Peak Bagging

27/6/2007 - 14/7/2007

I spent the flight to Mataram, Lombok chatting to my neighbour - a sweet Indonesian lady who had married two weeks ago, and was now moving the last of her belongings to her new husband's home on Lombok. As we were waiting at baggage reclaim she assured me very earnestly how horrible most Indonesians thought the Bali bombings were, and how she's worried that the tourist numbers will never recover.

When my bags finally appeared I got a taxi into the city centre and headed straight for the Perama office - the transport company with the most safe, reliable boats, only to discover that the Komodo tour that I had hoped to do had left the previous day, and another wouldn't be leaving for 6 days, too late for me to get back in time for my flight to Borneo. Perama told me that there were a couple of companies based in Sengiggi that did similar tours safely, but that they were more expensive.

I got a taxi to Sengiggi, found myself a relatively cheap place to stay (Sengiggi is very upmarket touristy, and cheap accomodation is rare) that conveniently had a communal dvd player at the bar. I managed to find one office still open (it was 9pm), and after trying to sell the tour to me at length and avoiding the question of cost as long as he could without me walking out, the manager eventually told me that the cost for his 5 day tour to Komodo would be 420 pounds. I laughed and left. Another tour agent told me that the cost would go down to about 180 pounds per person if there were 3 or 4 of us.

I decided that my best bet was to rearrange my plans and to set off the following day to climb Rinjani, and to ask everyone I meet on the mountain if they're interested in doing a tour to Komodo immediately afterwards.

I asked around about the costs of a guided trip up Rinjani, but the prices I was being quoted were 3 times what they were in the Lonely Planet, so I decided to get myself to Senaru the following morning for the park office and the starting point for the 3 day walk to the peak. I then retired to my guest house and spent the rest of the evening with my eyes glued to the TV watching the end of series 2 of Prison Break.

The next morning I got up at the crack of dawn to pack my things, and was then told by the driver that I had arranged that he needed to postpone by two hours. I went back to bed.

Two hours later I was all packed, I'd done my food shopping for the next 3 days, and I was ready to go. My driver for the next 3 hours (for two pounds fifty) was an amiable chap with a surprisingly good cd collection, so I spent the morning chatting away and listening to some pretty good indie compilatin cds. This was much appreciated as my mp3 player had been out of battery for a while, and I'd been unable to find a computer that the temperamental fucker would charge on (why oh why didn't I buy a wall adaptor?).

Eventually I arrived at the park office, only to be quoted the same inflated prices that I'd heard the night before. I explained that I didn't want a package deal, that I had bought my own food, I had already arranged my own transport, and that I already had half of the equipment necessary. After lengthy debating, haggling, arm-waving, walking away and then renogotiating, we reached a price that was only just over 2 times the price in the lonely planet, that the park office guy seemed happy with, and that I was only moderately pissed-off with.

I was somehow persuaded into letting my porter use my rucksack, repacked everything that I wasn't bringing up the mountain and left it all in bin liners at the park office. I was also convinced to bring my sleeping bag, as well as the four season one I had hired, so that I could have 2 sleeping bags to keep me warm in the freezing conditions near the peak. The porter and guide sorted their stuff out, and we left. It's funny how the first hour or so is often the hardest as you realise just what you're letting yourself in for, for most of the waking hours of the next 3 days. After 2km and a couple of hundred metres climbed my legs were already killing, I was out of breath, and desperately thirsty. I realised just how much less in shape I was than I had thought, and the thought that this practice run for Kinabalu was definitely a good thing did little to comfort me as I was trying not to think about the fact that less than a week after finishing this climb, I would be embarking on a harder one.

Just when I thought my spirits couldn't get any lower, the heavens opened and it started to rain in a way that was almost biblical. I put my poncho on - not because it's any good at keeping me dry, but because I was worried about my camera in my rucksack. I hate ponchos. They don't breathe, you get all hot and sweaty underneath them, and you end up walking much slower because of it.

We started passing people walking down the mountain, most of whom had turned back on the first day of their trek because of the crappy weather. My guide started suggesting we turn back. I asked if I would be getting a refund for the two days walking I wouldn't be doing, and he said no. So I said no.

6 hours after we set off, after some of the steepest, wetest, most miserable walking I had ever done, and after climbing 1500m, we set up our tents next to one of the shelters where some Czech people were camping. Unfortunately their friendliness and inclusivity matched the weather, and after several attempts to engage them in conversation I gave up and just concentrated on eating my food and doing my best to dry my socks and boots (or at least turn them from sopping wet to damp) on the fire without actually making them a part of the fire. I went to bed in a foul mood after being told that actually the porter needed my sleeping bag because he had no sleeping bag of his own. I could have said no, but didn't have the heart, despite the fact that I'd been duped into letting him bring it, and despite the fact that I was paying to hire a warm sleeping bag, but no-one was paying me to let the porter use my sleeping bag. I wouldn't normally mind someone else using my rucksack and sleeping bag, but we weren't going to see a shower for 3 days and my porter was carrying a heavy load up a steep mountain, and clearly he, my rucksack and my sleeping bag were going to smell by the end of it (they bloody did too).

