"Never go backward. Attempt, and do it with all your might. Determination is POWER."
- Charles Simmons
I never knew how far determination can bring me, until I climbed the Mulu’s Pinnacles.
The Mulu’s Pinnacles hike, is the most extreme outdoor activity I have done so far outdoing the Grand Tour Caving I’ve done in Gua Tempurung back then in 2014.
Thinking back, what is it that makes me signing up for this hike? Well, you see, I’m not really that passionate about hiking (I cannot recall if I really hike before-oh ya, Penang National Park, does that count?), not a fan of being in a dirty, hot and sweaty condition for a long time, but SOMETIMES (note the emphasis on sometimes) I love being a little bit adventurous and you know, just go with the flow and follow what people surrounding you ask or ‘jio’ you to do.
When I got the news that I will be transferred to Marudi, my ex-colleague was telling me all this story about how I must visit Mulu and the beautiful view of the Mulu’s Pinnacles. Initially, when we were actually planning this trip to Mulu, Pinnacles was out of the plan as we found out that the journey could be a dangerous one. However, after some persuasion from Agnes (who had went Mulu before but missed the chance of hiking the Pinnacles), me being persuaded (and seeing that there were several other of us who were interested in going too) gave a nod for this hike.
So, on 30/4/18, Agnes, Hui Min and Yee Wei met Paul, Timothy and me at the Clearwater Cave jetty after the three of us finished the Wind Cave and Clearwater Cave tour. Six of us proceeded the journey to Kuala Litut with a long boat while the rest went back to catch their flight back to Miri.
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| Before parting ways. |
We reached Kuala Litut after around 45-50min of boat journey. Lucky for us that we were not required to push the boat as the water level was just high enough for our boat to pass through (I can hear the bottom of the boat being ‘scratched’ by the river stones though). The boat ride was a pleasant one. Gentle breeze, luminous sky, warm sunlight, trees by the river bank providing some shades and big dragonflies (they’re cute!) flying alongside you occasionally along the ride. I expect a proper jetty when we reach Kuala Litut. But, as you can see 👇, the beginning of the 9km journey to Camp 5 was already a ‘challenging’ one.
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| Climbing up the river with the roots as the ladder. |
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| Beginning of the grueling 9km trail to Camp 5. |
The 9km trail was supposed to be an easy one as it was just a flat 9km route with some mini bridges, two longer suspension bridges across the river and minimal ups and downs the hill. However, combining the 9km journey with a 8-10kg load behind my back, oh gosh, it was a torture to me. I was thankful that I didn’t have to carry our canned foods throughout the 9km journey (we were supposed to divide the canned food equally among us to be carried to Camp 5, on top of our own backpack - seriously, packing light is a skill that long I’ve yet to master coz I’m the ‘I might need this, I might need that’ kind of person 
) as the guys were carrying the canned foods’ bag by turn and few cans was with Agnes and Hui Min.
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| When you reach the second suspension bridges, you're halfway through the 9km journey. |
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| Light of hope |
By the time we reached Camp 5 (after about 3 hours) I was all drenched, numbed and exhausted (also felt a bit of dizziness, perhaps I was experiencing little bit of hypoglycemia?) that I quickly grab a pack of biscuit from my backpack and finish it on the bench right in front of Camp 5. Then, after keeping my stuff in our room, (Room 2 ✌️) we headed to the river in front of the camp to clean and freshen up ourselves a little bit (plus, the bees there are attracted to sweat, so you would want to get rid of all the sweat on you). At this point, I was already a bit discouraged with the arduous 9km journey. Seeing myself already being exhausted from this FLAT 9km journey, I began to doubt myself if I really can make it up to the 2.5km ASCENDING journey to the Pinnacles. I was telling my friends that I am not as confident as the day before that I could make it to the top, and they told me not to worry. Yet, doubt still lingered inside me. After freshened ourselves with the clear, cold and refreshing water of the Melinau River, we bathed and cooked our dinner.
