The Small Circle of Light: Summiting Mount Kinabalu (July 7-13, 2010)

Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo (July 7-10, 2010)

Our flight path took us over Brunei and into Malaysia’s easternmost state of Sabah and to its capital, Kota Kinabalu (or just KK). From the plane we also caught glimpses of Mount Kinabalu, eerily wrapped in wisps of cloud.

July 7: Leaving Mulu for Kota Kinabalu

On approach to Kota Kinabalu (or just 'KK'), the largest city in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo). You can see Mt. Kinabalu in the background.

Kota Kinabalu lacks the charm of Kuching, but it’s a pleasant enough place to transit with a lovely waterfront, nice markets and malls, and plentiful budget accommodation. We settled into Akinabalu Youth Hostel, which was clean and had a relaxed, communal vibe.

As Sharon had attended university in KK, our second night there we met up with some of her friends for one of those seafood fests that Malaysians seem to pull off best – plates and plates of grilled fish, giant prawns, cockles and other strange shells. I was concerned my Malaysian diet might cause the extinction of several species. The next day, we went to the seafood market on the waterfront and did it all over again: grilled fish, giant prawns, mystery shellfish. You get the picture.

July 8: Sharon went to university in Kota Kinabalu, so we met up with some of her college friends for a typical Sabah seafood feast. If there's one thing people know how to do in Southeast Asia, it's have feast. I mean look at the size of those prawns!

Then we visited the market (where we would eat the following day). More seafood!

That day, after nearly two weeks as my travel companion, Sharon received the call that she had been staffed on a project and was needed “back at the office.” We spent our last day together walking around KK taking silly photos and at the modern megamall at the edge of town, which had everything you could want in a mall, including shops dedicated to jigsaw puzzles and sushi-shaped doughnuts, a fake rainforest, and indoor archery and bowling (neither one of us broke 100) and families of all sorts playing together, locals and foreigners, Muslims and Christians, Hindus and non-believers. If I haven’t said it already, Malaysia is wonderfully multicultural and comfortable beyond all expectations.

And with that, my favorite tattoo-collecting lesbian geologist travel companion was gone, and I was once again on my own. . . .

July 9: After two weeks traveling together, Sharon got the call that she had been staffed on a project and needed to get back to work. We spent our last day together doing silly fun stuff in KK.

KK waterfront

The malls in Asia are amazing. This one in KK had everything, from archery....

Mount Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo (July 11-13, 2010)

I arrived by Minivan at D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge (MYR 30, or about $9, for a dorm bed) just outside the Kinabalu National Park entrance. Like Mulu, staying outside the park was a steal compared to staying in it. At the lodge, I met fellow traveler, Rebecca, who was also here to climb Mount Kinabalu.

Peaking at 4,095 meters (13,435 feet), Mt. Kinabalu is no cakewalk (or finger in the nose, as the French say), but neither is the ascent Herculean. Thousands of people successfully summit the mountain each year. A guide and permit are required to attempt the summit, and of course I just rocked up with no reservations.

Luckily, as I was inquiring about the climb and discovering it was booked out, I ran into a couple, Peter and Bernadett, who had prebooked their climb for three people. Luckily for me (and unluckily for Bernadett’s sister), Bernadett’s sister had become ill and did not make it to Borneo. The helpful park staff substituted me for Bernadett’s ill sister, and Bernadett and Peter were happy to receive my payment.

Suddenly I had to shop for climbing clothing, as I had literally arrived as unprepared as can be – no fleece, no shell, no warm clothing to speak of, and as I mentioned no reservation – and the temperature at the summit could drop to freezing. The lodge where I was staying “rented” used sweaters and jackets, or rather they sold them to you and then gave you a partial refund when you returned them (after prior renters left without returning the clothing). I was able to suit up with fleece, a nice shell, and a new hat and gloves for about $25. Things were going swimmingly.

July 11: View out the back window of the minivan as I left KK for Mt. Kinabalu. Something about the dirt and the lines on the window make the van seem like a prison, with paradise just outside.

Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea, making it also one of highest mountains in Southeast Asia.

The daily 6 p.m. briefing by the park service before the climb.

