Townsend came this weekend! We had a blast, and got to explore parts of the country I haven't been yet. But first, I want to share a story about a fellow exchange student's experience over spring break.
There are a couple of exchange girls here from Columbia. Due to the country's reputation, they are required to get entry visas to EVERY single country in the region. Considering the cost and time this takes, unfortunately they haven't been able to join us on alot of trips so far. However, spring break was a chance for them to plan ahead and get out. One of the girls decided to go to Indonesia with a couple of friends. They landed in the Bali airport, and was going through customs when she was stopped. They asked if she was Chinese, as China has the same color passport as Columbia (red) and when she said no, I'm Columbian, they took her and her suitcases aside. They informed her they would be going through everything, and that they did out in public. She said they searched every nook, lining, etc of her suitcase. They found an un-opened box of tampons, proceeded to open it and ask her what they were. When she replied with the answer, they opened one to see what was inside....how embarrassing! They let her through and that was that. On her way home, she traveled on a a different date then her friends. She was stopped again at customs and asked what she was doing. Traveling with friends. Where are your friends? They aren't coming back with me. Why not? They just arent.... Do you know that your missing a visa stamp? She told them that she submitted for the visa online and was granted it and given it upon arrival a couple days ago at that same airport. They decided to take her back into an interrogation room and ask her questions for the next 20 minutes. She said she was terrified and finally they told her she could go. What a terrible experience....
So back to Townsend. He landed at 1230am on Saturday morning, and just like what happened with dad and Max, I got confused about the terminals but his time I didn't make it in time, Townsend was stuck wandering around by himself for a little bit while I was freaking out about why he didn't get off the plane I was waiting for. But I eventually found him and we grabbed a taxi to our hotel for the weekend in Geylang. Geylang is the infamous Singaporean red-light district. I have never been here before or knew anyone else who had, but I figured it's Singapore, how bad can it be? Prostitution is legal and kept inside brothels here? Anyways, they had the cheapest hotel prices and was close to the MRT and airport! When I checked into the hotel that evening before Townsend arrived, it looked a bit different than every else I had been, but not that much. The streets were more crowded, there was more trash on the roads and it smelled a little bit more. It looked like a slightly cleaner version of all the places in Malaysia I had traveled too. No prostitutes in site, so no worries.
Well on our way home, at 1am, it was more crowded than in the evening. We saw a couple of "lady boys" that our taxi pulled out, and went upstairs for the night. The next morning, we were hitting Chinatown and downtown to join a school tour of a reservoir. We stopped at a corner Indian restaurant outside for a quick breakfast. Across the alley was a bunch of people just standing around. Then suddenly they all ran away and we saw a police car turn the corner. I've watched enough Law and Order to know what was going on here. There were only a few seats at the restaurant, so a guy sat down across from us to eat. He started to chat with us, and he told us that you must register and be inside a brothel to be legal here, but lots of women come from Thailand to stand on the streets illegally, which was who we were looking at. Most were normally dressed, shorts and a normal shirt, but there were a few in some more "professional" clothing. I guess that's why I didn't notice them before, they don't stand out.
Chinatown was great, we went shopping and bought some cute little local art pieces, went into the Buddha Tooth Relic Museum and Temple again, its just too cool! We hit a Hindu temple and then went into town. We got a free tour at Marina Bay Reservoir, one of 17 reservoirs in the country. We learned all about the contraptions used, and then got a tour of the little museum inside that talked about how Singapore is on top of its game in energy conservation. 30% of their water supplied to the country is NewWater, the recycled water from baths and toilets. The top of the beautifully designed building was a grass roof where there were tons of people picnicking and flying kites. The roof collected rain water for use and had large solar cells to collect solar power. Singapore really is super-eco-friendly.
The next day, we really had no plans, so I decided to take Townsend across the country to see my school. From one side of the country to another its a little over an hour train ride, so its another relaxing (and AC) way to see the country for cheap. We hopped on the MRT and went to school. He got to see how tiny my dorm was, the awesome view from the 7th floor, as well as the big highlights of campus. I took him to the mall/food area next to campus where I always eat and shop at.
There's this MRT stop called Chinese Gardens near my school that I always wanted to stop at. Literally the only this there is a gardens set in the middle of a very large field and lake. There were people flying kites and playing cricket. We went into the gardens, its mainly Chinese gardens with a Japanese garden site, as well as the Guiness Book's largest turtle "museum", which is a turtle sanctuary. The sign boasts over 3,000 turtles with 1,000 species. We wandered around the gardens, there were dragon-shaped bushed, an 7 story pagoda, a lake, some ponds, tons of turtles, coy fish, and statues of famous Chinese men, such as Confucius. We went in to the turtle museum, which had everything from tanked turtles to those in a tub you can feed to free-wandering turtles. We saw the most dangerous (shout out to the Florida-living alligator snapping turtle, one actually snapped at Townsend through the glass! We both kind of screamed....), the flattest, weird snake-head turtles, everything. They were all so cute!
We had a 4am wake-up this morning to get to the airport on time and for Townsend to work his Continental employee magic and get on the flights. I came back to my dorm to sleep. When I woke up, my roommate opened the door! She said she didn't have enough participation points to stay in the dorm this year, so she was kicked out and it took her this long to get assigned another room. She moves in officially tomorrow!!!
Monday, March 28, 2011
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Post-Spring Break Update
Dun Dun Dun. When I returned back from my break, there was my roommates name written on my door. I was no longer alone. Well, sort of. I found some notes under my door (the Hall ladies like to hand deliver notices) saying that I have a room mate who picked up her key card at the beginning of break. Her bed was moved around, so I knew she had been here. But here it is, 10 days after she picked up her key card, and she still hasn't shown up! Judging by her name, I am assuming that she is local. I have heard that lots of local students who live in the dorms still spend much time at their parents' house, so maybe she decided to stay there a bit longer of something? I'm patiently awaiting her arrival, it will be nice to have company!
Class has been going well. Had an Optics test this morning and it wasn't that bad. It is a little odd though, these mathematical equations. Math has no "language", everyone writes the same equations the same way, or atleast that's what I thought. There are different ways to write the same equations, but there are the general accepted forms of the equations for certain college classes. However, my optics class uses different versions of the equations than what I have been learning for the past 4 years. I won't bore you with examples, but it wasn't what I expected. The questions are still super easy compared to what I feel like should be expected, but we'll see when the exam time comes.
Townsend comes this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Saturday, I had originally planned to join a small group of students who are going to see the Marina Barrage downtown, which is a reservoir that provides water to the citizens. There is an engineering professor who is leading the two hour tour. I think Townsend and I will still go, since we are nerdy and things like that are cool :)
I feel like there is nothing much more to write about today, but I think it is more that I'm just getting used to everything here that I notice little things less because I see them all the time. I can talk about somethings I learned in class though?
We just did a lecture on Women and Islam. Its a general stereotype, not just western, that Muslim women are "oppressed" by their religion, and we learned about how generally that isn't necessarily the case, even though there are always expections to the rule. There will always be sexists in the world. But what I thought was more interesting was us learning about harems. Brothel's, right? Nope. That's another bad western stereotype. It was quite funny, we were in class, and my teacher, being a Westerner, was trying to get the students to explain what they heard were stereotypes for harems. They answered bath houses, places for females only, and one even said they reminded her of the a kitchen b/c its another place where lots of women gather. The professor is giggling, nervous about saying "They're all prostitutes" To the class, but it eventually came out. Obviously out stereotype isn't shared around the world. But we got to learn when they really were, and how they weren't whore houses or prisons for women.
