I had a horrible day in KL. I'd given myself plenty of time there unfortunately, thinking I'd easily be able to find an Internet cafe to waste time in at KL Sentral or a left luggage place so I could wander round in town. After I was unceremoniously dumped off the coach however, I didn't manage to do either of these and I eventually ate at some dodgy fast food joint before catching an early bus to the airport - 4 hours before my flight! I arrived there to find the internet cafe was being renovated and I obviously couldn't check my bag in for another 2 hours, so I ended up buying a stupidly expensive cup of tea and sitting in a posh cafe for 2 hours! With that boring day over, I arrived in Kota Kinabalu (KK) and got a taxi to Akinabalu hostel where Camilla was waiting for me.

My Borneo trip was pretty easy to organise, given I'd basically gate crashed all of Camilla's plans! She'd already done all the ground work and booked us a day diving from Semporna and a 3 day jungle trip from Sandakan. The only thing she'd not managed to do was secure a reservation half way up Mount Kinabalu - something that was essential before being allowed to climb it. I was gutted, as this was the main reason I'd decided to go there in the first place! Nevertheless we set off for Kinabalu the next morning in the hope we could either climb it in a day (pretty tough going from all accounts) or get a cancellation. We travelled down on a horrible minibus that was stuffed full of people and had no air con and 3 hours later were dumped at the entrance to the National Park. We hadn't organised accommodation so we trudged up the small hill with our backpacks to HQ to find out about cancellations. First we were refused the day trip as only 4 people were allowed to do it and had already been allocated, but it turned out this was lucky as we later met two (fairly young, fit and strong) men who had done it that day and they looked half dead. We next went to talk to the woman about the overnight accommodation at Laban Rata and were in luck, I was so excited, I didn't even care that the deal they were offering was way over what we though it would cost. The problem with Kinabalu was that all the accommodation ahd been taken over by a company called Sanctuary and they'd bumped up al lthe prcies and removed budget options, selling on ly a package. Camilla wasn't as easily convinced as me, especially as she'd been having trouble with her ears, but once she realised there were only two cancellations - out of an allocated 196 places per day - she realised it was too good to miss out on, so we booked up. We were told to come back at 7.30am to sort out the guide and were sent on our way.

We stayed in a dodgy guesthouse down the road, where the bathroom looked like it was about to fall of the mountain it was on such a steep angle and the slope was such that there was a small puddle in the corner of the room that the lady's puppy was lapping water out of! It was so dark on the road we decided not to venture away for dinner, so had to satisfy ourselves with instant noodles and a cup of milo in the guesthouse - hardly a pre-climbing mountain dinner! It was freezing here too and the blankets provided in our room was not nearly enough.

The following morning we packed up, layered up and set off for HQ, leaving our big packs at the guesthouse. Camilla wasn't feeling great because of her ears and hadn't slept, but was still keen to try the climb. We hung around the office for about an hour looking for some likely people who might like to share a guide (and therefore the cost) with us, but the only people arriving seemed to be large groups of Chinese/Japanese on buses who weren't likely to need our help! Finally we spotted Gustaf, a Swedish guy on holiday from South Korea who was there with his tour guide Jo. They very kindly agreed to share a mountain guide with us which ended up being much cheaper than it should due to Jo's contacts and them already having pre-arranged everything. At this point Camilla dropped a bombshell and decided not to go. Her ear was really hurting and all the guides were saying she shouldn't go if that was the case. We had also come across a man who was desperate to go but had not accommodation and now she could see I was going to be safe with Gustaf and Jo, she was happier to accept she should look after herself. I was gutted, but obviously couldn't force her to go, so instead we set off in the taxi to the gate and she returned to the guesthouse. We also had a girl from Hong Kong (Texas) in our group and right at the start of the climb we met Carlos (Chilean origin, grew up in Melbourne, lived in Seoul too) who had his own guide but tagged along with us.

The climb was really hard! It was like walking up a steep giant staircase for hours on end! I really enjoyed this kind of pain/exercise though, being a bit masochistic, so trudged on up the hill. I'd invested a very small amount of money in a stick at the gate, to help me on the way down (I'd been told this was really useful!) but unfortunately this meant I had to carry it up! We started off together, but after a while the group spread out, with Gustaf's long legs pacing off ahead, me a little bit behind, followed by Carlos and Jo and somewhere behind - Texas. She was a pretty experienced mountaineer apparently so after a few breaks we didn't even wait for her anymore, leaving her to do this bit alone, she was much happier to go slowly. There were really conveniently located huts every half km or so with varying standards of toilet which were great places to regroup. At the first one we met an interesting squirrel thing (much smaller tail than British squirrels) that people were feeding apple and Carlos tried for ages to get a good photo of, losing most of his apple in the process -the little thing was way too quick!

The higher we climbed, the thinner the cloud became and we eventually had some decent views down into the valley. After a couple of hours we started to pass a few people coming down, who had done the summit that morning and were disappointingly reporting no views, thick cloud and heavy rain all morning! Very uninspiring for those of us still going up! We finally reached Laban Rata at about 2pm, and were some of the first to get there. It was pretty cold there, being over 3200m and after the last hour or so having had cold wet sweat all over us we instantly made a beeline for the free tea/coffee in the restaurant! I proceeded to have possibly my most caffeine fuelled 24hours ever, starting with 3 cups of tea and 2 strong cups of coffee in the first hour! I got another bonus through my association with Jo as she knew the girl on reception and they upgraded me from a non-heated building near by, to the upstairs part of the restaurant building which was heated and I didn't even need to leave the building!

