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She looked 9, but she said she was 14. The actual 9-year-old looked maybe 6. They sat around me in the cafe, all dark eyes and swinging feet, giggling whenever I looked up at them from my book. They found my big nose hilarious.
A few more kids came over. It was 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon in Kota Kinabalua, and they had nothing to do. Just like me.
The teenage boys loaded coins into a jukebox that was past its prime. The Spice Girls shook the block through the blown speakers. I scooped another spoonful of nasi goreng into my mouth.
I hadn't expected such a contrast between these cities on the opposite sides of Malaysian Borneo. Whereas Kuching is serenely content, KK is a poor big ugly sprawl with an edge. The city was razed during the war and no one bothered with aesthetics when it was rebuilt. The center seemed to be one crumbling concrete block after another.
After the cafe I wandered to an outdoor market on the waterfront. It was covered by tin eaves and crammed with people of every hue from Tamil black to Chinese fair, trading, cooking, eating. A foot or two of trash on a sliver of cement separated the market from the sea. Roughly cut steps led to the water, where brightly painted launches ferried people to and from an island across the harbor. There was no room to stand, nothing to lean against, just this narrow sliver of littered cement where it seemed the entire world was milling about.
Then the sun touched the horizon between two perfectly placed islands. The entire sky and the rippling sea were aflame, and the market took on a warm glow. For a moment there was no more romantic spot than this. The sun set indigo, and strings of lights cast the faces in shadow.
Back in the center of town, tables filled the sidewalks, and all the cafes had spun their televisions around to face without: Kung-fu flicks, Kuala Lumpur weepies and B-movies from Hollywood screamed onto the streets. Block after block, people were sitting around, having a drink, talking with friends, half-watching the free, if ear-splitting, entertainment. Little kids sat on their haunches, scrunched up beneath the screens.
There has to be a pub somewhere, I thought -- but no, it can't be a late night anyway. Kinabalu, I thought. Kinabalu. Tomorrow I begin the big climb.
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What impulses drive people to go places where they're not welcome? Human beings have no business on mountaintops, even if the mountain is a relatively puny one like Kinabalu. There is nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nothing to shelter us from the wind and the sun, and not even enough air to breathe. The process is expensive and time-consuming and, at times, lonely. It's hell on your knees, your leg muscles, your lungs. Even sleep is denied you by the altitude and the thin air. You are stripped down naked, your willpower exposed.
I was at Laban Rata, the name of a comfortable guesthouse perched about 3,200 meters above sea level on the side of Mount Kinabalu. The walk up to Laban Rata from the rainforests at the mountain base is six kilometers, all uphill, all steep. I had arrived at Laban Rata in the early afternoon, utterly shattered. We watched the sun fade beneath the swirling clouds below. I could barely keep my eyes open, but I also couldn't sleep. The thin air denied even that luxury.
The knock came at 2:30. I had been lying in my cozy bunk for hours in the darkness, listening to the wind shrieking outside. It sounded very, very cold out there. My body was a wreck; my head ached fiercely. I should have been just going to bed at that hour. I couldn't think of a single reason why I should be pulling on a jacket, testing my flashlight and strapping on my backpack.
I was, I have to admit, afraid.
Not so Al, though, the airline pilot and part-time Marine with the washboard stomach. Even as we were told to get out of bed at 2:30 a.m., Al was singing, "Lager is life! Lager lager lager is life!"
I didn't think Al would have many problems racing to the top. For we mortals with desk jobs and sleep-in weekends, however, the pain had only begun.
With Al's ode to beer echoing throughout the guesthouse, the small company of climbers stumbled outside. The trail went on another 2.5 kilometers. The goal: reach Low's Peak in time for sunrise.
From the start, the climb was impossible. The experienced and the fit marched on into the darkness but I couldn't keep up. My legs quivered. I had to stop every other minute to gasp for breath. The trail continued with steep, rough steps through forest and around boulder. Gradually the voices faded, the flashlights were no longer visible around the next corner. Only Ronnie, the Kadazan tribesman guide I had been required to hire, lurked quietly behind me, obviously bored.
The wind knocked me about as I clambered up the rock face. I felt grateful for the pitch blackness because looking down would have been a mistake. But this was intolerable. I couldn't go any farther.
Then the mountain acquiesced, to a point. Suddenly I found myself on a slope, the steps all behind me, clutching and following a rope that vanished up into blackness, well beyond the reach of my cheap flashlight. The black peak loomed ominously against the inky sky far, far away.
Time passed and the going grew less difficult, the rock face more grabby. But I had no energy. I had to stop to catch my breath every other step. Then my flashlight failed; the light just dimmed and died. Suddenly I was very much alone.
Luckily, Ronnie lit his flashlight to illuminate my way. And luck struck a second time. Dave and Suzette, two Londoners who were also wondering what insanity had brought them here, proved as unfit as me. We fell together, the last climbers on the trail. This was good for them, too, because Dave's flashlight had nearly gone out.
We plodded along at our own pace and all was fine for a while until, without warning or reason, Ronnie suddenly said, "Follow the rope. Go slow," and then vanished, taking his flashlight with him.
The guide we had paid to take us to the top had just abandoned us, leaving us with one failing flashlight. We were pissed off but it took too much energy to curse him. We slogged on. And up.
Next page: Can I make it?