The first segregation of women started during the days of Muhammad. He had a wife, who was older and eventually died and then married another, Aisha, who is the more commonly known wife. Later in his life, Muhammad becomes a polygamist, which is allowed as long as the men can treat all his wives equally and provide for them all. These wives were all widowed women of husbands who died fighting for Muslims. If a women was a widow, she was an outcast in society at this time because she had no man's guidance, so he married them for protection and to raise their societal status. The veiling of women was actually a multi-cultural thing, practices in Greece, Christianity, North Africa, and the Middle East. It is unknown how its spreading got shared throughout the world, but it wasn't a "Muslim" thing for the oppression of women. Veiling started out as a status symbol, of age and respect. Muhammad's wives were segregated into a harem-like environment where no male was allowed to touch/see them, as they spoke to others through a physical barrier. This was because they were the Prophet's wives, so it was a status symbol that these "Mothers of Islam" were so special, nobody could see them.
This of course later was interpreted in a common sense of "my wife is super important, therefore no one should see her like Muhammad's wives". Unlike other common stereotypes, the kings, who had the large, vast harems, they were segregated from the population as well. It wasn't like people could see the King, but not the Queen (or actually Sultan during this time period). Nobody could see either. When the women wanted to shop, visit the doctor, etc. they allowed female doctors and vendors to enter the harem, so it actually gave a need for female entrepreneurs and doctors and educators. Other women from other harems could come visit as well.
The harems consisted of the Queen, her single or widowed relatives (sisters, aunts, etc), and their female slaves and the king's concubines. Also, the male heir to the throne was kept in the harem until the day that he was to take the throne. This was originally supposed to be for protection and for the mom to help raise her kid and for him not to be influenced by outside sources, even though this ended up making the women's influence on the Sultan's decisions more to her side than anyone elses
Another thing that was interesting was the concubines. A rich king had concubines from all over the world, but this was for a "look at all the kingdoms I've been too and lands I've seen" sort of reason. The Concubines' children were the heirs, not the queen's children. This was so when the child was growing up in the harem, he wouldn't be influenced by the aunts/grandmothers of his mom, as the concubines had no family in the area and the boy could make more of his own decisions instead of being convinced to think a certain way. Also, that's what they were there for, to bare children, not to be used for sex. It was a law that any child born to a man, that man was economically responsible for that child, even though he would stay with him mother. So kings didn't just go around using all the women, as then he would be broke with child support basically.It was a woman's choice of her birth control and pregnancy terminations, so they're held the upper hand in that situation. And the vast majority of the harem were relatives to the king, and (obviously) you don't sleep with your relatives.
When a women left her child bearing years, she became a patron of the arts and architecture. She would donate large amount of money to have a mosque or library built, etc. This was her showing the world, hey I'm here and I'm powerful ($$). She was done with her mothering role and could now be shown to the society as a classy lady.
Class has been going well. Had an Optics test this morning and it wasn't that bad. It is a little odd though, these mathematical equations. Math has no "language", everyone writes the same equations the same way, or atleast that's what I thought. There are different ways to write the same equations, but there are the general accepted forms of the equations for certain college classes. However, my optics class uses different versions of the equations than what I have been learning for the past 4 years. I won't bore you with examples, but it wasn't what I expected. The questions are still super easy compared to what I feel like should be expected, but we'll see when the exam time comes.
Townsend comes this weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Saturday, I had originally planned to join a small group of students who are going to see the Marina Barrage downtown, which is a reservoir that provides water to the citizens. There is an engineering professor who is leading the two hour tour. I think Townsend and I will still go, since we are nerdy and things like that are cool :)
I feel like there is nothing much more to write about today, but I think it is more that I'm just getting used to everything here that I notice little things less because I see them all the time. I can talk about somethings I learned in class though?
We just did a lecture on Women and Islam. Its a general stereotype, not just western, that Muslim women are "oppressed" by their religion, and we learned about how generally that isn't necessarily the case, even though there are always expections to the rule. There will always be sexists in the world. But what I thought was more interesting was us learning about harems. Brothel's, right? Nope. That's another bad western stereotype. It was quite funny, we were in class, and my teacher, being a Westerner, was trying to get the students to explain what they heard were stereotypes for harems. They answered bath houses, places for females only, and one even said they reminded her of the a kitchen b/c its another place where lots of women gather. The professor is giggling, nervous about saying "They're all prostitutes" To the class, but it eventually came out. Obviously out stereotype isn't shared around the world. But we got to learn when they really were, and how they weren't whore houses or prisons for women.
The first segregation of women started during the days of Muhammad. He had a wife, who was older and eventually died and then married another, Aisha, who is the more commonly known wife. Later in his life, Muhammad becomes a polygamist, which is allowed as long as the men can treat all his wives equally and provide for them all. These wives were all widowed women of husbands who died fighting for Muslims. If a women was a widow, she was an outcast in society at this time because she had no man's guidance, so he married them for protection and to raise their societal status. The veiling of women was actually a multi-cultural thing, practices in Greece, Christianity, North Africa, and the Middle East. It is unknown how its spreading got shared throughout the world, but it wasn't a "Muslim" thing for the oppression of women. Veiling started out as a status symbol, of age and respect. Muhammad's wives were segregated into a harem-like environment where no male was allowed to touch/see them, as they spoke to others through a physical barrier. This was because they were the Prophet's wives, so it was a status symbol that these "Mothers of Islam" were so special, nobody could see them.
This of course later was interpreted in a common sense of "my wife is super important, therefore no one should see her like Muhammad's wives". Unlike other common stereotypes, the kings, who had the large, vast harems, they were segregated from the population as well. It wasn't like people could see the King, but not the Queen (or actually Sultan during this time period). Nobody could see either. When the women wanted to shop, visit the doctor, etc. they allowed female doctors and vendors to enter the harem, so it actually gave a need for female entrepreneurs and doctors and educators. Other women from other harems could come visit as well.
The harems consisted of the Queen, her single or widowed relatives (sisters, aunts, etc), and their female slaves and the king's concubines. Also, the male heir to the throne was kept in the harem until the day that he was to take the throne. This was originally supposed to be for protection and for the mom to help raise her kid and for him not to be influenced by outside sources, even though this ended up making the women's influence on the Sultan's decisions more to her side than anyone elses
Another thing that was interesting was the concubines. A rich king had concubines from all over the world, but this was for a "look at all the kingdoms I've been too and lands I've seen" sort of reason. The Concubines' children were the heirs, not the queen's children. This was so when the child was growing up in the harem, he wouldn't be influenced by the aunts/grandmothers of his mom, as the concubines had no family in the area and the boy could make more of his own decisions instead of being convinced to think a certain way. Also, that's what they were there for, to bare children, not to be used for sex. It was a law that any child born to a man, that man was economically responsible for that child, even though he would stay with him mother. So kings didn't just go around using all the women, as then he would be broke with child support basically.It was a woman's choice of her birth control and pregnancy terminations, so they're held the upper hand in that situation. And the vast majority of the harem were relatives to the king, and (obviously) you don't sleep with your relatives.
