Backpacking

Pictures have been added

Okay, I know that I still owe this blog the Part II to the jungle trekking story. But since that is going to be a lot of yaddee, yaddee yadda about how amazing the local people are and all of that (written mostly for my benefit), I figured I would first let you read about me climbing a big damn mountain.

Sitting at home, thumbing through my South East Asia travel books, Mount Kinabalu was actually what first piqued my interest in heading to Borneo. Afterall, it is the highest mountain in SE Asia, yet seemed a manageable feat for my not-quite mountaineer, yet no city slouch, legs and ability to handle. And so after working my way from Kuala Lumpur (mainland Malaysia) over to Sarawak state on Borneo, I now find myself in Sabah state in a city called Kota Kinabalu (KK), a few hours from the park headquarters of Mount Kinabalu.

As I was waiting for a minivan to depart KK at 7 a.m. in the morning, I sat restlessly as the van would only depart when all of the seats were filled. As it turned out, there was another obvious tourist sitting on the curb as well, a Swede named Rikard. After chattting a bit, we established that this Mount Kinabalu transit system was not exactly a well-oiled machine. And then the final passenger arrived, an American girl from Kansas. All traveling alone, and previously hoping to find some people to share the guide fees with, we unknowingly became a small trio for the ascent up Mount Kinabalu.

I've been accused of rambling on in my writing, so I think I'll just cut to the chase. We arrived at Park Headquarters sometime around 9 a.m. and after some fumbling around trying to store my heroic amount of excess baggage, we were on the trail by around 10:30 a.m. The end point for the day would be Laban Rata Guesthouse some 5 km up the mountain (if you're reading this and you've climbed the mountain, I admit it, I'm throwing out random distances as if they were fact, when I really didn't pay much attention.)

The first day was a bit of a slog, though not extraordinary other than the fact that the trail is composed almost entirely of stairs that are about 2-4 feet high. I'm sure there is a good reason for this, but the only one that came to my mind as I was climbing was that the people who built it were just cruel bastards.

Reaching Laban Rata was an impressive sight. For one, the landscape on the way up had been a relatively unrelenting jungle landscape that didn't change too much. Two, the place is just really cool in a how in the hell did they get all of this stuff up here way. I had seen pictures of this place before, and it was recently mentioned in Outside Magazine as one of the hardest to reach bars in the world. True they do serve beer, but I wouldn't really consider it a bar, in the sense that everybody up there has to get up at 2 am to climbing an incredibly steep rock mountain the next day. None-the-less, I passed on the 18 Ringgit room temperature beers, thinking that was outrageous. But looking back, a beer for under $5 dollars is a bargain considering somebody actually had to carry it all up there, and damn it, I probably should have rewarded them for the effort by drinking one. Ah well, next time.

Laban Rata Resthouse

The funny thing about climbing this big damn mountain is that they apparently want you up at the top for sunrise. Being that the girl from Kansas was having a little difficulty with the altitude, our "guide" got us moving at 2:30 a.m. Being that it was raining and that getting up the mountain involves climbing up ropes over slick mountain faces, Rikard decided to give the ascent a pass and go back to sleep.

So after going at the pace of Amanda and our guide early on, we then got passed for the lead by a lone climber. I've never really thought of myself as all that competitive, but I'd had it with the Kansas pace and headed up on the mountain on my own, following a single headlamp that had become my nemesis. And then the light went away. Had the guy fallen off the mountain? Was he waiting behind a rock to jump me? What is going on!

Well, low and behold, when I arrived at the top there was this guy sitting in the dark; headlamp dead. He was a French guy and our reward for making it to the top a good hour before anyone else was to sit there and freeze, and I mean absolutely freeze, from 4:30 a.m. until sunrise at 6 a.m. In my own sick way, I was trying to convince myself of how nice it was to be cold in SE Asia, but in truth, it was just pretty miserable.

And then the sun came up and it was absolutely mesmorizingly beautiful. You'd never know by my pictures as I kept getting the keep the hand steady sign, which was pretty much impossible for me at that point. How funny, I was thinking, it would have been to come from Borneo with frostbite on my hands.

On the way down, I was telling my tale of freezing in the dark to a fellow descending hiker. We hadn't been talking long so I hadn't picked up on his accent before he asked, were the two of you hugging to stay warm? To which I replied dryly, well, French-American relations aren't quite that warm are they? And where was that guy from? France of course. D'oh!

