Everything's gonna be OK, Everything's gonna be OK...

Rock climbing is, supposedly, my sport. Unfortunately after over a dozen years I'm still not very good at it. Fortunately I'm gained a lot of experience which forced me to repeat Kwong's message, "everything's gonna be OK" at tonight's training.

Tomorrow we and 30 others are going to do the Via Ferrata on Mt Kinabalu. This involves dangling off ropes and harnesses while descending a cliff, or 2. We'll be roped together with people from at least 7 countries and if any of them makes a mistake we'll get the bad form of exciting.

Obviously the company has thought of this and there is lots of redundancy in the system. 2 carabiners hold us onto the wire rope, a dynamic line holds us to pigtail clips, and we are all roped together. Even if a tourist mucks up the first 3, they'll still be stopped by the next person in the line being pulled towards a pigtail clip.

This is fine, excellent even. I will be hard pressed to fall off this and Ifni knows I've managed everything else.

However...

Watching noobs from seven countries unhook everything and panic because the pigtail clip is facing away from them is terrifying.

The first was an inevitable mistake as they were practicing inside the hut but if the same guy does it on the wall there is going to be a big bang before he stops. And we'll struggle to get the gormless giant back onto the wire. The trainer didn't notice, and some guy had to correct him. To which he shrugged and went to sign his form. Training 30 people in 3sq metres of hut with 2 pigtail clips and 1 trainer is rushing it.

We, of course, were not helping. We were exhausted from climbing the mountain and grumpy because we hadn't had dinner. And finally we're getting up at 1AM.

So you can understand a little bit of panicking. But I was tired and hungry and these noobs were stopping me from eating while doing boneheaded mistakes that could bounce us around quite violently.

I dug deep into to my toastmasters and rock climbing experience and repeated "everything's gonna be ok". And it has been.

So far... 

Mount Kinabalu is not "accessible"

When you read about the Mt Kinabalu climb, it sounds quite accessible. Sometimes it's described with that exact word. You walk, say the books, for six hours uphill; then you sleep in the hut-settlement of Laban Rata till 1am; then you walk uphill for another two hours, and then you're at the highest point of South-East Asia. In time for sunrise, too.

Let me tell you something. They don't really mean "walk for six hours uphill". You don't walk, you climb, foot after foot, rock by rock, for almost the entire six hours. And it's not uphill. It's just straight up the side of the mountain. Tumbled sandstones and, later, granite boulders provide traction, but it's just vertical step after vertical step, on and on and on. It can take the best part of an hour to cover 200m; we were astonished to complete the 6km inside six hours.

When you pass the halfway marker the track is still a pretty familiar clay forest path. It's cool under the trees, ferns and vines fill the forest, and there's very little wildlife - all just like New Zealand. Large steps are cut into the track, and just like in New Zealand, the steps are too large to use without exhausting yourself. We quickly learned to minimise the vertical height of each step we took by using rocks and tree roots as intermediate steps. In this way we proceeded reasonably quickly to the lunch stop, a shelter named Layang Layang just below the 4km marker. On the face of it, we were 2/3 done.

It was those last 2km where things got gnarly. The clay path with steps was replaced by a long stream of tumbled boulders. Sometimes it was possible to traverse over a boulder using footholds, but other times it was impossible to avoid taking too large a step in order to reach the next section. An unhappy rhythm formed: small step, small step, small step, giant step, rest. Small step, small step, small step, giant step, rest. Each rest left us feeling a little worse than the previous one. It took us four hours to do the last 2km. I was in tears by the time we reached Laban Rata, and even Gregory was looking shellshocked when we finally sat down at Pendant Hut.

Amazingly, it took only two cups of sugary tea and a biscuit before we started to feel human again. The majestic slope of the mountain rising outside the window was suddenly a source of interest, not horror. Our fellow climbers were people to talk to, not incomprehensibly fit demi-gods. Best of all, dinner was coming, and in the morning we are promised two breakfasts (one each side of the summit). The prospect of summitting was still exciting, despite my genuine doubts about my fitness, and our local guide thought we could probably make it even after a whole day spent trailing us at snail's pace.

So what went wrong with our expectations? We forgot that this new mountain is unlikely to be like New Zealand. At home we have ample opportunity to walk for six hours uphill on bush tracks, but they do nothing to prepare you for the vertical flow of boulders we have here. At home, once you leave the treeline, you're mostly in ice and probably know what you're doing. Here it's too warm for ice, and a whole different set of challenges lie in wait beyond that too-accessible treeline. At home, huts are seldom more than four hours apart, creating a range of possible long and short walking legs. On Kinabalu you have no option - six hours of climbing, or you're out.

We made it through the six hours of climbing, so we're not out. And tomorrow we still plan to stand on the top of Borneo. Our expectations for tomorrow afternoon are pretty realistic, too, now - we're going to emerge from Timpohon Gate dead on our feet, and spend the next 24 hours, hopefully, off our feet entirely.

