Stoplock

I've always never bothered much about extra safety where my car is concerned - even when once, someone broke into my car to steal my handbag (which was hidden somewhere).

A few weeks ago, we were on a mini shopping spree in KL. MinChee had the honour of driving my car. One of the places we went to was Lau Yat Plaza. MinChee, being MinChee, always wanted a cheaper, if not free, parking spot. After getting a FREE, legal parking spot, she realised that I didn't have anything to lock the steering wheel ... and lectured me on how I should keep my car safe, etc, etc, etc.

Two weeks ago, we went to Jusco because of the "member's" sale.

Because MinChee was there, and I was in a very long queue at the cashier's, I asked her to grab a steering lock. I wasn't even bothered if she got a good one or not. But MinChee, being Minchee, knew exactly which brand I should buy.

She got me a STOPLOCK brand.

Well, me, being a procastinater, it took me about 10 days before I even attempt to test it out.

Being so ignorant, I tried this (above pic) first, then after a while, realised that something looked wrong.

I slid one part of it under the steering wheel. It still didn't look right. I tried to steer and found that the stoplock would only hit the side door when I steered to the right. If I steered to the left, there would not be any problems. It didn't make any sense because the "thief" would still be able to steal it with little difficulty.

I decided to ask MinChee to demonstrate. And she taught me how it was supposed to be done. Silly me!!!

And oh yeah, this is part of my Valentine's Day gift. Dear hubby gave me $$ to get whatever I wanted..... I'm just so practical, ya?

The Menu

We were having our lunch in a coffeeshop one day. I had already finished my lunch and was waiting for two others to finish theirs. With the constant need to do something all the time, I glanced at this simple menu placed right on the table.

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I was trying to make out certain words and their meaning. Like ... vegetaria should be Vegetarian. I suppose what they are trying to say is that they serve vegetarian food there.

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And what is live cooks? I am deeply puzzled over this.

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Hmm.. I didn't know rice could be counted.

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And what is Chu Cheng Fan and Jin You Tiao?

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Ah! At least I know what Chao Gui Tiao is. I got it after trying for a long time to "uncode" it. It is commonly spelt as Char Kuey Teow. :)

And the Rain Saved the Greens

I got home yesterday evening, looked up at the darkened sky and thought to myself, "Yes! I can sleep tonight"

It's February and that normally meant HOT, dry weather. For the past few weeks, even though a friend from Banting kept insisting that it rains over there daily, on MY side it was hot, dry and humid. So much so that I'd get people to pack lunch for me cause going out in the scorching sun could mean risking my life to the big C called Skin Cancer.

It DID rain three days ago ... and yesterday, it rained in the morning as well as in the evening.

I looked at the three red bamboos I have just outside the compound of my house. I saw the already-turning-yellow leaves screaming for joy. The rain has come to save them from being ostracised. They will be green once again.

Birds in the House?

I dreamed.

There were birds twittering and chirping, flying from one end to another as well as going round and round in circles, causing a racket above me.

I looked up. Garrgh!!! Birds and nests on my ceiling fan. No wonder I had a hard time sleeping.

Then I woke up!

It was still noisy. I looked up, half expecting the birds, instead, all I saw was my ceiling fan, moving at medium speed, and making all these squeaky noises.

Yep! Time to change the fan. It has served me more than 10 years and prior to that, to Bro Chow for more than 12 years.

I bought this Panasonic fan with remote control. Cool! Now I don't have to get up to adjust the controls. But then, according to the electrician, this fan can only last 5 years as compared with the KDK or Sanyo brand that we normally use. Oh well, we can't have it all, eh?

Treasures Under the Bed

Have you ever cleaned your room, turned the bed upside down, dust the entire area and found stuff that you have not seen for years?

Well, two days ago, I took leave just to clean an entire room.

I have a confession to make. Ever since we bought the oversize custom-made bed in 2005, we have not cleaned under it before. Reason? Well, I couldn't lift the entire bed on my own.