When a women left her child bearing years, she became a patron of the arts and architecture. She would donate large amount of money to have a mosque or library built, etc. This was her showing the world, hey I'm here and I'm powerful ($$). She was done with her mothering role and could now be shown to the society as a classy lady.
Day 6: KK to Singapore
We left for the airport to go back to Singapore in the afternoon, so we took the morning to stop at a Buddhist temple down into a small neighboring town in the morning for Max to Ooh over the cool architecture. We grabbed a taxi and headed to the temple, which was right behind the large blue state mosque (see in photos).
Puh Toh Tze Temple was a larger temple that I've been to through my travels. In the parking lot as a 20ft tall statue of a Buddha with a prayer pillow (for kneeling on). The entrance was much more decorated than what I have seen, with lots of animal protection (lion) and strength (elephant) statues. There were two main prayer halls, the later one having a 20 ft statue of the Buddha lying down. There were about 20 smaller statues of old Asian men doing weird things, like combing hair or yelling at someone. They had a multiple story "grave" area. It consisted of small grave markers that looked like book marks and urns with photos and words of blessing in them, stacked on lot of shelves through out rooms. There was a third smaller prayer room which held a free library where you could take books about Buddhism. There was a small section in English, and we snagged some "What Buddhists Believe" books, as well as the Dharma written in Chinese (because it was pretty and cool) and a book explaining the who/what/why of the different statues of monks/Buddhas.
We went back to the hotel to pack, as we had various bags for sharing and got on the plane to Singapore. We checked back into the same Indian hotel and had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver. He was older, in his 60s, and spoke very fluent English. He wanted to talk about the situation on Japan. He was saying how disappointing and unfortunate it is that many people are trying to make money off the situation, like the hotel prices in the cities are going up and the airplane tickets out of the country are much higher. HE said the Singapore Air tickets from Narita (Tokyo's airport) were like 3x more expensive than before. He also spoke of something interesting which he said he read in the newspaper: That some people believe God did this to Japan because of what they did in WWII and the fact that, unlike the Germans, they have no apologized to the world for their crimes. The Japanese did some pretty bad stuff to the people of South East Asia, such as their own death camps and marches, and purging the population of certain beliefs and ethnicity's. Given the age of this guy, as dad pointed out, he would have been born near or during the occupation of Japan in Singapore.
I took them out to Marina Bay Esplanade where we watched my good friend sing the other day. It was the ending of the music festival, and we went to the hawkers center and Max finally tried the meat-on-a-stick. There is something about any meat cooked on a stick that makes it just SO good, I think its the fact that they brush them with lots of oil. I've had these skewers in China, S'pore, and everywhere else I've came across them in SE Asia, they're amazing! We went and talked down by the Bay, looking at he city light and listening to music. The Marina Bay Sands (giant boat-like hotel/casino) and its corresponding mall was having a light show with changing lights and lasers for a long time. There was a 5 year old boy screaming with excitement, it was too cute!
I had a BLAST with everyone, that mountain was THE most amazing place I think I've ever been! Hope everyone enjoys the pictures!
Here are some extra things that we saw/thought about that I wanted to share :)
We saw a lady in a burka walk into kfc. I was tying to figure out how she eats in public while in her burka. She can't lift her mouth piece because she can't show her mouth. If she eats finger food, has okay but what if it's soup? How does she eat in public?
There are no plastic bags in the national park which makes sense since they can't hurt animals if they get into the mountain. But even in KK, the grocery store only gives outs plastic bags from Monday to Thursday.
When we were at Poring hot springs, all the staff were ladies and they were always in groups. When they took us to our room, two of them did. When we were eating and I asked where the bathroom was, two Ladies walked me there. Max said of course, they're battle buddies (Army talk) but we couldn't figure out why they did this., it seemed like it was a rule or something.
So there were lots of Muslim women climbing the mountain, meaning thy were fully covered in this heat and physically exhaustive sport. One girl had a shirt on that I could see up her sleeves a little and her "long sleeve shirt" underneath was actually arm coverings. That made me happy because it seemed like they wouldn't have to be so hot now.
You know how I know I've been here long? I have to translate the Malaysian or Singaporean accented English to the guys into American English. I'm sure everyone's heard thick accented English sometime In their life and it's a bit hard to understand. I fully understand there's and keep forgetting dad and max can't and I have to translate or talk To them back in a certain way.
Puh Toh Tze Temple was a larger temple that I've been to through my travels. In the parking lot as a 20ft tall statue of a Buddha with a prayer pillow (for kneeling on). The entrance was much more decorated than what I have seen, with lots of animal protection (lion) and strength (elephant) statues. There were two main prayer halls, the later one having a 20 ft statue of the Buddha lying down. There were about 20 smaller statues of old Asian men doing weird things, like combing hair or yelling at someone. They had a multiple story "grave" area. It consisted of small grave markers that looked like book marks and urns with photos and words of blessing in them, stacked on lot of shelves through out rooms. There was a third smaller prayer room which held a free library where you could take books about Buddhism. There was a small section in English, and we snagged some "What Buddhists Believe" books, as well as the Dharma written in Chinese (because it was pretty and cool) and a book explaining the who/what/why of the different statues of monks/Buddhas.
We went back to the hotel to pack, as we had various bags for sharing and got on the plane to Singapore. We checked back into the same Indian hotel and had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver. He was older, in his 60s, and spoke very fluent English. He wanted to talk about the situation on Japan. He was saying how disappointing and unfortunate it is that many people are trying to make money off the situation, like the hotel prices in the cities are going up and the airplane tickets out of the country are much higher. HE said the Singapore Air tickets from Narita (Tokyo's airport) were like 3x more expensive than before. He also spoke of something interesting which he said he read in the newspaper: That some people believe God did this to Japan because of what they did in WWII and the fact that, unlike the Germans, they have no apologized to the world for their crimes. The Japanese did some pretty bad stuff to the people of South East Asia, such as their own death camps and marches, and purging the population of certain beliefs and ethnicity's. Given the age of this guy, as dad pointed out, he would have been born near or during the occupation of Japan in Singapore.
I took them out to Marina Bay Esplanade where we watched my good friend sing the other day. It was the ending of the music festival, and we went to the hawkers center and Max finally tried the meat-on-a-stick. There is something about any meat cooked on a stick that makes it just SO good, I think its the fact that they brush them with lots of oil. I've had these skewers in China, S'pore, and everywhere else I've came across them in SE Asia, they're amazing! We went and talked down by the Bay, looking at he city light and listening to music. The Marina Bay Sands (giant boat-like hotel/casino) and its corresponding mall was having a light show with changing lights and lasers for a long time. There was a 5 year old boy screaming with excitement, it was too cute!
I had a BLAST with everyone, that mountain was THE most amazing place I think I've ever been! Hope everyone enjoys the pictures!
Here are some extra things that we saw/thought about that I wanted to share :)
We saw a lady in a burka walk into kfc. I was tying to figure out how she eats in public while in her burka. She can't lift her mouth piece because she can't show her mouth. If she eats finger food, has okay but what if it's soup? How does she eat in public?
There are no plastic bags in the national park which makes sense since they can't hurt animals if they get into the mountain. But even in KK, the grocery store only gives outs plastic bags from Monday to Thursday.
When we were at Poring hot springs, all the staff were ladies and they were always in groups. When they took us to our room, two of them did. When we were eating and I asked where the bathroom was, two Ladies walked me there. Max said of course, they're battle buddies (Army talk) but we couldn't figure out why they did this., it seemed like it was a rule or something.