Only a handful of people showed up for the 6 p.m. climb briefing. The next day at about 7:30 a.m., Bernadett, Peter, Rebecca and I checked in at park headquarters and were assigned John as our guide. I also inquired about hiring a porter. It worked out to about $1 per pound to hire a porter to carry stuff up the mountain, so I thought, hmmm, $175 and I could be carried up the mountain.

At 8:38 a.m., we began ascending from Timpohon Gate (1,866 meters) what seemed to be an interminable series of steps through tall trees with occasional opening upon magnificent vistas of distant valleys and peaks. Two hours into the climb, we found ourselves in the clouds and things cooled down a bit. We remained in the clouds for the rest of the hike, reaching our base camp lodge at Laban Rata (3,272 meters) at 1:56 p.m. after just over five hours of climbing.

July 12: 8:22 a.m. - Day 1 of the ascent - Mt. Kinabalu

8:38 a.m. - The Fellowship of the Ring - with Rebecca, Peter and Bernadett

9:34 a.m. - It only cost about $1 per pound to hire a porter to carry stuff up the mountain, so I thought: Hmmm, $175 and I could be carried up the mountain. OK, uh, $185.

Now the way it works is this: When you get your permit to climb, you also pay for your guide, your overnight accommodation at Laban Rata, insurance, and 4-5 meals – lunch on the trail, dinner at the lodge, an early breakfast, a later breakfast (Hobbits would love this), and another lunch back at the bottom of the mountain – and the whole thing comes to about $200 (a definite splurge, but worth it). So Laban Rata is quite a kick in the pants, because you arrive in the early afternoon, check in (it has a great mountain chalet feel to it), and have nothing to do all afternoon but socialize and eat – two of my favorite activities. The downside is that you begin the second half of the ascent at 2 a.m. So I set a goal of going to bed at 6 p.m., which of course I missed by a couple of hours.

9:42 a.m.

10:50 a.m. - Ascending through clouds

The lodge had a nice restaurant. Why do restaurants need to display these goofy chefs? From what I could see, the people in the kitchen were teenagers likely earning a dollar a day, and they had a hell of a commute (since the only way to the lodge is via a 5-hour hike). They were not goofy gnome-like French chefs.

Dinner was a fantastic all-you-can-eat affair, and of course I showed no restraint, ignoring all the conventional wisdom about eating light at altitude, eating light before you go to sleep, and especially eating light before you go to sleep at altitude because it’s hard to fall asleep at altitude. By 8 p.m., Rebecca, Bernadett, Peter and I had squeezed ourselves into the walk-in closet that passed for our 4-bunkbed room. Needless to say, I barely slept.

1:30 a.m. came much too quickly. I showed my spirit and commitment to the climb by being the last one up and missing first breakfast. Just after 2 a.m., I downed a cup of tea, turned on my headlamp, and stepped into the darkness to summit Mt. Kinabalu.

July 13: Day 2 of the ascent - starting the second leg of our ascent to the summit just after 2:30 a.m. with only head-lamps to light our way.

3:53 a.m. - an hour and 23 minutes into our ascent. Much of the ascent was along sheets of granite.

That little circle of light in front of my face was my constant friend for the next four hours. After an ascent of slippery wooden stairs, the trail of lights fanned out like a pearl necklace over the bare granite face of the mountain. Although the granite didn’t seem steep and the darkness obscured any sense of altitude, we grasped ropes for part of the climb and occasionally used them to pull ourselves along.

The last kilometer to the summit was the steepest – crowded with boulders and uncrowded with precious oxygen molecules. Lonely Planet only somewhat exaggerated the scene as people reduced to crawling breathlessly on their hands and knees. Surprisingly I was having little problem breathing, as I had divined that the only way I was going to make it to the top was to take deep breaths and shallow steps. I was the slowest in our group of four, so our fantastic guide John stuck with me the whole way, showing me the easiest path to the top.

5:39 a.m. - This 15-second exposure photo was shot in darkness just before sunrise. You can make out the head-lamps of climbers reaching the summit and one already at the summit.