The following morning I woke up cold, needing the toilet and with a stiff neck. I located a convenient bush and was just stumbling back to my tent, cursing the world under my breath when I realised that I was not alone. There were monkeys everywhere - hiding in bushes, hanging from trees and huddling into their mummies fur - waiting for us to leave the camp so that they could scavenge the spoils of last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast.

I located my camera and my guide located me a half hour later, still rooted to the same spot, to tell me that my breakfast was ready, and was I nearly ready to leave yet? I threw my stuff together and threw a banana pancake down my neck, and then we set off for the crater rim, with my guide telling me repeatedly that we should turn back after the crater rim, as it would be too hard for me to climb down to the lake and back up again, that we wouldn't have time before sunset, and that no, I wouldn't get a refund. I began to form the opinion that my guide was very lazy and was just trying to get 3 day's pay for 2 day's work.

We made it to the crater rim, but sadly most of the crater was obscured by cloud, with the odd bit of lush green forest, or astonishingly blue lake peeking through. After a quick water and rest break we (after much persuasion) headed steeply down into the crater on a path that was so precarious in places, that I'm amazed that we didn't have ropes to clip onto, or at least hold onto.

After 2 hours of descending in rain (at least it was more of a drizzle than the torrential downpour of the previous day) we reached the edge of the lake, had a break and some food, and after speaking to a nice Belgian lady, I went in search of the nearby hot springs (my guide didn't tell me about them, and when the nice lady told me, he said that I couldn't go, and we didn't have time - fortunately the guide had already told me that we had 3 more hours walking ahead of us, and I knew perfectly well that it was over 5 hours until sunset, so I ignored him). The lady assured me that it was perfectly OK to go into the hot springs in a bikini or underwear, as she had, but unfortunately when I got there, the pools were filled with locals (it's a bit of a pilgrimage spot apparently), and when I got in in my bikini, I was greeted by cheers and a round of applause.

At least they didn't throw rocks at me.

They were actually quite friendly and people kept showing me the hot streams to put my head under, and which pools were the best ones.

Sadly I eventually had to drag myself out, get dressed and start the long climb up to the crater rim again. At this stage the blisters on my heels and toes were trapped in a continuous cycle of slowly inflating and then suddenly popping, and I had grown accustomed to the fact that my feet, my legs and my back hurt, were going to for quite some time, and there was very little I could do about it. Once you accept this, they start to hurt less for some reason.

After 2 and a half hours of climbing (yup, I'm well-'ard), during which I used my hands as much as my feet, we reached the crater rim and we pitched the tents in a cluster with the many other people who were doing the same walk as me in reverse. We discussed whether the weather was likely to be suitable to attempt the summit for dawn the next morning, ate some food, and crashed.

The next morning my alarm woke me to the sound of the wind howling outside the tent at 2:30am. My guide appeared and informed me that it was very windy and we shouldn't attempt the summit. Now at any time of day other than 2:30am I would have questioned this opinion, and wondered whether this was just another example of my

guide being a lazy fucker, but at 2:30 in the morning I need someone to not just encourage me, but flat out drag me kicking and screaming from my sleeping bag and throw cold water at my face to wake me up and convince me to climb a mountain, otherwise teddy gets it. As it was I reacted to my guide's defeatist attitude by mumbling "OK", rolling over and going back to sleep.

I awoke again at dawn to discover that every other tourist at the campsite had left to attempt the summit several hours ago in a big group, and was told by someone else's guide that the wind always howls at 2:30am and then calms down by dawn. I restrained myself from shouting at my guide and calmed myself down by taking pictures of dawn breaking over the crater and in the

opposite direction over the sea. Then I spotted the monkeys. They were grooming each other, feeding their babies, fighting, scratching, foraging, climbing and mating. They had a busy morning, and so did my camera.

By the time I was done I'd taken over 100 photos and was no longer determined to shout threats at my guide to sue him. I told myself that this was the practice run, and there was no way I would make the same mistake twice with Kinabalu, and this would make me more determined than ever to reach the summit.

I was about to set off on the long climb down the mountain after having breakfast and packing up, just as the first people started to return from the summit. One of them had got ahead of the rest of the group, had taken a wrong turning down the mountain and was heading straight for a precipice.

The guides started shouting to him to turn back, but he couldn't hear what they were saying because of a combination of the distance, and their accents. I took a deep breath and bellowed as clearly as I could in my best Queen's English accent, the guides covered their ears and looked pained, and the guy turned around.