So there were lots of Muslim women climbing the mountain, meaning thy were fully covered in this heat and physically exhaustive sport. One girl had a shirt on that I could see up her sleeves a little and her "long sleeve shirt" underneath was actually arm coverings. That made me happy because it seemed like they wouldn't have to be so hot now.
You know how I know I've been here long? I have to translate the Malaysian or Singaporean accented English to the guys into American English. I'm sure everyone's heard thick accented English sometime In their life and it's a bit hard to understand. I fully understand there's and keep forgetting dad and max can't and I have to translate or talk To them back in a certain way.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Day 5: Poring Hot Springs to KK
We woke up very sore. Dad made us get out of bed at 730 since he was already awake that mean everyone else had foo. We went back down to the restaurant for breakfast, our choice of Malaysia (fried rice or noodles) or American (toast, sausage which is really a fried hot dog, eggs, and baked beans and fruit) and we chose the American which also came with tea and watermelon juice. The tea here is all local, grown err from somewhere in Sabah or the mountain. At the museum in the park, I think I talked about seeing the gigantic beetles that were the size (bigger with wing spam) of my palms that could trip us, as Max put it. Anyway, we saw one today at breakfast! It was buzzing around a light post, but it was like a bird buzzing around a small lamp. HUGE. It was creepy and gross!
We went down to the springs for another try at securing a private bath but there was nobody there and the closed sign was out though we were half and hour into their proclaimed opening time. We decided to try one of the open baths. In the end, we all jut jumped into one since the water would have taken hours to fill the tub so we just sat in about two inches of it and splashed it onto ourselves.
Dad and I decided to go wander through the botanical gardens in hope of seeing a rafflesia, which Max stayed behind because he thinks flowers are gay lol. The gardens ended up bring a large plot of fences off jungle with wild and caged animals in it, still cool. There was a small cage off to the side before the entrance which I believe was the site for the rafflesia, but all I saw was a large orange-red bulb, so I'm guessing their out of season. It is only march and we're a mile up so its not super hot.
Our first encounter was a Gibbon monkey in a cage. He was along and had a nice set of bananas there to eat. He was swinging all over the cage and his ropes making cooing sounds. He followed dad where ever he wandered around the cage, he was too cute! Next, we happened upon an aviary. There were two type of birds in it said the sign, one that looked like a pheasant but had a larger tail and was colorful like a peacock. The other was a green dove. The birds were scarce, but we did see the doves flying above and a little family of peacock-like birds running around in the stream flowering through the aviary. Then we found the monkeys. The bad moneys that were wild. We think they live here, and they're wild and not apart of the exhibit. Dad was standing inside the bird net and outside were 3 monkeys. 2 were playing on the trees and other was staring at dad hissing. He was pissed. We had to go out that way, so we did, the monkey came closer. He was baring his teeth and hoofing and puffing while the other 2 were jumping through trees. Then he got even closer. He was about 30 feet away and we decides let's go NOW! King of scary.... He would have definitely attacked us....
The rest of the cages that held various animals were empty. There was a nicely kept cage for a slow loris, but the cage door was opened, I'm not sure if by accident or not, so he wasn't there. We saw deer tracks everywhere through the mud and dad and I each caught a few leeches sucking on our toes, just small ones about 1/4 of a worm. We found the deer eventually. There was a part of the gardens where from the outside you could feed them. The whole heard, maybe about 12 deer (males and females) were waiting inside for food. But we were on the inside too, but they didn't seem too concerned. They just stared and lied there. On our way back out, as we did a giant circle, we came across the pissed off monkey again. Immediately as soon as we were in viewing distance, we head the huffing and growling. Then I spied a baby monkey, very tiny, all caged up in the air. This monkey was the momma protecting the baby. After realizing this, we didn't stay around to watch her get closer to attacking. We saw a snake (in a cage) and that was it. Don't get me wrong though, it was a nice multi-acre jungle and it was beautiful and we saw many really cool things, just hard to explain, you need to see photos.
We wet back for a quick nap, Max and I ran down the road to some local shops to get cheap water and we met our transportation back to the city.We stopped at the mountain's HQ to pick up some more people, Americans who were on a three week vacation, who we talked to the whole time back down 3 hours to the city. We are here now, with Internet getting caught up again with the world. The guys are transferring through the Narita-Tokyo airport in two days and we had to call United to make sure it was still okay and it is. Tomorrow we have a 1500 departure to Singapore, so we'll wander the city until then :)
We went down to the springs for another try at securing a private bath but there was nobody there and the closed sign was out though we were half and hour into their proclaimed opening time. We decided to try one of the open baths. In the end, we all jut jumped into one since the water would have taken hours to fill the tub so we just sat in about two inches of it and splashed it onto ourselves.
Dad and I decided to go wander through the botanical gardens in hope of seeing a rafflesia, which Max stayed behind because he thinks flowers are gay lol. The gardens ended up bring a large plot of fences off jungle with wild and caged animals in it, still cool. There was a small cage off to the side before the entrance which I believe was the site for the rafflesia, but all I saw was a large orange-red bulb, so I'm guessing their out of season. It is only march and we're a mile up so its not super hot.
Our first encounter was a Gibbon monkey in a cage. He was along and had a nice set of bananas there to eat. He was swinging all over the cage and his ropes making cooing sounds. He followed dad where ever he wandered around the cage, he was too cute! Next, we happened upon an aviary. There were two type of birds in it said the sign, one that looked like a pheasant but had a larger tail and was colorful like a peacock. The other was a green dove. The birds were scarce, but we did see the doves flying above and a little family of peacock-like birds running around in the stream flowering through the aviary. Then we found the monkeys. The bad moneys that were wild. We think they live here, and they're wild and not apart of the exhibit. Dad was standing inside the bird net and outside were 3 monkeys. 2 were playing on the trees and other was staring at dad hissing. He was pissed. We had to go out that way, so we did, the monkey came closer. He was baring his teeth and hoofing and puffing while the other 2 were jumping through trees. Then he got even closer. He was about 30 feet away and we decides let's go NOW! King of scary.... He would have definitely attacked us....
The rest of the cages that held various animals were empty. There was a nicely kept cage for a slow loris, but the cage door was opened, I'm not sure if by accident or not, so he wasn't there. We saw deer tracks everywhere through the mud and dad and I each caught a few leeches sucking on our toes, just small ones about 1/4 of a worm. We found the deer eventually. There was a part of the gardens where from the outside you could feed them. The whole heard, maybe about 12 deer (males and females) were waiting inside for food. But we were on the inside too, but they didn't seem too concerned. They just stared and lied there. On our way back out, as we did a giant circle, we came across the pissed off monkey again. Immediately as soon as we were in viewing distance, we head the huffing and growling. Then I spied a baby monkey, very tiny, all caged up in the air. This monkey was the momma protecting the baby. After realizing this, we didn't stay around to watch her get closer to attacking. We saw a snake (in a cage) and that was it. Don't get me wrong though, it was a nice multi-acre jungle and it was beautiful and we saw many really cool things, just hard to explain, you need to see photos.