5:46 a.m. - dawn's early light

At about 5:46 a.m., I caught the first glimpse of dawn’s first light. The sun gently rose as I reached the boulders around the summit. Just before 6:20 a.m., breathless and reduced to crawling over the last few boulders, I reached the summit of Mt. Kinabalu. If the climb didn’t kill me, the excitement was about to. My heart was racing as fast as the view was breathtaking. I had reached what was undoubtedly the highpoint of my Southeast Asia travels in more ways than one. The feeling recalled my completion of the Inca Trail some 16 years earlier.

5:51 a.m. - reaching for the summit of Mt. Kinabalu

6:20 a.m. - I reached the summit after more than 3.5 hours of climbing in mostly darkness. The elevation change during the second leg of the climb was from 3272m to 4095m.

The fun was not over yet. I still had to get down the mountain, find my way back to Kota Kinabalu (I had no ticket or reservation), get to the airport, and catch a flight to Jakarta, all in about 12 hours. And my legs were mush.

By 6:30 a.m., I was headed down the mountain – nearly 9 kilometers and 2,229 meters of descent (7,313 feet) to go. On good reason for climbing in the dark is that you get to see the sunrise. The other, which I discovered on my way down, is that if you’d seen what you were climbing, you might have turned back, or at least stopped for a will-writing break. While there were not a ton of precarious spots along the climb, the few there were looked a lot scarier in daylight than when all my attention was focused on that small circle of light from my headlamp.

6:25 a.m. - With my guide John. He was fantastic! I tipped him well.

6:39 a.m. - jumping for joy. I was happy to be descending!

6:45 a.m. - The descent to base camp took just over 2 hours.

6:50 a.m. - Descending. Only 8 km to the start of the trailhead.

I reached base camp at 8:44 a.m., where I hobbited my way to second breakfast (all-you-can-eat of course) and took a nice long shower. Then I continued down to the park entrance, which took about another few hours; I arrived around 2 p.m. At the bottom, you could tell the people who had just climbed, as they were possessed of a most pronounced wobbly gait.

6:57 a.m.

6:56 a.m.

7:08 a.m. - shortcut

7:18 a.m.

Another meal awaited me at the bottom: an all-you-can-eat lunch buffet, and remember Malaysian food ain’t so bad. By 3 p.m., I was looking for a bus to take me back to KK, and by 3:30, I was getting nervous about not finding one. Basically my choices were to take a taxi back or stand by the roadside and pray. Finally a bus came along and scooped me up, got me back to KK in under two hours, just before 7 p.m., which was my cut-off point for making it comfortably to the airport. I retrieved my left luggage at the hostel, grabbed a taxi, and made it to the airport early.

There I said goodbye to one of my favorite places in Southeast Asia: No, not Famous Amos’, but the island of Borneo. What an amazing place – as I’ve said before, perhaps my all-around favorite destination in Southeast Asia, and definitely the most fun.

That night I flew to Jakarta, Indonesia. In Jakarta, I would endure hours more fun before I finally arrived at my guesthouse around 2 a.m., which meant I was on the go without sleep for 24 hours. But that’s a story for my next report. . . .

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS BELOW:

Mosque in KK near the market and waterfront

Sushi-shaped doughnuts at a KK mall

...to bowling. (Neither one of us broke 100.)

7:32 a.m. - on the ropes

7:38 a.m. - base camp in sight

8:44 a.m. - back at base camp for breakfast and a shower, before continuing down to the trailhead and park headquarters, another 3:36 hike down a steep trail (1390m descent). No one leaving the trail could walk straight. That afternoon I made a mad dash to the airport in KK for my flight to Jakarta, Indonesia.

Falling for Mulu (July 1-7, 2010)

Miri, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo (July 1-3, 2010)

I’d never heard of Miri before, except as the name of an episode of Star Trek (1960s). There’s apparently no connection between the episode and the large town at the eastern end of Sarawak close to the Sultanate of Brunei. For travelers, it’s basically a small transit city for visits to nearby wilderness areas, including Gunung Mulu National Park (or just Mulu). We stayed in Miri two days catching up on internet, doing laundry and buying things we would need for our trip to Mulu. I didn’t see much of the town or try to.

The nightlife in the vicinity of our excellent guesthouse (Minda Guesthouse) was made evident by the cheers and hollers that would erupt from the neighborhood each time Brazil or The Netherlands scored a goal in the World Cup. Occasionally I would wander out to the bar across the street where Kilkenny and Guinness beer were on tap and burgers (chicken burgers for me) went for less than a buck a piece at the nearby burger stall.