I tried to explain to the guides that I teach in London, but having never been to london, and having never met satan's little minions that reside there, this meant very little to them.

For the next five hours I cultivated the blisters on my toes and under my toenails and worked on my limp (which was, by now, pretty impressive). My guide did not make it easy for me to keep my irritation to myself as he had run into a guide friend of his and kept dragging out the breaks to half an hour or longer. I tried to explain that every time we stopped for longer than 5 minutes my muscles seized up, it was harder to walk afterwards, I was getting cold, and I had to get back to Senaru to collect my bags, and then Sengiggi that night, so could we get going please, but my guide didn't really listen and kept telling me "It's no steep now", as if that answered my concerns. During the second break of over half an hour, when my guide was showing no signs of leaving, I finally snapped, said he could catch up when he felt like it and left without him.

After half an hour they caught up with me and we made it down to Sembalun Lawang at the end of the track.

Thank fuck. I was in agony at that stage.

I arranged a motorbike to take me to Senaru for my bags, and then sorted a car back to Sengiggi with the father of the guy who had brought me to the mountain, conveniently in the same souped up 4-wheel drive with the excellent cd collection. His son came along for the ride too. Unfortunately the father fancied himself a bit of a formula 1 driver and was so insane in the risks he took driving that other Indonesian people were beeping at him to drive more carefully. After yet another near collision, some more horn honking and me almost ripping the inside handle off the door in terror, I requested that the son drive the car, saying that in England we have a phrase - better late than never. Thankfully both father and son found this funny, and they swapped places in the car. We progressed towards Senaru, rather more slowly now, and made it before nightfall. I went back to my old hotel, had a blissful shower, located some rather good food, and then collapsed.

The next morning I decided to head out to the Gili islands, as I hadn't found anyone to share the prohibitive cost of a trip to Komodo. I boarded a boat heading for Gili Trawangan as my best friend Emma's cousin Antony lives there with his family, and I had been instructed to drop by his dive shop and say "Hi".

The boat crossing was just stunning - beautiful tropical island paradises dotted the horizon, Rinjani on Lombok was visible between clouds and the shade of blue of the water varied from pastels to vibrant turquoise as the depth of the water changed with distance from the shore, but it was invariably crystal clear. I made the decision there and then to do a dive, as I still hadn't experienced diving with good visibility.

After a couple of hours of nattering with the other passengers on the boat, I arrived on Gili Trawangan and headed straight for Manta Dive to see if Antony was there, and to get advice on the best places to stay for about 4 pounds a night (I'd decided to splash out as I felt I'd earned it). Antony wasn't in yet, so a woman that worked there told me where to look for accomodation, and offered to look after my bags while I hunted down a nice room. I returned a half hour later with a big smile on my face - the place was gorgeous, the rooms were built around a statue and fountain filled courtyard, my room had a double bed, photos of dolphins on the walls, statues, rugs and a lovely tiled bathroom.

I spent quite some time sprawled across the bed, taking up as much space as I could, because I could, and soaking up the general niceness of the room. Once I felt I could cope with walking again I took a stroll over to Manta Dive, located Antony, and tried to explain why I'd come to see him, having never met him before in his life. He seemed quite happy with my explanation of "Because my best friend Emma seemed to think it was a good idea", and we sat around chatting about pregnancy (his fiance is, as is his cousin and my best friend), diving, and life on a tropical island paradise in Indonesia (apparently it's not bad).

After a couple of hours of loafing around in the sun, I made arrangements to meet up with Antony and his fiancee Anna later, and went back to my hotel with the number of a nearby masseuse that cost half the price of the masseuses along the touristy strip, and was apparently twice as good. Other than the fact that she does home visits, and this meant that her aromatherapy oils were all over my bed for the next 2 days, it was wonderfully, exquisitely painful. When she attacked my calves and quads, I almost screamed, but I could definitely walk more normally afterwards, so I presume it was a good thing.

After some more quality lazing time, I strolled over to the Irish pub, ordered a veg lasagne (say what you want about touristy hotspots, but they're excellent every so often for vege food that isn't veg fried rice AGAIN), got my book out and waited for Antony and Anna. Bloody good thing I got some food in my stomach first, because the dive instructors were all on the Bintang beers and were difficult to keep up with. It was a good night.

The following morning I was awoken by the crack-of-dawn call-to-prayer (something that many tourists in Indonesia and Malaysia complain about, but a sound that I love waking up to - in that first second of consciousness I know instantly that I'm in some far-off, exotic place and a slow, sleepy smile spreads across my face) and got up early, gobbled some breakfast and headed over to Manta dive to get geared up and go diving. It was fantastic - the first time I've had decent visibility for a dive. We saw baby sharks asleep under coral, sting rays, bumpheaded parrotfish (who only appear just after the full moon) and a giant trevelley.