We wet back for a quick nap, Max and I ran down the road to some local shops to get cheap water and we met our transportation back to the city.We stopped at the mountain's HQ to pick up some more people, Americans who were on a three week vacation, who we talked to the whole time back down 3 hours to the city. We are here now, with Internet getting caught up again with the world. The guys are transferring through the Narita-Tokyo airport in two days and we had to call United to make sure it was still okay and it is. Tomorrow we have a 1500 departure to Singapore, so we'll wander the city until then :)
Day 4: Summit of the Mountain to Poring Hot Springs
2am came quick. It was FREEZING inside, even though we were the only hut to have heat (they left the windows open). We had a "supper" waiting downstairs for us and THEY HAD OATMEAL WOOO! I was bundled in a workout shirt, poly pro, fleece, and my fleece lined jacket, gloves, hat, and head lamp and the guys had the same. And two layers of pants. And our bag packs. We were SET! We walked outside into the pitch black and it was oddly warm... But we seemed to one of the few parties to leave first, so we started up the first 700m of pure steep iron wood steps to the rock face. Thomas told us all the steps were made from iron wood harvested in Malaysia, it was very neat. At 700m up, we reached out first obstacle. Keep in mind, all we have are head lamps and it had been raining for about 8 hours previous, so it was WET! For the rest of the 2.5km to the peak (at about 8.5km from the gate) there was a rope attached to the rock faces for us to use and follow. This 500m was part ledge, part actual climb. We scooted along a small edge near a cliff only holding the rope with our hands. Then, we had to scale the mountain using the rope up. The hard part was more the other people around us who decided to stop, so you had to stop while climbing to wait. The rest of the way was even harder. It was a steady steep climb of rock face at about a 50 degree incline (I'm guessing this, but it was definitely steeper than 45 degrees). We used the rope on the rock to guide us, but the rock was slippery and it was getting very cold. We reached the final check point where we had to show our ID's to prove we had a guide and we had a nice rest for a few minutes for the last bathroom up the mountain.
I finally got to sit down and look at the sky. I turned off my headlamp, and as we were out in front, there wasn't alot of light pollution up top. It was the clearest I've ever seen. When you look at photos of the milky way, you can see the actual variations of "black" in them, the sky color, the lighter part that looks like clouds, and the blackest black in between, and up here, you could absolutely differentiate between the different levels! I've never seen it before! You could see every star and planet. I saw the little dipper, but that's all I recognized. I saw 6 meteors just sitting there for <10 minutes. Amazing!!!!! All my fellow space nerd would have been envious hahaha
The rest of the climb was cold, even windier as there was nothing blocking it, and I was starting to freak myself out. We literally couldn't see more than what our little headlamps gave us. I kept imagining that the edge was only a few feet away so I kept my head down and kept tracking. I was terrified I was going to fall off a ledge and I didn't even know where it was. The air was much thinner (obviously) and finally we saw a tiny light from what looked like the summit. We saw a few people who had reached the top and came down to take shelter in some boulders from the wind. They said there's little to stand and wanted to wait down here for sunrise. But we kept on going up. We finally reached the summit at 525am on March 16th. The peak has grown since the sign was put up to 4141m, about 13,454ft. Man, was is cold! I would say 30 degrees with howling winds. The sign was posted alot the highest boulder, but there was a gathering of boulders on top, so we climbed behind the sign with Thomas and found a little nook to snuggle in away from the wind. We still had about 30-45 minutes until official sunrise. We ate goo packs and fought over who got to be in the middle.
The sun started to rise behind us ( we were facing north west) and we could finally start to make out some things. That huge bright orange glow wayy off in the distance was probably a burning oil rig in the ocean. We could see the coast line and mountains all the way to Indonesia (Indonesia is multiple islands, part of which is the majority on Borneo. Google it :) ). And we got to see the landscape. It was no other. Everything around us was flat rock. But steep, flat rock. There were cliffs from the summit down 100s of feet to the nearest point. There were other lower jagged peaks surrounding us from all sides. The actual sun was blocked by clouds, but the sunrise was still amazing. It was hard to get pictures. We took our final photos at the top and started the decent. By this time, there was a line of people waiting to get their photo taking, balancing and freezing on the steep rock faces, so we took a different route down from the towering peak to the steep incline we had ascended hours before. By now, we could see that it looks like flat rock that had all been tilted by a steep grade at once, it was very even. It's a bit hard to explain, look at the photos. But the surrounding peaks were just as spectacular! As the run continued to rise, we could see the sea of clouds in the distance, the twin peaks of the Indonesian mountains to the south, and the sunlight would hit the other numerous peaks. The photos I took are incredible!
We took our time getting down since we realized that we weren't going to fall to our deaths and the weather warms up quickly and the wind had died down. Thomas took me aside for a mini photo shoot near a pool of water, which reflected me and a peak in the back for a very neat photo. This was the moment when I took the majority of the nearly 800 photos during our week trip. We took our time getting down, even though I kept slipping on the wet rock, but Thomas grabbed my hand and led me down some ways hahaha. There's not much to write about descending back down to Laban Rata, just photos. So go on facebook!!!!
We made it down to Laban Rata by 830am and ate our final breakfast and packed our bags for the descent down. Thomas was waiting at 930am, and we started our descent down the mountain. This was the hard part for us (meaning me and dad) as down is more painful on the knees than up. By this time, the clouds had set in, so our breathtaking views were quickly obstructed. We made fewer stops, but went at a very slow pace to not hurt ourselves. We had fun talking (about the Army, what else? haha) and made it down to the park HQ that afternoon for a quick lunch before transferring to the hot springs.
We arrived to the hot springs after a 45 minute drive from the park. Our guide spent 5 years in Kansas and Singapore, so we had a good time chatting away and there was no Malaysian style English translation for me to do for the guys. Our driver to the hot springs was pointing it all sorts of things. We passed a few farms and he said they grew cabbage and cows. We also passed a crumbling brick structure that he said was the last defense against the Japanese in WWII and then became the starting point for the death marches there. He was chatty and we talked about the differences between Kansas, Singapore, and why he liked his hometown of KK so much better, be said everyone just relaxes and has a good time. If you don't have a job, its okay, because you are having a good time living.
The spring was built right at foot of a hill in the jungle. It had numerous hostel style rooms and an outdoor restaurant next to a rushing mountain stream. There were rafflesia gardens, orchid and botanical gardens, waterfall trails, and the actual hot spring portion. Rafflesia are the largest flower in the world. Google them! They smell (apparently) like dead people. They were discovered on an expedition in the late 1700's, however the Dutchman's ship was attacked and his artifacts were ruined when he returned to Europe. He did had drawing to prove he had indeed seen the flower. However, in 1818 when Raffles, the guy who founded Singapore, came around, he "discovered" the flower as well and got to name it, naming it after himself. Hiking was the last thing we wanted to do as the soreness was starting to set in, so we grabbed out towels and crossed a swinging rope bridge over the stream to the hot springs area.
This was not a western style place. Instead, it was more of a bath house and pool recreational area. There were two large rock pools (cement pools with rocks around them) filled with cold stream water for the children to play in. The majority o the baths were open baths. One stall held four bathtubs that fit two adults each and stood about 4'5'' tall. They had spickets To fill them from the cold stream water to the hot spring water. They had a couple of pools steaming with the sulfuric hot springs water, but they reached over 60 degrees C and were roped off. They best place to go were the indoor private baths, which were luxurious looking bathtubs in closed off rooms. As the majority of the people using he baths were locals (Muslims) I assume these were mainly for the woman to bath in. I sat in a small already filled tub for a little while the boys gave up and went to shower. We had told them we wanted dinner at 7 since hey asked, so a few hours later we headed down to the very nice outdoor restaurant. They served set meals and we had chicken, rice, squid,eggplant; and these vegetables that I keep forgetting what they are called. Appetizers were winter melon soup with chicken broth, very tasty!
