To the depths and peaks of Borneo

Hello all!

Lots to share after a week in Borneo! We flew in with zero confirmed plans and two goals: (1) to hike the highest mountain in Southeast Asia and (2) to dive the best place in Malaysia and arguably one of the best in the world. Our issue was that both being bopping eco-tourism destinations are heavily regulated and only allow a certain number of visitors per day to protect the environment. Soooo those that are a little more on their game than we were and booked in advance had a real advantage! After much kerfuffle and some tense moments, the stars lined up for us!

As we arrived in the afternoon and were really unsure of our first destination, we missed the buses and had to take a 5 hour car hire with us squished across a bench seat and behind us some stuffed in Malaysians. In hindsight.. sketch. Not to mention that we even got pulled over by the police to check the immigration papers of the dudes (who I suppose had the look of illegal immigrants?!?) sitting behind us. Anyways, we made it to the town of Semporna along the coast, where strike of luck one happened. Sipidan is world famous for its amazing diving. Its heavily protected (which is AWESOME!) and so they only allow about 130 divers into the marine park every day. We had called a week before and we told it was pretty much booked until September so had almost succumbed to the fact that we would have to settle for diving some of the other islands nearby that may not be as good as Sipidan but still good. However we decided to give it one last shot and walked from shop to shop checking to see if they had any openings. Sure enough, big group of divers had cancelled the night before and there was a opening for the following day.... success!!

Although I could write volumes about Sipidan I will try and limit it to a single paragraph. Simply put, the most beautiful coral reef diving I have ever done. I cannot even describe the things we saw as they were honestly out of a Discovery Chanel special. Not exaggerating, up to 30+ turtle on a single dive, sharks everywhere, intact healthy live coral covering the wall. On one dive there was a school of barracuda that was in the thousands.,.. actually a wall of fish so thick you couldn't see through. Amazing.

After our day in Sipidan, we did another full day of diving in the area which was also very good and littered with Nudibranchs.... yea! My fav! We then hopped on an early morning bus the next day to make the 10hr trek across Borneo to Mount Kinabalu, the tallest peak in SE Asia. I should back up however and explain that the situation is similar in Kinabalu as Sipidan. Only 190 climbers a day and you MUST have accommodations at the half way point up the mountain in order to be permitted to begin your climb as space is limited.... again booked through the month. However, after a NUMBER of frantic phone calls, we managed to find 4 beds in one of the huts. Miracle number 2. The mountain is over 4000m and takes two full days to make the uphill accent. We begain our climb at 10am on day one up the grueling steps and stones, breathing becoming a challenge with the thinning air. I know I'm not exactly in Ironman shape, but having your heart pounding out of your chest, dizzy hotheadedness and needing to break every 100 steps to catch your breath is something I never knew until reaching about the 2500m mark where the altitude factor really kicks in. Holy.

We made it to the camp at about 4pm for our overnight, exhausted and COLD!! The camp is at the tree line, pretty cool to look out and actually be above the clouds. Breath taking. Man the tropics ain't so warm at 3000m upthere! We crawled into our winter weight sleeping bags, toques, winter coats and double sock layers on at about 8pm totally wiped. We arose at 2am to begin the climb to the summit, as it necessary to reach it by sunrise in order to prevent risk of sun at such high elevation and to make it back down the same day. The experience was like no other. Hiking in the dark, already chilled and then the torrential downpour starts. Soaked through my jacket and poncho, I will literally heaving myself up these steep rock faces with ropes for over 3 hours of brutal brutal miserableness. I think I honestly cried the last hour up to the summit. Never have I been so challenged. I read before starting the climb that people have been known to turn around with the summit in sight and I though who could do such a thing? Now I understand, it definitely crossed my mind. Brutal. We made it to the top at 6am exactly to see the sunrising into the clouds. It was a complete blurr being there at close to freezing, lips blue, no feeling in the extremities and knowing you have the whole way down. Ouch. It was an amazing sight I will say, however it did not fully sink in until my body began to regain feeling an hour later. The views were astounding... looking out into mountain peaks and white fluffy clouds, so cool. We rested briefly at the camp on our way down to recuperate briefly before beginning the trek down.

The trip up was grueling.... the trip down painful. Every step was like a kick in the ass for the joints. Ouch. We had walking sticks to take some of the weight but still a painful pursuit. We were lucky enough (not) to get another torrential rainfall on the way down, adding to the challenge! Made it down to the bottom by about 4pm, tired sore and soaking... but prouder than proud can be. We did it! We climbed Mt. Kinabalu!! Wow.

We are now about to hop on a plane out of Borneo and Chantelle and I are headed to Cambodia. I will hopefully be able to post pics from all these amazing adventures at my next stop so stay posted!

Sending my love, Alex :)