3 posts tagged “mt rinjani”

Its an early rise and shine day again. 6am to be exact. Not that I mind because I didn't sleep too well with the cold feet. Its so cold outside that I can feel my usual wake-up pee urge subsiding fast once I put my head out of the tent. Speaking of pee urges, I realised I only had one urge yesterday in spite of the amount of water downed. Yikes.

Camera still dead so there were no rush to slot in photography before breakfast. Breakfast for today is banana pancakes again but drenched in chocolate condensed milk. Yummm. I don' t think I have ever seen chocolate condensed milk being sold before. After the quick breakfast, it was pack up and go again.

Trek schedule for today reads as follows.

Down crater rim - 2hrs, short break

Across crater lake - 2hrs

Sidetrack to hotspring and waterfall, break for lunch

Up crater rim to camp site - however long it will take. We took 4~4.5 hrs.

Down crater rim. I had looked around the night before trying to see if there was any obvious path down the rim, didn't see any and wondered how the heow we were supposed to get down. So, I found out this morning. Straight down. It was half walking down narrow paths that extended out from the sides of the rim and half inching down on my butt, rock climbing style. I have never ever been more grateful to my parents for gifting me with long legs.

As usual, Daniel had already gone half way around the globe by the time we did 1/5 of the route. What can I say? That guy did not even have one ounce of fat on him and he is probably superman in disguise. Too busy trying to see where to place my feet to take note of the scenery but the rest caught stuff that I missed on digital. That's the good thing about travelling with photographers. There are always plenty of cameras around to capture all the action and nobody complains when you want to stop for shots. On the way down, we bumped into a huge bunch (60) of malaysian climbers. These people are planning to climb 3 mountains (Mt Rinjani, Mt Agung in Bali and some other mountain that I didn't quite catch) in 6 days. Hats off to them I say. I think I have trouble coping with just this one mountain. The oldest of the group is a gentleman of 60 years of age and who looked like he was only 45. He is also the fastest of the group. *Worship* Being friendly neighbours, there were plenty of greetings and well-wishes. It does not bode well on us to hear them tell us "Good luck. You will need plenty of that getting to the summit." Eeeeeek. So, whose crazy idea was it that we climb this mountain again? Reaching the bottom of the rim, we took a well deserved rest. Looking in amusement at the rest of malaysian group straggling past us, we took a group photo with one of the only 2 chinese in the bunch. He was pretty happy to see us for some reason, chatted at great lengths with us, gave us some tips (Don't, at any time, drink water from the lake because it contains traces of sulfur and if possible, bring a thermos flask of hot water up the summit) and left his contacts with us should we ever want to climb any mountain in Malaysia. Hur hur hur. No offence but do we look like seasoned mountain climbers? I don't think so...

Across the Crater Lake. It was an easy walk to Segara Anak, the crater lake, where we saw some local fishermen fishing. I wonder who they think they were going to sell their fishes to.

After a short rest and some photo clicking, we made our way across the lake to the next rest point and lunch. I thought we would be heading towards grassland but no, we had to go across the lake perimeter, upon pointy wet rocks. 

The slippery wet narrow path was handled with extreme caution by all present. At one stage where we had to scramble up some slope, KC was heard to exclaim rather loudly "HAR? You call this a path?" KH, who was next up, went "HAR? You call this a path?" 30 seconds later. The rest of us collapsed in laughter. Yep. The path was about 2 feet width wide and had this gaping hole that one had to jump across. Some path indeed. The lake perimeter was where I got my first major "battlescar". Miscalculating on where to anchor my walking stick for support, it slipped on a loose rock and I banged my legs against the sharp rocks as I try to avoid falling into the water. Great. I can just imagine how colourful this bruise is going to be. It was with sighs of relief that we spy the path that was going to take us to the lunch spot and away from the lake.

Sidetrack to hotspring and waterfalls. Being a little behind schedule, Sar suggested that we veer off to the hotspring and waterfall instead of dropping off our bags at the lunch spot as planned earlier. With promises that the hotspring was only 5 minutes away, he cajoled us 4 tired travellers into walking a little bit more instead of stopping at the rest point. I'm glad he did. The hot water was soothing,  the waterfall was magnificent and as we sit soaking our feet, the clouds rolled in from below us. It was at times like these that I wished my camera hadn't died. Of course, the little episode of our guide, Sar, taking a well deserved full body soak in the hotspring was still the best view we could ever wish for and a mad scramble by all to take photos.

