Mt. Kota Kinabalu (Mt. KK), Sabah - Part 4

Sometimes, I don't even fall asleep at this hour, but today I must wake up at 1.30pm, so that I can enjoy the supper before continue my mountain conquering journey. It was a nice sleep, although the weather is freezing cold.

After battery recharged with the food, we start the 2nd part journey around 2am with a tiny headlamp. As it is dark, so tour guide told us must follow the step carefully, and surprisingly there are so many people queuing up to walk up the staircase. Whenever we feel tired, we must stand aside to let others to walk up first. 

After 3 hours hiking in the darkness, finally we reach the top!!! However, the wind is so strong, and we just try to find some place to hide. As tour guide told us that the sun rise around 5.20am, so we can come back to here after 15 mins. 1 of my friend was so tired and really find a place to take a short nap. I was salute this act, as no matter how tired am I, with this kind of weather, I don't think I am able to take a nap.

Waiting sunrise in the dark

We start enjoy the scenery and snapping more photo when the days turn brighter.

South peak

Shadow of the peak

So happy to reach the top 

Donkey ears peak

Around 7pm, we are ready to return to Laban Rata, as according to tour guide, the sunlight could be harmful to our skin, so we must goes down before 8am, and we will need to depart to the entrance gate before 10.30am. So, is time to go back.

Follow the rope to go down.

Start to climb down

Returning journey

Around 9pm, we arrive at the rooms that we sleep last night, start packing everything, then having our breakfast at Laban Rata resthouse. Just do simple clean up and around 10.30am, we start the journey of going back to Timpohon gate.

For this trail, it was totally different scene with Mesilau, the path is full of rocks and it is consider very big step we need to take for every step.

 Finally, we reach are close to the Timpohon gate...

After 5 hours, finally we can rest and take our tea break at Balsam Cafe while waiting for the tour guide to fetch us back to Kinabalu park office. We need to report ourselves at the office to make sure they record us safely come back from hiking. 

Then, with the tired and painful leg, we return to Kota Kinabalu town.

With this, we end our hiking tour and back to Penisular Malaysia.

Mt. Kota Kinabalu (Mt. KK), Sabah - Part 3

Today, we wake up unusually early compare to the other day, as we need to ready ourselves to be picked up by Mt. hiking agent. 7am we need to be at Borneo One to wait for the van to pick us up.

Proper hiking shoes, with 1 pair "kampung adidas"

From the agent, we know that there are in 6 person under him for the group, including 4 of us + 2 travelers from Hong Kong.

With agent, everything can be arranged properly, however, different agent may charged differently. For our package, it cost about RM 550 which included:
Entrance fees, hiking fees, tour guide fees, Laban Rata lodges charges,
All the meals - Day 1 lunch (bring along while hiking, pack in tupperware), D1 dinner, D1 supper, D2 breakfast and D2 lunch, all buffet style.

Stop by at the Kinabalu park for registration

The contact of agent: Ah Han --> +6019-8608211.

It took about 3 hours for us to reach at the National Park entrance. We need to register ourselves before start climbing, due to the will  and from there, we chose a walking stick each, to assist us to have a better hiking journey. It cost about RM 3 each stick. At here, we meet our tour guide too, there are 2 of them, and they are brother, who partner with Ah Han.

Due to we chose the longer trail to hike - Mesilau trail, thus we need to travel for another half an hour to the trail entrance. Although take longer time to reach the rest point, which called Laban Rata, (as it is 2KM longer than Timpohon trail), however this trail will take you through a beautiful trek of montane forest, pass streams and ridges, which make you worth to do so. 

Extract from http://www.trailofasia.com

And, we started our hiking journey around 9.30am after some briefing given by the tour guide. 1 of them will walk with the first person and the other will follow the last person in the group. The tour guide is great, they will ask you don't rush, walk slowly, and most importantly, you can make it! They will advise us, don't simply give up, unless you feel that you really not able to continue the journey. Or else, they will walk with you to the destination. In our group, non of us hire 

There are different types of road condition you may encounter in this trail, sometimes is smooth and easy to walk on, sometimes we need to climb the stairs, sometimes we need to climb the big rock.

After rest, continue the journey

Nice scenery all the way up

Due to cold weather and high latitude, most of the tree has no leaves

Easier to walk on this kind of path

Challenging hiking path just started

Looking up to where we are heading to

Challenging path

Finally, we reach the resting point around 5.30pm, after 8 hours hiking. However, the scenery make us forget our tiredness

Sun is peaking at us

Beautiful scenery

Tour guide looking at the friends who play "sepak takraw"

At here, we rest and take our light dinner, although is buffet style, but tiredness make us not really eating much. Afterwards, we need to walk for another 10 minutes to our room, which called: Gunting Lagadang Hut. The location of this lodge is higher than Laban Rata resthouse.

Then, we not really take bath because it was freezing cold there and there is not heater available in the room. So we just make some simple clean up, then prepare to sleep. I thought that I can't fall asleep at 7pm, however, it was so fast to fall asleep... 

To be continued in part 4..

Mt. Kota Kinabalu (Mt. KK), Sabah - Part 2

2nd day, as it was weekend and my friend join us to the island. We decided to go to Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park.We depart around 8.30am to city and find the breakfast, and soon, she brought us to this shop and had the famous noodles - Mee Tuaran. Besides this, I was told that the Big Prawn noodles is nice too!

