Thursday, May 27, 2010

GUNUNG TAHAN - HERE I COME

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِي

This is going to be a very short entry.

I'll be leaving in a few minutes to KL Sentral to catch 8.30pm train to Merapoh. The train is expected to reach Merapoh station 9 hours later at 5.30am. After breakfast, we will take 4WD ride to Taman Negara where we will do the registration and declare all the things that we have in our back pack!

I am excited as my biggest hiking project this year is already here. And I pray that the weather is good for the next five days!

Friday, May 21, 2010

GUNUNG TAHAN - LESS THAN A WEEK TO GO!

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِي

I'll be leaving for Merapoh by train on Thursday night next week. I have less than 6 days to buy things for the trip. I have got most of the items to bring with the exception of some food stuffs. Included in the to-buy list are serunding daging, pita bread, fried ikan bilis, raisins and chocolates.

Other than food stuffs, I also need to buy/get medicines like panadol, buscopan, and medicines for diarrhoea. This time around I will have no choice but to depend on water source in the jungle. I hope I'll be able to boil the water first before consumption. But who knows? I may need to drink raw water from the mountain! If I have to, it's not going to be the first time as I drank raw water twice already in my previous hiking trip in Nuang and Angsi.

As for the training, I really hope that I am physically prepared. With the exception of the two weeks in early May, I have never stopped going to the gym and hiking during weekend. Health wise, I am almost recovered from the fever and flu that I got for more than 2 weeks. I am still coughing a little bit. I expect to be fully recovered by Sunday.

The sad part is my wife and two children are not okay now. I had to go on half day EL in the afternoon (today) as I had to look after them and also to send my eldest son to his tuition class. Because of this, I had also cancelled the plan to go to Angsi via Bukit Putus tomorrow. However, they will recover just in time for me to join the other group on Sunday. Insyaallah!

I am ready for Tahan now and my only pray is for us to have clear sky all day long! It's only for 4 days and I hope the weather will be friendly to me during that time!

Dear readers! wish me all the best!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

BUKIT TABUR - WEST SIDE (Update)

Yes! I went to Tabur West today with another two colleagues. I know that I haven't fully recovered as yet. I had to do it as I haven't been exercising for the past two weeks. Missed my gym exercise and no sport activities over the last two weekends.

There were a lot of hikers today and it was like a carnival up there! Every now and then, there were human traffic jams as everyone took their turn to do their rock climbing, up and down the steep slopes.

We were going slow too and we stopped a lot to enjoy the breathtaking views and to snap pictures! As opposed to the popular choice of going down through the orchard, we came back using the same route! It was challenging and it was fun! However, the weather was a bit too hot for me and I could feel that my body temperature rose again!

By the time, we had our lunch at the Melawati Hawkers Centre, I started sneezing and had to excuse myself to get into the car earlier after completing my lunch!

Upon reaching home, after taking shower and zohor prayers, I popped in panadol and piriton and went to sleep. I dozed off until 6.30pm!

I really hope that I got over this flu and fever bugs by this week as I need to be at the top of my health when I go for my Tahan Challenge!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

BUKIT TABUR - WEST SIDE (NOT WELL)

بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِي

I am still not well as yet.

Finally, I went to see our in-house Dr. yesterday and told her that I gave up on self healing. I didn't take that much of medicine as I didn't feel the need for it, I didn't have high fever or bad flu. And no body ache too! I thought it'd just go away after 2 or 3 days.

10 days have gone by and I am still not okay as yet. I am now on antibiotic for 5 days. If I still haven't recovered yet after taking the full course of the anti-biotic, I think I need to see a Specialist. I hope not!

This reminds me of my trip to Mt. Kinabalu last year. A few weeks prior to the climbing day, I had bad gastritis and it lasted a while until I had to cancel some of the hiking trips planned as part of the training. I had to OGDS scope and when I was there on the mountain, I had to make a few stops just to go to the toilet!

And I am now praying that I'd be okay and can do some more hiking trips before leaving for Merapuh on May 27.

For that I visualise that I am okay by Friday morning and by Saturday I can go to Bukit Tabur West Side. Insyaallah!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Gunung Angsi - not well!