I was feeling a bit dodge after the dive, so I went for a walk down to the south of the island to check out the surf, and then headed back to my room for a lazy afternoon read and siesta. I managed to drag myself out in the evening for food, but that's about it for the rest of the day.

The next day, after a failed attempt at surfing as the waves weren't up to much, Antony (who was insisting I only pay half price for my dives, bless him) convinced me I should go out again, if only to see the turtles. He sent me out with his best dive leader, Herman, under strict instructions to find me some turtles. When after about 10 minutes I still hadn't seen any turtles, I started doing the sign for turtles at him hopefully, and for the rest of the dive he was on a mission to find turtles for me. His mission was very successful - I think we saw 7 altogether. I floated about a metre above one huge one. They really are awesome creatures, particularly when they swim off and you see their wierd, chunky, tapered-the-wrong-way-round-limbs flapping up and down like wings in slow-motion. Absolutely brilliant.

The water was filled with beautiful blue and orange fish, and schools of tuna. The coral was vivid and we kept spotting creatures hiding underneath it. We saw a sea snake swimming through the water. In short it was just amazing. Towards the end of the dive I spotted a wierd anemone like thing with thin tentacles that were almost see-through. I pointed it out to my dive instructor who touched it, and the creature retracted it's tentacles under the sand at the speed of light. Despite the fact that I'd been completely wired throughout the dive, and so excitable that I must have been almost hyperventilating, we managed to make our air last 50 minutes underwater. It was bloody great to see just how amazing diving can be. My dive buddy told me on the boat just how relaxing he found diving, just floating along with the current. For me that dive was the opposite - I was constantly darting off to examine something (with the "What's this? What's this?" song from the Nightmare before Christmas going through my head).

When I came back to Manta Dive, Antony was waiting to come and take me back to his house to meet Lara, his adorable toddler. She appeared to take to me quite well, and repeatedly brought me all of her toys to play with (she was very good at sharing for an only child). She especially seemed to like the way I made the cuddly crocodile that was three times her size attack her. I'm not sure that I was helping her develop a healthy phobia of the predators at the top of the food chain as she giggled constantly when I did it, but I did my best. I also tried to get some decent pictures of Lara, but it appears that my baby photography skills aren't up to scratch. I can take decent photos of butterflies, but this kid just had too much energy and moved around too fast for me and my camera to cope.

Eventually, after Lara had drained every last bit of energy that I had, I staggered off back to my hotel and packed in order to leave my island paradise the next day.

The following morning I got up BEFORE the crack of dawn (why, why, why do I keep doing this? I'm on holiday for fuck's sake) to make the boat across to Lombok that connected with the bus across to Sengiggi from where the boat left for Bali. Most of the day would have been lost to exceedingly dull travel if it wasn't for the one saving grace - that the boat to Bali had a sun deck with fake sand and towels to lie on. Ingenious.

When I finally made it to Bali, I hopped on a bus to Ubud and then located myself a lovely little place with gorgeous rooms built around an overgrown wilderness filled with shrines, statues and fountains, and then went for a wander. In Bali, every building has a fancy shrine, and is an art shop. Or so it seems to someone who is rapidly depleting her remaining travel funds and has vowed to do no more shopping. In fact, Ubud had the best shopping I have ever seen on my travels - it has a huge arts and crafts scene, and if I had money in my bank account still, I would have done my birthday and Christmas shopping for the next 10 years in one go. It was torture.

After a rather masochistic window shop, I went back to my guest house and got chatting to a young couple lounging around in chairs outside their room. It runed out that the girl had been on an ERASMUS scheme in Singapore. I asked her if she knew Jesse and Joel (my friends from Mt Bromo) and she squealed "No way" loudly. Jesse had told me to watch out for a girl called Heather with long blond hair when I went to Borneo so, as she had long blond hair, for my next trick, I asked if her name was Heather and if she was by any chance heading to Borneo. Her eyes were like saucers by this stage. We sat around chatting for a while and I mentioned that I intended to climb Kinabalu. They warned me that it was all booked up until the end of July at this stage. I shrieked "What?" rather loudly, and then explained that it was imperative that I reached the peak, as I had already collected over 300 pounds in sponsorship, and rushed off to e-mail the agency that book the mountain huts a rather undignified begging letter, after which I crashed with a good book and some peanuts for my evening meal (as I said - I was very skint), and when I discovered that my tummy problems had cleared up, I did my traditional soliod poo dance.

