An Impressive Old Man.. (Part 1)

I think T will admit proudly that he is an old man. He had retired already what..
Yet, recently he had just returned from conquering 大汉山 (Gunong Tahan). It was a grilling 8 day trip.

T talked about how he landed there in the first place. Interestingly amazing, really.

T was just on his way to meet his mother in M’sia. Along the way (in M’sia), he decided to detour a little just to do a bit of sight-seeing (since he has so much time with him).

Little did he know, this detour will give me an experience of a life-time.

In the detour, he first met 3 other Irish tourists in a boat ride. And coincidentally, they also checked in the same dome. The tourists later jio-ed him to join them in caving, since the guide (K) they employed can take four people at a time. So they happily went to see bats and all in caves nearby.

K is certainly a professional one and they get to know him better and better along the way. At one point, K mentioned casually that he has another trip coming up.

T : Where?
K : Gunong Tahan

T got interested. It was one of his many dreams to conquer 大汉山. K made an offer of RM1200 to bring him along. Mm.. That is an official price for a guide, anyway. Further negotiation brought down the price to only RM400.

Let’s get the facts right. T was only carrying a small haversack and a water bottle as his original intention was to visit his mum in M’sia. In that haversack were only some t-shirts and snacks, okay and some books. With that, he said “yes” to conquer 大汉山?! Alright, he added another RM50 to request the guide to prepare the food items needed along the way.

All was agreed..
But wait a minute. T has always got gout problems in his right leg. At times, the pain can be so bad he can’t even walk. And most of the time, he is limping. T was limping a little at the time when the verbal agreement was exchanged.

So.. When T handed him the RM50 to the guide a day before the departure, he added : This RM50 you take it and help me to prepare the food items along the way. If tomorrow, my leg is fine, I will join you and pay up the remaining sum. But if my leg is still painful, I will not be able to join you. You can then just keep the RM50.

The next day, T’s right leg was miraculously perfectly fine. He paid up the balance, and they (only K and T, one super strong, one really old) set off.

I think K is simply too brave liao. But wait till he shared more about his experiences, you will be more impressed with him, I believe.

I shall try to recount a bit. Again, through my silly writing, you can only sense less than 10% of his braveness.

(1) When he reached the starting point of the climb/trek, he had some astonishing findings.

a. The guide brought him to a congregation of a few tens of professional guides, all young and strong waiting at the staring point. So T is .. erm.. undoubted the odd one out, the special one.

b. The season was wrong. No one will ever think of conquering 大汉山 during the monsoon season. There will be so much rains. The rivers will swell. The paths will be slippery. The… alright you could just think about it. Remember few days back, many of us were complaining about the island-wide downpour for so long and so many days. Those were the days T were at 大汉山.

c. That trip was actually specially organized for professional mountain guides (only) from all over M’sia. K was actually reprimanded for bringing T along, because K is not supposed to. Yet K decided to, just to earn some spare cash.

d. There was a special mission for that trip. They carried long thick ropes. They were tasked to secure those ropes strategically to facilitate river crossing and/or steep slope climbing. They will also need to cut thick undergrowth and maybe to also clear the rubbish in the mountains. In other words, it was kind of house-keeping or maintenance trip by the professionals to prepare the routes for future use by tourists during the right season.

Have you already feel how out-of-place T must have felt?

(2) In the beginning, at the first congregation area, they were dispatched in small groups of about 4 to 5 people after a briefing-of-sort. I mean there was only one small speed boat but there were a few tens of people to be transported to another point (through shallow river) where they began the actual climb/trek.

T was dispatched at one of the last few trips.

When the speed boat stopped, they had to all jump down into the water of about knee-depth and they would walk to the dry shore and start they climb/trek immediately. The boat will then leave immediately to pick up the next batch.

T did something he shouldn’t.

When he reached the dry shore, he noticed his shoe and socks were soaking wet, making him very uncomfortable. He sat down to remove his shoe and soaks. He emptied the water in his shoe. He squeezed out the water in his socks. He wore them back and was ready to go. He stood up and realised he was all alone, beside a river, facing a dense forest on the slope of dear 大汉山. No one waited for him. He had no idea which direction they took. He had no idea whether they were splitted. He tried looking for trails left behind, but found none. He tried shouting to alert someone nearby, but got zero response. So technically speaking, he was lost before any actual climb/trek.

He knew he wasn't the last group leaving the first congregation area. But again, there was no guarantee that all the groups will have the same drop-off point.

Yet, he wasn’t really panicked. He noted that the speed boat journey took about 20 minutes along the rather shallow river. Worse come to worst, he just had to walk along the river and to track back the path the speed boat took.

He decided to sit himself on a rock in the middle of the shallow river and eat his snacks, drinking his water, and listening to the sound of nature in the immediately surrounding.

It was after quite a while, he sighted about two people walking nearby, walking slowly on the shallow river. He shouted to them and gladly those two people were also guides who were also in that same mission trip. So T requested to follow them.

According to T, luckily those two guides were really nature lover. They walked leisurely enjoying the peace around. T liked the pace, because that was the kind of pace he could follow. Haha..

At one point in time, one of the guides shouted to another. They seemed to have spotted something interesting.

What can be so interesting to have thrilled even the two experienced guides so much? When one of them pointed in a general direction to T about their finding, T couldn’t even figure out what was going on.

So the three went nearer (with a bit of climbing). They saw the largest and the most smelly flower in the world : Rafflesia.

Wow! The guides admitted that it was also their first time seeing the flower in full bloom. They had only seen them in the bud-stage in the past. Now, that was thrilling enough for anyone, yes, even the experienced mountain guides.

(3) T finally met up with the big group much later. They gathered together at the first rest point for the night. Maybe gathering is quite a wrong word. T said they worked very independently. They didn’t seem to communicate much with each other. They cooked their own meals. But K had to cook for T, since T was his customer. T is the only customer in that trip.

Anyway, usually cooking was only done during breakfast and dinner. For lunch, many survived with small snacks. Alright, some stopped briefly to cook instant noodles for lunch.

The first day/night went on just fine. It was quite an adventure ahead.

I am tired liao..
You must be tired reading such a long entry too..
To be continued..