After Australia

Once again I am back in the little island, a place I call “home”. Life has always great at my side, since “today should always be better than yesterday”.

It has been almost a month since I first returned from Australia. The initial 12hours in Singapore is pretty exciting. The immediate destination is to my friend’s warehouse in Tampines where I departed my bicycle. I helped him to load some stuff into his van for a bazaar near Raffles Place. I had an hour of rest before leaving for the bazaar. The journey from Eastern Singapore, Tampines, to central Singapore is a mere 20minutes. This timing is impossible by flight in Queensland. Well… I realized I can never be trapped in Singapore for long.

I picked up the Air Asia ticket, and did a last minute arrangement to meet one of my Army buddies, Yew Mun. He responded to my 30minutes warning order. Fantastically, he arranged to pick up another Army buddy, Lok. As we were having lunch, we met another platoon mate. What a small world, small country… I began to appreciate the accessibility of the tiny nation.

After lunch, my “private chauffeur” sent me to RGS where I picked up the students and make my way out off Singapore to Senai Airport at Johor, Malaysia. Journey is pretty smooth, as my “friendly travel agent”, Aileen from PacWest travel, has made the pre-arrangement. Unlike Australia Budget airlines, Air Asia works on a “first come first sit” policy. I was trying to get some rest with while the 14 to 16 years old girls were displaying their strong enthusiasm toward the highest pinnacle of South East Asia. The group reached Borneo, third largest island in the world after two hours flight.

Interestingly, my first mission at Sabah is to identify “Mr Jeffery”, my friendly bus driver. I wasn’t too lucky, I used my first hint “Call a Friend” for assistance. My friendly travel agent wasn’t useful. I found my friendly driver using two guesses. The two hours bus journey to Kinabalu Park was uneventful. Jeffery is relatively safe compared to the cab driver who sent me to the same destination five year ago. I saw Aileen at 1600metres ASL (Above Sea Level). The mountain air is as cooling as it can be at 11pm. It was about 1am when my friendly travel agent explained to me the three groups of climbers and their independent schedule at Kinabalu.

“Kinabalu” is a Malay word that means “Chinese Widow”. The legend for this name came from the Chinese sailors who came from China during Ming Dynasty in search for the dragon’s claw that would make the Chinese King immortal. The Chinese officials did not find the dragon but found themselves rhino horns (Dragon Claw?) and more importantly foreign wives. When the sailors left, their wives climbed the highest mountain in Borneo. The ladies looked out from the Chinese Junks which look very different from the Malay boats. After many disappointing days, months and years, the women turned into stones! Unlike Australia and NZ mountains, Mount Kinabalu continues to grow every year. However, this mountain grows differently compared to Mount Everest. Mother Nature probably fed the mountains with different milk?


I was introduced to my group of climbers during breakfast. There are ten adults and ten primary school young adults ranging from eleven to twelve years old in my group. I would choose to disregard their age for I never believe in one should be forgiven for ignorance for outdoor. Mother Nature never closes one eye for the ignorance. Outdoor is never easy, I would teach, but if my clients choose to learn the hard way, I would never stop them as long as it is with safety tolerant. Summiting is a lucrative bonus for all climbers, but not a must. My personal objective for the trip was to bring everyone safely up and more important back to sea level.

There is a Chinese saying “study ten thousand books is not as good as travel ten thousand miles”. I firmly believe in that… Starting at 1800metre ASL after a 4.5km bus ride, the team cleared the 2200metres (Mount Kosciuszko stands at 2228metres) within 2hours. I began my lessons on the flora, terrain and human reaction at different altitude. The climb is slow but steady. The rain forest justified its name 4pm. The climb continued in the rain as it was too early to start the night trek. The last member managed to reach Laban Rata at about 3300metres at 5pm after eight and a half hours climb.

Personally, I feel the teachers in charge of the primary school are outdoor enthusiasts. Sadly, one who is interested in outdoor is not good enough to lead the team. Lions are led by the strongest lion within the pack. I m not sure if followers are young lion, but I am definite the leader is not the strongest among the pack. I started empathizing to my clients how to adapt in the cold. We plan to start to start the climb at 2:15am.
>>> One personal note, I have nothing against the teachers. Just sad that the kids could have been more exposed.

In many mountains, it is common to do 14-18 hours climb on summit day. Watching the orange cloud from the East, seem to be a norm but never a must. My clients planned to stay at Laban Rata for two nights, these is not an easy task for two of the students. Due to safety reason, we decided to evade them. The summit climb began at 2:45am after my clients had some biscuit and hot milo, courtesy from PacWest Travel.

The weather was never at its best. The climb was relatively smooth, three of my climbers pulled out when the climb began while two clients decided Sayak Sayak (about 3800metres ASL) was decent enough for a new altitude record. I respected one of the teachers use did the climb using sheer will. The last man of the team managed to summit at 7:45am to 8:00am. All returned to Laban Rata by 11am. No injury incurred at this point of time. One of the teachers volunteered to descend with the two students who had mountain sickness.

I did not fulfill my mission as the teacher who made the descent sprain her ankle while making her way back to 1800metres. I managed to settle the administrative issues with the assistance of the Malaysian guide and Aileen’s SMS after descending to 1600metres on Thursday.

Friday was spent on sightseeing at the Kinabalu Park which is easily four times the size of Singapore. There is a hot spring discovered by Japanese soldiers during WW2, tree canopy walk made by the local and war memorial for the Australian soldiers within the region. We took a flight back to Singapore on Saturday morning and my mum got the opportunity to see her ugly son at around 3pm. Thankfully, she doesn’t know her son has did a climb at Sabah before going back home. Else I could have been disowned and become an orphan now.

Next destination will be to Kenya and Tanzania at East Africa. The Somali plate has created a basin to feed millions of mammals in the plain. May I see the lions and rhino on the vast savannah? The objective at the countries is to climb two of the highest mountains in Africa. Kilimanjaro (5895metres ASL) and Mount Kenya (5200metres ASL) are snow peaks which are very near to the equator. I would not summit Mount Kenya for it is pretty technical, this summit is nicknamed the "Matterhorn of Africa". After taking photo the two summits, I would fly to South Africa to do a trek and view the Cape of Good Hope.

More Updates… Never Stop Exploring!

Kia-Ora!

Chee Meng
15th Jul 05