When we had dinner there were tons of bats flying through the opened air restaurant doing circles. This was good because they were getting rid of he bugs who wanted us and our food but it's very distracting to try and eat then here's hungry bats a foot over your head haha The showers were hot and the dorm beds comfy, so we slept afterwards.
I finally got to sit down and look at the sky. I turned off my headlamp, and as we were out in front, there wasn't alot of light pollution up top. It was the clearest I've ever seen. When you look at photos of the milky way, you can see the actual variations of "black" in them, the sky color, the lighter part that looks like clouds, and the blackest black in between, and up here, you could absolutely differentiate between the different levels! I've never seen it before! You could see every star and planet. I saw the little dipper, but that's all I recognized. I saw 6 meteors just sitting there for <10 minutes. Amazing!!!!! All my fellow space nerd would have been envious hahaha
The rest of the climb was cold, even windier as there was nothing blocking it, and I was starting to freak myself out. We literally couldn't see more than what our little headlamps gave us. I kept imagining that the edge was only a few feet away so I kept my head down and kept tracking. I was terrified I was going to fall off a ledge and I didn't even know where it was. The air was much thinner (obviously) and finally we saw a tiny light from what looked like the summit. We saw a few people who had reached the top and came down to take shelter in some boulders from the wind. They said there's little to stand and wanted to wait down here for sunrise. But we kept on going up. We finally reached the summit at 525am on March 16th. The peak has grown since the sign was put up to 4141m, about 13,454ft. Man, was is cold! I would say 30 degrees with howling winds. The sign was posted alot the highest boulder, but there was a gathering of boulders on top, so we climbed behind the sign with Thomas and found a little nook to snuggle in away from the wind. We still had about 30-45 minutes until official sunrise. We ate goo packs and fought over who got to be in the middle.
The sun started to rise behind us ( we were facing north west) and we could finally start to make out some things. That huge bright orange glow wayy off in the distance was probably a burning oil rig in the ocean. We could see the coast line and mountains all the way to Indonesia (Indonesia is multiple islands, part of which is the majority on Borneo. Google it :) ). And we got to see the landscape. It was no other. Everything around us was flat rock. But steep, flat rock. There were cliffs from the summit down 100s of feet to the nearest point. There were other lower jagged peaks surrounding us from all sides. The actual sun was blocked by clouds, but the sunrise was still amazing. It was hard to get pictures. We took our final photos at the top and started the decent. By this time, there was a line of people waiting to get their photo taking, balancing and freezing on the steep rock faces, so we took a different route down from the towering peak to the steep incline we had ascended hours before. By now, we could see that it looks like flat rock that had all been tilted by a steep grade at once, it was very even. It's a bit hard to explain, look at the photos. But the surrounding peaks were just as spectacular! As the run continued to rise, we could see the sea of clouds in the distance, the twin peaks of the Indonesian mountains to the south, and the sunlight would hit the other numerous peaks. The photos I took are incredible!
We took our time getting down since we realized that we weren't going to fall to our deaths and the weather warms up quickly and the wind had died down. Thomas took me aside for a mini photo shoot near a pool of water, which reflected me and a peak in the back for a very neat photo. This was the moment when I took the majority of the nearly 800 photos during our week trip. We took our time getting down, even though I kept slipping on the wet rock, but Thomas grabbed my hand and led me down some ways hahaha. There's not much to write about descending back down to Laban Rata, just photos. So go on facebook!!!!
We made it down to Laban Rata by 830am and ate our final breakfast and packed our bags for the descent down. Thomas was waiting at 930am, and we started our descent down the mountain. This was the hard part for us (meaning me and dad) as down is more painful on the knees than up. By this time, the clouds had set in, so our breathtaking views were quickly obstructed. We made fewer stops, but went at a very slow pace to not hurt ourselves. We had fun talking (about the Army, what else? haha) and made it down to the park HQ that afternoon for a quick lunch before transferring to the hot springs.
We arrived to the hot springs after a 45 minute drive from the park. Our guide spent 5 years in Kansas and Singapore, so we had a good time chatting away and there was no Malaysian style English translation for me to do for the guys. Our driver to the hot springs was pointing it all sorts of things. We passed a few farms and he said they grew cabbage and cows. We also passed a crumbling brick structure that he said was the last defense against the Japanese in WWII and then became the starting point for the death marches there. He was chatty and we talked about the differences between Kansas, Singapore, and why he liked his hometown of KK so much better, be said everyone just relaxes and has a good time. If you don't have a job, its okay, because you are having a good time living.
The spring was built right at foot of a hill in the jungle. It had numerous hostel style rooms and an outdoor restaurant next to a rushing mountain stream. There were rafflesia gardens, orchid and botanical gardens, waterfall trails, and the actual hot spring portion. Rafflesia are the largest flower in the world. Google them! They smell (apparently) like dead people. They were discovered on an expedition in the late 1700's, however the Dutchman's ship was attacked and his artifacts were ruined when he returned to Europe. He did had drawing to prove he had indeed seen the flower. However, in 1818 when Raffles, the guy who founded Singapore, came around, he "discovered" the flower as well and got to name it, naming it after himself. Hiking was the last thing we wanted to do as the soreness was starting to set in, so we grabbed out towels and crossed a swinging rope bridge over the stream to the hot springs area.
This was not a western style place. Instead, it was more of a bath house and pool recreational area. There were two large rock pools (cement pools with rocks around them) filled with cold stream water for the children to play in. The majority o the baths were open baths. One stall held four bathtubs that fit two adults each and stood about 4'5'' tall. They had spickets To fill them from the cold stream water to the hot spring water. They had a couple of pools steaming with the sulfuric hot springs water, but they reached over 60 degrees C and were roped off. They best place to go were the indoor private baths, which were luxurious looking bathtubs in closed off rooms. As the majority of the people using he baths were locals (Muslims) I assume these were mainly for the woman to bath in. I sat in a small already filled tub for a little while the boys gave up and went to shower. We had told them we wanted dinner at 7 since hey asked, so a few hours later we headed down to the very nice outdoor restaurant. They served set meals and we had chicken, rice, squid,eggplant; and these vegetables that I keep forgetting what they are called. Appetizers were winter melon soup with chicken broth, very tasty!
When we had dinner there were tons of bats flying through the opened air restaurant doing circles. This was good because they were getting rid of he bugs who wanted us and our food but it's very distracting to try and eat then here's hungry bats a foot over your head haha The showers were hot and the dorm beds comfy, so we slept afterwards.
