flip'n travels

Back to Kota Kinabalu from our gargantuan climb, we head off straight to the hostel to freshen-up, feast on a hearty dinner then went straight to a spa for a well deserved full body massage.

Upon lying down the massage table, we instantaneously went in to trans, and up to this point we can hardly remember a thing. The next event we can recall is the painful ordeal of getting out of bed the next morning. Our legs were aching like B****

We still have a full day to go around the town and we need do some shopping, then providence played its game once again, we woke up with the sight of a market that rose out of nowhere a block away from our hostel–Sunday market time! We bought pasalubongs for my staff nurses and Monette’s students.

The first season of survivor was shot in Palau Tiga, an island some 30 minutes away from the city port. Since we still have a day to hit the beach and relax our about to explode muscles, we decided to spend the remnants of our budget to explore the islands, I wanted to do an island hopping and see two or three, but since our budget can only afford one–Palau Manukan it is!

Going to where the roots of the hit reality show Survivor, is no less than perfect and politically appropriate at that point, we survived the ambitious climb and we deserve the title (and no we’re not singing the Destiny’s Child cliche).

We walked several minutes from where we ate our breakfast to Jesselton Port. With almost paralyzed legs and non functioning brains we said yes to the first guy who grabbed us and offered the ride to Manukan, no negotiations, no haggling, surprisingly effortless. After paying a total of MYR45 for the speedboat ride, port fee and all those conservation sh**,  we realized we left our sunblock in our hostel. Too late, our boat is already speeding towards the island.

We weren’t expecting anything, for an island so proximal to the bustling city, we did not believe that there is a perfect beach around, at least not remotely comparable to our Boracay or Palawan. Being Filipinos, our standard bars when it comes to beaches is close to insatiable. But we were surprised with Palau Manukan.

Once our toes touched the white sand, we immediately looked for a spot under the trees, laid our sarongs, flatten the sand underneath, and slowly drift away to dreamland… It was a slothful siesta, so sinful the devil was already sending an SMS for flight schedule. But who cares? This is Kota Kinabalu compensating and calling it ‘quits’ after the epic torture.

Monette found out that the receptionist, the boatman and other staff in the island happened to be Filipinos. And being a kababayan, they actually offered the snorkeling gears for free. I so love that “Pinoy abroad” culture.

The marine life in this side of Borneo is so rich: Try to bring a piece of bread and schools of fish will swarm you, it is kind of bordering to scary actually, because some fishes aren’t small, some bigger than my torso. The water is warm and dipping is perfect to melt those premature uric acid that got crystallized during the climb, if it’s not for the fact that it’s jellyfish season, I would definitely spend the rest of the afternoon playing with fishes.

And so I did the right and most responsible thing to do, I went back to Slothville.

Before I completely surrender consciousness, I lay down stared at the sky for couple of minutes, while trying to digest the adventure that was.

Voice over:

“Whoa, climbing Kinabalu  is something that I will remember for the rest of my life.
But is it worth it? HELL YES…
Am I gonna do it again? NOT A CHANCE!”

I closed my eyes smiling, as the noon light fades out.

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place.  ~Lance Armstrong

 As I approached Panar Laban, my feet gave in and I fell a few steps before I reached the door.I did not resist the fall. I sat down for minutes thinking it was a well deserved rest. Finally, I picked myself up and dragged my painful body inside the hut to sleep. 45 minutes later, Ron arrived and we started to prepare ourselves for the final showdown: the trip back home…

We hurried to the restaurant to eat our breakfast and started our descent. As was expected, I went on ahead and left Ron to the mercy of the mountains. After going past the 2 kilometer mark, I felt the burning pain on my feet. My muscles started to shake and my hands were blistered as I used a cane to support my weight as I go down. My ipod died on me and I had to hum ACDC songs to pick up my speed.