I brought Tusi over to give me a hand. I figured that both of us are strong enough the move the heavy bed to one side. And yes, we managed to shift the entire bed aside to clean underneath it.
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It was quite dusty PLUS I found so many things (most of it were worthless) I haven't seen for years. The only thing of value was dear hubby's wedding band!!! Imagine. He hasn't been wearing it for more than a year and knew that it might be either under the bed or at his very cluttered table in his office.

Another thing I found was a cheque made payable to yours truly, amounting RM2,000 and dated 2007! I was not too worried about it because it was a marketing scheme by the bank to deceive people into paying extra interest charges for that "loan".

We started cleaning the room from 10am and only finished at 4.30pm. We had McDonald's for lunch and after that BS Ong came to replace my ceiling fan (ah!! will blog about this some other time)

By the end of the day, I was feeling exhausted to the bone. My bones ached, my backbone hurt and I was feeling extremely tired. I was thinking that cleaning my house is worse than climbing a mountain. I felt sore with just a few hours of room cleaning as compared with the Ledang Climb
(a total 8-9 hours climb) about 2 weeks ago.

But at the end of the day, I looked back and knew that it had been a fruitful day. :)

A Frustrating Day

Valentine's Day is supposed to be a fun and relaxing day where women get to enjoy love showered upon her by her loved one and men on the other hand, find means and ways to make his woman happy.

My day started off in the hospital. My mother-in-law had her check-up and we brought her there, the doctor checked and we had breakfast in the cafeteria.

After that, I was off to town to get some stuff done while dear hubby stayed with his mum at her house. He had to wait until his sister got back from school before leaving the house.

I was near the junction turning into my garden when I saw this massive jam. Then it struck me - it was a school replacement day!!!! I went straight instead, and took another route. I still got stuck in the jam. I waited for 20 minutes and at one time, was so near my house and yet I couldn't move.

I got down from my car and went to the person blocking my front gate. It was a silver car with NO driver in it. I fumed!!!! Right behind this silver car was a maroon car and behind it was me. So you can see just how close I was to my own house. Beside me on my left, someone parked on the grass area. So there was indeed NO way I could've gotten to my house unless the silver maroon and silver car moved.

I waited ... and fumed and waited ... and fumed!

There was one lorry which tried to squeeze beside me and guess what? My side mirror got scratched!!! I was kinda angry with that.

At last, the silver car moved. The maroon car moved too ... and so did the car beside me. All of a sudden, the many cars behind me started overtaking me from the LEFT. They moved onto the grass-y area to overtake me. Someone shouted something in Chinese to me and I was not sure what he was talking about. I think he thought that I didn't know how to drive cause I was trying to angle my car to face my driveway. I ignored him and was about to turn into my driveway when this green car parked right in front of my gate! I started honking to let him know that I want the space cleared. After a few honks, he realised that I lived there and started to move away.

FINALLY, I was in front of my house. I opened the gate and drove in. Phew!!!! Of course the next thing I checked was how badly scratched my side mirror was. It was not too bad but still!

I went into the house and wanted to check the pictures on my iphone which I took while I was stuck in the jam. I keyed in my password. Nothing happened. I keyed it again. Nothing happened. I waited for more than a minute, thinking that it hung on me. What usually happens after one minute of inactivity is that everything would blank out and I need to key in my password again. To my surprise, after one minute, it didn't blank out.

I tried to switch it off and then switch it on again. Same response.

I switched SIM cards. Same too.

I used my house phone to call my iphone. Phew! It worked. BUT I still couldn't do anything from the iphone itself. Couldn't call out or use any of the functions there.

I checked my very limited manual. Nada.

Finally, I googled my problem. I diligently followed their instructions and reset the phone.

Out came the apple logo.

For a moment, it reminded me of when I first tried to activate the phone. I was quite worried that this might pose a problem, that when I reset it, all the data in my phone would be erased.

Well, everything came back to normal. Phew!!!

By then, it was 2.30pm and dear hubby came to pick me up for our Valentine lunch.