After having the tasty and heavy breakfast, we heading to Jessilton Point, as the ticket of transferring to the marine park need to be purchased from there. Finally, we chose 3 island hoping package, which cost RM 40 for return after bargaining, which included the snorkeling gear.The 3 island that we chose would be Sapi island, Manukan Island, and Mamutik Island

Departing soon, waiting at wharf

Start our journey of island hopping! Swimming with the fish is a best experience here, especially if you have bread, you will feel all the fish really follow you and like you so much!!

Manukan Island

Clear water

Start snorkling

This time, we tried out something special and never try before, parasailing!

Preparing the gear

Yeah, we are so high from land!

 While waiting for the boat, we see something unusual, when looking at the sea, we can see an obvious contrast scene under the boat.

When we take a closer view, actually there is uncountable of small fish who create this scene! It is a weird thing that they won't swim out the line, however, there is nothing to make them swim out.

Afterwards, we just proceed to our 3rd island and do some snorkeling, and back to the town for dinner and rest. Due to the main mission is still conquering the mountain, thus we must keep energy for the next day.


To be continued in Part 3..

Mt. Kota Kinabalu (Mt. KK), Sabah

Finally, we manage to book the seat for Mt. KK hiking!

As there are lots of people come from all over the world everyday to conquer this mountain, thus the booking need to be done around half year before your plan. Especially when you have a big group of people, then it will be tough for you to book the seat, normally when the date is opened for booking, it may get full quickly.

This time, besides to conquer the mountain, we do spend some days to walk around in the city.

Thanks to my friend - Alison who stay in Sabah and currently be a lecturer in UMS, who provide me the accommodation throughout my stay in KK :D

First day when reach KK, it was around noon time, so we just use her car to explore around the town. As usual, I am still impress with the cleanliness of the sea although it is just beside the city.

This is the first place that we went: Tanjung Aru Beach

Nice view

Hot day with big sun

We do order some drinks and sit there to enjoy the nice scenery

Different types of drink

There is nothing much we done on the first day, we take more time to chit chat with friend...


To be continued in part 2 - exploring the island

Broga Hill, Semenyih

This hill is consider a small hill, and you may see the sunrise with about half an hour to 45 mins hiking, or better known as walking.

We depart from Puchong at about 5 am, and reach there around 6 am. Once reach, we do take some time to find the place as it is at the area that full of palm oil tree. We actually recognize the entrance by seeing a lot of cars parking at the road side. You will be surprise that there is so many cars here when the day is still dark!!

We just find a good spot to park our car, then pay RM2 for the parking, and follow the crowd to start our climbing journey. 

The day is still dark, so we can just follow the road to walk and there is nothing to see when on the way up.

Compare to other hill, we really take shorter time to reach the top, and the sky is still dark..

Waiting patiently for to see the sunrise, however, due to the cloud is thicker, we miss the chance to see sunrise.

Anyway, the scenery is so nice! Make us feel impressed! Without any delay, we start to snap lots of pictures.

The below 2 pictures do not really look like what can see in Malaysia, however, you can get this in Broga hill.

So many people like here so much and keep snapping picture.

Although we miss to see sunrise, but the blue sky really make our picture look so nice!

Will come here again soon and try our luck to see sunrise.

Bali Family Trip - Part 2

Let's reverse back to the day of departing... 

The view from the sky, feel happy and calm when seeing this view

When arrive, we are checking in to Sayang Residence II at Denpasar. Nice but have lots of mosquito, toilet is behind of the room.

It is very late when we arrive, but our van driver cum tour guide is very good, purposely bring us out to look for food. Too bad most of the shop are closed, so we just simply chose a padang food to eat. Everyone is hungry as we forget to purchase the flight meal.

Come to 2nd day, our driver fetch us at 7am sharp, we depart to Sanur beach for our breakfast. This is the rice that we are having, we seldom see tourist here as our tour guide mentioned only local people know how to come, and this rice is awesome!

Afterwards, we heading to see Barong Dance, it is quite costly, but is good for us to see their culture through the show. Some scene captured during show.

Shopping time after show! We are heading to Batu Bulan Village to have some shopping there. Due to the rapport of driver with shop owner, we are enjoying 15% discount that other group does not have, they identify with the sticker. 

On the way heading to Kintamani Volcano, we stop by to have Kopi Luwak - world most expensive coffee. What make it so special? This type of coffee bean is made of coffee berries that has been eaten by Asian Palm Civet, then pass through its digestive system then come out again. So will processed after gather. 

Soon, we reach the Volcano. Our Mr. Wayan has helped us chose a restaurant that is not so crowded of tourist and the buffet cheaper than what always recommended. Besides, thanks to him, we can get 2 free headcount for this buffet. We are enjoying our lunch this this view and also snapped a lot of photos here.

There are so many temples around Bali, according to Wayan, there are about thousands of temple. The differences is only the location and size. So he brought us to 1 that is nearby to the Volcano. He did explain to us the meaning of the building inside temple.

Soon, is time for us to travel back to Ubud. On the way back we stop by Tegalalang Rice Terrace. We are stunning to see the view. The paddy field arranged nicely.

We checked in to the Jati Homestay for our 2nd night stay. You need to walk in further from the main street.

A bit sad when checked in, as we booked 4 family rooms through Agoda, but there is other foreigner checked in 1 day before us, they just give away 1 of the family room, we are downgraded to have double room + 1 mattress. The service is not so good either.

At night, we tried to walk around to find the Bebek Bengil Dirty Duck, too bad we can't find it. At last we just simply chose a restaurant and had our dinner there. 

Then just spend our night to chit chat and having Bintang beer with family ^^

To be continued part 3...