09th July, 2009: Landed on Kinabalu airport at 10:35pm, we were fetched by Alan, our tour guide who gave us news that it had been raining for few days, which was bad news for us. The terrain will be wet and made it more difficult for us to climb, water level will be high that make us not possible to do our rafting trip after the hike. We were brought to a foodcourt to had our dinner before sending us to our hostel. Next sunrise came without us having a nice sleep, and at 7am our journey began... Two hour drive and we reached the registration office to get our tags. The weather was cool and fresh, and we pray that it will remain like that through out the climb. From there, we met our mountain guide, Arnold and Primus which direct us to Timpohon Gate to start our hike at 9:15am. The first kilometer(2039m) was a piece of cake, which we reached in 30mins. The second kilometer(2252m) needed 45mins to reach. The third(2455m), 54mins... From there it was getting tougher and tougher, the air was getting thinner, which made us difficult to breath and needed more frequent rest for every few meters we climbed. The path was getting steeper and steeper, and it took us 94mins to reach the next kilometer(2745m). Everyone was tired, feeling breathless, and our legs muscles started to cramp. Rain started to pour, making the temperature drop few more degrees, the wind was blowing fiercely at some point that makes us shivering... We forced ourself to keep on going, resting, going, resting, and in each rest we put muscle-rub medication to our legs and thigh, drink our water, and eat some energy food. Finally reached the Laban Rata Resthouse at around 4pm. Rain still pouring at that time, so we had our dinner buffet while waiting the rain to subdue. Around 6pm then we move on to Panar Laban for our sleep. It was not actually sleep because everyone doesn't seem to sleep, but only rest. From 8 people in our team, left only 3 persons that continue the hike to the summit at 2am. I was one of the three... :) We start our next hike at 2.30am with our headlights as the lightsource. It was freezing cold, and I was shivering. The terrain was treacherous, with steep rocks to climb all along the way. We needed to hold and pull ourselves up using the rope at some point. We finally reached the summit at 6.25am. The sunrise view we were expecting wasn't there. The sky was covered by fogs. Can't stand with the coldness for long (2degrees C), we continue our decending from the summit. Although we can't see much view at the summit, but the feeling that we made it to the summit was already satisfying... I might be back on another day... on a clear nice weather!

 

 

This time our June School Holiday was spent in Bali, Jakarta, Bandung, and Cilegon(Anyer).

And 2 weeks have passed without we knowing that the holiday is oveeeerrr....

Back to Singapore, the kids are put under home quarantine for a week as a precaution towards the H1N1 virus.

At first they feel glad, thinking that they got another week of holiday extension,

but after two days they start complaining feeling bored. I think they missed their friends and school.