The next morning I rose early, had my free breakfast and located the bus to Kuta, hoping for some decent waves for a day of surfing. When I arrived I persuaded the bus company to look after my bags for the day (I wasn't going to complain out loud, but frankly I was a little surprised that they agreed to this so readily. Granted, I don't look like an Islamic fundamentalist, but they have had two major bombings within a kilometre of the bus company in the last 5 years, so I'd have thought they'd be a bit more cautious), located the beach and somewhere to hire a surfboard (at a reasonable price after some serious haggling), changed into my bikini and went to hit the waves.

Or rather they hit me. It turns out that I needn't have worried about the waves. They were somewhat bigger than I was used to, and they were making short work of me, and my bikini. I went back to the surfboard hire place and they lent me some boardies and a surfing top. I looked like a proper surfing dudette now. Well, except for the fact that I couldn't stand up on my board - the waves were seriously punishing and gnarly. After a couple of hours of being duffed up by mother nature, I headed back to shore, paid for my board, and was told by the hire guy to come back in the afternoon when the waves would be far kinder.

I went for a long lunch and reappeared in the afternoon for a second attempt. I fared much better and actually managed to stand up a couple of times. It's great when you actually manage it again and remember why you enjoy surfing so much and that it's worth all the hard work (and it bloody is hard work).

After another couple of hours of riding the waves, rather than being ridden by them, I got changed and headed to the airport. I was the only person to take the minibus at 6pm, so I spent the entire journey chatting to the two teenage Perama travel trainees. They were so excited about their shiny new jobs and were dead keen to please the tourists and improve their Eengleesh. Bless their cotton socks.

I got on the flight and found a seat next to a fellow Brit - Andria. We chatted for most of the flight, and when I expressed concern about making my way through KL late at night to try to find a hostel bed with no public transport running, she offered her sofa (she's been working in KL for the last 6 months through the company she works for in England) for the night, conveniently located a stone's throw from the train station where the airport bus arrives. I could have kissed her.

We reclaimed our luggage, got on the bus and promptly slept for most of the journey into town. When we arrived I stumbled after her in the direction of the skyscraper that she lives in, on the 23rd floor of a 26 floor building. I believed her when she said that the view in the morning really was something else. We got to the rather lovely, sparklingly clean and spacious apartment, I was introduced to the flatmate and his friend, and then we raided the kitchen and made camembert omelettes (aaaaaah, non-processed cheese) and we sat around playing computer games and chatting until the early hours, when we crashed.

In the morning it transpired that the view of KL really was pretty special with a side on view of the petronas towers and the KL tower. After a quick shower in the nicest bathroom I've seen since I stayed with friends in Australia, I left the luxurious apartment, headed back to the airport bus and said my goodbyes to Andria - my saviour.

I had a thoroughly boring flight to Kota Kinabalu on Borneo but got chatting to a lovely couple - Rob and Leila - at baggage reclaim. We managed to locate the bus into town, scrambled on with our bags and then managed to find quite a nice, cheap (by Malay standards) hotel for the night - 3 pounds for a dorm bed, but with free internet and a communal TV and DVD player.

It transpired that Leila and Rob were also planning to climb Kinabalu (the tallest trekkable mountain in SE Asia), so I warned them about it being booked up, and as I'd heard nothing from the agency that I'd e-mailed, I went over to the office and spent the afternoon sorting out accomodation on the mountain and the various costs of the expedition (at a fraction of the price of Rinjani) for the three of us (miraculously there had been a cancellation for 3 people and I arrived just in time to bagsy it as a couple arrived 20 minutes after me asking about Kinabalu).

We spent that night preparing ourselves psychologically for Kinabalu (I had a sense of dread at the pit of my stomach - partly of the effort that would be involved, and partly because I was terrified that I'd have to turn back because of altitude sickness), and in my case, watching Veronica Mars. The following day we packed up our things, headed to the base of the mountain and found a hostel. I should say Rob and Leila found the hostel. I left on the bus 3 hours after them as I spent most of the afternoon ignoring my nerves and distracting myself with yet more Veronica Mars, and then located them at the hostel with the aid of a note that they left at the park office for me.

After dinner at the cheapest restaurant in the village, I wandered around for about an hour in a desperate search for a bar that sold anything other than beer (for reasons that will become clear in time). I didn't have any luck. I should have known to come prepared in the arse-end-of-mowhere in an Islamic country.

We spent the evening playing a rather ingenius card game called arsehole, and packing our bags in preparation for an early start the next morning.

We checked out, I left most of my bags at the hostel, and we gobbled down a hurried breakfast the next morning, and then went to find our guide, Dominic. We got our passes and got a lift to the start of the trail at Timpohon Gate, got checked off at the checkpoint, and started the trail, going downhill annoyingly for the first couple of hundred metres - annoyingly because it meant we'd just have to climb that height again. As usual, the first hour or so was hell, both psychologically as I began to realise just what an undertaking this would be, that I was obligated to do this and go through hell in the process for the next 2 days because of the sponsorship money and more than anything else, because I was doing it in Steve's name, and that Rob and Leila who I would be walking with were far more experienced, stronger and faster than me, and physically because the path was insanely steep, especially the staircase from hell right near the beginning, and composed of steps that were twice the size they should be in a country of short people like Malaysia. It didn't help that we were being overtaken by porters carrying 30kg loads up the mountain for the hostel and the restaurant.