I haven't been well since I came down from Pine Tree Hill last Saturday. In fact the symptoms were there when I reached Fraser's Hill on Friday. Was it the driving through long and winding road that made me giddy at first? Or was it the dust at The Pines Resort? The apartment at Pines Resort was dusty, dirty and smelly. It must be the combination of both and later on the 7 hours hiking made it worse!

I popped in panadol and piriton before going to sleep last Friday. And with that I had a good sleep. And when we started hiking at 9am, I could feel that my throat was dry and felt uneasy!

Yesterday at the office, we just heard that a child of a colleague at the same floor was down with H1N1. I think our colleague must be home quarantined by now! My boss who heard that I wasn't well suggested that I went to see our in-house Dr. I don't think I'd do that as I am okay, slight fever and sore throat only. The sore throat was really making me feel unpleasant!

Anyway, I don't have any major hiking activity to do this week. In fact, I didn't have anything planned at all. As usual, I always have Bukit Tabur in mind when I don't have any place to go!

However, for this week, I am planning to go to Gunung Angsi via Bukit Putus. I was told it's much shorter route and it takes around 4 hours to complete it. Yup! Gunung Angsi, I am going to see you again! Let's have a date on Sunday this week!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

PINE TREE HILL

My first blog entry on Pine Tree Hill was last year on July 22. My planned trip to Pine Tree Hill was cancelled then.

When a friend posted on Facebook that he's going to Pine Tree Hill, I jumped into it by inviting myself in. The reason I said I invited myself in was because there was no invitation extended to me. Being a 'muka tak malu' myslef and the fact that Pine Tree Hill was in my list of mountains to climb this year, I asked my friend whether I could join him and his gang! The answer was a resounding Yes!

This trip was going to be back-to-back with Gunung Ledang of which I did last week. My energy level is good and my health, couldn't be better, so I made all the preparations to Pine Tree Hill. Amongst others, I got my sweater ready just in case the weather becomes too chilly!

I left my office earlier last Friday and headed down to Rawang straight away using the old road. Much to my dislike the road was jammed a few kilometers after Selayang heading down to Rawang! I was worried as I needed to reach the gate by 7.40pm before it closed for the day. Thank God, I reached there at 7.15pm! It was already dark and I had to be very careful going up the narrow, long and winding road to Fraser's Hill.

We met up with the team leader who told us that we'd gather around 8.30am the next day to go to Pine Tree Hill.


The next day, we gathered at Puncak Inn and left for the starting point in 5 cars. I thought there weren't that many of us but I was surprised when the final headcount was done, there were 23 of us. Majority of us were first timers at Pine Tree Hill with the exception of one guy, who was on his first climbing trip!
After a short briefing by the team leader, we started the hiking at 9.00am. We were told that it'd take around 5-6 hours to complete the climb. The climb to the summit itself will take 3 hours and we were told that we'd also cover Twin Peaks, which was just 30 minutes away from Pine Tree Hill!

For the first 3 km of the trip, we had to go down and up of steps made of planks and concrete. It's very helpful for us especially when the land surface was wet. However, when we came back using the same route, the steps proved to be very challenging!

Our team leader was going very fast and he and his gang was like 30 minutes ahead of us. At times, we were clueless with the next trail to take. And we didn't even know that we have reached the peak for Pine Tree Hill!
Instead, 7 of us proceeded to go to the next peak, Twin Peaks which was 30 minutes away! We reached Twin Peaks after climbing for 3 hours 15 minutes!
It was very hot at the summit as there were no shades, after taking some pics as proof that we have been there, we took refuge under some shades and had our lunch. Lunch was made up of pita bread with beef serunding and apples! One of the team members shared with us her home made tuna & egg sandwich!
After about 30 minutes, we left for the base and met up with the team leader who waited for us at Pine Tree Hill. He explained that he had to go very fast as one of the younger boys in the group was leading the way and he didn't want him to get lost. We knew it then the place that we met several climbers earlier on was the peak of Pine Tree Hill. And unknowingly we went straight to Twin Peaks!

A must pose under the hot sun!

When we finally made it to the starting point, the time was 4pm. We completed the climb in 7 hours. There were quite a number of us, who did it in slightly more than 5 hours!
I was there to recce the place too so that I can take my colleagues to go there. Based on what I have gathered, my colleagues should be able to do this mountain! It's simple yet challenging enough!