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After landing at Kota Kinabalu on the east of Borneo I took a minivan for an hour and half up in the mountains and to the park entrance at 1500m.
The climate up there is quite a change from what I’ve been used to! Temperatures never fall below 19 degrees, and never rise above 23, while the humidity is considerably less. In fact, some of the park rangers seemed to think it was cold enough for a hat – terrible. They should fly to Newcastle!
The peak of Kinabalu as seen from around 13,000 ft
Kinabalu from the park entrance
Got to say, first impressions weren’t fantastic… little signage and to be fair, I thought there were going to be problems because the e-mail confirming my accommodation for the first night at the base of the mountain, and the second at 11,000 feet (reading for the “sunrise 2.30am hike” the next day) hadn’t been sent, and trying to ring was ridiculous as they never answered. Was quickly hassled for the 15 RM park entrance fee (thought it was fair enough at the time) just inside the park. Then up into the Sutera Lodges Reception and enquired about my booking – which of course they had no trace…. After 15 minutes or so of arguing my case in simple English they suddenly found a room for both nights (49 RM for the first night, 208 RM for the second night including all meals going up and coming down – there’s a restaurant at 11,000 feet at the nights resting spot)…
Thought it was almost fair enough – all together about 40 quid. Fair dos I thought. But then it was, “now you must pay permit fee, and insurance, and guide fee Sir”… so off I trundled to the next counter where an overly friendly park ranger (I hesitate considerably in the term “ranger”) who reiterated I needed to pay these fees. Ensuring I knew what I was paying for I suggested that I maybe share a guide (goodness knows why you need a guide for one of the most well trodden trails in the world) with other independent travellers to cut the 70RM cost for that (the prices were just spiralling beyond all original estimates…) to which he promptly said was a “good idea Sir”, so I left my form ready to find out in the morning if I’d been matched with anyone else.
So around 450RM worse for ware I trundled off into the dusk to find Grace Hostel, which I later found out had just me and two Germans in for the night – so quite clearly the rangers hadn’t a clue what accommodation was available and what was not, in fact I don’t even think they know what accommodation is actually out there in the park! The disparity with the US National Park System (flawless) could not have been more marked….A theme that was to continue unabated for the rest of the hike….
Banged down a chicken curry (all the chicken is on the bone in Malaysia, must be a big thing or something…shame)… and also met a French Canadian chappy who I mentioned to about sharing a guide…kinda handy cutting down the cost… then off to the hilarious “PRE TREK BRIEFING – VERY IMPORTANT SIR DO NOT MISS” at 6pm. At 6.15pm the Park (so called) Ranger ambled up to point at a flip chart route of the map with a chop stick and gave the most unnecessary briefing.
“Now all climbers must bring the walk stick, energy bar, for energy, the shoes, and rain poncho (can’t believe that she’s recommending a poncho over a proper rain coat for a 13,500 foot hike), and water. You must meet your guide in the morning who will drive you to the start of the Trek, you pay 30RM… (more charges!!!!)…
and on and on she went…
Disillusioned with what the world’s coming too, I headed for 12 hours sleep, wandering back through the inky-black & star-filled sky. 12 hours of good kip needed after getting up at 3am to catch a very early morning flight to KK…
Waking early, around 6.30am to the sound of old diesel-fume pumping buses (in a national park!) roaring past my hostel I got all my stuff reading, grabbed breakfast at the park café, met with the guide as well as Pierre the French Canadian, and Ian another Canadian chappy who I’d met at the briefing the previous night and who had been teamed up with our guide – Veronica!! After giving us our ridiculous ID cards (“very important do not lose”) she drove us to the start of the Trek, as she promised, for the 30RM fee…and off we went…
Wonderful Veronica!
Ian and Pierre, both Canadian
This is when it gets crazy… our guide kept pace with Pierre who was slightly slower amongst the three of us … but it turns out that during the first 6km hike up to Laban Rata (the first night’s resting point) lots of groups, and couples were actually going faster than their respective guides! In other words, the guides just couldn’t keep up! A British couple I met at Laban Rata arrived an hour before the guide, and of course, Malaysian style they had to wait for their guide before being allowed to “check in” to their separate room at Laban Rata!
Sat up at Laban Rata I began to realise that this was like no mountain I’ve scaled before. Despite being up at 11,000 feet I felt like I was in a café in KL – no sense of accomplishment because mountains shouldn’t be commercialised like this. Sherpas hauling up rice, air conditioners, gas canisters twice a day, up and down, electricity cables, water pipes running up the track… a real shame and something that just wouldn’t happen anywhere else – after all this is a world heritage site, and all the Malaysian’s have done is commercialised it to the hilt and encourage 150 to the summit all day, every day.
