Mt. Kinabalu & Sepilok

Continue the trip:

The bus to Mt Kinabalu left surprisingly 3minutes earlier which is a really rare happening in Malaysia. After about 1,5hrs of a nice and calm bus drive we arrived at headquarter of the park. After we were kindly made “lighter” by the park employees by taking a good amount of money out of our pockets we were given a tour guide. As we found out later he was a physics student in KK (WOW!!) and this was his holiday job. He stood there wearing Nike sneakers which weren’t properly tied, a sweater and an umbrella!!
As we started the trail heaven opened its gates and it started to rain. Other people we met later and who actually read the tour guide more carefully knew, that at this time of the year rain starts at around that time of the day. But we are tough and anybody can walk that trail in sunshine, we just wanted to add some extra fun. The fun lost the actual fun very fast because even though we had rain coats we were totally wet within 30min and the trail changed into a small river.
Each 500m there was a sign telling you how far you got and which altitude you have already reached. Quite depressing, because therefore it seemed to become a never-ending story. The trail is not comparable to any hiking trail in the Alps. Within 6,5km we climbed around 2,500m! In order to do this you need a lot of steps and stairs carved into the ground or man made ones which they provided and as a result we were climbing stairs for the complete 4,5hrs. As we reached our hut we were very happy and very cold and jumped right under the shower and into the bed to warm up. Lucky me, I gained some weight here which proved to be great in keeping me warm. Thomas with his body fat content of around 8% was literally dying in the bed next to me while I was quite warm.
Later we went down for some dinner and to celebrate Christmas with some candles, cookies and chocolate accompanied by some Suisse, American and Czech people. We went to bed at around 9pm because we had to get up at 2.30am to reach the summit by sunset. The hike up there was great because we had a full moon that night and we could perfectly see our way and the atmosphere was great. We arrived at the highest point of Southeast Asia around 2 hrs after we had started, the sun was not up yet and it was freezing. Once the sun came up and we could see the forest below us it paid off all the effort and curses we had send out during the hike. It was really great and the pictures just give a small impression of that.
We were one of the first ones to climb down again and we reached the hut and left again after a 30min rest. We went done in 2,5hrs with quite some knee pain at the end but happy to have completed the trip. Once done we had to plan how to get to Sepilok. The time given to us for the bus to take us to Sepilok was 11.30 to 12.30 which is a usual time table for buses. So we went to the bus station without a shower (nice ha) and were very lucky to catch the bus after only 10min. We arrived at Sepilok some hours later and found a hostel which was probably the worst one we had during the trip.
The Orang Utans on the next day were very boring as well and therefore I would say that this part of the trip was a waste of time. But there are only four rehabilitation centers in the world and I was in one of them!! So at least I can brag. Of course we also had problems to leave Sepilok again because there was no afternoon express bus. First we took a local bus, then a MiniVan and another one and arrived in Semporna at around 6pm. It was already dark and they wouldn’t take us to Mabul anymore and we had to stay in a hostel. It was cheap but very good and they had good food in their restaurant. Next morning 7am we went to Mabul in a nutshell. Fun ride and we were once about 2m above sea level.

The last Episode will be about Sipadan and Singapore. So stay tuned.