Trip to Mount Kinabalu (Part II)

As the day dawns, as the sun rises from the east and the smell of morning dew blew into my room, I realize…….. I’m late. Its 6:30am and I’m suppose to wake up to prepare for my trip. Yes, this is the day for our trip to conquer the tallest mountain in Malaysia, or at least we thought to conquer then :P. So, skipping to explain all the mundane daily task I do like brushing, bathing etc etc, I’ll fast forward to the time when we reach the airport. Local time 7.45am (Not that we are going overseas also :P ). I and two of my friends were the first to reach the airport as we need to “tumpang” my other friend who starts work at 8.00am, so as to say, no choice lah. Reaching the airport, we start to scan our luggage for check-in and then the waits begins…… still waiting…… stomach getting hungry…… It was then two of us decided to get some “tasty” fried nuggets and chickens from the shop beside the airport to fulfill our hungry stomach. After eating the next most expensive fried chicken after KFC (One piece of chicken cost us a whooping RM4.00), we continue to wait with a fuller stomach and a lighter pocket. Around 8:40am the rest of our friends arrive at the airport and we starts to check in. As our flight boards at 9.45am, we roughly have an hour before we board. More sitting and idling away our time at the Penang International Airport while some of us fill our stomach with a choice of overly priced breads :D. Then the time arrive where we board our Air Asia flight AK something something (forgot the number already :P) bound to Kota Kinabalu. As expected from a budget flight, the whole trip was like sitting in an express bus minus the jerking (Ok, sometimes turbulence does cause some jerking :D). The flight last roughly around two hours and 40 minutes before we each Kota Kinabalu International Airport.

Touchdown at Kota Kinabalu (shall be referred as KK from now onwards because I’m lazy to type :P ) around 12:50pm and we are greeted by our tour guide. 10 of us hop into a van and a taxi (somehow I get the taxi plus all our luggage sitting beside someone I shall refer to as Big “Fan Chiong” -.- ). From there, our “Tau Eu” (ermm, soya sauce??) bring us to a place for “makan” somewhere at Tamparuli (A small town). Our lunch? Supposedly the famous mee of Sabah with “char siu” and eggs slices. My verdict? We are totally cheated out of our money like the usual tourist. Too bad I don’t have the name of the shop with me now or I would advice you all never to touch that place. We fork out Rm3.50 for a plate of mee that’s only worth Rm2.00 the most and considering for usual Sabah portion, it’s very small. So after our unsatisfied lunch, we went for a short stop around the same area to get our Adidas Kampung for RM4.50 a pair (which later became white elephant after one night of usage). With our buying urge satisfied, we continue in our journey to KK national park for hiking registration. Oh, by the way, the rains starts now :D. All the way to KK national park, the road is winding and turning (Erm, just take Ferringgi or Teluk Bahang ‘s route X 3 and you’ll get the idea.) and by the time we reach there (include the superb “too fast too furious” driving skill of the van driver), some of us isn’t feeling that well already. Registration at the park took us around 20 minutes and we are off again on our way to Mesilau Nature Resort Lodges for our first night stay.

Arrived at Mesilau Nature Resort around 6:00pm and our first trail has begun. To get to our lodge, we have to walk up a steep path and with our luggage as burden; I’m already half dead before we even begin our climb. After reaching the lodge, we each takes turn to bath and prepare for the steamboat dinner which is supposed to begin at 7:00pm. I’m starting to feel cold by now (It’s like Bukit Tinggi) and luckily our rooms are heated (but unluckily, tomorrow’s room is not =.=). After resting and taking turns to freshen ourselves, we set out to eat our first dinner in Sabah. The dinner itself can be considered the best meal we have for our trip. There are a variety of fish balls, chicken meat, meatballs and prawns for us to cook. Oh I shouldn’t forget to mention one big basket of seemingly endless vegetables also. (Vegetables in Sabah sure are cheep ^_^). After stuffing ourselves full, we retire to our lodge and there, we continue to eat >.<. This time though, we tried out one of the fruits that are only available in Sabah and Sarawak. It’s called “tarap” and it looks something like a jackfruit. It’s meat is also like a jackfruit but each of it is smaller and juicier. The taste, well it’s very hard to explain without trying it but I would say it taste sweet and sour at the same time plus a bit milky. With a very full stomach, we all went back into our room and start to sleep for tomorrow is our big day. Local time 11.30pm. I’ll talk about the actual climb in my next post. To be continued….