We finally procured flights to Mulu National Park, the only way into the park, practically speaking. When we arrived at the airport, I was surprised to see such a clean, modern, comfortable airport in a place I had never heard of before. There were even nice shops, including a Famous Amos cookie (and candy) shop. I asked Sharon about Famous Amos, because I had seen it in a Malaysian mall once. It’s interesting how certain chains do well in certain counties. Like I’d never come across a Kenny Rogers BBQ Chicken restaurant in the U.S., but they pop up with some regularity in Southeast Asia. Sharon explained that there’s a mall in Kuala Lumpur with a Famous Amos on every floor. Consider that most malls in KL seem to be about six stories high. We ascended to the departure lounge on the second floor of tiny Miri airport and sure enough there was another Famous Amos shop.

Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo (July 3-7, 2010)

Gunung Mulu National Park (or just Mulu) is Sarawak’s premier national park and a huge source of foreign tourist money. Nearly everyone on our Bombardier ATR-72 prop plane was of Australian or European origin. The flight from Miri was great: exactly 19 minutes, barely enough time for me to stir in my seat and find my page in my book. Nearly everything in the park requires a tour guide, which separates you from still more of your lose change. Need to use the restroom? Gotta hire a guide. I jest of course, but it sure felt that way at times.

From Miri we caught a flight to Sarawak's most popular and heavily promoted (and thus most expensive) national parks, Gunung Mulu National Park (or just Mulu). You can only get there by flying (a 20-minute flight from Miri) or by boat (several days and poor connections). Come on, look at that river! Flying is a lot cheaper too.

Arrival in Mulu. Nearly all the passengers were of European descent. Mulu seems targetted at foreigners and wealthy Malaysians.

Reservations for hikes and park activities often fill up the day before, which can leave you stuck unless you can find a private guide. Accommodation in the park, too, is nearly impossible to reserve. We called before arriving but couldn’t reserve a bed (however, when we arrived, the national park hostel which was “full” one night I stayed there had more than a dozen beds that went unused – one suspects their policy of taking reservations without a deposit leads to a certain amount of “overbooking”).

No matter. We spent our first night at a very rustic and shabby nameless hostel just a couple of hundred meters from the park entrance. The leaning, collapsing, ramshackle wooden structure had seen better days (or perhaps not), and in my black and white photos of the place, it looked more like a crime scene than accommodation, but the beds functioned and I managed to sleep. And it cost next to nothing. Note to self: Bring a portable smoke detector on my next trip.

Our guesthouse outside the park -- because the park accommodation was supposedly "full" -- cost next to nothing, but looked like one of those old motels from a horror movie.

After getting settled, we entered the park.

And after all that griping let me just say that Mulu still manages charm the visitor. Really! I had the time of my life in this park.

The first thing we did upon entering the park was hike to Deer Cave (about 45 minutes). Never mind that Deer Cave is part of the world’s largest cave corridor according to the travel gods, because we didn’t sign up for a freakin’ guide anyway, so we didn’t get to see the inside of the cave. Doesn’t matter; it gives me a reason to return. But the other reason I could care less about the inside of the cave is that the real action is outside. What is amazing about Deer Cave is standing or sitting or lying on your back outside the cave at about 4:30 p.m. when the cave’s two million bat inhabitants stream out.

Sharon and I arrived literally as the show was about to begin. One minute the sky was clear; the next minute, a black swarm could be seen snaking across the sky and disappearing behind the trees. Then another swarm of them would emerge and cross the sky, then another and another. I don’t have the words to describe what watching this spectacle was like, but if I did, they would go something like this: grrrraa, shrwow! A friend once described lying on his back in the very center of Australia on a clear night watching a thousand meteorites an hour shoot overhead (that’s one every 3-4 seconds), sometimes exploding into green and yellow fireballs or splitting into pieces. Watching these bats is probably the animal-world equivalent of that meteor shower and alone worth the trip to Mulu.

