Trekking the jungles of Borneo

I was going to add a post on facebook with my Borneo adventures but decided it would be better revive my old blog. Hopefully later in the week I will get some photos up.

Anyway, for those who are a little behind the times. Lisa and I are holidaying in Borneo. It's a great place. We first flew into KL and then to KK (Kota Kinabalu) which is a cute little city on the beach. We didn't have time to see much of it, but it reminded me a bit of Zanzibar which was cool.

The next day we went out to climb Mt Kinabalu. It's just over 4000m, so big but not a massive mountain. But it is quite a full on hike to get to the top as it is very steep. Although I think that the going down was actually harder than the going up.

The first day was quite hard work. 6k up to the base camp. The first 2k's we hardest for me as I was still throwing up from getting car sick (which may or may not have been caused by numerous margaritas the night before) in the bus on the way up. That was a long trip. 2 hours of windy bumpy roads and me having to get them to stop the bus every 15 minutes so i could have a throw!

The other thing that made the climb hard was the fact that our tour operator wasn't fan of letting you know what was going on or organising anything much. So we were the only people climbing the mountain with 16kg packs! Everyone else had been told what to bring or had porters organised for them.

But it was all worth it. 5 days later my calves are still aching but the climb to the top and the view of dawn breaking over the mountains was spectacular. We got up at 3am to climb so we'd be there for dawn. The climb in the dark is so steep that they have ropes bolted into the side of the mountain to help pull yourself up. Then we got to the top about 1/2 an hour before dawn and it was bloody freezing!

Then the sky started to lighten up and you could see the outlines of the mountains and although the sky was clear where we were, there was cloud cover over the other peaks which turned all kinds of colours as the sun came up. Hmm, i don't think i'll even bother to try to explain it any more i'll just get frustrated because it's not right. anyway, it was really really good and then when you went to come back down you could actually see the path you had climbed in the dark and were like holy hell i came up there?!

After the climb we went to poring hot springs for some relaxing hot spring jacuzzi action. We also got to see the evasive Rafflesia in flower. This is a rare plant that flowers once every 5 years and only for 7 days! It is the weirdest looking plant and to me looks like something that belongs in the ocean not sitting in the rainforest.

We're now down in Sandakan and have seen some Orang utans and sea turtles, but Stilly wants a go on the internet so i'll write again later.