We had lunch at Kenny Rogers. I was super hungry by that time. Dealing with the jam situation (not to mention the scratch on my side window) and iphone problem had me craving for food.

I ordered a sandwich is took a long time in coming. And when it came, it looked so much smaller that what I had last month. I was still hungry after that.

We walked around the shopping mall, where dear hubby chose his two Valentine presents from me. We walked out of the shopping mall to pick up my dress - which had been at the boutique since December 2008.

I was so tired (because I only had 4 hours sleep the night before) that when we got back at 6.30pm, I went straight to bed.... and woke up at 9pm.

We went to a hotel for dinner at 10.15pm. I was hoping that by that time, the Valentine Dinner crowd would've disappeared and that we could go to the coffee house without any reservations.

We didn't have to worry about the Valentine Dinner crowd because they were all at a newly opened bistro.

We walked into the coffeehouse and noticed the many empty tables. "Good", I thought to myself. At least dinner would be served fast.

It would seem that the hotel didn't want our business for we waited a long time before we had to call for the menu. And even that, when someone brought it after 5 minutes, it was a photocopy version.

I ordered my standard mushroom soup and grilled chicken chop while dear hubby had chicken rice.

The chicken rice came first - without any cutlery.

Also, I was puzzled. Shouldn't MY mushroom come first?

Well, having a pretty short fuse and despite my asking him not to get angry, dear hubby scolded the poor waiter. Soon, his manager was apologising profusely while I averted my eyes to err... well, the one spot on the table in front of me.

Well, the "romantic" moment was gone.

My food came not long after that and we ate in silence for a while

When the bill came, the chicken rice was on the house.

I have to admit it .... I think the service there is terrible. Had there been many more tables filled with people, I would've understood the very slow service. But there were only three groups of people patronising this coffeehouse and service should be good - with THREE waiters on standby.

Well, anyway, we left, feeling tired and disappointed with the lousy service.

I sure hope that I wouldn't have to go through a day like this again.

Japanese Slippers

Do you remember, in the days of Abraham, when the blue and white Japanese slippers which cost RM2.90 are a norm and those RM8.00 Bata slippers are considered a luxury?

The strap of one of my slippers broke 2 weeks back and I had been using my climb sandals as a temporary replacement.

Last week, I walked into a Bata shoe shop, thinking of getting a reasonably cheap pair of slippers. I couldn't find any that are comfortable and settled on this :-

And guess how much this pair cost me?

Is that expensive or is that expensive?????

I was shocked at the outrageous price on what looked like a colored version of a pair of Japanese slippers.

A few days after that extremely painful purchase, I found this in the same shopping mall, but different outlet :-

Sigh!

The Ledang Experience

Here's the 4-part account of my Gunung Ledang Climb on February 9, 2009.

Mt. Ophir a.k.a. Gunung Ledang - To Climb or Not To Climb

Memories of Mt Ophir a.k.a Gunung Ledang

Gunung Ledang - Descending

Gunung Leang - Conclusion

Gunung Ledang - The Conclusion

I've come to the conclusion that this Ledang climb is the best climb so far reason being :-

1 - the climbers - I don't know 70% of the team and I managed to make a few new friends. :)

2 - the weather was GREAT. I remember huffing and puffing up after CP5, feeling the strong breeze through the trees. Even though I perspired a lot, the air was not humid at all. In fact, it was cool-ish and reminded me of my Kinabalu Climbs. I think the weather played a great part in me not being overly exhausted at the end of the day

3 - Even with a short climb at G. Datuk, after one hour of climbing, I would ask, "Are we there yet?" and would want to turn back at some point of time. For this Ledang climb, never once did I think about turning back, nor did I ask, "Why so long o reach the summit?" In fact, I was enjoying myself so much, with the different sceneries, that when I actually arrived at the summit, I was thinking, "What? So fast?"

4 - The people I was with were very accomodating (carrying my backpack most of the way up, pulling me up, etc) and the conversation was great.

5 - KFC (which stood for Killer for Climbers) after CP5, wasn't as bad as I thought it was.

