We did it! We climbed the highest mountain in South East Asia... and what an experience! You start the climb at 2000 metres, where you walk/climb through rain forest. After climbing for nearly 6 hours, we reached our guest house, where we had a well deserved beer and some food. We spent the evening playing cards with our fellow climbers, Matt and Marcus (hello if you're reading this!) who we shared a guide with. After a few games of cards it was early to bed as we were up at 2am to begin the climb to the summit. Yes, in the dark!

As we nodded off to sleep the heavens opened and the rain came thundering down... this was not what we had hoped for! So off we set at about 2.45am to make the 3 to 4 hour climb to the summit. And by climb I mean climb.. we were pulling ourselves up rock faces using ropes and all in the dark with the help of a few torch lights (thanks to Matt who lent me his head torch as I wasn't able to climb and hold a torch in my hand!). This bit of the climb was extremely hard - I think Dan wanted to kill me for making him do this! As we got further up it got really cold, but Matt came to the rescue again with two extra tops he'd bought with him and some gloves... what a life saver!

It felt like we were stopping every few minutes it was really hard going. But eventually we made it to the summit to be met with grey clouds and yes you guessed it, it started raining again! But the feeling was amazing, we really felt like we were on top of the world. Although it was rainy and cloudy the view was awesome, very atmospheric with clouds rolling in over the mountain's peaks...

A few photos and a rest to recover (I was sick about 20 metres from the top, over exertion I think rather than altitude!) and it was another 3 hours back down to the guest house for breakfast and warm tea to try and warm up and dry off. Then after two hours, we began the climb down... this took us another 5 hours... about half way we began to feel as though our knees and legs were going to give way any moment... it was a real struggle.

But, I was lucky as Marcus was there to lend a hand getting down some of the really big steps (not easy with our little legs)... poor Dan was suffering as much as me so he was no use!

And so the pain goes on... we could hardly walk the following day, and not much better the next. Now its 3 days after and we still look like cripples when we have to go up or down stairs. It was truly the hardest thing either of us have EVER done in our lives.

Was it worth it?! The feeling of getting to the top was amazing and we are both really proud that we made it - so yes it was worth it. Would we do it again - NO CHANCE!