Some people left the show early. Big mistake. Never leave a Jackie Chan movie without watching the credits (and bloopers) at the end, never pack up in the middle of a Fourth of July or Disneyland or really any fireworks display without seeing the finale, and never, ever, ever leave the bat-streaming-from-Deer-Cave show without seeing the final, really long massive ribbon of bats that emerges at the end and continues a good ten minutes. It’s a sight I’ll never forget.

One of the largest caves in the world, Deer Cave in Mulu National Park is the site of one of the most spectacular wildlife shows on earth. Most afternoons starting around 4:30 p.m., the millions of bats that live in the cave pour out and snake across the sky en masse.

It's an amazing sight to behold!

Amazing! We sat and watched it until the end. Most people left after about 45 minutes. They missed the finale, those special scenes played during the final credits of a movie, in this case a massive, continuous flow of bats lasting about 10 minutes. I highly recommend this experience!

Ironically, the next day was the Fourth of July. That morning, we did the canopy hike (again, by guide). At times we were 20 meters (65 feet) above the rainforest walking on wooden planks held in place by nets and rope and wood. It doesn’t feel particularly stable, but this just adds to the adventure and allure of the walk. At nearly half a kilometer in length, the canopy walk is supposedly the longest in the world. Again, a winner!

The canopy hike was interesting. At times we were 20 meters (65 feet) above the rainforest walking on wooden planks held in place by nets and rope and wood.

At nearly half a kilometer in length, the canopy walk is supposedly the longest in the world.

Next we did the adventure caving in the intermediate Racer Cave. We donned our helmets and headlamps and entered the pitch black cave, where we climbed and descended our way through and back. The hard part was applying upper body strength to climb up and down ropes, sometimes into what seemed to be a dark abyss. If you are claustrophobic, arachnophobic (or my own word, megalarachnophobic), or you can’t do a pull-up, well these are all reasons for the “intermediate” designation. And yet everyone on the tour loved it and made all the ascents and descents. Nobody died. A family with children even managed it as did some older folks. Adding to the edginess were the huge spiders and the occasional whine and flutter of a bat batting by you. I went into the cave full of trepidation and left it thinking “that was so much fun.” Another winner, and now you can see now how Mulu slowly grew on me and made me a fan.

Next we tried adventure caving in the intermediate Racer Cave.

The hard part was applying upper body strength to climb up and down ropes...

And of course there were the large spiders everywhere, for added fun.

But it was good, really good, because it was hard enough to scare me into thinking I couldn't to it, but ultimately doable.

By chance earlier in the day we had run into Harley and April whom we met during our visit to the Bundong Longhouse and whose names I could not forget: “Harley (like the motorcycle) and April (like the month).” So later that evening we joined them at the Royal Mulu Resort for dinner and drinks, where the drink menu included cocktails such as the Mulu Headhunter.

The Royal Mulu Resort is where the hoity-toity stay, like royalty, bankers and lawyers, and Harley and April. Well, OK, Harley and April are as down to earth as two people can be, and I must say their room looked quite attractive compared to the crime scene fire trap awaiting us. But the food at the Royal Mulu Resort was good but not exceptional (considering what they charged), and the live entertainment left Sharon embarrassed for her home state (she’s originally from Sarawak). She reckoned some tribe sent their worst performers to the show as some sort of joke on the tourists who spend loads to see it.

By chance we had run into Harley and April (whom we met during our visit to the Bundong Longhouse) and so later that evening we joined them at the Royal Mulu Resort for dinner and drinks. (Did we try the Mulu Headhunter?) They were so kind to us. My shout for drinks next time we meet.

The next day, Sharon and I set off for Camp 5. The journey takes all day, because first you take a boat to visit several caves, then you hike 8.2 kilometers with your pack to the camp. Most people go to Camp 5 to hike the Pinnacles the following morning, which was our plan. The caves we visited were fine, especially the one with the underground river, and I mean this thing was flowing hard, white water right down the center of the cave. The other cave, Wind Cave, had stairs and lights – attractive, but too developed.

