Mt. Kinabalu - Take One Step At A Time
Kinabalu National Park
Sabah, Malaysia

Mt. Kinabalu - Take One Step At A Time

Unlike any other adventure, hiking to the peak of Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo, Malaysia, provided unforgettable experiences for these two lady travelers. It takes two days to reach the top, so they had to fight for accommodation and fight with their own feelings of fatigue to try to draw up enough energy to reach the summit. Voraluk Klasukon has the story of her remarkable adventure to tell along with some photos to prove her strength.
“Sorry, all of the rooms are booked until September,” said the receptionist.

I hung up the phone desperately. How could all the rooms on Mt. Kinabalu be booked? Are there going to be that many people climbing up to the summit in April? It isn’t high season yet, is it?

In the next couple of days, my friend Bebee and I would be flying to Kota Kinabalu (KK), the capital city of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, to climb up Mt. Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Southeast Asia, in Kinabalu National Park. From the information I found on websites, the ascent normally takes 2 days. On the first day, all climbers must stay at overnight accommodation provided by the park at about 3300m above sea level before resuming their climb the following early morning to Low’s Peak, the highest point on Mt. Kinabalu and the summit of Borneo, which is at 4095.2m above sea level.

The problem is I never knew until an hour ago that all climbers must book accommodation at least two or three months beforehand to make sure that they will have a place to stay overnight on the way to the summit. Otherwise, the park will not allow them to climb the mountain. This new information frightened me. I hurriedly called the park’s sales office in Malaysia and asked its staff if they would have any room available in the next couple days. If not, could we bring our sleeping bags and camp there? Unfortunately, the only answer I got from them was “No”.

Bebee and I are neither climbers nor hikers. In fact, we had never done any climbing. But in the last couple of years we had seen quite a number of photos of travelers who had been to Mt. Kinabalu’s summit. So we simply thought that if there are thousands of people who could make it to the top, with no need for technical gear or specialized mountaineering knowledge, why not us?

With confidence, we packed our backpacks and bought the plane tickets in February. Then, to be physically fit, we spent three days a week in gyms, walking and training. After all the work that we had done, it would be very disappointing and frustrating if we couldn’t climb the mountain.

Just as my hoped dimmed, I stumbled on a travel blog saying that visitors can try showing up at the Park Headquarters in the early morning to sign up for the waiting list. If there’s any room cancellation on that day, one whose name is on the list will have a chance to take the room and climb up the mountain. Thanks to that advice, Bebee and I decide to go on with our plan and give it a try.

We flew directly from Bangkok to KK, full of hope and determination. While we were checking in at a guesthouse, the owner of the guesthouse came and talked to us. We told him about our plan for the next day. The owner later informed us that we could try booking a room at Sutera Sanctuary Lodges, the Kinabalu National Park’s office in town. Then, he took us there.

Sutera Sanctuary Lodges is located on the ground floor of Wisma Sabah Building. Inside the office, all the staff were busy booking and looking for vacant rooms for travelers (like us) who kept showing up asking them the same question: “Do you have any rooms available?”

After hanging around there for a while, Bebee and I felt like giving up. We decided to leave our names and contact numbers with one of the staff and start looking for other activities we could do in KK like water rafting or scuba diving. Yet, nothing seemed interesting to us. Thousands of people have come here for hiking, and so did we. Eventually, we decided that we should stick to our plan.

We walked back to the office and checked in with the staff every fifteen minutes. On the fifth time, I decide to give it one last try. I told the office worker that Bebee and I could sleep in separate rooms. “So please, all we need are only two single beds,” I begged. The worker looked on the screen and searched for rooms again. Bebee and I held our breath and watched her in silence. After five minutes, she smiled at us and said, “Congratulations! We’ve got beds available in a four-bed dormitory room at Laban Rata.” Bebee and I nodded. We jumped up and down with excitement.