The "awfulness" of Laban Rata!
Once our guide arrived, along with Pierre a few hours later I had lunch, rather strangely a beef curry of some description – but with only one way to get all the meat up (via sherpa) and certainly no cooler or anything like that, I’m damn sure that that funny kinda tough tasting meat had been sat in daytime humid temperatures of 15 to 25 degrees for a while…! Again, hiking up mountains like this shouldn’t be a bed and breakfast trip for everyone and anyone, it should be a challenge, a feat, where you carry everything you need to get there. It all takes away the awe and “specialness” of the place…
Dinner was at 5pm, engaged in a bit of British/Swiss/Canadian/German chat before heading up to the hut for the night. Fell asleep with the alarm set for 2.45am for the….and here we go again….3 hour, 2.6km trek to the top of the mountain for the sunrise. Woken at 1am by half the population of Tokyo who were also staying in our hut. What on earth? With everyone not starting off til at least 3am – why could I hear cameras clicking and shouting two hours before people even need to be up? No respect whatsoever, and another reason why I was slowly realising that this whole mountain is becoming a huge joke.
Off we went at 2.45am head torch on, frustrating first 1km as its very narrow and some of the slow fat people had set off way earlier and were desperately clinging for their lives onto rope that they quite clearly didn’t need to hold onto for survival. After considering throwing a few of them down the gully I marched on past and finally caught up with the front runners who had set off an hour earlier. As they were quite clearly wrecked I engaged them in some conversation, though didn’t get much response so I pounded off up the granite face of the mountain reaching the summit around an hour and five minutes after setting off (so 2 hours quicker than they said) ah. Problem. Very cold! Well worth being up there first though, had the summit to myself for half an hour, no wind, just a gentle breeze, and billions upon trillions of stars…took these pictures:
Second guy to arrive, Swiss bloke
Managed to get some great night time shots before the hordes arrived…..
And then sunrise, got some great pictures were a couple of German guys, one of which had visited many of the places I’d also been, brought back all the memories of O’ahu’s north shore in Hawaii where he’d also spent a lot of time…
On the way back down there were a few other pinnacles I wanted to get too, but just to round it off the other guides were quick to run after me say “no no no another permit. Another permit for this…” so after paying 100RM, insurance, guide fees etc etc etc you couldn’t even scramble to the top of another bunch of rocks without paying for a different permit. Can’t believe that these same guys supposedly trying to protect a world heritage site and stopping people from exploring the mountain and the same ones throwing their cigarette buts on the ground. Unbelievable.
After descending back down to Laban Rata, and possibly the most disgusting breakfast I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating (egg bread? That’s illegal in Britain) off I went back down to the park entrance and collected some of the heavier stuff I’d stored down there…for…guess! Ah yes 10RM! Another charge.
If I were to have climbed a mountain in Yosemite or Glacier National Park in the States, I’d have paid my $20 USD entry fee… and that’s it. The rest is down to you. Camp? Hostel outside the park and travel in? Climb? You find your own way up. You don’t need to wear an ID tag and have a guide follow your every step up a trail you couldn’t possibly get lost on. Neither do you have a restaurant with hot showers there for you on the way up and down, rooms with heaters and sky TV on in the lounge. There has to be a balance between giving everyone the opportunity to reach the summit while keeping the environment pristine. Unfortunately they’ve messed that up big style here on Kinabalu. Everyone can make the summit, you can even get a porter to carry your bags (we saw one with 4 back packs attached to his back using some contraption he was wearing) to Laban Rata. But worst off all you can’t explore yourself. The trail is gated and padlocked at two points… barbed wire fencing stopping you from pushing on ahead. And to top it off, our guide couldn’t even tell us the actual height on the mountain in feet!!! It ranged from 12,500 to 14,500 ft in two days!!
Glad I did it, as it is the highest point on Borneo, but not again, I’ll find a nice trail to somewhere higher where there is some accomplishment from getting there yourself. Oh and one of the guides/workers at Laban Rata stole my t shirt too. I hung it up to dry as it was sweat soaked, then an hour later, it was gone. I really don’t think that it was nicked by some one hiking up, after all who wants a sweat soaked t shirt? Even the guy at reception said that it had probably been “stolen” – at 11,000 feet in a UNESCO world heritage site, you can’t even leave your t shirt to dry. Shocker.
Though there were some good views mind:
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