As I walked down, I met people asking me how the sight was. I told them about the place where we stopped and it was magnificent. I’m sure the sight on the summit was a hundred times more fabulous. I saw excitement on their eyes, much like our excitement the day before. And try as I may to complain about the pain I felt, I did not utter anything that would dampen their spirits. I was ashamed for even thinking of exhaustion when I see porters climb up with their heavy load.

The people I walked with were my distraction. We were talking non-stop even as we drink our fill on pit stops. I even saw a Japanese guy strumming a guitar as he climbed. We even got to sing a few songs before parting ways. I felt the pain leave my body as I met brave souls trying to conquer nature.

Finally, I saw the gate from where we started. I had to stop every few steps to rest. As I cross the threshold, I was almost close to tears. I made it out of Kinabalu alive.

Somewhere between the climb up, I thought of quitting. Looking back, I’m glad I didn’t. There was something about this crazy idea of mountain climbing that made me something else, maybe even something more…

I have conquered my metaphor of fear, I no longer fear pain…

OK, now that the biggest Philippine soap is over (READ: Elections), We’re back to our regular programming:

… We sat in silence as we drowned ourselves with fresh mountain air. We rested our bodies and stretched our limbs and savored every moment of being on top of Mt. Kinabalu. As much as we wanted to spread our arms and scream on the top of our lungs–“I’m the king of the world!” it’s too cliché, not gonna happen, we were also just too tired and the air is too cold it felt like it will freeze our brain if we open out mouth.

Monette’s obligatory victory smoke…

Antonio, my camera, seemed to be so affected by the temperature, the flash stopped working. I had to put it inside my jacket close to my body for several minutes for it to work. Good thing it did. I grew up in a tropical island and I am not accustomed to low temperature environment. Gripping a lens and fine tuning a focus rim in this unforgiving weather condition is a skill I have yet to hone.

The weak sunlight barely helped thawing our frozen ears, butts and fingertips. After an hour of sitting on a cold stone, and as much as we wanted to feel and enjoy the laurels of our climb, our knees were trembling vigorously, and so, we both agreed on starting our descend.

Finally, after a day and a half of uphill battle, the gravity will be working on our side, and it will be easier from that point forward… or so we thought. 

Monette decided to walk ahead of me. I started moving and the first few meters felt like heaven as the shift of tension on my body mechanics gave relief to my worn tortured muscles. But that was short-lived. 

After the first few hours, I started feeling a different kind of pain on my knees and distal limbs. My legs felt like that of a marionette’s. Having a strong background in orthopedic medicine I can visualize a physiology of my joints everytime I closed my eyes. Labral tear, patellar fracture, cruciate ligament injury and the list goes on. But that’s nothing as compared to the fear that we felt upon passing the plateau to a more dangerous part of the assault—the cliff.

It dawned on us that the wall we were climbing few hours ago was a part of a dangerous cliff. A sudden rush of cold air chilled my spine when I saw that we were walking on 85 degree wall of rock with embedded rope as our only life line. It was dark when we climbed so we didn’t see that dangerous drop. At that point, fear was amplified as we literally sat down and crawled slowly to advance down the cliff. One wrong move will lead to painful mortality. I was hyperventilating and NO I’m not yet ready to die, not excited to see H-E-Double hockey sticks, not yet.

There has been reported cases of climbers who fell in this cliff and never been found. Even if you survive the fall, no one can rescue you as the thick vast forest plays labyrinth to lost climbers. And even if you scream your soul out, the altitude, rock formations and trees may distort sound waves, making it impossible to identify your actual location.

Fear of gruesome death, cold temperature and body weakened by pain is not the best combination when you’re conquering a feat and you’re alone on a very dangerous situation. The safe landing flat form is still nowhere to be seen, all you can do is start moving and stop scaring yourself.

But one wrong balancing act may lead to death. With that in mind, I gripped hard on the rope while praying. This ordeal lasted for almost two hours. I got a safe spot on a protruded rock on my way down, and I sat there for almost 40 minutes for it could be my last rest. I closed my eyes and my mind went flat line.

