Borneo was one of the destinations I visited during my 16-month career break. Following is an excerpt from my blog.
[singlepic=958,200,,,right]When my friend Russ and I decided to go to Borneo, we had a single goal – to climb Mt. Kinabalu, the highest peak in SE Asia. Ever since the sad day that I was banished from Kilimanjaro due to altitude sickness, Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo had been in my sites. I thought that even though I couldn’t make it up to 19,000 ft. (Kilimanjaro), I should be able to make it to 13,000 ft. (Kinabalu). I had determination – an intense determination that had been building since Africa.
The literature about the climb said that a reasonably fit person could summit. It takes two days to make the 8.5km climb – the first is spent going up, up, up from 5000 ft. to about 10,000 ft. where you hunker down in a lodge/hut.
The hut is basically an unheated wooden structure that pretty much resembled most of the hostels I have been staying in. Bunk beds, shared bathroom, luke warm water at best. On day 2 you are to get up at 3AM and start on the summit route in the dark. You make it to the summit (13,435 ft.) by sunrise. The temperatures around the summit are normally right around freezing – 32 degrees – and the wind is brutal.