6 - The view at the summit was beautiful.

7 - I didn't feel exhausted at all, after the climb. In fact, I felt very much alive.

8 - I expected my thighs and calves to ache the following day ... but they didn't at all :) I was able to walk normally. I also didn't feel totally exhausted when I went to work on Tuesday.

I received this cert (which proved that I did indeed conquered Mt Ophir a.k.a. Gunung Ledang) a few days ago. Just another to add to my collection, although they spelt my name wrongly.

My thoughts to Sirdar and Messner :- I think for every mountain the team conquer (be it small mountains like Datuk and Angsi), the organiser should give each person a "cert". Why? To motivate us, of course :)

But then again, for people like Siva and GeokSiang, they do not need that motivation. I remember chasing after their car (when they were leaving the car park) like a mad person, asking them if they wanted a cert for the Ledang climb and they said "no". And I know that if ever they remember anything about me, it would be the way I went flying at them with a look of emergency plastered on my face. Or maybe the look of utter shock on my face when they calmly said that they do not want the cert.

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Here, I would like to thank Messner and Sirdar for making this climb possible for me. I had a really good time :)

Gunung Ledang - Descending

Continuation from Memories of Mt Ophir a.k.a Gunung Ledang

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While we were enjoying the nice breeze and the beautiful scenery at the summit, 16 others decided that they had enough of the view and started their descent.

As for me, I was at the summit for 39 minutes before we (12 of us) made our way down.

While others dread the thought of going down, I was quite happy about it. Going down normally doesn't pose too much of a problem for me because my knees are still strong. No pain, no ache, no creaking sound, nothing. :)

What I didn't realise was how steep it was when I descended. How did I ever manage to climb up the steep terrain was beyond my imagination.

Messner made this comment : Going up is optional but coming down is mandatory.

Thank God for strong knees. I made it down, slowly, but surely. I was very careful with every step because one miscalculation could mean a very looong walk back to the base.

Soon, Iceberg, Sirdar and I formed one team, moving faster than 9 others.

We came down via another route, which bypassed all the Batu Hampars and caves. Boring, yes, but this made our descent faster.

Iceberg experienced muscle cramps and we had to stop for a while for him to rub some cream on his thighs.

At one point, Sirdar was way behind me and he asked me to slow down. He didn't feel good, probably because of the mee hoon that he ate at the summit. So we stopped for about 10 minutes, giving him time to err.... add fertiliser to the soil.

As I was walking, Sirdar pointed out this big, round, black nest which is the size of a football. I was pretty sure it was a bee hive but Iceberg later clarified that it was not.

We stopped again when we reached the main route. It was 3.40pm. Iceberg and Sirdar looked pretty washed out and I couldn't resist taking this picture. (oh well! To tell you the truth, they actually posed for me!!)

From there , we asked our guide how long it would take us to reach the base and he estimated about 5.30pm. Gosh! Another 1 hour 40 minutes more.

Somewhere near the Kolam Gajah signboard (between CP 2 and CP 3), we saw PeterLai and Joo Tatt. We were surprised because PeterLai had to reach the base first to do the roll call.

PeterLai explained that Joo Tatt's soles came off and the terrain was slippery for his sole-less shoes. He had to move at a slower speed. And PeterLai, having gone on so many mountain climbs, knew the buddy system - that no one can be alone at any one time.

After five minutes of rest, we went on with our journey, this time, at a slower pace to accomodate Joo Tatt.

Somewhere along CP2 we asked the guide to be with Joo Tatt while we went on ahead. The terrain at that time was a gradual slope downwards and it was easy to move fast.

Soon we passed CP1.

And then, came the steps. The moment my feet touched the steps, I started moving very fast, counting all the way down. Eunice had given me a task to do : Count the number of steps. And I couldn't do it if I were to walk down slowly. I literally ran down the steps, stopping only very occassionally.