You might think that it was a typo. You might think Ron and I developed another liking to weird things (ok, maybe not weird, just unconventional [ok, maybe conventional, but not many people would admit to liking it]). You might even think that we gave in to Bangkok’s glitter. I have to correct myself when I said that Lub’d was the only highlight of our trip. It was Lub’d AND the PORN house. Yes, you read that right, the PORN house. Feast your eyes on this…

with the porn chicks

Remember when we had to leave Grand Palace? Well, the ticket there included a pass to the world’s largest golden teakwood mansion, the Vimanmek. We decided to visit the place the next day. And because we were bursting with energy, we left the hotel a couple of hours past noon, stopped by 711 for our daily dose of cheap coffee and arrived in the area with only a few minutes to spare.

Somewhere between the main entrance and the tourist information center, I told Ron I smell bread baking. And holy guacamole, it was us! Yes, you could have stuck a fork in our butts and turned us over because we were done. We rushed to the center for shade and walked around, there was really nothing to see. And finally, we saw the huge mansion. We approached. Lady guard informed us they were about to close. Ahhh… our last day in Thailand and THAT was just the wonderful cherry on top of the cake. We walked out of the complex with no hopes of redemption in the last leg of our god-forbidden trip.

Please note an absence of pictures of the mansion, right here.

And then… in my peripheral vision I saw a shop. It was nothing out of the ordinary, I think it was because we were cramming in buying trinkets for the people at home that we let ourselves get side-stepped. We were welcomed by two lovely Chinese ladies who offered us tamarinds while we shopped. They were very accommodating and conversational in a non-irritable manner that by the time we were finished with our shopping, we already know their family history. Ron haggled with the prices while the other lady stuffed him with guavapple (hybrid of guava and apple) like there’s no tomorrow. I tried to find something small to carry and would fit in my already-filled bag. We ended up buying more than what we have planned. Basically, 95% of our pasalubongs came from that store. We promised them that if we have friends who are going to Bangkok, we’d recommend their shop. So here we are… recommending… *wink wink* We left with our bags full, plus an extra plastic bag of tamarinds.

So… where ever did we get the porn house?

Ron and I were sitting in a restaurant, waiting for the sunset while talking about our experience in the store when a waiter approached us. We showed the picture to him, hoping to get the name of the store. He said porn. Ron and I looked at each other and smirked (and we were not being meanies, we just thought it was funny). I asked the guy to repeat it and I got the same answer. Ron decided to have the guy write it down in English. He wrote: PORN. We just knew those ladies had us at hello.

Getting to the PORN house store:

Go to Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha), Go to the river bank side of the temple (Thanon Maha Rat St.), right across the temple gate is the souvenir shop with the blue signage.

They have the lowest prices we’ve seen all across Bangkok.

Damnoen Saduak is popularly known as the floating Market and the Venice of Asia.  Every Morning, the Floating Market is routinely crowded with hundreds of vendors and purchasers floating in their small rowing boats. They usually use small traditional boats, however, today the long-tailed engine boats became more popular. Vendors are selling and buying or exchanging their goods, which are particularly food, fruit and vegetable which mostly brought from their own orchards, in recent years these goods were replaced with souvenirs and trinkets for tourists, and the floating market became a huge souvenir shop.

Other than “Damn! I lost my Calvin Klein sunglasses there!” I can only say this, and I quote:

“I will say no more, because there’s no more to say!”
~Anna Leonowens (The King and I, 1956)

HOW TO GET THERE: There are public buses both air and non air-conditioned leaving from the Southern Bus Terminal in Pinklao-Nakhonchaisi Rd. for Damnoen Saduak every 40 minutes from 06.00 AM. onwards. Fare is around Baht 49 (one way) for air-conditioned and Baht 30 for normal buses. The most suitable time to be at the market is from 8:00 – 10:00 in the morning and the travel time is about two hours.