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| Overall outside view of Camp 5. |
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| The room. The sleeping area are the two raised wooden platform facing one another. One platform can fit 6 persons side to side. Thin mattress will be provided. |
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| Spacious and decent kitchen. Cooking utensils, cutlery and drinking water, all are provided. You'll only need to bring your own food to cook unless you are taking the private tour where usually meals are included in the package. |
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| Dining area in front of the kitchen. |
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| Men's toilet (No, I didn't barge in the men's toilet to take this picture |
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| Cooking time. |
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| First dinner in Camp 5. |
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| Spaghetti ala Prégo. |
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| It drizzles a while that evening and we were granted this amazing double rainbow view from the camp. They looked so close to us! |
Around 7pm, we had a briefing from our guide, Stan, at our room regarding the hike and some safety measures. According to him, all the groups that had been led by him before never failed to reach the Pinnacles. I was hoping 🙏 that this was a good omen for us, that since we were led by Stan, we will continue his guide legacy of no group failed to reach the top 
.
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| Stan, giving his briefing. |
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| There’s certain time limit we must obey in order for the hike to proceed. |
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| Safety notice. |
After the briefing, we all prepared our stuff for the hike next morning and hit the sack early (It was recommended to wake up as early as 5am in the morning so that we would have enough time for toilet, breakfast, pack our lunch etc).
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| Guess who's inside the cocoon? |
Our 1/5/18 breakfast menu was cheese and chocolate buns (Red bean buns got bitten by rat so we have to throw it off 😣. Luckily, the rat didn’t bite our bread, otherwise we won’t have enough for lunch) and brownies made by Hui Min and Yee Wei before they came Mulu. I filled my tummy with ‘double concentration’ 3 in 1 Milo, one cheese bun, one chocolate bun and few little brownies. (Just nice for me, not too little, not too heavy for the hike)
That morning, before the hike, I met a lady in the toilet who had successfully climbed the Pinnacles the day before. The conversation went like: (L for the lady, M for me)
L: Are you going to climb the Pinnacles today?
M: Yea, you too?
L: No, I climbed it yesterday.
M: I see, nice, so you are going back today?
L: Yeap, so, do you and your friends train before this hike?
M: Er, ya..?, erm, we trained a bit..
L: Where have you hike before?
M: Er, me? I don’t really hike before, are you a hiker? Do you have a lot of hiking experience before you come?
L: Erm, ya, sort of, so, how do you train before you come?
M: Erm, I jog a bit, few rounds in the stadium.....(in my mind, does that even considered a training?)
L: Oh, so you jogged.. erm, lots of rounds?
M: Erm, not really a lot... (Frankly, I started to really jog/run less than one month before the hike, there’s once my most record was 13 rounds, not continuously running though, there’s few rounds that I walked)
L: I see, do you run everyday?
M: Erm, not really, maybe EOD? Er... is the hike really hard?
L: Erm, going down is harder for me, it's okla, you've got some training before you come, smaller frame people should have no problem to pull yourselves up. Anyway, all the best.
M: Alright, thank you very much.
I was a bit worried after the conversation with the lady, as the way she talked was like ‘Are you sure you know what you are doing? It’s the Pinnacles that you are going to climb. The climb that many people claimed to be tough and harder than Mount Kinabalu. Are you sure you are going to hike this? You should have trained harder before you come for this hike. You have no idea what you’re up to don’t you?’ that kind of thing.
Whatever, I should have at least try. I was already there, at Camp 5, I shouldn’t quit before I even start right?
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| Before the hike.. Stretching, yawning, spacing out.. |
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| Our guide, Stan. |
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| We are ready! |
We started our journey at around 630am.
True to what Stan had said the previous night, the first 900m will be harder as in our ‘muscles just wake up’, and it was a continuous 900m non stop straight up hike which need to be completed within just one hour or we would risk the hike could not be continued.
I keep on wondering in my mind if I could even reach the 900m checkpoint (or will I fall? No! I don’t want to lose my life here!), energies were draining, my legs were SUPER DUPER sore and all ‘lemons’ due to the continuous up hike. I stopped several times for my five breaths rest, sometimes more (not encouraged to stop for too long ya, steady pace is preferred). I hugged the trees’ trunks, grabbed the trees’ roots, held tight to the crevices of the rocks, thanking all of them for existing to give me a spot to hang on, to hold, to support myself up, and while doing that, secretly asking them to channel me some energy from the nature to give me strength to continue the hike. Whenever the thought of ‘should I give up?’ ran through my mind, I chanted ‘Lord, support me with Your grace when I’m tired, protect us from accidents, keep us free from the harm of body and soul’, reminding myself that my family is waiting for me to come home safely after the hike, recalling that my mum asked me to be careful, my dad asked me to hold tight2 when climbing up from the phone call the morning the day before the hike. So much of these drama running and playing in my mind in order to give myself self-motivation to finish the first 900m hike. 