On the 630th step (estimation), I saw a Faith, Siva, Geok Siang (can't remember the rest) coming up to go to the pond nearby for a dip. I literally ignored them (they must be wondering why I didn't acknowledge them at all!!!) and continued going down and counting. I knew that if I ever stopped to say "hi", I might lose my concentration and forget what number I was on.

I arrived at the base at 5.12pm

I saw some of my team mates hanging around near the car park. Uncle Loke was one of them. He said that he reached the base at 4.10pm. Gosh!!!! He's 64 years old and he's so much fitter than I am. I salute him!!! When I asked him how many times he climbed prior to this, he answered that this was his third climb, the first two being Gunung Datuk and Gunung Angsi. Wow!!! Bravo!!!

Four people from KL were all set and ready to leave the park. They cartainly had a long drive back and I don't envy them for the jam that they would encounter once they go past the Sg Besi toll. It was a long weekend for us afterall.

I called Eunice and the first thing she asked was, "You came down already-ah?"

"Yes", I answered her

"Wah, sooo fast", she exclaimed

Yeah, I was kinda proud of myself.

I checked myself to see if there were any parts of me that were aching. None!!! I didn't feel tired at all. In fact, I felt so alive.

I declared all my stuff to the management and grinned sheepishly when they saw that I had the 9th plastic bag peeking out of my backpack. I explained that it did not contain any food stuff, which was why I didn't count that in.

There was only one shower stall in the ladies' and seeing that no other ladies would be using it anytime soon, I took my own sweet time in there. It was certainly VERY refreshing.

This is iceberg, looking so drained out

Iceberg needed to leave as early as possible and even though we could've left the park early, there was still something which held us back. Iceberg's backpack was with the guide leading the last team. Later, we found out that Iceberg paid RM20 for the guide to carry his backpack, all the way up and all the way down. And the comment was that Iceberg spoiled the market because I only gave Sirdar and JasonW a cucumber each for carry my backpack up.

We waited until the last person reached the base. JohnL arrived at 6.37pm, limping as he walked. Samuel, who arrived not long before that, looked ill.We left the park at 6.54pm to go for dinner in Tangkak. Messner, JohnL and Samuel didn't join us because Samuel was not feeling well.

We went to this restaurant called Soon Guan. The owner, seeing that we were a big group (12 people) decided to throw in the yee sang for free. Afterall, it was the last day of Chinese New Year.

Eunice already warned me that they would order weird dishes and true enough, our dishes were chicken with wine, turtle, frog's legs, long beans with cucumber, fish and err... one more dish - can't remember the name. Anyway, realising the weird dishes that they ordered, I asked them to order friend rice for me. It was a huge portion and I had to share it with Faith.

The bill came up to a whopping RM212!!! Gosh! So expensive.

We left Tangkak at 8.30pm. I was in Sirdar's car together with JasonW and Iceberg. Nobody felt like driving. Sirdar and Iceberg were tired partly due to the fact that they didn't have enough sleep the night before. JasonW drove in the morning .... so I did the responsible thing and volunteered to drive. I drove from the first rest stop all the way to Seremban.

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I picked up my car at Joo Tatt's place and the four of us went to my mum's place for coffee.

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It was certainly a very nice ending to our climb - a hot drink at the end of the day :-)

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Truly, I have enjoyed myself climbing Ledang and I am glad that I cleared my schedule for this.

Memories of Mt Ophir a.k.a. Gunung Ledang

Continuation from this entry.

And so, there I was, at 3.50am, all packed and ready to drive to Joo Tat's place. We car pooled to Kemayan Square where we met up with some of the team.

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Everyone was punctual and we left at the scheduled time : 4.30am. I was in Sirdar's car together with JasonW. With only 4.5 hours sleep the night before, I closed my eyes while talking to Sirdar.

The drive was smooth and we arrived at Tangkak at 5.35am. Had breakfast at a restaurant crazy enough to open for business at a god-forsaken hour. Feeling rather hungry (and nervous), I had kuey teow soup and Milo.

After breakfast, I was introduced to the other climbers. Many of them looked unfamiliar. I made a conscious effort to remember their names and faces but after being introduced to so many people, I gave up.