It occured to me as I was standing in the rain at a bus stop-less bus stop, gazing into the middle of nowhere outside of a "crocodile farm"; that in my own sick way, I was really enjoying this. The woman in the croc farm had informed me that the bus would surely show up at 1:00, 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. These, it seemed, were not options, but rather possibilities.

And thus, there I was, standing roadside wondering to myself if the woman had mis-understood me. Perhaps she had thought I had asked, where is the best place to stand awkwardly in the rain for an hour and half? If that were in fact the case, then I had surely found the perfect spot.

You might be asking yourself, given my hefty dose of sarcasm here, why in the world would this fella be enjoying this particular moment of clear confusion and helplessness? Well, I might be asking myself the same thing. But, given a world of alternatives - sitting in a meeting, waking up early for work, driving in traffic, paying my taxes - standing in the rain with no need to be anywhere of consequence any time soon, or really any time at all for that matter, really seemed like a nice way to spend an afternoon.

There is a writer named J. Maarten Troost, who has written two books about his time living in the South Pacific. In his latest book, he recounts moving back to Washington D.C and taking on a banking job before chucking it all and moving back to the South Pacific. In assessing his life, he looks back on a day living in Kiribati where he spent an entire day attempting to move a dead pig from his yard. Not a pleasant activity, but as he mentions, that was a great day, because at least something interesting had happened.

That, is why I love travel. Something interesting just always seem to happen. No matter how mundane.

Okay then, now that I've gotten that out of me, I'm off to catch a plane to the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo. Will probably be out of touch for a bit, but the modern world has surprised me before, so you never know.

Some of you at home have mocked me for having what I have termed my "Internet travel buddies". Surely, you all thought it wouldn't be long until I showed up on Dateline NBC trying to explain why I had chosen to arrive at the home of a thirteen year old girl with a bottle of champagne, some fuzzy handcuffs, a skinny mustache and some smooth talk'in.

Kidding aside, having arrived in Kuala Lumpur and having been greeted at the train station by a guy I previously only knew as user name Hien, I instantly knew this Internet invention was a good thing.

"The wire is on fire!" zzzzzzppp. Power off. This is what just went down here at my hostel on Borneo. I'll be damned, she was right. The wire from the washing machine, was in fact, on fire. And she did in fact cut the power.

Man, I love this stuff.

Anyway, back to good old Hien the Internet buddy. To quote Billy Madison, "man, am I glad I called that guy. After a marathon of travel that took me from Denver to LA, to Taipei and finally to Kuala Lumpur; I arrived at one of the cleanest, most user friendly airports I've ever had the pleasure of passing through. Beat the hell out of LAX, I can tell you that. That said, I had no idea what to do with myself in KL.

Lucky for me, Hien and his cousin Jennifer met me at KL Sentral, which is where a super fast train whizzes you to from the airport.

Since I fear another "wire is fire" moment here, I'm not going to get into too much detail, but suffice it to say, my two days in KL were activity filled from the moment I arrived, to the moment I almost missed my plane to Borneo because Hien was doing his best to track down a Durrian for me to try before I left. Oh yeah, a durrian is apparently a fruit, the smell of which most Westerners seemingly compare to old socks, but Hien assured me the SE Asians love it. But I digress.

Although, we did way too much sightseeing to adequately describe it here, what I think I found the most intersesting in my first two days in Malaysia was learning about the three primary ethnic groups who live in KL. And we saw them all, as well as where they worship. Malaysia, though not a Muslim State, is a deeply Muslim country and the influence is everywhere. I'm also here during Ramadan, which has been quite interesting to watch as they "break fast" when the sun sets each day.

The second main group living in KL are the Indians. Each morning, Hien would arrive at my hostel and we would eat breakfast at the Indian restaurant down below. Apparently, corn flakes and coffee are not a big hit in India, so each morning I ate some interesting variety of a pancake with curry sauce. Quite good, actually.

And the third main group living in KL, are the Chinese. Hien was kind enough to take me to several Chinese Buddhist temples and I think these experiences were among the highlights for me.

Since I'm realizing that even I wouldn't be reading down this far, I'm going to leave it at that. But a big thank you goes out from me to Hien and Jennifer. You made my stay in KL exceptional and extremely memorable.