Day 3: Mountain HQ to Laban Rata (at 10,800ft)
We woke up bright and early at 6am. The the place we stayed at in the jungle had a nice view of the peak, which we hadn't been able to see before due to the clouds, but MAN it was clear this morning. At the peak you could see the tree line (where the trees stop growing because of altitude). It was SUPER rocky up top with multiple peaks and rock formations. Boy, was it high! After a nice buffet breakfast (no oatmeal :( ) we met up with a new guide, Thomas, (who was shorter than me) and Murray, a British man of 68years, at the HQ and hoped in the van to drive up 5km to the start, Timphon Gate. We jumped out of the van, our ID cards in hand to show we had a guide to the summit (its required) and Thomas handed dad and Murray a nice walking stick. We would hike 6km and gain an altitude of about 4700ft. The first 1km was a nice, steady climb up some incline and stairs. The jungle was beautiful, much reminded me of the could forest we saw in Costa Rica. We passed Carson Falls, a waterfall of about 20-25 ft right off the side of the path. Before we reached the 1.5km stop, we realized Murray and Thomas weren't wit h us anymore. We stopped and waited. Nothing. About 10 minutes later, Thomas came running up the path. Murray was "having oxygen problems" and Thomas wanted to escort him down the mountain and he would meet up with us later. I think Murray realized this was more than he bargained for and decided to turn around.
This stayed with me the rest of the day. When looking up this climb, it is referred to as the easiest highest climb in the world. Meaning if you aren't a pro, this is the highest you can get. As you will read and see photos, this doesn't mean its an easy climb. Its just the easiest when compared to the rest of the 14,000ft + + mountains in the world.
From 1.5km-4km, is was a steeper rock stair climb. The scenery was beautiful and dewy and the weather was perfect. We all paced ourselves good, as there was real no need to race to the top since there was nothing to do at the guesthouse except wait for dinner and then sleep. The last 2 km (4-6) was pretty hard. The rock steps had gotten farther apart and it was a lot steeper. There are 2 helipads in the mountain, one at Laban Rata Guesthouse and the other on the trail. We found it and took a break there. Since it was the afternoon, it was cloudy this high up the mountain so we couldn't see the magnificent views to the bottom. But, you could see the magnificent views almost to the top (the top was covered in clouds too). There was no defined tree line, just a gradual lessening of trees, as there were so many types they all stopped growing at different levels.
As we ascended, the forest went through changes also. The majority of the hike until about 4.5km was dense jungle. Around 4.5km, it changed into coniferous trees. It then changed to a landscape I call the desert look, the small shrubs and flowers all looked like something I would find in Albuquerque growing in the desert. These had the best views, since you could see over all of them during the climb. It seemed to be always dewy or raining up here, so the flowers were in bloom! The desert-like shrubs had little white flowers that made the scenery and rolling cliffs look like they were snow capped. There were wild raspberries (mountain raspberries as another guide called it), clumps of other small berries, and pink and purple trumpet flowers. There were birds flying everywhere to get to the berries and would fly very close to humans for the fruit. We had also seen only squirrels and chipmunks up to this point, and that's all we did see throughout our time in the mountain. We saw lots at one of the many rest houses that were about .5-1km apart and they were fat, from climbers feeding them.
Then an odd thing happened, after we left the desert, we were expecting the tree line and then rocks, as the photos of Laban Rata showed it to be around less to no trees, but we suddenly ended up back in more dense jungle, but lush-er than before. It was greener and had different types of plants than the other types down below. IT was also cooler here, so there must have been a band of hot hair below it or cooler air where it was. We went back into the desert scenery and with multiple promises of "only 10 more minutes!" from other guides, we finally spotted the first of around 6 guesthouses than Laban Rata hosted at about 10,800ft into the mountain.
OMGG! The "showers" we took all ended up being us splashing the little water we could handle onto ourselves.
After the rain a few moments later, the clouds started to life and we could start to get a first idea of the peak (even though later we realized we couldn't see it from where we were). Immediately from the altitude of the guesthouse and up was sheer and jagged rock faces. There were all sorts of odd sharp edges at the top. Since there was no shrubbery to get in the way, the rain water raced down the mountain and created temporary water falls into the cracks and crevices it wanted too. It was beautiful! You could follow a large trail of water from almost the top until it reached the jungle, a distance of about 3,000ft. I spent the next 30 minutes outside taking photos.
Dinner started at 430, so we were the first in line for the buffet. Before, we didn't have enough money for a snack so we were starving. We decided to save the gel packs for the summit and we didn't bring barely any money since we had all our meals, etc paid for already (and drinks/food were about 3-4x the normal price). We saw people humping large packs full of food for the restaurant and even mattresses (yes, little ladies and men carrying mattresses on their pack climbing the WHOLE distance. There was even a strap on their forehead to keep the think on their backs!!!!) so we understood the high price. All we got for free was hot water so dad made "brown sugar tea" where he poured brown sugar packets into hot water haha. Anyway, dinner was nice and we immediately went to bed at around 530-6pm. We had a wake up at 2am with a hike start at 250am, as Thomas told us when he eventually made it back up the mountain. It was in the 50s when we arrived in the afternoon, so I left with my clothes in my covers to keep them warm in anticipation of the cold morning. Of course, right after dinner it started pouring. And throughout our multiple anxious wake ups in the middle of the night, it ended up raining until about midnight!
This stayed with me the rest of the day. When looking up this climb, it is referred to as the easiest highest climb in the world. Meaning if you aren't a pro, this is the highest you can get. As you will read and see photos, this doesn't mean its an easy climb. Its just the easiest when compared to the rest of the 14,000ft + + mountains in the world.
From 1.5km-4km, is was a steeper rock stair climb. The scenery was beautiful and dewy and the weather was perfect. We all paced ourselves good, as there was real no need to race to the top since there was nothing to do at the guesthouse except wait for dinner and then sleep. The last 2 km (4-6) was pretty hard. The rock steps had gotten farther apart and it was a lot steeper. There are 2 helipads in the mountain, one at Laban Rata Guesthouse and the other on the trail. We found it and took a break there. Since it was the afternoon, it was cloudy this high up the mountain so we couldn't see the magnificent views to the bottom. But, you could see the magnificent views almost to the top (the top was covered in clouds too). There was no defined tree line, just a gradual lessening of trees, as there were so many types they all stopped growing at different levels.
As we ascended, the forest went through changes also. The majority of the hike until about 4.5km was dense jungle. Around 4.5km, it changed into coniferous trees. It then changed to a landscape I call the desert look, the small shrubs and flowers all looked like something I would find in Albuquerque growing in the desert. These had the best views, since you could see over all of them during the climb. It seemed to be always dewy or raining up here, so the flowers were in bloom! The desert-like shrubs had little white flowers that made the scenery and rolling cliffs look like they were snow capped. There were wild raspberries (mountain raspberries as another guide called it), clumps of other small berries, and pink and purple trumpet flowers. There were birds flying everywhere to get to the berries and would fly very close to humans for the fruit. We had also seen only squirrels and chipmunks up to this point, and that's all we did see throughout our time in the mountain. We saw lots at one of the many rest houses that were about .5-1km apart and they were fat, from climbers feeding them.
Then an odd thing happened, after we left the desert, we were expecting the tree line and then rocks, as the photos of Laban Rata showed it to be around less to no trees, but we suddenly ended up back in more dense jungle, but lush-er than before. It was greener and had different types of plants than the other types down below. IT was also cooler here, so there must have been a band of hot hair below it or cooler air where it was. We went back into the desert scenery and with multiple promises of "only 10 more minutes!" from other guides, we finally spotted the first of around 6 guesthouses than Laban Rata hosted at about 10,800ft into the mountain.
OMGG! The "showers" we took all ended up being us splashing the little water we could handle onto ourselves.