We left the restaurant at about 6.05am. From there, it was about 10 minutes before we had to turn into a palm oil plantation. We drove for quite a distance, following whatever available signboards posted at strategic locations.

Finally, we came to the entrance of the park.

It was still dark and we were indeed early. Messner and Sirdar gave a short briefing on what to do and what not to do.

We then walked up to the park management office where we were each given a piece of paper to fill out what "disposable" (non bio-degradable) things we would be carrying with us during the climb. I was forewarned by Eunice about this and already had in mind what to write.

This is my list. The first one mentioned "plastic wrapped food" So of course I only counted the number of plastic which had food in it. I had several other plastic bags which I didn't declare simply because I don't have food in there.

At 7.30am, Iceberg led us on a 7-minute basic warm up to loosen our muscles.

We had a second briefing by the park management and were introduced to our guides. I was told that initially, we requested 4 guides because 38 people signed up for the climb. A few people pulled out due to some unforseen circumstances (err... like a leak in the house, backache, etc) and we were down to 28 people.

Our guides (the 2nd person from the left is part of the management team)

Messner was planning to ask if they could reduce the number of guides from 4 to 3, thus saving us RM140.

The good news was that they only had 3 guides available that morning because one of the guides had stuff to do that day. It worked out well for both parties.


A group photo was taken to ensure that IF we were to loose anyone during the climb, at least we had a nice picture of that person on the day he/she breathed his/her last. (just kidding!)

At 7.46am, we started our 5.8km climb. Everyone was in high spirits and were chatting away.

It was stairs, stairs and more stairs. All 728 of them. YES! I counted the steps. Eunice was convinced it was about 500 steps and asked ME to count them one by one.

I was half-dead even before I reached the 100th step. And slowly, one by one, everyone started to move ahead of me. I stopped many times to catch my breath. Thank God I had JohnL to accompany me. Sirdar and JasonW were also kind enough to be nearby incase I needed their help.

Not long after the steps ended, we arrived at CP1. The time showed 8.07am.

Iceberg, who was waaaaay in front in the begining, fell back and wanted to turn back. He had just recovered from a terrible flu and didn't sleep much the night before. I was told that after the mosquito coil ran out prematurely (due to the full blast of the fan), he was greatly disturbed by the buzzing music near his ears.

I encouraged him to continue and to set his summit point at CP5. "Follow my pace, and you'll be alright", I told John and Iceberg. (secretly, I didn't want to be the last one up!!!)

With that in mind, they trudged on, detemined to reach CP5 so that they could turn back. Somewhere along the path, Sirdar, seeing that I was huffing and panting, decided to lighten my load. I kept insisting that my backpack was not the reason why I was panting so hard. I was just a natural panter :) JasonW took over being my porter after CP2.

We came upon Messner with his first aid kit out. I heard bits and pieces of conversation as to what happened. Faith grabbed on to some plant with thorns on it.

We walked on and reached CP2 at 8.23am and CP3 at 8.49am. The terrain was a gradual slope with lots of leaves covering the soft ground.

We were told not to litter the place. Interestingly enough, we came upon some bottles with black liquid in it on the side of the pathway. My first thought was that some of the climbers didn't want to carry a heavy load up and kept them there so that they could collect on their way back. What a great idea, I thought to myself.

As we walked on, we saw more of these bottles. Later I was told that it contained a kind of chemical to harden the soil.

We came to a small clearing, where to the left, leads to Sg Tiga Segi and to the right, to Kolam Gajah. Gulp! Elephants in the mountain??? In a pond? I half expected to hear the elephants trumpet but I was greeted with silence.

There was no CP4. The trail after CP3 was relatively easy. At one point, we were practically going down, down, down. I was happily moving at a faster speed. This is easy, I thought.

I remember PeterK said that Cecelia (his wife) commented that the trail is too easy. Sirdar was quick to answer that CK said the same, and then regretted because his words came back to haunt him after CP5.

