unintended consequences

My legs feel like they have been tied to ballast and thrown down a four-thousand metre cliff.

4095.2 metre cliff, to be painfully exact, pardon the unintended pun.

List of 10 dumb things I have already done in the fiscal year commencing 8 December 2004 and currently in its 2nd day, namely 9th December 2004:

1. Brashly agree to climb Mount Kinabalu, on short notice (how does one week of training sound to you when you stand at Timpohon Gate and watch the names of the people who do the WHOLE trail in 2 hours 40 minutes - to quote the world record holder - adhere like a malignant tumour in your head when you get the sinking feeling that it will take five hours for you just to get to the halfway point? Which is what exactly happened to us. We dared each other to beat the record, maybe with the aid of a few tequila shots. So for the first hour, we - the fast group - sped up the mountain like hell and actually reached the halfway point of the first phase of the journey in two hours. Which leads me, oh so conveniently, to my next point.)

2. CRAMP FIFTEEN BLEEDING TIMES. Any other human being would have welcomed the rare opportunity to thus extinguish one's life by leaping of the mountain on, say, the 6th cramp. No, not stubborn Nicholas Pang with the proverbial few loose marbles. As I have previously mentioned, with copious attention to my membership in the "Fast Group" - all you fat people out there take that! You can also be a member of a "Fast Group" one day and I don't mean the quick diet quitters! - we basically did half the first phase in 2 hours, which was at least 1 hour ahead of the slow group.

Oh yes, puzzling your head over halves and phases, aren't you? Allow me the opportunity to enlighten and enliven. The typical Kinabalu climb is done over 2 days, divided, as you may have so cleverly observed, into the First phase - take note all you rote learners! - and the Second phase. The first phase is, as cleverly pointed out by the rote learners, climbed on the First day, and likewise, the second phase. The mountain trail is 8.8km long - First Phase means climbing to the edge of the vegetation zone. In laymens' terms - the Second Phase is sheer rock climbing. No plants to shelter you/hold on to/illegally harvest/turn into bookmarks.

At the end of First Phase, which is the first 6 km and normally takes 5 hours for the able-bodied (fill in your own gender or sexual orientation, knowing how politically correct the world has become) you put up in heated (Laban Rata) or unheated (Gunting Lagadan is the most famous and most well-stocked, but Panar Laban and Waras Hut also exist) accommodation for one night.

Well, pretty hard to call it a night.

For the next morning, you have to wake up at 2am, hollered at by the guides, to climb the Second Phase in pitch darkness. Well, yeah, of course, the flashlights help, but just how much is a matter of perennial debate. Thus, half the climbers do not bring flashlights. Being at the end of the vegetation zone, Second Phase is a (normally) 3-hour scramble and walk up the (do the math, 8.8 km - 6 km is kinda close to 2.8 km - the longest 2.8 of your life, I assure you) steepest rock faces available in Malaysia. Let go of the rope and it's a direct flight, straight down, onto the head of an unsuspecting local villager.

Of course, due to the many (some say, unneccessarily many) crevices in the rocks and the flourescent white rope, it is perfectly safe. We (the Fast Gang) got so pissed we ignored the rope altogether and carved our own path up to the summit, walking - Look, Mom, no hands! - on sheer craggy rock surfaces all the way to the top.

Well, it's not exactly "walking" when you are faced with an incline of roughly 45 degrees all the way...and when sadistic...there is a tiny vertical section, straight up, RIGHT at the beginning of Phase Two. Well, it's over by about 5.30am, which means you get to WATCH the sun rise on the peak, bathing Kota Kinabalu dan kawasan yang sewaktu dengannya with a silver pinkish glow that can only come from the heart.

Yes, I cramped 15 times, bleeding first phase. Only from 5km - 6km. FIFTEEN times in one kilometre. They still have pictures, replete with self-righteous, nervous laughter, when I ordered my friends to take of my pants on the trail in public view to rub Deep Heat to relieve the pain. That was the 6th cramp and I was close to committing suicide by hypothermia, sitting in the same spot for 10 mins trying vainly to ease the pain. I recall yelling something like "I don't care if the Prime Minister's entourage is passing just take of my damn pants and put the damned ointment on!"

Hmm.

It DOES sound a lot better/authentic in Chinese, doesn't it?