It's just one of those days

Just spent a long break over the weekend. The family was back. Celebrated Grandma's 73rd Birthday on Saturday night. Catch up on Season 5 and a bit of season 6 One Tree Hills. Had two Starbucks Ice Caramel Macchiato. Did some studying on GMAT Maths. Read three quarters of Sophie Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess. Overstuffed myself with Durians, Rambutans, Mangos and Mangosteen. All the things I love. Missing one person though.

Otherwise, it would have been perfect.

While it last (Part 3- Mt. Kinabalu Climb)

Being born and bred in Sabah, I was often asked, ‘Have you climbed Mt. Kinabalu?” For years, I had to sheepishly reply, “No. But I plan to one day.” Then, I proceed to live my mundane life, and soon, forget all about the dream to climb the tallest mountain in Southeast, Asia until one fine day, I decided, “I must climb Mt. Kinabalu and this time, I shall make no excuses.” After months of anticipating, the day finally arrived. Little did I know, that what lies ahead would be the most torturous and challenging day of my life. Normally, one would train themselves to be fit before a climb. My idea of training, was, window shopping, which, didn’t help at all. Idiot, I know. Still beating myself for it.

Anyway, let’s get to the climb, shall we. We drove up to Kinabalu Park, Kundasang. It took us about two hours from Kota Kinabalu. We checked into our lodge, went to Sabah Park Centre to pay our climbing permit fee as well as book ourselves a guide. Come evening, we went for a short briefing on the climbing and proceed to dinner afterwards. Buffet dinner was served. Sumptuous.

We had our dinner and chatted over coffee and tea afterwards before deciding to retreat to bed early that night.

Next day, our climbing adventure began. We started from Timpohon Gate at about 9.30am. Destination: Laban Rata. That my friend, will be a 6 km journey. So up we went.

Friendly Squirrel

The Potter

Up the wooden steps.

Up the rocky steps.

Oli kept telling, "Take smaller steps" How to take smaller steps when most steps were bigger ones.

And more steps. (While I did develop this immense hatred for steps during the climb, rest assured, I have now reverted to being oblivious to steps.).

Group picture! From Left-Right: Eriko, Nicholas, Stephanie, Lukas, and Yours Truly. (Oli was the cameraman)

The only picture of us climbing to Laban Rata.

On the plus side, the weather during the climb to Laban Rata was nearly perfect, except for the little drizzles when we were about to reach Laban Rata. But all was well. We finally reached Laban Rata shortly after 4pm albeit, being among the last one to reach Laban Rata. Not cool. Plan was to have an early dinner, shower, rest and sleep by 7pm because next morning climb would start at 2.30 am. I repeat, 2.30 am. Insanity. So, we did just that.

At 2.30am, after a short breakfast, thus began our grueling 2.7 km journey up to the peak.

All rocks and granites

Barely 50 metres up from where we started, I wanted to give up already. It was cold, and being at high altitude, I find it harder to breathe normally. The legs were not willing. But Oliver wouldn’t let me back out. He kept telling me, “Don’t give up. You won’t regret it.”

During the climb, I asked myself why did I will myself to embark on this climb in the first place. I huffed and I puffed, cursed and cried, all the while taking one step at a time.

We were almost near the peak, but, sadly, we missed the sunrise. Again, I wanted to give up because there wouldn’t be a point to go to the peak since we missed the sun rise, the supposedly highlight of the climb. But still, Oliver insisted we reach the peak.

And finally, we did!

The feeling I had when we reach the peak was indescribable. I was too overwhelmed by the whole thing that I couldn’t stop crying. So, Oliver pulled me aside.

He started comforting me with words that I could hardly comprehend at that time because I was just too drained out and all of a sudden he asked, “Will you marry me?” whilst holding a small opened box showing a beautiful ring. I was momentarily speechless.

Oliver said, “Say something, the photographer is waiting.” Nicholas was beside, taking shots.” So, I said “Yes.” But not before asking, “Why don’t you kneel down?” I was, by the way, trying to be funny to diffuse the awkward moment. And I guess, that’s the highlight of the climb, afterall. What is sunrise compared to this?