After an hour Rob stopped to put compeet blister things on his heel and Leila told me if you put them on before you do the walk they stop you from actually getting blisters in the first place. I've had hellish blisters on every walk that I've done this trip, so I gave it a go - no blisters on my heels this time, but my toes have been shredded.

We had lots of quick stops for water and snack food, but it was bloody cold, and became colder still with every stop as we reached higher and higher altitudes. I began to feel that I was trapped in some eternal esher-esque nightmare, travelling endlessly upwards. The only thing that made it easier was the camaraderie between the climbers. We met many people on their way down - some of whom had made the summit, some of whom hadn't. They were unfailingly encouraging, especially some middle aged Malaysian ladies who'd made the top. I decided that if they could, I could and high-fived them all.

About halfway through the day's walking I decided my lungs could cope with talking while walking and Leila and I chatted about her childhood ambition to be the first woman to climb Everest, and what she's heard about it since from climbing friends. Apparently, once you get about 3/4 of the way to the peak, you reach such high altitudes that your organs start to shut down, and it's a race against time to get to the peak and back down before you die. People have to pay 50,000 pounds to attempt the summit and as a result they just step over other people who are dying and begging for help, because they've paid a small fortune and won't turn back to save someone from death. It sounds like a horrible place. Rob told me about one case of a British para who was attempting the west ridge of Everest, having climbed it once before. His group came across a man who was dying and he actually did abandon his summit attempt and carried the man back to base camp on his back. You can say what you like about the military (and I frequently do) but sometimes it does bring out the best in people.

The last km to Laban Rata, where we would be staying that night, was hellish. We had climbed 1400m that day altogether, were at an altitude of 3200m, and I was battling to draw breath - one step meant that I had to pause and gasp three times before I moved the other foot forward. It didn't help that I knew the following day's climb would be much more difficult, and with 900m altitude to go, I would be well into the altitude sickness zone, and my struggle to get enough oxygen out of the thin air was only going to get worse at 3am the next day. My spirits really were quite low.

After an interminable length of time I managed to stagger to the hostel, located my room, and gladly removed my boots and bag. I went to have a shower, but the hot water that was supposed to have come on half an hour ago hadn't appeared, and ice water rained on my blue feet. After 5 minutes without any sign of hot water magically appearing through the pipes, I put my clothes back on and went to shiver indignantly in front of the receptionist, who put the hot water on after I gave her my fiercest glare. A half hour later I was slowly rotating under steaming water, and struggling to convince myself that it was only fair to get out and leave some hot water for everyone else.

Leila, Rob and I played a couple of half-hearted games of cards, had some severely overpriced food (about 5 pounds for an all-you-can-eat-buffet - I wouldn't mind if the extortionately priced food was because the money was going to the porters who struggled up to Laban Rata twice a day carrying insane loads, but they get paid an absolute pittance - I think about a 20th of the mark up on the goods goes to them), took some photos of the view from the freezing cold balcony, then ran inside shivering, and had an early night as we were knackered and wanted to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the morning's climb.

Fat chance - there was a school group of inconsiderate little shits who giggled late into the night and kept half the hostel awake (I didn't see them anywhere near the summit, so my guess is they paid for it the next day).

We woke at 2:30am, and after my failing to summit on Rinjani, I jumped out of bed with determination and purpose, then wimpered as the cold hit me and threw all my clothes on (I had no warm windbreaker, or fleece as I'd sent all my warm clothes home after NZ, so my only option was to wear every layer I had, plus a plastic bag poncho, and look like the michelin man, or a complete tit, depending on how you look at it. See the picture below) hastily, shivering the whole time.

