For those of you who have never flown Air Asia, think Ryanair, multiply the size of it's operations by about 4, add on about 3 more things they can charge you with, modernise the aircraft and you will get the idea. We hadn't been impressed by them but they are still very cheap so we transited to Malaysian Borneo through the Kuala Lumpur Low Cost Carrier terminal (or LCCT for short), which can only be described as a glorified bus station!
We arrived and managed to grab a bus to the base of Mt Kinabalu in preparation for our assault on the peak the next day. It was cold, wet and misty but even without the view we could see we had arrived in the jungle.
Around every turn was thick vegetation, the sounds of chirping birds and buzzing insects never-ending and little spots of bright colours everywhere as the moisture hanging in the air nestled on the many flowers surrounding us. To bed early we went and were up to a clear morning and ready for the climb ahead.
Here are a few statistics for you:
Mount Kinabalu is 4095.2m high.
That's it!
We arrived at the national park HQ and started to feel like a cash machine. We had to go to 4 separate places and pay 4 separate fees, all of which had gone up and all of which were grossly overpriced. At this point we couldn't exactly start bartering but the price had gone up almost 25% from last year, a small example of how tourists are being reaped for as much as possible in this part of the world. It was even more surprising to find out that about 7 years ago it was an eighth of the price.
Anyway, enough of the moaning. We set off up the trail with our mandatory but very friendly guide Andrew. Through our time here he told us he used to be a porter, climbing the 6km to the guesthouse carrying anything that was needed on his back. He also told us he sometimes carried people who had injured themselves back down the mountain. Apparently Louise would have this option, I would require a helicopter.
After 6 hours of slow treading up the very beautiful and well maintained path we made it to Laban Rata, our stop-over for the night. We said goodbye to Andrew who arranged to meet us at 2:30am (groan) and settled down with a hot chocolate and dinner before heading to bed. Unfortunately overnight Louise was back and forth from the bathroom doing things that wouldn't be decent to talk about on a public blog. It is very rare for Louise to accept defeat but on this occasion it was quite obvious she was going no further.
After much assurance from Louise that I should go on myself I met Andrew and began our long slow slog up the last 2.5km, in the dark, in the rain and in the wind. It was cold, wet and dark when I reached the summit at 5am and to be honest I didn't want to wait for sunrise so headed back down.
Quite glad I did because as I descended the light grew and the lunar type landscape appeared out of the mist before me. My steady slow pace was a classic hare and tortoise situation as I overtook all but 5 people on the way up, and passed the heavy breathing, staggering masses on my way down and did it all in only 4 hours. We both then made our way down the mountain and onward to Sepilok, home of the Orangutan.
We spent a couple of days recovering from the climb and observing the giant orange apes both during the day and night when they turned all naughty and started pulling rubbish out of the bins and curling up in old cardboard boxes.
Again a real jungle experience with insects keeping us awake rather than loud music and sweating profusely in the almost 100% humidity.
We took a night walk amongst the soaring trees and dense undergrowth as flying squirrels glided above us in the forest canopy, green vipers hung in the branches and birds slept under leaves.
We carried onto the coast and Semporna, a place who's name means perfect apparently, it isn't! The only reason we were here was because we were off to Sipidan, one of the best diving sites in the world. We suffered in style though as we stayed in the business hotel, the only business hotel.
We then explored the jungle under the sea, swimming with schools of sharks, drifting along with turtles and gliding over never-ending waves of coral in Sipidan island.
We left Borneo with a real sense of not having had enough time, just means we have to go back!