The rest of the afternoon was amazingly relaxing, and after an attempted shower (the hot water had broken so splashing icy water over me was the best it was going to get!) I took up position on a table by the window which would get a great view of the sunset and saved the table for the others. Luckily Carlos joined me before I had to start fending off the hoards that were arriving and we sat drinking more tea/coffee til Gustaf and Jo reappeared. Dinner was early and took the form of a buffet but in true backpacker style, given I knew the breakdown of cost and this was the most expensive meal of the lot, I had to eat as much as physically possible! During the sunset my camera, which had stopped being misty, decided to stop working properly again, and would only produce photos with crazy purple lines all across the screen! Disaster. I decided it must still be wet inside so determined to sleep on it with the battery cover open to try and warm it up! They encouraged everyone to go to bed early as we had to get up at 1.45am, so I attempted to sleep at 7.30. Unfortunately, despite being exhausted I think the caffeine had started to get to me so even Carla Bruni - my fail safe relaxing sleep music - failed to help and I listened to the entire album twice and was still awake! I finally drifted off some time after 9.30, with a nice comfortable camera positioned under me on the mattress!

The alarm went off too soon. I was all prepared to get up in the dark with a small torch and leave quietly as the strange Chinese couple in the room had told me they weren't getting up til 5.30 - they were obviously not aiming for sunrise at the summit! Luckily (for me) however, the other Asian man in the room was less considerate and jumped loudly out of bed, turned on the light and proceeded to bang around for a few minutes before leaving and slamming the door. I therefore was able to get up quietly in the light, pack my pockets and leave, turning off the light as I left. I met Carlos downstairs and sank two cups of tea and some toast before Gustaf and Jo turned up. My camera had decided it liked being kept warm and was working perfectly, so I had a sense of triumph as I set off in the dark. We left almost last out of everyone at about 3am and I was excited to sea a blanket of stars across the sky - not a cloud in sight! We didn't want to get to the top too early, but the slow trudge was so dull we soon ended up overtaking people on the wider parts of the path. After we got to the top of the trees, the steps became a sheet of rock, in places so steep there was a rope to pull yourself up. I was very thankful at this point for flexible ankles as they were pretty much at 45 degrees the entire time! Even with this flexibility though, the biting cold soon started to make my muscles become stiff and it got more and more painful. About half an hour from the top Gustaf turned into some sort of Duracell bunny and was off, not to be seen again til the summit, so I stuck with the guide, walking pretty much in his footsteps, with Jo and Carlos somewhere behind. Nearing the top I was so tired and stiff I wasn't actually sure I would make it and I was also freezing! Finally though, I could make out the rocky summit in the dark and got a last spurt of energy to scramble up the rocks to the top. It was at this point we realised our error - it was 4.45am! There was still an hour and a half til sunrise and it was freezing, with a cold wind beating us from the side. At the top I found Gustaf (he had been first there) and a handful of others so I penguin huddled with him against a rock til Jo arrived then the three of us huddled. I pulled out the Cadburys chocolate I'd brought and the end of a packet of biscuits I had with me which I put on the rock beside us. We only managed one each however before a rat came out of the crack, stole the packet and dragged it back into its hole. Not happy! I also managed to drop my new and cheap head torch down a crevasse whilst fumbling trying to put on my fleece - hardly surprising since by the time I was putting my gloves back on my hands were too numb to hold anything! Slightly annoying since it was the torch's first outing, but at least it was the cheapest one I could find! I felt a bit guilty though, since the Kinabalu motto seemed to be "take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints" and I was leaving behind a packet of biscuits and a torch!

Finally, after a larger crowd had gathered, the sky started to lighten and the Sun popped up behind the mountains. It was absolutely stunning, possibly the best thing I've done my entire trip - We were so much higher than anything else in view I felt on top of the World. We stayed up at the top for another half hour or so, taking loads and loads of photos, before starting the descent. I was so keen to get warm by this point I almost ran down the mountain and got back to Laban Rata to be first in the line for the cooked breakfast at 7.30! I waited here until 9 when the others turned up - Gustaf and Jo had done a different descent with harnesses that took longer - and then went with them to their guesthouse while they ate. We finally headed off down the mountain at 10. I had lost my stick (I knew I would) the previous day as I sat in the restaurant, so I had lugged it all the way up for nothing. The huge rocky steps were much harder on the way down, and we were all a bit stiff from the previous 24 hours. Carlos was really struggling with his hips, but he'd set off earlier than us so we only caught up with him near the bottom. My legs were feeling so much like jelly on the way down I fell over three times on my ankle, leaving it a bit sore, but still walkable-on. We reached the final 100m to the gate in 2 hours from Laban Rata, but the last 100m unfortunately was up hill, so Gustaf pushed me and Jo the last bit up to the gate! Jo then treated us to the best tasting 7up I've ever had! We caught a taxi back to the HQ, where we found Camilla waiting for us in the restaurant, feeling much better but glad she hadn't done it. She had also (which I am eternally grateful for) lugged my rucksack up the hill from the guesthouse - something I was almost in tears thinking about on the way down! I don't think I could phsically have carried it uphill! In the end I was glad she hadn't come up the mountain as even my ears had started to hurt with the biting cold, so hers would have been really sore, it was the right decision. After eating our bodyweight in lunch buffet, we headed down to the main road to wait for a bus to Sandakan. Gustaf and Jo were also coming so we all collapsed in a heap at the bus stop and tried to keep our eyes open long enough to not miss the bus!