By 3am we were ready to leave, we gobbled some chocolate, filled up our water bottles and set off. The first few hundred metres were seriously slow progress as the traffic at the start of the path was unbelievable. We were towards the back of a queue of at least a hundred people crawling up the mountain as some of the slower walkers had decided to have an earlier start in order to make the summit for sunrise. We'd walk forward 3 or 4 steps and then pause for half a minute. Rob and Leila were getting seriously fed up, and so was I, but to be honest I was finding it reassuring that there were people attempting the summit who were much slower than me. Eventually the people at the front relented and started letting the faster people behind them slowly filter through when they stopped, and slowly the pace picked up as the crowd rearranged itself into speed order and spread out. I made the mistake of stopping and attempting to get a photo of the long line of headlamps going down the mountain, but unfortunately a ton of people overtook me, so I had to hurry and overtake like mad for the next 20 minutes to catch up with Rob and Leila. To my surprise I managed it, and while people all around me were panting like dogs on heat, I was able to storm up the mountain. I couldn't understand it after I'd had problems with the altitude the previous afternoon. About 400m up we came to the last checkpoint and were given whistles for the last 500m of altitude. It soon became clear why - the rest of the track was up a sheer granite rock face. You climbed by hauling yourself up a rope, stopping at the side when you needed to catch your breath. I actually found this to be quite a relief. After all the poiing, carrying insanely heavy rucksacks and paddling out through the waves that I'd done in the last few months, my arms are relatively strong, and it was a relief to do the work with something other than my leg muscles. I stormed up the first few ropes, stopping to catch my breath occasionally.

At one point with about 300m to go, the altitude, my shortness of breath and my exhaustion suddenly all hit me in one go, and I suddenly became worried that I wasn't going to make it and would have to turn back. I burst into tears at the thought of letting Steve down, and then slowly pulled myself together, caught my breath, thought of how brave Steve had been through everything, kissed the bracelet that I had made for Steve and carried on. Dominic, our guide, saw that I was slowing down and came to give me a hand - literally. My fingers were numb from grasping the rope soaked in ice-cold rainwater, so he wrapped one hand in his spare woolly hat which he tucked under the sleeves of my jumper, and took the other hand to warm it up, and held it up so that I could use him to help balance. I didn't lean on him and he didn't pull or push me up the mountain in any way, but it gave me the confidence to speed up again, and with my guide holding my hand, and Steve's bracelet keeping him near me I battled my way up the mountain.

Just when we could see the summit appearing through the clouds, the sun started to come up and we started to meet people coming down, saying we were only 5-10 minutes from the top, but that it was so cold and windy that they had only stayed up there for a minute as they couldn't see anything through the cloud anyway.

We hauled ourselves up over rocks and past people who were now vomiting with altitude sickness (thank fuck I wasn't one of them, the poor sods), and we made the summit. I was the 31st person who made it that morning, out of 200 or so people who tried. I was quite proud of myself actually (some might say annoyingly smug). I got the plastic bottle from my bag that I had filled from a can of beer that morning (there was no rum and coke, and certainly no white russians to be had in Kinabalu park), raised the bottle to the sky to toast my brave big brother and took a couple of gulps (but not too much - alcohol at high altitudes is inadvisable).

Rob took a few awful photos of me screaming "Yeah baby" and "Idunnit" (a la Vicky Pollard) at the summit, and I managed to get a picture of a nearby peak peeking through the clouds briefly (despite my fingers which were back to being completely numb - I've had bare-handed snowball fights that have made my fingers feel warmer), but there really wasn't much to see from the top, just clouds and shivering people, so we started to make our way down. I stopped to hold one girl (who was suffering from altitude sickness)'s hair out of her face as her stomach made it's feelings about the altitude known, and I convinced her that she needed to start making her way down, and she'd feel better once she'd descended a bit. I then carried on my way, doing my best to buoy the spirits of the people still trudging upwards by telling them that it really wasn't far now, and that they could do it. There was also some more high-fiving of complete strangers, if memory serves.

On the way down the clouds thinned and suddenly we could see the glorious vistas that we had missed out on at the top (normally at this time of year, the top would be cloud free in the morning, but there'd just been a freak typhoon in China, and the whole of SE Asia was getting unpleasant weather because of it). My camera came out and stayed out for quite some time.

Climbing back down the granite faces was absolutely terrifying, as we had been spared the views of the precipitous drops because it was pitch black beyond the reach of our torches. On the way down we could see just how high up we were. Some of the time I held my guide's hand for balance and reassurance (he was as sure-footed as a mountain goat in his FUCKING FLIP-FLOPS, no I don't know how either), and some of the time I held the ice water rope because it was just too steep.

Trying to step backwards while clinging onto the rope, and looking down at your feet, but not at the perilously steep slope that just kept going down for thousands of metres, was not easy. Eventually we reached the steps going downhill and I cautiously stepped down, holding onto the handrail. Eventually, 5 hours after we had left, we reached Laban Rata again and stopped to gobble a breakfast of peanuts, dried banana and chocolate, and to grab the things we'd left in our dorms. I started up the flight of stairs to our dorm and almost fell when my knees buckled underneath me. I was not expecting that. Apparently 2 hours of going downhill had allowed my climbing muscles to relax to the extent that they no longer worked. I hurriedly packed my things so that the same didn't happen to the muscles I use to go downhill.