We reached CP5 at 9.56am. The rest of the team were there. JohnL, Iceberg, Chih and his wife turned up about 10 minutes later. Initially, Chih who was not feeling well, wanted to turn back. Somehow he managed to feel good enough to continue with the climb.

We took a 15 minute break. Food and liquid disappeared into everyone. The once fresh air was polluted by the guides who were on one side, smoking away.

The trail was steep after CP5


The fun began after CP5. We were warned that from the check point onwards, the trail would be significantly tougher. True enough, the trail got so steep. I had to literally walk up two steps, pant a lot, stop, take a few deep breaths and continue the same pattern over and over again. We relied on the tree roots to heave ourselves up.

At the entrance of the cave

We reached CP6 at 10.56am. Here, we had to go through two caves. So scary, yet exciting. We had to haul ourselves up using ropes. There was one point when someone said that it was the best time for Cecelia to ask PeterK if he loves her.... and if the answer is "no", she has the right to kick him down.

After that, we came to the anak Batu Hampar. I was quite scared when I saw how steep it was. Once again, ropes were there to help us up but I went up with the help of the tree roots on the right side of this boulder.

But then, that was NOTHING compared to the mother of all rocks. It was high and steep. Surprisingly, I was not worried. I told Sirdar that I could do it without much fear. Three ropes hung down for us. Sirdar insisted that I use the middle rope while the guide and he would sandwich me.

I didn't want to stress my poor arms and moved up at a comfortable pace. It was certainly a nice experience. When I finally got up to the top, I looked down, and there I saw Siva, lying on his back, in the middle of the slope, taking pictures. And before I know it, Sirdar and PeterK decided to do something crazy. They tried going down midway just to see how difficult it would be, should they decide to get back to the base via this route.

Taman Bonsai came into view. Indeed, there were lots of nice bonsai-like looking trees. It was a change of scenery for us. A relief, after going through so many tall trees.

It was at this section when Chih's left leg began to cramp. Sirdar helped massage his thighs to ease the cramp. (ha! from the picture, it looked as though Sirdar was doing "something else")

Bukit Botak was next and one could easily see the relevance of the name. There were lots of bare sections and with the sun scorching down, I hurriedly put on my cap.

This picture was taken when we arrived at Bukit Botak

I saw the above IJM sign pasted onto a tree trunk and thought .. gulp!!!! Does this mean that there were so many people whose heart problems acted up right in the midst of climbing this mountain that they had to station an IJM (Institut Jantung Malaysia) facility nearby?

We came to CP7 (I couldn't find the signboard) at 12.23pm, where there was supposed to be water for us to refill our containers. But there was no water because of the dry season. I retrieved my bag from JasonW at this point.

We rested for 5 minutes before continuing our journey.

The climb got dangerously steeper just as we were about to reach the summit. I had to mentally remind myself not to look down.

These ladders helped us a lot. It's so much better than using the ropes to pull ourselves up.

After climbing a series of ladders and suddenly I saw Peter Lai sitting under a tree. His job was to tick off every climber who reaches the summit. I was somewhat relieved when he said, "Just go up a little more and you'll reach the summit". After climbing for 5 hours, it was nice to hear that.

I arrived at the peak at exactly 1pm. The view was breathtaking. And even though the sun was shining brightly, we didn't perspire much because of the strong winds.

I plonked myself beside JohnL, opened my bag and took out a packet of sliced cucumbers. I remember MayHui and her cucumbers from my Gunung Angsi Climb. I offered everyone near me a slice of this succulent vegetable. When I offered one to JasonW, Sirdar joked and commented, "There you go, JasonW. Your porter fee is a slice of cucumber"

I was hungry and checked my bag for more food. I brought out my bread and cheese sandwich and started eating it. I only took 3 bites and decided that it was too dry for my dehydrated body. Sirdar took out his packet of food - mee hoon and bread with fried egg. I happily volunteered to eat the fried egg sandwich for him.

To be continued in the next posting. Meanwhile, have a look at the pictures taken at the summit:-