2004 ° Kinabalu   A year ago I was on Ophir. on the 26th December 2003, six potential upwardly mobile young adults left Singapore for Senai for a budget ticket-less flight to KK, the day commencing with waiting, waiting and more waiting, all thanks to customs clearance, transitory idleness and more airport lounge boredom.

Night at Trekkers' Lodge. If I didn't snore that's because I didn't sleep well.

27 ° de   began with shoulder aches and light drizzling at Timpohon gate, and ended with a magnificent setting sun hovering above an endless sea of cloud. In between there's all the pondoks that took so long to appear, and many remarkably beautiful flora. We were halfway up Mt Kinabalu, draped in ponchos and windbreakers, with cramps biting at the thighs with each step taken. Headache is inevitable, or so it was felt. If yesterday's waiting is a mental sufferance, today's trekking must be its corporeal equivalent, only more illustrious.

28 ° de   2am. Waking up is only an excuse to open the eyes. I never sleep those four hours. I was only closing my eyes. The night sky is sprinkled with an abundance of stars - dim ones gets brighter as you stare longer; new ones slowly light up as the eyes get used to the darkness. Orion and its bull, the dogs, his taxi called Auriga, and the twins, the M shaped Cassiopeia, and the seven naughty sisters and that blanket of milky stardust splashed across the hemispherical emptiness, came and go in the exact same manner as I have remembered them before. a few hundred thousand steps and rocks and ropework later, there came a final urge to just sprint up Low's Peak for the sunrise.

Breathless.

I lay myself flat on one of the rocks near the edge of the peak, just enough for my head to dangle over and see the drop vertically down. A shiver runs through the entire nervous system, justifying the fact that gravity is scary. I inch back to safety. Pris is already up here.

Going down could have been easy if not for the worn out knees made worst by careless slips. Footwork is so important. Like dancing down the granite rock in a complete pilgrim ritual. The day is completely bright now, with the sun scorching the bare mountaintop and sending the mists to rise and invade the peaks. RJ is still taking photographs.

We made our way down steadily until the rain started joining us and soon we were trekking in soaked socks. The shoulders have become numb. Once in a while a whiff of deep heat sails by, as if it was exhaust fumes from the overworked joints of the human anatomy. After the last pondok, we made a dash for the exit gate.

Back at Trekker's Lodge, I was confronted with two new urban challenges - the staircase up to level 3, and the shower.

Night was spent trying to sleep without pain.

29 ° de   A van goes around the busy town picking up rafters from various lodges, inns and hotels. A nap later we were waiting on the concrete platform of Beaufort train station, where the industrial age machine sent us to some remote part of some yellow flowing river. The train ride felt like an old man trying to clear his choking phlegm.

The river swells.

A few moments later while trying to catch my breath in the tortuous regime of paddling, the boisterous waves of the rapids tipped the raft carelessly on its side and flipped me and three others out of the boat; how I hate breathing water. We were drifting in the grade four waves and I was almost in reach of a rescuing paddle when the boat suddenly plunge forward and sent me back down into the river again. Crashed by the impact of the pounding raft it took a while before I could surface and somehow rather I manage to get close enough to be pulled up back into the boat. Minutes later RJ, ZS and Pris were pulled back in. the paddling cries resumed, aloud. I remembered taking a short glance back at the rest to see if they were ignoring the timing and paddling at their own pace, just like me.

Quietude. A wash-up, some meaty lunch, and a long transit on the choking train follows. a village boy stones as he obediently stares into nothingness, oblivious of the jerky ride or the cheers and jeers derived from the shuffling of bridge and dai-dee game cards from a group of upwardly mobile young urban adults, the so-called killtime that certainly killed everyone else's comtemplative time.

Dinner was spent at the waterfront stretch and a slow long walk back to bed.

30 ° de   Shopping regime at Filipino market and an intensive tanning regime at the Manukan beach. Ramli burger for supper, with chendol. Enough said.

31 ° de   Shopping at Filipino market, part 2. 4pm, we were on the flight back to Senai airport. After many transits we were finally teleported into the remote and cosy setting of Mawai camp, near Kota Tinggi. Happy New Year 2004. And lost I was in the transient atmosphere of songs I never knew. No wonder I seek refuge in the comfort zone of those 52 cards.

What can those stars promise?

Night was comfortably spent on a stretched canvas bed in a big open hut. The lamp burned through the night, and settles for a coat of soot by the next morning. A few more hours later, the camp closed and we're all delivered home overland. If only everything were just a little bit slower. We could all be snailing on the Asli bridge, feeding inertia. I miss sunrise.

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