unfortunately our plane was grounded for mechanical reasons so our 50 min flight turned into a multi city 7hr adventure. It seems the days of just turning up for tours or accommodation are over. We've run into road block after road block be it oversold flight, fully booked accommodation or no availability on tours. Perhaps travel has become so mainstream that its a numbers issue or that all the "Flash Gear" people carry these days dials them in for making reservations. Regardless what is clear is that we need to get on board or be left behind. After spending an exhausting day making bookings and changing plans on the fly we have decide to skip the elusive nation of Myanmar in favour of some exploration of Java Indonesia. But first we will go for the summit of the fabled Mount Kinabalu. Kinabalu day 1 It takes a mountain of red tape to get up Kinabalu and that's the easy part. We opted to have a tour broker arrange all the paper work, fees and logistics to save time. Our pickup arrived at 06:20 for transfer to the Typhon gate after picking up our mountain guide Mekin at the park HQ. Mekin, a local to the area has been guiding here for 10 years and goes to the summit at least once every week. He shook our hand and said "U Go slo, gud luk" We read about i,t trained for it, but are we ready to make it to the summit at 4000m +? The summit trail follows a short flat section for 100m and then it is up all the way for the next 5-6 hours to our mount hut in Laban Ratta. After a few hours of endless stairs and boulders we both started wondering what we got ourselves into. I looked back and Mekin smiled back at me. "U need rest?" He hadn't even broken a sweat. Our legs were on fire and we were both totally winded. After a few more punishing hours we were in the last Km approaching 3000 meters breathing became difficult given the ever increasing steepness of the trail. Every now and then a Malaysian porter would pass us carting everything from food, propane cylinders, to building materials up the trail. These superhuman guys carry 59-70kilos of stuff to the mountain huts. At an appalling rate of 20 cents per kilo and less than 1 cent per kilo to haul out trash. Truly amazing! They are the Heros of this mountain. We arrived at our mountain hut in good time regardless and rested before our safety briefing for the Via Ferrata portion of the trip. Via Ferratta means iron road. Developed by the Italians during the 2nd World War to evade the enemy in the mountains. It consists of iron ladders, cables and ledges fixed to the rock face to enable passage. We will use this "road" to make our way part of the way down after the summit. After a big meal we climbed into our bunks for the night at 8pm. We will rise at 2am by headlight to continue our quest for the top of Borneo. After a rough sleepless night we got up to rainfall unsure if we will go for it. Clearly a few of the other climbers from Singapore and China had an even rougher night than us. They had succumb to altitude sickness and had been throwing up all night....I wondered if we would be spared. Day 2 At 02:30 the rain broke and Makin gave us the nod and we set out by headlights. The path was a stream of other climbers all looking to summit like us at sunrise. No one spoke, everyone putting one foot in front of the other suffering in their own way. By 4am we were hauling ourselves up fixed ropes wondering how far the drop was on the other side in the black night sky. When does this end? Everything hurt our muscles pumped from the thinner air. Not having any time to acclimatize our bodies starved for it to stop. The pack of other climbers had spread out based on ability. We were somewhere in the middle, at 3800m the route levels off a bit followed by a small peak that is the true summit. The temperature just a few degrees above freezing Lea dropped her headlight while putting on more clothes. It cracked hitting the rock and was done so we shared the one headlight while scrambling over large boulders with hands and feet knowing we would have daylight on the way down. We made it to the top just as the sun crested over a neighbouring peak. Spectacular! You could see the entire northern part of Borneo with patches of woolly clouds well below our elevation. We took our summit photos and contemplated our long descent. After a few hours of climbing down we left Mekin and united with our Ferratta guide. We geared up and head to the start of the circuit. Lea hates me right now! "Rubber legs no sleep and now I have to climb on a ledge with a harness!" Some 2 hrs later we retuned to the hut for breakfast followed by the even more painful descent. Both our knees were totally swollen and it seemed like an eternity to make it down. Every step was pain in the knees. We encouraged the fresh climbers making their journey up the trail but also felt sorry for how far they still have to go. We were done by the time we reached the park HQ with nothing left. We retuned to KK and repacked our gear for a series of flights to Java at 6am the following day.........more to come.