And we're off

In 24 hours, if all goes well, we'll be standing up there on top of Mt Kinabalu. Tonight we sleep at Laban Rata, a pretty fancy-looking mountain house about 800m below the summit. We're not sure what the cellphone coverage and power will be like, but we'll blog our day if we can (and if we can stay awake long enough - we have 6-8 hours of walking between then and now). Otherwise, next update Monday night.

Cool Change To Mountain Air

High in the mountains sprawls the village of Kundasang, home of Mount Kinabalu and Malaysia's main source of cool air.

We drove up from the lowland plains in the usual van but had to avoid a continuous stream of what looked like Fonterra milk tankers. Our driver explained that they were taking the cool air to KK's floating gas storage facility for transshipment to KL, Bangkok, and Jakarta. Apparently piped cool air is cheaper than air-conditioning. There is a downside though: they use raw unprocessed cool air in their malls, risking hypothermia. Certainly that was our experience at Avenue K and Suria KLCC. 

As we neared the village we were issued with canisters of cheap warm air, just in case. Fortunately we haven't needed them, the local oxygen supplies were sufficient. The cool air mine has decades of ore left.

A blowback at the main mine many years ago scattered the village amongst the valley walls. The effect is quite pleasant and no effort has been made to rearrange the homes. However a new law, the "Kansas Act", introduced safety regulations to prevent a repeat. A good thing too: some houses were hurled as far as Ozzie.

The mining industry seems to have brought low level prosperity with it. The markets are full of excellent vegetables and the accommodation is lovely. People seem wealthy and there is complementary Wi-Fi in the hotel.

That's the most astonishing thing about Kundasang: free Wi-Fi. To hear all the Kiwis talk, Sabah is unchanged since Conan got shipwrecked at Kota Marudu. In reality it is cosmopolitan, educated, engaged, and savvy. Our laundry lady, who was lovely, wanted to help people in "the third world". She was completely oblivious to the common opinion of her home island. This out of date attitude is maintained by the existence of exotic tropical diseases, and yet the only disease we've heard a local complain about was flu. We need to update our attitude and engage with Borneo.

Hell, the cool air mine hardly ever gets attacked by flying monkeys anymore!

Today's the day!

We woke this morning in Kota Kinabalu to a beautiful ocean vista - pink puffy clouds, calm waters around the islands, little boats zooming here and there. Tonight we'll be far away from the ocean, sleeping in a lodge at the foot of Mt Kinabalu, preparing to rise early for the first stage of the climb.

We are beginning to get travelled out. Our enthusiasm for crowds and new foods is waning. We've become so blasé, we forgot to remove knives and iPods before going through airport security. Our excursions out of the hotel are becoming results-oriented - get the laundry, find a pharmacy, find someone who can show us proboscis monkeys. Last night we couldn't even muster enthusiasm for the night market that surrounded the hotel on three sides (though we had an excellent view from our room of the market and the associated traffic chaos).

We won't get the chance to get to know KK the way we did Kuching. We've had just 24 hours from getting off the plane till our pickup for the mountain, and when we return from the mountain we'll have one more full day (on Tuesday). In view of that, we're not really bothering much with the city - no sooner had we arrived yesterday than we were arranging a ride to Lok Kawi wildlife park, half an hour out of town.

Lok Kawi is essentially a zoo. We aren't usually keen on zoos, but we don't have the time to seek out Bornean wildlife in the wild, and these animals often can't be seen in zoos at home. The enclosures seemed mostly big enough and the animals weren't stressed out (except the sun bears, who were pacing and clearly needed more trees to climb). The jewels of the zoo's collection - orangutans and proboscis monkeys - were lovingly cared for with large, stimulating enclosures full of games. I hope if I come back here that all the other animals will be treated as well.

I've never seen proboscis monkeys before. They're very graceful, have slow, thoughtful eyes, and of course the funny little probes on the end of their noses (for flowers, maybe?). We had the pleasure of seeing a young one with its mother, and watched it for a good 20 minutes as it tried to learn to climb a rope. It was exactly like watching a child figuring out a jungle gym (but a thousand times more agile). So cute!

On the way out we stopped to say hello to the otters. They were swimming around and around their moat, whistling soft messages to each other. As we stood there, the heavens opened, and the otters played together in the rain. There's no point trying to avoid a tropical rainstorm - who knows how long it could last - so we deployed raincoats and umbrellas and squelched back to the van.

A local passed us with two large palm leaves tented together as an umbrella. There's no substitute for local knowledge; we wouldn't even know how to cut a palm leaf. Tomorrow on the mountain we'll have to rely on our guide for that - especially if there is any actual Bornean wildlife around.

Still Searching For My People

Another early morning, another exciting adventure: Semenggok Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre and Orangutans. Since we're in Malaysia orangutans are the obvious attraction, and I was looking forward to meeting my fellow ginger primates.

