Just last Saturday (ok I know I’m posting this late :P, but I’m a busy guy ok? :D), me and a few colleagues (Malcalm, Wilson, YC, Stieneke, William Hu {ok the last name is to differentiate ‘cos we got 2 Williams in office }) and their friends went hiking at Bukit Tabur. Well I know that tons of bloggers have blogged about it but I still wanna do so, ‘cos it’s memorable ok? I wanna still be able to ‘read’ my own memory when I’m 80.

Well I planned it for a couple of weeks and the persons above signed up for the ‘death hike’ :D. On the morning itself, KL started to rain at 5am. YC fret and called/texted me early in the morning asking if we’re gonna continue with it (’cos it’s quite dangerous to hike in the rain or right after a rain). I’d just say we continue with it after confirming with all the others that they wanna just give it a try. If it still rains when we gather, we were thinking maybe we’d just go for a morning breakfast somewhere fantastic (still couldn’t think of somewhere though). It was still raining when we arrived at the West Trail starting point, but we just couldn’t be bothered.

In the initial uphill trail, everywhere was greenery and it sorta felt like we were entering a jungle. Sorta like this.

And this.

Then as we were almost a quarter way up the hill (ok, not really sure if it’s quarter way or not), we started to get a peek of the Klang Gates Dam.

Continuing on our journey, we were really sure that we’d get a nice view of everything, like this.

And this.

And also these.

And at this time, the drizzling rain stopped. Mother nature started to shower us with cool breezes after the rain, which dried us up of course.
There are at least 3 peaks, according to the usual path. We went past “check points” like this where you can really fall and die one. Seriously no joking guys and gals.

A girl lost her grip on one of the ropes in this photo where it is used to descend to a lower ledge and fell last month (2008-10-14) at this point. She suffered serious injuries.
That’s me checking out the path to see if it’s passable. The old rope was right below my feet whereas the new rope was somewhere between the two protruding rocks. I see that it’s not safe and hence bailed out. My life is too priceless to be risked like this

This was one of them, too. Fall and die, anyone?

It took us more than 2 hours (I guess, again) to arrive at the highest peak. I like this take. You can see the satisfaction on everybody’s face. Hehe, wait till you get your way downhill. That’s where the nightmare starts. Heeheehee…. *evil grin*

The road downhill was not really an easy one. Maybe due to the reason that our energy levels were really low already. Also maybe due to there were not really as many nice scenes as the road uphill. We weren’t really distracted from tiredness and hence the feeling of tiredness was magnified, amplified.

A bit bored. Nobody was talking energetically like when we were going uphill.

I was even having cramps on my quadriceps. I always face this problem everytime I go hiking on this route. Later I found out that Wilson had pain on his knee joints as well. Don’t know about the others though.

Nearing to the end of the journey, everyone was so eager to get to the car and get changed / rest. By that time, it was slightly past noon and it was really hot.

Almost 5 hours of:
hiking (see my arm?)

rock climbing (ok that’s me! challenging the vertical limit!)

sight-seeing. (Hey I wanna pose like this too! So 有型!)

sweat squeezing n-th times while guiding rope descending and standing on a place where I can fall and die

I became like this. (Ok, this IS DEFINITELY NOT what you are thinking about)

I’m having cramps and can’t walk properly oredi la and we are going down hill on the slopy walkway at the last part of the journey. Been here a dozen times and I guess it has become a “tradition” for me to walk in such a posture for this part of the route.

I guess Lara Croft wouldn’t have such a problem.
Hey Shao Lin monk, you’re in the wrong movie la… !@#@#$!$^!@$#@#$^!@#$@ (or maybe it’s Tomb Raider: Lara Croft and the Lost Kung Fu?)