The Malaysian state of Sabah is located in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Borneo is something like the 4th largest island on earth. It's brimming with flora, fauna, and from what I've heard, some of the best dive sites in the world. Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia at over 4000 meters up. I don't know how I got up there, but I climbed it and the trek up was beautiful regardless of the fact that it was raining the majority of the time. And the sight at the top was well worth the discomfort of sore muscles, altitude sickness, and the mix of being sweaty and freezing cold.
You hike the mountain starting around 10am from the base of the park and it takes around 5 hours I think for the "average" hike to the resthouse where you spend the night (Laban Rata). The next morning you wake up around 2am and head out with headlamps up to the summit in hopes to see the sunrise. Ok, so I got up there, but not quite in time to see the sunrise from the highest point, although it was amazing no matter where you were. While the majority of the trek up there was green jungle, at the top its all granite, and this freak of a mountain has no vegetation at the top. I really liked the top (even though I was exhausted) because for some parts you had to use a rope to pull yourself up some steep areas. It just felt more interactive, like I was a little mountain climber scaling the granite walls. And I've decided as fun as it is to sight see and take pictures, I'm hoping to do more 'engaging' things in my future travels. And the descent is one way, all the way and kind of tough too, especially towards the end.
I was super slow getting up there. The pounding headache forced me to take frequent breaks and try to get more oxygen in my brain. It was breathtaking though being among the clouds and seeing the granite world up there that looked like a supernatural foreign planet. The only thing I could relate some of these sights on the mountain to were video games. Other than that, I had never seen anything like that before.
