intermezzo
a friend is now into trekking and at times i commented on his pictures whenever he uploaded it to facebook. he then asked if i'm keen and i said yes. so when they're planning on this mt. ophir crossover i ended up by saying yes. i was unsure how it'd be since i don't know him that well and i don't know the others. furthermore i am the only amateur trekker. but i went with an open mind and i had a wonderful time. torturous, but wonderful. so here it goes ...
day 01 - may 2nd 2008
went to meet the others and at that moment i felt at home, most of them are very kind and accepting. we had dinner together. being a seasoned trekker, they're totally prepared. i was the only one with the 'bo chap' attitude. i only brought 600ml of water since that's all i had during my kinabalu climb (apparently mt. ophir is ranked 6 on level of difficulty and kinabalu is ranked 12). but because all of them kinda made me scared, i ended up getting another bottle and a pack of bread for breakfast.
we're doing a crossover - start climbing up to the summit in the midnight to catch the sunrise and start descending afterwards. in total, 12 hours of walking. i thought kinabalu is tough, and since this is only 1,276m it should be quite alright. of course, i thought wrong after knowing the rank info.
since i only had 4 hours of sleep the other night that i decided to dope myself with coke during dinner and that was a wrong choice. i couldn't close my eyes the whole journey. i ended up chatting with seb when he's awake instead of trying to get some sleep. this trip makes me know him better as a friend. we chatted from work to friends to relationship and of course he still does what annoys me most - preaching about his belief.
we walked for 10mins before reaching the start of the trail, the asahan gate - in Malacca - and were then being briefed prior to the climb. i had to do my business between cars there since there's no place for you to do it properly, thank God i only need to do it once. at 1.30am, we all started our climb.
day 02 - may 3rd 2008
we started our climb at 1.30 am. i was surprised upon seeing the summit. i was like "that's the summit?" to which one of the guy answered "yes, it looks close but i can guarantee you it's tough". indeed it is. it's a jungle trek i.e. no proper trail like kinabalu and the steps can be quite high. seb found me a stick to hold on to and he kept on lifting my spirit saying things like "if you ever think of giving up, just remember there's a 63yr old man in this group". eventually, one of the man realised i don't have a pole and he was so kind to sacrifice himself and let me have his pole; it made my climb a little bit easier. we rested for few minutes at every checkpoint and i think i kinda dozed off at checkpoint 5 because i all i remembered was everyone switching off their headlights then suddenly one of the guy asked someone to remove the leech on his neck. it was a tough trek; you're so happy that you've been climbing up to 600ish metres only to realised you're going downhill again. this continued on several times.
reaching checkpoint 6, we went to the nearby waterfall to top up our water. from checkpoint 6 to the summit - which is checkpoint 8 - we had to hold onto a rope and pulled ourselves up. just like kinabalu BUT this is way steeper. when you thought you're done you'd end up seeing another rope or stairs. of course i didn't catch the sunrise as i only reached the summit at 7.30 am - 6 hours of sleepwalking. the guys were very nice, the minute i reached there all of them clapped their hand and gave me high five.
once at the summit we rested while waiting for the few others to arrive. yupe, apparently there's this indian guy who joined his friend and i think this is his first trekking. so i'm not that amateur :). had our breakfast, some photo taking and by 8.30am we all started to walk down. as usual descending is harder for me as the pressure were more on the knees and i do have a weak one, thanks to my weight.
we took the hutan trail for descending, which is in Johor. so basically we're walking from Malacca to Johor. living to its name, the trail is really a forest; loads of obstacle and you have to be careful not to lose way. and don't get me to the rocks; i was so scared at one of the long descending down on ropes especially when the guide said "this you can't let go of your hand until your legs touch the ground, else you will fall down" when i said what if i slip his answer was "be careful, you don't want to slip because your face will hit the rock and it will be like a motor accident". man, i was like an old lady on the rope work, taking one step at a time very carefully. unlike ascending where we all stick together - we all stopped if someone behind asked to - descending were divided into several groups unintentionally. i started in the first group and ended up in the last one. during my journey down i chatted with the guy who lend me the pole; he told me that my trekking shoes don't really do the work and gave me some tips on trekking. i like this group, they really care for the well being of each other. i was quite impatience with the indian guy as he was darn slow and i wanted to get this done fast but i couldn't just walk by myself as they preferred you to stay together. good actually because with that you kinda show support towards your mates. but after reaching the 2nd last checkpoint me and another man decided to continue ourselves and leave the guide to attend to him. we reached the station and again everybody cheered and gave me a high five. lol i feel silly but i know they're giving me a "pat" as a newcomer.
we waited for almost an hour for the indian guy to arrive (thank God me and mr. lee decided to go ahead) then all of us left for dinner and another stop for snack prior to going home. reached singapore at 10ish pm and i took a cab home. i was so tired and sleepy.
overall it was a nice challenging trip. i overcome obstacles, especially on the rope work. we didn't go to the waterfall since its now close after the death of 2 singaporeans there. trip wise, i met interesting people who are very supportive towards each other. so supportive they are that they asked me to join them on their weekend trekking in bukit timah to build stamina for the next trip. hell, i think i've had enough trekking for the year - or maybe for the next few months...
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