Finally, we reached the first check point, 900m from Camp 5, the Mini Pinnacles in less than one hour (around 45-50min). The timing was quite good and our guide, Stan concluded that we all can continue the hike. He then asked if anyone would like to return back? And none of us would want to at this point. After resting for a while, taking few sips of my 100 Plus, we continued the hike. The next checkpoint is The Halfway (1.2km) which must be reached within 30min. This was the place where we rested a while and left half of our 1.5L of water before continuing the hike to the First Ladder which must be completed within one hour.
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| 900m! 400m A.S.L. |
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| My tired face |
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| The 'Mini Pinnacles'. |
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| Our second guide, Uncle Sayan, still so 'steady'. |
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| 1.2km. Placed half of our water here. |
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| 'Mushroom chair' at 1.6km. |
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| Please do expect these kind of trailsss. |
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| The First Ladder placed vertically at 90 degree. Need to be careful as you can’t imagine what would happen once you slip. 1km A.S.L. |
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| Another 17 more ladders to go after the first ladder. |
After the First Ladder, extra caution is required as it is a high risk area. There are places where ladders are placed, at some places there are only pieces of metal steel drilled into the rock for us to step on and at some other places there're only ropes for us to pull ourselves up. Our pace got a bit slower here as we don’t want to compromise on our safety.
Finally.... after the 18 ladders, we conquered the Pinnacles!! We got ourselves around 1 hour to enjoy the view.
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| The Pinnacles of Mulu. |
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| Congratulations! |
Made it!
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| Quoting Yee Wei, 2018 - "The reason why Mulu Pinnacles is behind this RM100 note is because you definitely worth a 100% if you managed to conquer the toughest hike in Malaysia" |
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| The view of the other side of the Pinnacles from the top. |
GIF from giphy.com
If only I could get into a Zorb ball and somebody just toss me down the mountain, Or perhaps they could just build a slide for us to slide all the way down. Oh well, all these were just my dreamy thoughts.
Finally after around 8 hours, at around 240pm, (given that I was positioned between Timothy and Paul, so they sort of like a pushing factor for me to keep pushing myself on the journey down) we finally ended the hike! Again, we freshened ourselves at the river upon reaching the ground. After that, we had some Milo and instant noodles to fill our tummy while waiting for the rest to reach. The next to reach was Yee Wei and Hui Min, and then Agnes.. and yea.. we all made it! After bath, we cooked our celebratory dinner.
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| Victory feast. Only remembered to take picture after halfway through the meal |
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| Invited Malou from Netherlands to join us and listening to her courage of resigning from her graphic designer job to travel the world. Coincidentally 1/5/18 was her 6 months travel-sary after leaving her job. |
After dinner, Yee Wei and Paul was trying to get a picture of starry night sky. Unfortunately perhaps it was a bit cloudy that night that there were only few stars that could be seen. The moon was shining brightly though and that scene of moon shining brightly over the river and the slightly illuminated sky was so picturesque and serene.
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| Full moon. |
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| Earlier, before we sleep, we managed to take group photo of all of us who hiked that day in our room. |
Next morning, we woke up, had our instant noodles breakfast, took few more of our entire hiking group photos, and we were ready to bid goodbye to Camp 5. Super dreaded the grueling 9km journey back to Kuala Litut with the backpacks. (Plus all the sores from the hike the day before 
)
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| 12 of us, plus our guide and the beautiful mountain as background. |
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| Our team. |
Halfway through the 9km trail, I am really grateful that Agnes offered to carry my smaller bag in change of her one water bottle 😂, not realizing that my own water bottle was in my bag (I begged Agnes to return me my bag so that I could have my water, but she refused and asked me to drink her water instead, perhaps afraid that I’m not going to let her to carry my bag anymore lol). I don't usually drink a lot (even when hiking) but I guess the seasonings from the instant noodle that morning made me felt thirsty. I continued the rest 4.5km of the journey with my only bigger backpack and finally, after around 2.5 hours I reached the starting point to Camp 5 with cheers from the four of them who had reached earlier (and Agnes was waving while holding my water bottle, asking me to get to the finishing line faster hahahahaha... okay, good attempt to motivate me to keep fighting to finish the weary 9km journey). Sorry guys I was a little bit slow this time, but that’s my best pace already hahaha, I couldn't and my legs refused to speed up further more.