After the rain a few moments later, the clouds started to life and we could start to get a first idea of the peak (even though later we realized we couldn't see it from where we were). Immediately from the altitude of the guesthouse and up was sheer and jagged rock faces. There were all sorts of odd sharp edges at the top. Since there was no shrubbery to get in the way, the rain water raced down the mountain and created temporary water falls into the cracks and crevices it wanted too. It was beautiful! You could follow a large trail of water from almost the top until it reached the jungle, a distance of about 3,000ft. I spent the next 30 minutes outside taking photos.
Dinner started at 430, so we were the first in line for the buffet. Before, we didn't have enough money for a snack so we were starving. We decided to save the gel packs for the summit and we didn't bring barely any money since we had all our meals, etc paid for already (and drinks/food were about 3-4x the normal price). We saw people humping large packs full of food for the restaurant and even mattresses (yes, little ladies and men carrying mattresses on their pack climbing the WHOLE distance. There was even a strap on their forehead to keep the think on their backs!!!!) so we understood the high price. All we got for free was hot water so dad made "brown sugar tea" where he poured brown sugar packets into hot water haha. Anyway, dinner was nice and we immediately went to bed at around 530-6pm. We had a wake up at 2am with a hike start at 250am, as Thomas told us when he eventually made it back up the mountain. It was in the 50s when we arrived in the afternoon, so I left with my clothes in my covers to keep them warm in anticipation of the cold morning. Of course, right after dinner it started pouring. And throughout our multiple anxious wake ups in the middle of the night, it ended up raining until about midnight!
Day 2: Kota Kinabalu to the Mountain
Dad let us sleep in all the way until 9am!!! We woke up the next morning and had breakfast next door at the grocery store which had a bakery in it. we got "american" style breakfasts, which included a fried hotdog and baked beans, but it was very good. I wanted to see the beach, so we walked down a couple blocks until we got to the ocean. KK itselt is a large harbor, not much to swim in. The bank is a large fishing pier full of dead fish smells and boats. But the water was the beautiful teal green that you could see to the bottom and there were lots of little fish around. There were islands in every direction near and far we could see from the bank and the mountains off to the distance to the east of us. We wandered along the pier anad found the food market where they sold meat, fish, and veggies. We also found the cultural market, which was the variety of beach goods you see everywhere else but makde for a 5ft person to walk through, so the guys kept getting waked in the head by long strings of shells and beads.
I had forgotten a rain jacket, so we started into the city center (about 8 blocks total long and 3 wide) to look for a jacket. After failing at one of the large typical Asian malls of random vendors that open late, we stumbled upon a department store hidden upstairs. I found a fully lined rain jacket from some no name label for the equivalent of 11usd!!!
We arrived at Taman Kinabalu around two in the afternoon. The drive was beautiful! It was a 2 1/2 hour drive into the rolling mountains of Borneo. The flat land didn't stay flat long and I was very glad to have taken motion sickness pills. It looked like a post card, as far as the eye could see there were mountains after mountains completely covered in trees. Every now and then, there would be a clearing along the side of one with a little neighborhood with colorful roofs or a tea or cabbage farm. In the distance, there was a VERY large peak of a mountain that stuck out from the rest with its super steep slopes. I immediately started trying to take photos while we curved through the mountains for almost an hour (we drove around it) to then find out later that this was NOT the mountain we were going too, the driver just laughed at me. When we neared the mountain, there were too many clouds to actually see the peak or the steep sides. All we could see was this HUGE waterfall, I would guess 800ft coming what looked like out of the clouds and disappeared into the jungle, after falling almost 1000ft!
Our driver told us our mountain guide and we would meet him at 730 the next morning after breakfast to start the climb. We got settled into our rooms, a four bed hostel along one of many places to stay along a snaking road a mile up into the mountain. We stopped at their park headquarters, which had the world heritage UNESCO monument (Malaysia's first as they advertise everywhere) and a museum about the mountain. The museum was a multiple room display set up with moutain models, climate and geology information, stuff about the different vegetation at the numerous elevations, etc. I read a sign talking about how the peak(4095m when the signs were made, but we found out its grown to 4101m, which is 13,454.7 feet) ) and park hq are at such different climates, it's like climbing from the equator (which the island crosses) to Alaska!! We entered a couple rooms with model animals and bugs and plants of the flora and fauna we will be seeing throughout the hike. There are giant squirrel, monkeys and orang otan, deer, anacondas, killer looking giant bugs and beetles, all kinds of variety. Dad and I took of into a trail for maybe an hour while max went back to the hostel , the time change finally catching up. The trails were very at as it's been raining non stop here for thirty hours and just finished. The trail was surprisingly full of clay. We heard an owl but that was it there was a nice stream running through the trail too. At six we had a climbers meeting we listened to a little speech about what we would be doing in the morning. Then off to our buffet dinner and now we are about to sleep, all backed up and anxiously awaiting for the morning :)
I had forgotten a rain jacket, so we started into the city center (about 8 blocks total long and 3 wide) to look for a jacket. After failing at one of the large typical Asian malls of random vendors that open late, we stumbled upon a department store hidden upstairs. I found a fully lined rain jacket from some no name label for the equivalent of 11usd!!!
We arrived at Taman Kinabalu around two in the afternoon. The drive was beautiful! It was a 2 1/2 hour drive into the rolling mountains of Borneo. The flat land didn't stay flat long and I was very glad to have taken motion sickness pills. It looked like a post card, as far as the eye could see there were mountains after mountains completely covered in trees. Every now and then, there would be a clearing along the side of one with a little neighborhood with colorful roofs or a tea or cabbage farm. In the distance, there was a VERY large peak of a mountain that stuck out from the rest with its super steep slopes. I immediately started trying to take photos while we curved through the mountains for almost an hour (we drove around it) to then find out later that this was NOT the mountain we were going too, the driver just laughed at me. When we neared the mountain, there were too many clouds to actually see the peak or the steep sides. All we could see was this HUGE waterfall, I would guess 800ft coming what looked like out of the clouds and disappeared into the jungle, after falling almost 1000ft!
Our driver told us our mountain guide and we would meet him at 730 the next morning after breakfast to start the climb. We got settled into our rooms, a four bed hostel along one of many places to stay along a snaking road a mile up into the mountain. We stopped at their park headquarters, which had the world heritage UNESCO monument (Malaysia's first as they advertise everywhere) and a museum about the mountain. The museum was a multiple room display set up with moutain models, climate and geology information, stuff about the different vegetation at the numerous elevations, etc. I read a sign talking about how the peak(4095m when the signs were made, but we found out its grown to 4101m, which is 13,454.7 feet) ) and park hq are at such different climates, it's like climbing from the equator (which the island crosses) to Alaska!! We entered a couple rooms with model animals and bugs and plants of the flora and fauna we will be seeing throughout the hike. There are giant squirrel, monkeys and orang otan, deer, anacondas, killer looking giant bugs and beetles, all kinds of variety. Dad and I took of into a trail for maybe an hour while max went back to the hostel , the time change finally catching up. The trails were very at as it's been raining non stop here for thirty hours and just finished. The trail was surprisingly full of clay. We heard an owl but that was it there was a nice stream running through the trail too. At six we had a climbers meeting we listened to a little speech about what we would be doing in the morning. Then off to our buffet dinner and now we are about to sleep, all backed up and anxiously awaiting for the morning :)
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