Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (1)

One has to sacrifice a chicken to appease the spirits of mount Kota Kinabalu. Or so the legend says. With an increasing number of climbers, hitting 20,000 people in 2009, summiting or at least attempting to summit Borneo's highest peak, the approach to chicken sacrifices got more pragmatic. These days, seven chickens are given to the mountain spirits per year. I'm not so sure if the spirit is too happy about this new deal. I did my part to ask for a safe climb by sacrificing my packed-lunch chicken. Being a vegetarian has some benefits after all.

Our 5.5-hour hike started shortly after nine o’clock in the morning from the Kota Kinabalu Park headquarters. Much to the surprise of our guide, we insisted to walk the 4.6km paved road to the Timpohon trailhead. He met us there an hour and a half later.

Entering the gated trail, we followed a man-made path clearly marked as summit trail for the next four hours. The trail is well established, patched up with cement in places where erosion is getting a grip of the reddish soil of the mountain. After leaving the jungle like thick forest, crossing the tree line, the vegetation looked a lot like that of the Alps. Shrubs, granite rocks, never vanishing mist, and a constant drizzle. One or two times the sun broke through the clouds giving away parts of our distant goal: the 4,095.2-meter high summit of Mount Kota Kinabalu.

At an altitude of around 3,000 meters, the air is getting considerably thin. Our heart rates are up and our walking pace down. We dragged our feet over endless steps. Glenn dragged even more: Parts of the soles of his new hiking boots started to fall off. While he was suffering from shoe mal-function, I was struggling with a damaged knee.

Despite our little obstacles, we got to snap some pictures along the trail. We reached the Laban Rata hut for our overnight stay at 2pm. While we slept like kings in Kota Kinabalu’s Meridien for the past two nights, it is bunk beds in an eight men room with shared shower facilities for this night! The rumors about water and power shortages turned out to be wrong, at least for us. We took a quick warm shower and learned our lesson standing on a freezing cold tile floor: let the water trickle rather than go full blast to achieve maximum heat experience from the small on-demand-water heater.

Freezing seemed to be the motto up there. The rooms were basic and so were the windows. We decide to use our bunk bed efficiently, meaning the upper bed as storage shelf while sleeping together in the lower bed. According to our judgment, the heavy wool blankets haven’t been washed in... Ever! The only way to keep potential high-altitude skin diseases away was to sleep in our hiking outfits...