Thus, we began our journey down, happily but then, the steps came which turned me into a bitter, just-been-proposed-girl. Period. That’s the end of our Mt. Kinabalu climbing trip. The good part was, we made it. And you probably can figure what was the best part. And if you’re wondering, when is the big day? Well, we’ll let you know. Some day.

To overcoming many more challenges in life together.

Love,
Oli and Mel.

While It Last (Part 2- Scuba Diving)

First, I want to say that scuba diving ROCKS! You see, I was a bit skeptical about scuba diving because first, I can't swim. second, I have this love and hate relationship with water. You may assume that, I'm a little phobic when it comes to water. Which is why I don't like to bath. Just kidding. Really. Don't give me that look. Anyway, third, I actually tried diving. Once. I could barely be in the water for more than a minute. Okay, I panicked. And thus, I gave up. That was two years ago. So, when the rest chose scuba diving over white water rafting, I was, like i said earlier, skeptical. But we went ahead, booked ourselves Discovery Scuba Diving course with a dive operator called Downbelow (Highly recommendable), and the next thing we knew, we were on a speedboat to Gaya Island. This time around, the group consists of me, Oliver, Lucas, Steph and my two younger brothers, Mitchel and Marshal.

Mitchie and half of Marshal

The Crew!

Anyway, we departed from Jesselton Point, Kota Kinabalu and it took the speed boat a mere 15 minutes to reach Gaya Island. Once we reach the island, we were led by Ashley to the reception area to register and sign some forms.

Applying sun block all over

On our way to Gaya Island

Ashley (Downbelow Staff) briefing us on the program

Signing some forms

This was us fitting into our dive suit! Cool right!

Meet our dive intructors, briefing us on some basic knowledge on scuba diving.

And off to our preliminary dive in the confined area which is about 5 metres deep. *Gulp*

So, first we were learning how to descend into the water and vice versa. Double gulp. Anyway, the rest did fine while I was struggling at first. But once I overcame my panic attack, I managed to dive with the rest. But not without the dive instructor who was patient enough to guide me all the way. Like literally pulling me along during the dive.

So not cool.

Anyway, preliminary dive lasted for about 45 minutes. We took a break afterwards. Went hiking for a bit around the island, and had lunch.

Off to our second dive. The real deal. This time, it was out on the open sea near by Sapi Island. Water depth, 12 metres. Yikes. But, the second time around, surprisingly, the dive was smooth. I was more calm than previous dive and I was able to actually enjoy looking at the corals and fishes. It was really cool being underwater.

The boy who did not check his oxygen tank level

But the second dive was cut short because, Marshal, my youngest brother, did not check his oxygen tank and thank goodness, Oliver checked on it and noticed that the oxygen level indication was a little alarming and when Oliver notified Kelvin, true enough Marshal's oxygen tank was nil. So, we ended our dive and swiftly made our way up to the surface. And yeah, that was pretty much how our scuba diving went. We got our certificates, took group pictures, and sadly, it was time to return to Kota Kinabalu. Thus, the end of our scuba diving trip.

Everyone agreed that it was an awesome trip and maybe next time, we will take the actual Open Water Diver course so we can dive all over the world. Alrighty then. Next post would be on our Mountain Climbing adventure and of course, one of the most memorable moment for both Oli and I. For now, that will wait. :)

Resminicing island days.

And missing each other.

While it last (Part 1- Kinabatangan River Cruise)

Hello.
We know it's been awhile since our last post. Both of us had been busy. Oliver with his work and studies, while me, with, err...work. And it doesn't help that we're distance-s apart and this blog was meant to update the things that we do together while travelling. So, go figure.

Right, enough of excuses for the long hiatus, now, what have we got here. A plenty. Oliver was back for his supposedly summer holiday and a few of his friends came to visit. So, we did tons of things for the past three weeks or so. By the way, I just bid Oliver farewell, again, yesterday morning and we're missing each other terribly.