After the caves, we returned to the boat which then dropped us at the trailhead for the 8.2-kilometer hike to Camp 5. The sky looked like it was about to rain, so I literally booked down the trail. Sharon was walking slowly with another girl we had met, Wendy, so I didn’t think anything of leaving these two capable women to walk on their own at a slower pace. In the last couple of kilometers, it began to rain hard and the trail became a long, muddy lake of sorts. I arrived at Camp 5, checked in and was assigned a bed in a long room full of beds – really just camping mattresses (you have to carry in your own sheets, etc). Then I sat and watched the rain fall and waited for Sharon and Wendy, and waited, and waited.

As my concern grew for Sharon and Wendy, the rain came down harder and the sky grew darker as dusk set in. Had it gotten too dark to hike, I’d have gone looking for them with my headlamp, but at length they emerged from the woods completely bedraggled, and Wendy looked quite ill. It turned out she had taken ill on the trail and Sharon had carried her pack for her.

And so Wendy related to us (and some young physicians also staying at Camp 5) her tale of woe, and how she came to be ill on the trail to Camp 5. Wendy had recently been SCUBA certified and went diving. The night before her dives, she had a few beers. That's a no-no. The day of her diving she did four dives, but she did the deeper dives last instead of first. Again, that's a no-no, as it causes nitrogen to build up in, rather than dissipate from, the body. She exceeded her no decompression limits on those dives too, staying too deep for too long. BIG no-no. And then she hopped on a plane to Mulu after only 18 hours at sea level. Plane pressurized to 8,000 feet, residual nitrogen in her blood. Uh-oh!

Wendy had been a very naughty diver. Wendy broke just about every rule in the book. So the next morning as Sharon struggled with the Pinnacles – a rough climb that occasionally claims lives and would have easily claimed several buckets of my sweat had I climbed it – I escorted Wendy back 8.2 kilometers along the trail, back by boat, and back to park headquarters so she could catch the first flight to a city and get to a hospital. Wendy had decompression sickness, sometimes known as the “bends” – a painful and potentially deadly illness caused by nitrogen bubbles forming in the blood. After some time in a decompression chamber, Wendy recovered. She has since become a foremost expert (example) of what not to do when you go SCUBA diving.

July 5: The next day, we set off for Camp 5. The journey takes all day, because first you take a boat to visit several caves, then you hike 8.2 kilometers with your pack to the camp. Most people go to Camp 5 to hike the Pinnacles the next morning. This is Wendy. Her camera was not working in the cave (the Wind Cave?), so I took her photo for her. Little did I know how entwined our lives would become over the next 24 hours. This is because Wendy is a very naughty girl....

July 6: You see, Wendy (pictured here at Camp 5) just got SCUBA certified and went diving. The night before her dives, she had a few beers. That's a no-no. The day of her dive, she did four dives, but she did the deeper dives last instead of first. Again, that's a no-no. She exceeded her no decompression limits on those dives. BIG no-no. And then she hopped on a plane to Mulu after only 18 hours at sea level. Plane pressurized to 8,000 feet, residual nitrogen in her blood. Uh-oh!

That's Wendy and I right before I accompanied her back 8.8 kilometers, back on a boat, and back to park headquarters so she could catch the first flight out and get to a hospital. Wendy had decompression sickness, sometimes known as the 'bends.' Wendy is OK now. And she has become a foremost expert on what not to do to avoid the bends. Although I may have embarrassed Wendy a little bit here, she's a wonderful person, and we can all learn something from her experience.

At least I got to sleep on the boat ride back. Poor Sharon was stuck climbing the Pinnacles, which I had read was dangerous and hell.

The next day, Sharon emerged from the woods barely able to walk, while I had seen Wendy to her plane and then enjoyed quite a relaxed and civilized final 24 hours in the national park. That afternoon, Sharon and I made the five-minute trip to the airport and boarded the Bombardier ATR-72 for our flight not back to Miri, but to Kota Kinabalu in the eastern state of Sabah.

Mulu had grown on me, really grown on me. I frankly wouldn’t mind getting a group of friends together and going back there someday. It’s that good! But I had missed climbing the Pinnacles, perhaps for the better (I don’t do well in humid heat). I had one more chance to do a great climb in Borneo, and it was staring back at me through the window of the airplane. . . Mount Kinabalu.

ADDITIONAL PHOTOS BELOW:

July 4: The next day we did some hikes and saw some critters.

April and Harley, nice fun people.