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| Bye-bye 9km trail |
A video after the end of the 9km journey. A bit blurry, perhaps will reupload when I got the original copy.
Exclusive interview about how each of us feel after the hike. :P
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| Our long boat. |
Pity the boatmen who had been waiting for about 2 hours for us to come out from the camp (they reached Kuala Litut around 8am and the initial plan was to pick us up at 9am, but we delayed a bit in the morning). We apologized and he was so kind to respond with "It’s okay, we can wait, we must reach earlier so as you guys don't have to wait for us". 😭 Thank you uncle for the kind words.
The breezy boat ride back to park HQ was something I longed for throughout the dreadful 9km journey as I was again all drenched from the 9km trail. After reaching the park HQ, I quickly went to Cafe Mulu’s toilet to secretly take a bath (I’m not sure if it’s actually allowed, but I don’t care coz I can’t stand all those sweat anymore) only to find that I had been bitten by two leeches at my tummy and my left leg. I had no idea how they got there, it’s not like I’m wearing crop top or shorts..
After lunch at Cafe Mulu, I collected my other stuff which was stored in the park’s security office, returned back the ‘kampung Adidas’ rented from Mulu Village, wrote and posted myself a postcard (oh, well) and we were ready to depart to Mulu Airport for our flight back to Miri.
Thank you Mulu, sayonara.. Thanks for the good memories..
I was so proud and grateful that I did this hike with my team, couldn’t ask for better one..
Thank you very much Agnes for initiating and arranging the itinerary and all, making this whole trip a possible one.
Thank you Yee Wei and Hui Min for planning the meals and brought them all the way from Marudi and Miri. All meals are well planned and well suited our requirement for the hike.
Thank you Paul for being the photographer and for the inspiration and motivation; - ‘boleh tu kita sampai atas, push saja’ 😂
Thank you Timothy for patiently bearing with my pace down the pinnacles and the 9km journey, I know it must be tiring being stuck behind the slow one 😂 Otherwise, you and Paul could have ended the journey down the Pinnacles way faster.
And thank you everyone for all other helps that you’ve offered.
Sorry and thank you mum and dad for letting me go for this hike, even though I know you guys were worried after reading the news about the death of the British hiker at the Pinnacles not long ago.. (I got few ‘lectures’ over the phone asking why would I gamble my life for the hike, what do I get after the hike, as if on top of the Pinnacles got gold for me to be mined etc etc- I can only laugh listening to all these upon touched down at Miri Airport, knowing that all these were due to the worries they had for me) but, know that, mum and dad, you are one of the reasons that motivates me to be careful during the hike so that I can return home safely to both of you 😊..
Besides,
"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"
-Vincent Van Gogh
Right?
I sighed a lot during this hike, even questioned myself why am I doing this, but yea, I have no regrets and I really proud of the fruit of this courage and determination.
Above all, thank God for blessing this journey, that it was a successful and a smooth one. 
Will I recommend this hike?
Well, if you're somehow interested, why not? I would like to believe that anyone with average fitness level could do this as long as you're mentally prepared. Just focus and be careful throughout the hike. The sores, the pains are actually somehow bearable. After all, the main hurdle is your mind.
😃 That’s all from me. Finally finished pouring out all those thoughts and feelings I had for this hike.
Another milestone for me for setting a new record of writing this long in my blog lol.
Thank you very much and congratulation to any one of you for reading up to this point hahaha..
Signing off..
*** Pictures credits to: Yee Wei, Paul, Hui Chen
*** Videos credit to: Paul
*** Pictures credits to: Yee Wei, Paul, Hui Chen
*** Videos credit to: Paul
