05.17
Day 3, we woke up at 7am in the morning, the weather was cool. After having our simple breakfast, we jumped into a van that we have booked yesterday for RM5 per person to transport us to the KK Park. It took us less than 15 minutes to reach there.
The right side is the registration office where we have to register and pay for the necessary fees. There are 2 small rooms for us to keep our big luggages, of course with RM10 per luggage.
On the left is where we can get our mountain guide and booking of transportation (from the park to Timpohan and from the park to KK city).
Our friends decided to hire a porter to carry their food and backpack so that they can have less burden to walk up there. For the first 10kg, the charges was RM80 and thereafter it was charged according to per kg. Guess what is the total weight on the weighing scale there ? …….. 15kg ! What is the weight for a normal cooking gas cylinder in Malaysia ? Maybe you already know…it’s 14kg ! 
Our friend here taking a photo before the mission starts.
Me too
We can see the 2008 climbathon record holders for those “Supermen and Superwomen” here.
Notice at the bottom ? “From this point to summit 8.72km”. Looks not very far right ? But……we will see later.
We started our climb at 9am. Not so tough at the initial stage, only small rocks.
Found this flower, does it top part looks like a Play Boy symbol ?
After 13 minutes, we only walked for 0.5km.
If you think our backpack is just too much a burden to us, what will you say after seeing what this guy is carrying ?
Started to walk up on the stairs now.
Kandis Shelter for us to rest after about 1km walked.
Although the water is free, be careful if you want to drink it.
Need a place to do “small business” ? You can find it here also.
9.27am (27 minutes), reaching 1km point.
Guys, getting tougher now….
We have some flat roads in between.
At 9.38am (38 minutes), we reached Ubah Shelter.
9.51am, crossed 1.5km point.
That’s the Mount KK.
Friend, you are doing great, keep it up !
Time to move on…..
10.08am, reached 2.0km point.
To these people, this is how they earn their living.
10.34am, 2.5km. For every 0.5km, we took average about 30 minutes to complete. No easy job huh !
Looks exhausted at 3km ? It’s only 10.52am, long way to go….. Don’t worry, I will not give up easily !
This gentleman is carrying 2 long bamboos, imagine how you can balance them with such a tough trail ? It needs skills, I guess.
3.5km at 11.02am.
After seeing this, feel regret ? You better not ! There is a reward waiting for you up there.
See, this is what I meant. GOD never lets you suffer all the time. He just wants to train you to be more tougher
At 11.35am, we stopped at Layang-Layang hut to have our lunch. There were many squirrels over here, just waiting for us to feed them. Our friend is feeding a banana to one of them.
According to the guide, we would face more challenging trails after the Layang-Layang hut, that’s why we were asked to take our lunch there before continuing our 2nd part of mission. Looking at this picture, he was right ! But it won’t deter us to proceed.
Just when we about to start moving, we found this little plant.
There were few insects trapped inside.
12.15pm, reached at 4.0km point.
When you choose to depart from Mesilau, this is the meeting point where you will be on the same trail again. The starting point from Mesilau to here is about 1.5km more but I heard that the trail is not that tough compared the trail we started from Timpohan Gate. So, maybe you wanna try Mesilau trail and then let me know how the condition looks like ?
Friend, we have 2km more to go, you can make it ! If you think you can, surely you can ! After all, being a successful CFO in your company, I am sure this little hurdles will not make you give up easily !
There is no turning back now even if you cry
This is not to scare you away, just want you to have a closer look so that next time you can be well prepared to take this challenge.
12.39pm, we have already walked for 4.5km.
When we start feeling down and complaining about the trail, why not just relax and enjoy the tranquil environment that is surrounding us ? Isn’t life should be like this ?
Just when you feel helpless at this moment………
There is always something out there for you to reach…. 
Then again, there is always something that is worth for you to stop for a while and enjoy.
When you see this Villosa Shelter, meaning we are approaching 5km.
Who am I to complain about life when others are working harder than me !
Yes, we did it, 5km at 1.16pm. You are doing great, friend !
When others are faster than us, let them move on, we can have our time to enjoy and leave a good memory when we return later.
When you face stiff challenge in life, remember to smile always ! :>>
Then, we have to return to the battle again…..
One step at a time, carefully laying out our battle strategies….
Paka Cave shelter, there is a helipad nearby, anyone notices it when you were up here ?
Just have to be slow and careful so that you will not injure your leg.
When you walk slow and enjoy, you would be able to see little cute plants like this.
One is not enough, how about one more.
Sometimes, we just need motivations in our life !
There is always an ending part although it seems so hard and far away.
Time now is 1.37pm, total of 4 hours 37 minutes, we only walked for 5.5km but we are almost there !
Cherish the moment that we have and we will find many pretty things around us.
Little flower able to survive in high level and cool weather condition, surely it has its own unique characteristics to adapt to this environment.
Finally, we reached Laban Rata at 2.10pm ! Yes, we made it ! Yahoo….
This is the reward after few hours of hard work ! It was 9 degree Celsius, I was freezing !
The place where we stayed, Laban Rata Rest House. It also has a cafeteria, a common bathroom, all rooms equipped with a heater which operates on certain of time and is centralized. Although the bathroom has hot shower but you better be hurry to use it, else you would end up with a very cool shower.
There is another rest house over there.
Always remember this when we go into the mother of nature !
Entrance to the registration counter and cafeteria.
Here is our Dormitory Bunk Beds, which we shared with another climber.
Our friend, arrived an hour later but who cares, as long as we all arrived, it proof that we already half way to accomplish our mission.
Can you feel it ? Mount KK is welcoming us !
We have our buffet dinner at the cafeteria in Laban Rata Rest House at 5pm. It was a yummy meal, maybe we have already used up our energy and felt very hungry, that’s why it tasted good especially the curry chicken.
Well, after the dinner, we rested for a while before jumping to our bed to take an early sleep as we have to wake up at 2am to battle our way up to the summit ! After all, there wasn’t any night activities there, why stayed up late ?
So…. do come back here again as I will share with you the most exciting part of the Mount KK mission. Cheers !:)
Mount Kinabalu – Day 4
Hi Wong,
My group of cancer survivors and “aunties” took about 7and half hours to reach Laban Rata. We took a real slow pace. The most scary part was between Layang-layang and Villosa. The rocks were difficult for many of my climbers. The WIND was really strong just before Villosa and continued to be strong upto Laban Rata. We reached Laban Rata at around 5.45pm and the temp. was 8 degrees and the wind speed about 50km/h according to our guide. Luckily for us all my climbers made it to Laban Rata before the wind became stronger. There were some climbers after us who had to be rescued at 4km and 3km. They could not reach Laban Rata and had to turn back. The wind was just too strong by then.
Followed your advice about Daimox. Nobody had AMS. TQ.
Hi Lim, glad to hear you and your team made it to Laban Rata. It was definitely a hard work to walk and climb through those rocks. Perseverance is one of the factors to reach Laban Rata and Summit as well. I am really glad to hear your good news