Travel Story #6, Climbing Mount Kinabalu, Borneo, Malaysia, World's Mysterious Monkey Faced Summit! by chrisadventures
Mount Kinabalu, one of my greatest experiences and one I'd like to share with you! It was an amazing feeling being up there in the cold surrounded by an enormous landscape of tropical forests, mountains and the ocean on the background. Mount Kinabalu (4,1km) has been an amazing trip. A trip I would recommend to starters and more experienced climbers who like to have a great mountaineering experience. After I had been in the jungle for over 2 months I actually enjoyed the temperature up there. And after a 2-day climb up it was pretty satisfying to actually reach the summit. And the things we saw up there were simply amazing!
Photo: me on top of Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia
Photo: view on Mount Kinabalu from a nearby village
The trip is fully organised by the different companies. We were picked up at Kota Kinabalu and we were brought to Mount Kinabalu by taxi bus. We have spent one night in a hotel near the mountain and the next morning 6 am we woke up, filled our stomachs and started our way up guided by 2 local climbers.
Our climb started in the jungle at the Timpohon Gate (2km) and on our way up the temperature started dropping (1 celcius per 100 metres). On the way the the nature around was changing as we were making our way up the mountain.
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On our way up we saw waterfalls, beautiful trees and many different animals. We saw monkeys and we were being followed by squirrels on our way up.
For us, it was quite a big thing, a 10-hour climb up there! But on the way we saw local climbers doing the same thing, but they were doing this as a job with supplies, a tough job. I felt a bit less heroic when I saw locals doing the same climb, but they were doing it with gigantic gallons of water on their back.
Photo: local Malaysian carrying a water gallon all the way up to an height of 3700 metres (source: click here)
We reached our mountain appartments around 6 pm in the evening. Here, we enjoyed an amazing view and sunset! We had dinner up there, the air was thin and it became harder to breath.
Photo: sunset view on Mount Kinabalu
That night we slept for a few hours but we had to wake up at 1 pm to finish our way up to the summit so that we could reach it by sunrise. We had to climb another 4 hours with lanterns on our heads. With about another 150 climbers behind us we reached the top and we were one of the first ones to be there. It was freezing cold and still dark but it was satisfying! It was a bit cloudy during sunrise but we could still enjoy the amazing views.
Photo: me posing on top of Mount Kinabalu!
One of the most incredible things about this mountain is definitely its monkey face shaped summit. This is a 100-metres tall summit shaped by nature. To my opinion this is definitely a natural wonder as Borneo (and Sumatra) is the only place in the world where the Orang Utan (meaning "forest human") lives.
So, in case you're planning to visit Malaysian Borneo, I would recommend you to do this Kinabalu trip! It's challenging, exciting and satisfying!
In 2 weeks, on the 10th of July, I'll be flying back to Asia for a backpack trip of 2 months. I'll be visiting Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. It's my dream to share travel stories and photos with the world! If you enjoyed reading this travel story, please give me an upvote and follow @chrisadventures. I'll be sharing a lot more stories in the future and I hope to share them with you too!
Read my previous travel story here: Travel Story #5; Gili Trawangan, Indonesia, Got Locked Up On A Toilet, Had To Pay $300,- But Ended Up Running From The Police - by chrisadventures
Hi, I am a malaysian in Kota Kinabalu. I am very happy you enjoyed that Mt K climb. Sabah has many wonderful flora and fauna (orchids to proboscis monkeys to orang utans to diving spots ...). I believe the giant flowers mentioned are the rafflesia. They are not high altitude plants, but are in the lowland jungles. When you arrive in Kota Kinablu (KK) just ask the hotel or Tourist Center to check with the Rafflesia Center whether there are any flowers blooming and the distance.
Ah, that's good to know. Have you done the climb yourself too? :-)
Ha, as I am an old guy, I did the climb some 30 years ago. The facilities were much more primitive then. Most Sabahans do try to achieve the climb. I don't know if it still applies, in those days getting 10 certificates of achieving the summit qualifies you to be a guide!
O boy, i couldent believe my eyes seing the guy with
water gallon climbing up the mountain thats a
a hell of a tough job !
Exellent post Thank you
Great post! Did you find those huge flowers on the way there? :D
Do you mean the orange flowers? Unfortunately I haven't seen them! Not once during my 4 months stay in Borneo. :-( Thanks for reading:D
yeah man, those smelly flowers are huge! lol I was there 2 years ago but didnt get a chance to climb the mountain. Hopefully someday. Great post!
Yes, you should! Have you seen Orang Utans? We were lucky. We saw 2 of them in the nature when we were sitting in a local bus! :-)
unfortunately no. You are lucky!
wow what amazing views and experience. Just beginning to get my zest for travel back, so amazing post, thanks.
Ah, thank you so much @hopehuggs! Thanks for reading
exceptional :-)
always wanted to travel to Borneo and climb it - is it possible to do on your own or are you required to have a guide?
These mountains are often used a good source of income for the locals. I think it's forbidden to do it on your own, but you could try of course. We had to pay $270,- to do the trip. Malaysians were allowed to do it for $135,-. Although we had guides, I barely saw them on our way up because they sticked with the "slower" people of the group. The trip is worth it though, everything is well arranged and the guides have a lot to tell about the mountain and its history :-)!
Thanks for reading btw!
Great report! I've done the same in 2013, climbing the mountain with my brother. Such a great experience. You've got a nice blog focused exactly on what I love as well, "en je bent nog Nederlands ook!". Looking forward to connect! - @Finance2Nomad
Nice nice! Did you also enjoy the way up? You haven't posed naked on it, did you? I believe another dutch person did this and a week later an earthquake on the mountain killed over 15 people. The people who got caught were accused for "having disturbed the gods" and had to pay a large sum of money as compensation for their crazy action, haha.
Wow!!! Those are some majestic photographs. What a rush... :O
Thanks for reading @epiphany! :D
Thanks for a wonderful journey enjoyed it tremendously, to old to travel but travel on steemit everyday.
Wow, the local water carrier sure has his work cut out for him. Can't imagine how hard it must be to carry a bulky, heavy water-filled container up the uneven trail. And it's like 5x his size!!