Sabah - Negeri Di Bawah Bayu

Not too long ago i went back to the land where i was born, Sabah. Went there specially to climb Mt. Kinabalu, with two of my old high school buddies. Its one of the best trips i've been on, definately worth many many more visit cos there's so much to see, and not even food poisoining on the last days which ended my holiday could dampen my enthusiasm for that place. Sabah rocks!

Anyways here some pics that i took over there.

The view of KK town (Kota Kinabalu) atop bukit bendera. I went there and realised that Melaka is indeed a more ulu place than Sabah....haha...kononnya Straits Settlement. Only problem with KK is that its a little bit pricey over there, food slighty more expensive than KL.

Mount Kinabalu- This was the view we had from the chalet that we stayed in the night before the climb. Pretty pretty indeed.

.....Ooooohhh! We're halfway there...Ooooo-oohhh! Living on a prayer!.... Halfway through (actually more like 1/4) the climb we stopped to take a picture. Left to right: Jonathan, Wilbur and me. I look kinda sheepish in this pic. Don't like it at all.

A we climbed higher, i chucked my camera back in my bag and gave up taking pictures and concentrated more on catching my breath. NOT a good idea to go climbing if you have a flu. Not at all. But anyways as we went higher the tall thick tropical foliage evetually disappeared and turned into small tiny bonzai-like trees. And more importantly we saw the mountain. Felt kinda small and insignificant when I took this picture. No more trees up there though (duh!).

Poor Jon boy died of exhaustion that night when we reached Laban Rata (Laban Rata is a place where u stop and rest for the night before continuing your climb to the summit). He fell asleep in 3 seconds...I swear, no kidding. But anyways we didn't, so we took some pics of *ahem* and not to mention a couple of videos featuring the sleeping John boy. He hasnt seen it to this day...muahaha

The first sight of daylight near the peak. Me and wilbur saw the start of daylight about 500 m from the peak. And dawn came, it dawned on us that WE COULDNT REACH THE SUMMIT IN TIME FOR SUNRISE! So onward from here was a psychotic run upwards to the peak (Imagine Frodo and Sam on the last part of their journey to Mt. Doom and you'll get the idea.. minus the burning lava and of course, the preciousssss..). Still had time to pause for a picture though..wheee!

We did make it to the peak on time for sunrise. So i went trigger happy here and forgot about all the exhaustion and all the flu and cold and wind and blah blah blah. But here's a view looking south-eastwards from the peak.

Made it for sunrise! yay! Only bad thing about this was that the howling wind meant that i couldn't get a good clear picture. But i guess it looks pretty fine anyways.

Poor Wilbur's hands were shivering when he took this picture for me. But anyways thats the peak and a signboard in Kadazan or Dusun or Bajau or Iban..heck I dunno. There were bucketloads of people up there too. All like us, cheered up by the peak and the arrival of daylight.

John made it to the peak slighly later than we did, and again we stopped for a photo when he arrived. Don't mind the raincoat that he's wearing. It was raining for 8 hours the night before we set off.

These 3 fellas sticking out are known as the three ugly sisters. Wonder why they didnt name it the three ugly brothers instead.

We made our way down after that and stayed one more night at the foothills. This was the morning view from our chalet. Very scenic place.

When we got back to KK town, we stayed over at a friends place (More like my dad's good friend). He was very kind to take time off and show us around and tell us stuff about Sabah. Anyways this is Yayasan Sabah, a foundation set up giving scholarships out for students who do well in their SPM exams. Shortly after taking this picture all the complications involved in getting food poisoining set in and..yeah you know what happens when you get food poisoining. If you haven't, you dont wanna know.

After that we went on to UMS, (it's University something Sabah, i dunnoe lah!). Anyways its the hugest Uni in Malaysia i think, and certainly one of the most beautiful ones. The place has a freaking beach lah! And what do i get for my uni in london? A patch of grass that they call a park! But anyways these 4 pics were taken from the Uni's jetty(!) looking out towards the sea. I should make postcards out of them and put them up for sale.

Arriving home after that my food poisoining got really bad and i was pretty much not very mobile after that. So all plans of island hopping at the Gaya islands and Tanjung Aru beach was shelved as i then concentrated on staying alive. But we still had time for one last picture...

A tribute to the wonderful family (minus wilbur and john boy of course) who was exceedingly hospitable to us, and kept me alive and all in my last 2 days there. They're the greatest people.