Anyway, back to the stuff we did. First, we did the Kinabatangan River Cruise. Kinabatangan, as some of you may or may not know, is the longest river in Sabah and famous for wild tropical animal sightings, we're talking about Proboscis, Macaques, Borneo Pygmy Elephants, crocodiles and of course the many myriads of birds. So, on the day itself, we took the first flight to Sandakan. (Oliver and his friends; Lucas and Stephy took Air Asia) while I flew on Malaysia Airlines. Hehe. Once in Sandakan, we took our breakfast and proceed to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre and waited to be picked up by our tour operator. Whilst waiting, we took a few pictures. Pre-river cruise.

#1 Hi there. It's been awhile.

#2 Lucas and Stephy.

#3 Us. Nay to Oli's long hair.

#6

And we were off to Kinabatangan, first on a 1 hour or so road journey to some 'Ulu' places. After reaching the river bank, we hopped into the boat to go to our lodge, Kinabatangan Nature Lodge.

#7 On the way to lodge

#8 Fooling around

#9 Bits of Kinabatangan River

Upon reaching at about 1pm, we checked in, had our lunch, rest for a bit and came 3pm, we proceed to our afternoon river cruise. During river cruising, we sighted lots of Macaques, Proboscis, and birds, which were less exciting. Hehe. Not a bird person.

#10 Macaques

#11 First bird

#12 Silver Gibbon

#13 Second bird and can you spot the Proboscis?

#14 Spot and count the number of Proboscis

#15

And half way while river cruising, it started to rain. Fortunately for Steph and I, we had our rain coats on (well, Lucas gave me his) and unfortunately for Oliver and Lucas, they were drenched in the rain. But I had the feeling, that they actually enjoyed it. After the afternoon river cruise, we went back to the lodge to freshen up and afterwards, had dinner. Dinner was not so appetizing. But heck it, we were hungry, so we ate whatever was served. After dinner, we opted for the night jungle walk. So we walked through the unfamiliar path, in the dark, oh, and it was muddy as hell. But the upside was the nocturnal faunas that we did come across, like below.

Palm Borneo Frog. Smallest frog in the world. It was so tiny. Like 1/4 of my pinky finger, or even smaller.

We also spotted a few sleeping birds. It was so weird looking at the sleeping birds. It look as if it was awake because the eyes were wide open. The only thing was, they were just sitting on the branches, motionless.

Our night walk was cut short because according to our guide, there were wild elephants nearby and it was not safe to continue the walk. So, we made our way back to the lodge. Frankly, I was more than relieved to end the night walk. Well, it's just not my thing. So, once we were back to semi-civilized area, we made sure that they were no leeches leeching unto us. I spotted one leech that was about to enter my right boot. Thank goodness Lucas flicked it out. Hate those blood sucking creature.

So, that was the first day. The next day, we took the morning river cruise. I almost wanted to skip the river cruise. Mind you, it was at 6 morning. But Oliver wouldn't let me sleep in. So, up I went and on to the river cruise.

#Like a true wilderness girl :)

Again, macaques and proboscis, same ol' same ol. But ooh, we spotted not one, not two, but three Borneon Pygmy Elephants! And according to our boatman, we were lucky because the last time they sighted the elephant was four months ago. I guess that was the highlight for the morning river cruise.

# Like a family of Borneon Pygmy Elephant

After the river cruise,we went back, packed our stuff, and headed for breakfast. Lucas and Steph stayed for another night, while Oliver and I, returned to Sandakan. All in all, we enjoyed the river cruise. And the lodge people were actually really friendly and they were quite surprised to have us (Oli and I) because for them, it's rare to see Malaysian doing the river cruise. They actually assumed we were from China or Korea or whatever Asian country you can name. We highly recommend the river cruise. But bear in mind, bring your own mineral water and possibly, pay attention to what you eat because we had bad experience which is not worth mentioning here, but I can tell you that it involves many trips to the toilet and possibly, hospital too.

Till the next post.

Cheers,

Oli and Mel.