I wonder if he would still take his soak in the hotspring if he had known how many pairs of eyes were oogling him that day at the waterfall. After the soaking of tired feet, it was time to head back for lunch. The quality of food never cease to amaze me on this trip. We had fried noodles with vegetables and shredded chicken and pineapples for dessert. Licked my plate clean again. The singaporean couple whom we kept bumping into on this trip offered us some fish that they had bought freshly caught by the fishermen we saw at the lake and fried into perfection by their porters. No trace of the mud taste that is usually present in fresh water fish at all. Apparently the cost of the fish were pretty reaonable too, about 10,000 baht (I think. I can only remember that we did the calculation and it was very reasonable) for a total of 1.8kg of fish.

Up crater rim again. After lunch, short rest and toilet break, it was time to head out again.The going got really tough at this point. This is what the route up looked like. Yes. Straight up to the top. The pretty little blue flowering shrubs that I noticed the previous day are back again. I really wished I could stop to take pictures of it but I had no camera and we had to keep moving. The first part was alright but the second two hours started to feel like rock climbing. A never ending series of rock climbing. At this stage, it was rest every 15 minutes. At the last leg of the trek, Sar asked if we wanted to take the shorter (but heaps more tiring) 30min route or the longer (but apparently less tiring) 1.5hr route. The vote was unanimous. We will take the shorter route even if it will kill us because we just want to get it over and done with. After Sar had verified that the shorter route was do-able, we set off again. The route turned out to be a series of more scary rock climbing. I finally relented, surrender my camera bag to Sar and just concentrate on climbing and breathing. It was with smiles of great joy when we spotted our camp for the night. After a long rest, the girls set out to explore the surrounding and to *ahem* "communicate" with nature. We ended up as photographic subjects for KH and the whole flickr community knew exactly what we did when we were at the camp but I'm glad he took the shots because they were my favourite from the whole set.

Tonight, we had vegetable curry with rice. It was all inhaled in a matter of minutes, as usual so no pictures. I was to find out later that our porters had carted a whole coconut up and grated it to make fresh coconut milk. No wonder it tasted like ambrosia. The heat from the curry spice and hot soup made a very welcome guard against the cold winds blowing outside. It was even more windy here than on the crater rim. At times, the tent was almost bent over from the strong gusts of wind. It was lights out as usual after dinner since I was still debating (half-heartedly) about making that trek up to the summit at 2am, depending on muscle condition. KH has long decided that he wasn't going to join us so I think he slept in peace and much happiness. 

I had no mobile signal at this camp either but Sar did since he told us before dinner that he had just received word that his grandfather had passed away last night. I felt really sad for him. Must be hard remaining cheerful and upbeat for work in the face of such awful news.

 

We woke up early today. Breakfast (Banana pancakes with coffee) was at 6am in Awenk's office a little further down and we headed off to the Senaru Trek Centre. On the way over we found out that we were expected to carry our own belongings on the trip but looking at the shock on our faces, Ardenn (this guy we met who works for WTO and is helping out with upgrading of services provided by the locals) decided to allocate another extra porter to us at no extra charge. So, boys and girls, if you do decide to do this trek, please be reminded that you are expected to carry your own belongings up and down the mountain otherwise, letting your trek organiser know that you are hiring another extra porter to carry all your barang barang (belongings) up is highly recommended by this author :D

The trek schedule today reads as follows.

POS I - 1.5hrs from the trek centre, last civilisation outpost for the next few days

POS II - 2hrs, Lunch

POS III - 2hrs,

POS IV - 2hrs, decision to be made if camping overnight or proceed to crater rim

Crater Rim - 45 mins, dinner, camp for the night 

POS I was relatively easy to get to, gentle slope with cultivated fruit trees on our left and the dense tropical jungle on our right. A few cows and goats looked at us in amusement as we hurried past the trail but other than that, it was pretty deserted. At POS I which is where the local village ends, there is a little thatched shop that sells snacks and drinks and this huge tree formed thru the inter-twinning of 3 trees. Our guide, Sar, made a beautiful walking stick from the nearby trees for KL here.  After a short rest, we headed off again. Smsing works fine at this point.

We got to POS II at 11-ish and waited for our porters to catch up and cook lunch (Mee soup with egg and vegetables, pineapple for desserts).

