Due to my illness, I lay in bed while Elaine scaled the summit on her own, waking at 2am. Sleep eluded me most of the night, but I was sorry to let it go when I had to wake up at 9am, when Elaine returned from her successful climb of Mount Kinabalu.
After a short rest, we trekked down to Laban Rata for our buffet breakfast before we started our 6km descent from Mount Kinabalu. As I was rather eager to descend to alleviate some of the ailments I was suffering from including shortness of breath and an aching head, while Elaine and Yie Hou were inconvenienced, I left for the foot of the hill on my own.
My solo journey down is a testimony to the friendliness, helpfulness and professionalism of the mountain guides. Although they were not my guide, seeing me on my own, several of them decided to make it part of their duty to monitor my descent by voluntarily walking behind me and one of them even lent me his raincoat when it rained. And all these help was offered with no expectation of return, only part of their goodwill!
5 hours later, at the foot of the mountain at Timpohon Gate, I patiently waited for Elaine and Yie Hou, which was quite a long wait as I was informed that Yie Hou’s leg was in such a bad shape that he needed our guide Saigul to carry him down some parts of the mountain.
Thankfully, the ever thoughtful Hezrod had our lunch (more like dinner at this point) ready for us at Liwagau, when the duo finally managed to make their way down the mountain.
On the way back to Kota Kinabalu, we managed to catch a beautiful sunset set against the back drop of the majestic Mount Kinabalu, whose spectacular height still turns us into gawking fools. To think that Hugh Low actually managed to scale this unpaved mountain close to a century ago unaided! *blinks hard*
Food place at the base camp – they had a good lobster bisque!
Wanderlust 