Mar 7th, 2008
Slippery When Wet
With a brief stop on Langkawi Island there followed a mighty 11 hour bus journey to Kuala Lumpur (advertised to be only 7hrs) which all-but-didn’t break down when the gearbox seemed to fail and arrived in the big city at midnight. The sheer determination of this driver to get us to KL deserved a medal. The only saving grace was the spectacular ice-cream glowing Petronas Towers looming above the city. We tried to go and see them but ‘someone’ didn’t read the guide book properly and they were closed that day. Starbucks in the foyer it was then.
Furthermore, our journey to the Petronas Towers wasn’t helped by the fact that it took us 2 taxis to get there. You’d have thought that literally EVERYONE would know where the two largest towers are, they’re the country’s icon, the building that physically towers above you all day, they peek around other buildings to remind you they’re there. Well, it seems not. The taxi driver took us in exactly the opposite direction and dropped us cheerfully saying; ‘Here you are’. Assuming he was right we hopped out. Infuriatingly, he was Indian. Aaaghh!
Kuala Lumpur became one of our usual ‘western city refueling stops’ and we made the most of being able to get gadgets, clothes, massages and be dazzled by the big city lights. When we were about to go and check out the typical Malaysian Quarter it absolutely chucked it down with rain… so we ended up in our usual hang-out, the cinema. The rain came so hard and so quick that it was eye-popping to see a triple-lane street in the centre of town be void of people so quickly.
Fully stocked up we made our way to Borneo. We had two things on the agenda in this lush green carpeted island. One, climb the impressive Mount Kinabalu which stands at 4092m, and two, scuba dive the beautiful Sipidan Islands. We got very wet doing both.
It says in the guide book that Mount Kinabalu is the easiest mountain to climb in South East Asia. They may be right, but the speed at which they make you do it, 2 days is without a doubt phenomenally quick. We arrived in the mist (viz 20m), climbed in the heat, summited the peaked in the driving rain and freezing cold and departed in more rain. Wonderful. Let’s do this again sometime. Watch us shiver at the summit; I could hardly operate the ‘record’ button my fingers were so frozen. They suggest you wear gloves for the climbing rope so you can haul yourself up the final home run to the top but these were sodden with rain water and frozen by the cold wind. Clever people would have taken two pairs of gloves; one for the ascent and one to keep you warm at the top!
They make you do the descent in one go (stopping briefly to gulp down breakfast) so by the time we reached the park headquarters at the bottom, Guy was walking like a chicken, his knees had pretty much given in, and I wasn’t too far behind him in the pain stakes. Curbs, steps and stairs were not our friends for days.
The British Police would have a field day in Malaysia; the drivers are awful and would pick up many a ticket if anyone was actually paying any attention. If they’re not speeding, they’re overtaking on blind corners. Having suffered the quick journey to Mount Kinabalu and the even faster return, this journey was the tipping point and after a few tears and some rather stern words they got the picture and this driver chilled out (although I did feel sorry for his wife and kid in the front who had to deal with our ranting). We thought perhaps they were all practicing for the Malaysian Grand Prix in a couple of week’s time.