Semenggok is a jungle area not far from Annah Rais dedicated to helping animals and returning them to the wild. Its minimalist in the conservationist way but nice enough. They do, however, have cells for the naughty crocodiles that come their way.

Naturally we went straight to the croco-prison. The first cell was empty but showed the lay-out: a concrete floor with inlaid rocks sloping down to the water filled bottom 4 meters. The second cell held a very grumpy log floating in the water. You could tell from the look in his eyes that 4m of water was not enough for a log of his size. Apparently he'd been very naughty and menaced villagers a long way away. He was being held until they could find a place for him.

The third cell held Sarawak national staring champion. A fantastic crocodile about 4m long, and completely determined to bore a hole in the cell using only his eyes. He lay diagonally across the dry part of the cell looking to long for it. I gingerly moved in front of him for a photo of that malevolent gaze, and felt sure that he was only waiting for the steel rebars to melt before devouring me. A single move from him would have scared me to death anyway.

We walked back to look at the pitcher plants and idly noticed a crocodile in the first cell. Problems with Bornean Travel #3: even when you can't see any logs, there are crocodiles.

The pitcher plants were cute and plentiful as they grow like carnivorous weeds in the park. We also saw a snake slide calmly through the jugs on its way to somewhere with more mice.

Finally we were called to the lectern and had the plan explained to us. The rangers gave the usual warning that these are wild animals and not to do anything that would leave us with fewer limbs. He also mentioned that the orang-utans make their own plans and we might not feature in their calendar. As he said this I took photos of a nearby gecko.

He led us a short way into the jungle on a track very much the same as the ones at home. We took pictures of trees and tried not to trip on the roots. 5 minutes later we stopped in a clearing across from a ranger and feeding platforms. Then we waited...

Naturally I got bored and I had a camera. I wandered away from the crowd to see if I could find and photograph the cause of the very noisy background sound. Photographs proved impossible as it was some kind of leaf roller high up in the trees. Malaysian squirrels were also impossible to photo as they move constantly. 

More amenable to photographs were the millions of ants trekking to a tree right beside the view platform. Literally millions, streaming from high up in the tree, guarded by soldier ants, and moving implacably. Bizarrely I felt horrified by and for the ants: they could be crushed easily but there were so many of them and so organised that Hollywood hyperbole seemed actually possible. 

The orangutans never did show up and I left Semenggoh a bit disappointed. It was an awesome place though and I felt it was well worth it. Meeting my tribe will have to wait for another day.

Cycling Kuching

On our last day in Kuching we finally get to see the city properly - on bikes. The lovely people at CPH Travel, who have organised everything we've done here, give us helmets and pretty little folding bikes and a guide named Richard, and off we go. Or off we would have gone, if not for a pause to pump up our own tyres, then two different stops in search of a helmet for Richard, whose boss hadn't left one out for him as promised.

"We're going to die, aren't we," I mutter to Gregory, eyeing the city traffic with trepidation as we adjust our helmets. Kuching traffic is an odd combination of laid-back and unregulated; operations like merging, giving way and changing lanes are done with more regard to the feelings and needs of other road users than to the road rules. While that's kind of sweet, it can be alarming at first. Being a pedestrian is very disconcerting when no one stops to let you cross - but the moment you take your life into your hands and step into the road, vehicles carefully steer around you as if they actually don't want you to die. Coming from Wellington, this is a revelation.

Pedaling grimly along the Kuching waterfront road, we quickly find that the same attitude applies to cyclists. The drivers share the road like gods. They make way and keep clear and let us go first at traffic lights. In this city where double-parking appears entirely legal, a driver alert for unexpected vehicles parked in his lane has no difficulty with an unexpected cyclist. They just drift calmly along behind, never even tooting, until we can get ourselves out of harm's way.

Once the question of traffic is settled I begin to relax and enjoy being on the move. It's 30 degrees and the sun comes and goes. In the heat, moving is better than not moving, but soaring along on a bike is best of all. The breeze of your progress makes the heat bearable and the changing vista keeps your mind off the discomfort.

We visit Kuching South City Hall, cycle across the western river bridge to visit a vegetable market, take in the stately buildings on the north shore - state legislature, state library, governor's residence. At every new sight we stop for photographs and Richard waits patiently. We wind up with a visit to an orchid garden before putting the bikes on a water taxi back to the south side.

The bikes are folding ones with small wheels and they fit easily under the low roof of the water taxi. As we'd discovered when we stopped earlier to adjust them for taller riders, they're designed with ease of use in mind - from the seat to the handlebars, everything is quick-release and slide-to-adjust, no spanners or hex keys necessary. I want one.

After a final sprint back along the waterfront, we leave the bikes in the van, folding their pedals up to make them fit better. Richard says goodbye - he has another job to do this afternoon. We put on hats against the heat and stroll, too slowly now, back to Chinatown for lunch. We are sore and sunburnt, but we feel so much more at home in Kuching for having soared through the streets like laid-back locals.