For the next 3 hours we relentlessly descended. After an hour or so, we started meeting people on their way up. We cheered them on, did our best to convince them it was worth it, high-fived them and generally did the things that had cheered us up on the way up the previous day. After another hour or so, my legs mutinied completely and stopped responding to my instructions. They no longer landed where I wanted them to and my quads were absolutely killing. I smacked my knee into a rock face that I knew was there and was trying to avoid. At around about that time, the insanely large steps appeared. Leila and I stood side by side and attempted the first one, pausing and looking down in horror with one leg out over the next step, slooowwwlllllllyyyy easing ourselves down until our foot touched the next step and our screaming muscles could relax, while Rob wet himself laughing at our synchronised agony. Until he took the first step.

I've never experienced such agony doing any kind of physical challenge before. Going downhill was becoming more and more painful, and more and more jarring as my steps became less controlled, and my knees (usually my right knee) buckled roughly every fifth step, but going uphill was just excrutiating. It's pretty rare that I find myself missing the flat landscapes of Boston, but this was one of those rare occasions.

I started using my hands and bum a lot more, which made me feel more stable, but meant I lagged behind Rob and Leila more and more as time went on. I gave up cheering the people I met coming the other way on - they were looking at me with fear and worry that they would be walking like me in 24 hours. I could think of little to say to reassure them.

Just after the 1km to go sign, when I was starting to feel like I couldn't go on, and just before I reached the staircase of beelzebub again, Dominic caught up, having spent most of the morning chatting to his other guide friends. He took my hand again, and once again I sped up by a factor of about 3. It made such a huge difference. He didn't offer to take my bag, or pull me up through the tough bits, he did exactly what I needed him to do, without pissing me off and making me feel like he thought I couldn't do it. Clearly fate is making up for my guide on Rinjani now.

We reached the end of the devil's staircase and saw the steps going uphill ahead. I almost cried. Every step felt like my muscles were tearing apart. If I hadn't had Dominic there, I honestly think I would have crawled. I saw Leila up ahead taking photos of me and made some rude finger signs at her (it later transpired that she took a video of me, which I have been warned will be appearing on facebook in a month or so when they get back to the UK, it's absolutely awful, watch it with popcorn). Finally I reached the end, completely breathless, red faced and sweaty. I dumped my bags, sat down to wait for the bus and discovered just how many wholly different whimpering noises I'm capable of producing.

The trek was one of the most difficult (certainly the most physically difficult) thing I've ever done, but I actually found I enjoyed most of it (not the last couple of km, obviously) because of the people I was with, and the people I met on the way. I had a real laugh at times, and I'm glad I did, otherwise it wouldn't be an appropriate tribute to Steve.

The bus took us back down to the park office, Leila and Rob gave Dominic a tip (because he clearly deserved one, mainly from me, and they knew I couldn't afford one, bless them). We went to the cheap restaurant, I dumped my trekking bag and hobbled back to the hostel to fetch my main rucksack, and then had the best mushroom omelette sandwich EVER.

Much as I knew my aching muscles would love Poring Hot Springs, the trip would involve two seperate buses and some searching around for my hostel, so I decided I just couldn't be bothered, and took the one bus back to Kinabalu with Rob and Leila (about 5 minutes into the journey I remembered that I'd left my towel hanging on the end of my bed at Laban Rata - I considered climbing the 1400m up to fetch it and then down again for all of about a nanosecond, so I'm now drip drying in the shared bathrooms as quickly as possible so as not to create a queue), to the hotel near the bus station, a known and short distance. Sadly it was full, so I had to go back downstairs and find another hostel - one that put me on the 4th floor. Even though it was clear to anyone with fully functioning eyes and half a brain that I had just climbed Kinabalu and was in pain. Oh, and they lost my trousers when they did my laundry.

Bastards.

Since then I have been lazing around in Kota Kinabalu, allowing my muscles to recover (it was only 5 days after I finished the climb that the agony changed to a dull ache - Rob and Leila - who as I mentioned, have climbed many, many mountains before - took just as long to recover. I haven't been able to afford a massage this time, but I did discover a shop that sells massage chairs in a local mall - obviously I had to try them out) laying low and subsisting on a budget of less than 5 pounds a day (I did manage to treat myself to the new Harry Potter film the other day - it was brilliant), in order to save my money so that I can afford a couple of treats before I go home. I've had to give up on the idea of diving at Sipadan - one of the best dive sites in the world, and the rainforest world music festival (which could have been invented for me), as both are just too expensive. I have managed to just about scrape the money together for a 4 day stay on Sungai Kinabatangan - one of the rare places in the world where it's possible to see Orang-utans (and a whole host of other creatures) in the wild, and for the seventh Harry Potter book when I get back from the wilderness. After that I plan to locate a gorgeous tropical island with a beautiful beach for me to lie on and snorkel from for a week before I come home.

I really can't wait.

XXX