Shot while waiting for the porters to show up

Daniel (This super-human, super-fit swiss guy who was sharing our cooking equipment for the trek) was already there. He started out later than us since he came from Gili Trawangan island and he had already surpassed us before POS II. He was carrying his own single person tent and sleeping bag too. Trek to POS II started to get a little tougher. Higher steps and overgrown roots. Sar told us it was easy peasy at this stage. Boo hoo!!! Twittered and then sms S to let him know I was still alive at POS II. The wait for lunch was a little long and we kept asking Sar if we would make it to the crater rim in time for sunset. He assured us that we had plenty of time. As it turns out, he was pretty spot on the timing despite our doubts.

POS III. Trek to this point got tougher. The steps got higher and higher and there were more overgrown roots. The walking sticks came in real handy as we used them to propel ourselves up. At POS III, the jungle met grassland and the temperature dipped. Met a caucasian couple who have set up camp here with their porters. The lighting at this time was really nice for photoshoots and the tall grasses made for a real scenic backdrop. Wished I was camping here too but nope it was time to move on again after a while. Didn't twitter here. Too busy catching my breath.

 POS IV. The clouds were below us. The sun was shinning brightly above.

Imagine 45 degree grassy slopes that looked like the above. Now imagine us climbing. We were taking short breaks every 30 minutes now, huffing and puffing. What we thought was bad before was nothing compared to getting here. Never have I ever been so glad to see the rest station that says POS IV because it means that I can have a longer rest and I am just that one step closer to the final rest point for the evening. POS IV was also where "OH SHIT!" happened. Go read the story here. Super hilarious and that gave us the extra adrenaline to make it on to the final point.

Crater Rim. Met a couple of Dutch who were making their way down just as we reached the camping ground. They had made it up to the summit the day before and hearing about our attempt the next night, they wished us all the best. I was the last of the group to reach the crater rim but that was alright by me. Sar was right. We were just in time to see the sunset. It was the most brilliant sight I have ever seen in my life.

The crater lake with the elusive summit was just right behind me

The porters had set up tent by the time we excited photographers finished shooting the sunset and every nook and cranny possible in the fast fading light up on the rim. Dinner was tomato fried rice with fried chicken and keropok, washed down with tea. Was most impressed with the quality of food and inhaled every grain of rice on my plate.

My 350D, at this point, had decided to give up the ghost. I found out much later (many days after the trip) that the batteries were just totally flat up on mountain. GARGHH! Stupid stupid stupid stupid camera!

After all the excitement of the day, we decided to rest early as its going to be an early rise tomorrow again. Too tired at this point to consider cleaning myself up properly so I just gave myself a few quick swipes with the wet wipes. It was cold and windy at the crater rim. The sleeping bag provided didn't seal the cold out too much but luckily I had the foresight to put on thermal wear and an extra pants. Only had 1 pair of socks though so the feet stayed cold. Tried twittering and smsing the husband to let him know I was still alive but there were no reception. Gave up after a few tries and went to sleep instead.

The Lombok trip was conceived over a year ago after a few of us flickr folk saw Chkese's beautiful photos at a flickr sg gathering. Not realising the fitness level required, we naively made a tentative pledge that we will go climb the mountain and come back with the exact same beautiful photographs, thinking it will probably be similar to climbing a few Bukit Timah hills. We were so so so so completely wrong :P

Sidenote: Not that the whole experience was truly awful because I count this very high up on my list of  wonderful experiences of my life so far and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone thinking of doing the same. In fact, in many ways, this trip was a lot of firsts for me. My first mountain trek, my first flickr overseas trip, my first time not taking a shower for 2 days, my first time really roughing it out and my first time pushing my body to its limits. The sights, stories and friendship forged on Mt Rinjani will remain imprinted in my mind for years to come and now that the pain of climbing the mountain has subsided, maybe I might make another trip up the mountain again and make it to the summit this time. Brave words indeed from this author sitting in the comfort of her chair with the air-con blowing but going back to Lombok and the mountain will be like going back to visit old friends again.

And so I digress. We arrived in Lombok 28th April, midday, after a short flight on Silk Air. It was hot, so hot that I thought to myself...Oops. Should have brought spag tops here instead of tees.  The drive to Batu Koq, Senaru, where we were staying for the night before the trek up made me sigh in relief as the mercury dipped down to a comfortable low 20s.

This is where we dropped our luggage and made ready to head out for a spot of photographic fun in nearby padi fields because we are such fanatics afterall.

 

Dinner that night was at a traditional Bayan village where we got to try the local traditional cuisine (green leaves of the poinsettia plant) and their local drink of choice (for the men at least), Brem. Its a rice wine that is sweet for the first 2 weeks of brewing and then gradually turning more and more sour/bitter and alcoholic as it ferments.