I Live For This!!!!

There’s no other way to put it, last weekend was a phenomenal experience. The delay in making this post has been, in part, because I’ve been recovering. It goes like this:
TMC had some business in Penang, about 1.5 hrs from a mountain that he’s been wanting to climb. So Nee On and I went along, not just 'cause we had nothing better to do, but also to climb Gunung Baling (Gunung means mountain in Malay). Because we were taking one more person (Enid, a former student of TMC) to Penang (who could only leave after having written an exam), we left on Saturday at 3. We got to Penang at around 10:30; Hit the sack (at Jing Zi's place -another former student of the one and only...Mr. TMC!); Got up at 5; Drove to G. Baling. Although it is not as tall as others that I’ve climbed, it has been the most intense. It poured the night before, so it was muddy as hell for the first third of the ascent. After that it was jagged limestone rock all the way up. But what fun!! As neither TMC or Nee On had done the trek before we hooked up with a guide to lead the way. Super-cool dude.

The view from the top of G. Baling:

I am loving this mountain trekking business. The exhilaration going up and standing on top of a mountain, looking at the world below reminds me of the good ol’ sky-diving days: the world will never look as calm and peaceful as it does up there -very surreal.
As if the trek wasn’t amazing enough, after we got down, our guide invited us to his place for coffee. (This is after he had finished his job and had already been paid). Going to his house, sitting on a mat, just hanging out with this rural Malay dude, is without a doubt, one of the highlights of my Malaysia experience thus far. It does not take much interaction with these people to really fall in love with them: the simplicity of life (something long lost in Canada and in the increasingly “Westernized” cities here); their warm, inviting nature; their composure, the way they interact with you, just their attitudes in general. Long live the kampung Malays!! (kampung is a Malay word meaning village).
After our hike and our coffee, another local dude invited us into his home and served us Bee Hoon (Don’t know about the spelling but it’s a thin rice noodle) with Chili sauce. These people are awesome!

Our guide in front of his house and garden:


We then drove back to Penang, hung out there with the girls (Enid and Jing Zi) for a while, checked out a few attractions and then left at 9 to come home. Got home and to sleep Monday morning after 2am. 4 hours of sleep and then off to work.
While I definitely don’t regret doing it, I think that (if for no other reason) for the sake of my health, another trip like that will have to wait at least till I recover…

(Check out the photo album; More of the story is told in the captions to the pics)