Gunung Lambak

Roland have suggest we travel up to Gunung Lambak for mountian climbing training to prepare for Mount Kinabalu event. It was a good idea i feel and decide to make the trip.

Ronnie suppose to join us for the trip, unfortunately he injure his left leg and couldnt make it. Nevertheless i still meet Roland at 7pm at Jurong East MRT. I was late to arrive at 7:10pm and we headed towards Kulang via the 2nd link.

Custom clearance was okay for a Friday as some folks went back for the weekend. It tooks us about 1hr 20mins to reach Kulang from Malaysia first toll.

It took us a while to find our Ailang Hotel inside their town centre. Roland choose this hotel as it is pretty decent and provide "covered" carpark. We managed to find a room there for RM$51. Pretty decent for a night stay. We went on looking for dinner after checkin around 9:35pm. We have zicai nearby our hotel. The food is pretty good, maybe we are hungry. We went jalan around the town centre, but the town is closed around 10pm. We stopped for Kopi request by Roland before we headed back to the hotel.

I was awake long before the alarm went off. I don't know why i can't sleep much when i go for oversea run/training, maybe it is the anticipation that causing myself to lose sleep. We woke up around 5:45am, have light makan and leave the hotel at 6:30am. We drove around the town, got ourself Roti Chenai to tapao for maken after the run. It is a short drive about 10 mins to the foot of Gunung Lambak.

There are a few groups of chi gong doing their morning exercises when we reached slightly after 7am. We start our climb around 7:20am.

It was a warm up climb according to Roland as we make our way up towards the clearance path, no ideal what is the place called, i guess it is a common area whereby most folks stayed put at this level. Children playing with the water fountain, young folks come here for jalan/pator etc. Further up this clearance, that is where things get a bit challenging and most folks are put off by the challenge.



The clearance area




The sign board at the clearance area



The water fountain


The height of Gunung Lamak is 510 meters and from the foot of the base to the top is a 1.2 km journey. From the clearance to the top is 600 meters according to the markings along the way.

It was a good climb to the top, the quality of the climb is better(tougher) than Mount Kinabalu, although it is a very short challenge, but sufficient to put the calfs to some serious workout. Not knowing the terrain, i have to find my footings along the way, minus the slips and sliding along the way. Asics Nimbus does not do justice in this terrain. I have to use the rope, pull the tree roots, crawling on the rocks and pull myself up. This is pathetic, i feel, compare to those experience climber. Along the way i was overtaken by one elderly malay local that wear the "bata" shoe walking effortless upwards with so much style and pose.



The elder Malaysian take a deserve rest

I am not a trekker nor an experience climber. I do wish i have at least those minimum "local" standard. A person with excellent cardio level(eg running sub 3hrs for 42k) will do well in climbing even though he/she has no/little experience. Whereas those like myself(back packers) will good climbing technic/experience might get a opportunity to be on par with those with excellent cardio level. It is similiar to those with higher IQ, they don't need to study and still manage to get excellent result, those average joes which put in lots of hardwork might be able to gain the same par result.

I do not have excellent cardio level, neither do i have a good experience in climbing. Sigh...that's life...

Certain portion of the climb is tough, but i still managed to push on. I reach the summit in 18:30mins. From the timing alone, this is definitely a tougher climb compare to Mount Kinabalu(whereby i am capable of doing 20mins per 1 km). I can feel the burning sensation in the calfs when i make the ascend. Roland came up about 2 mins afterward. We rest there for a while, took some photos and proceed to move down.



The summit

Going down is tougher, as i have a few slips and was cautious of twisting my ankles. Roland trekking experience is oblivous. He decend much faster than i am. In fact he has to wait for me on a few occassions as i feel my way downward. At Kinabalu, i am able to climb down at a faster speed compare to going up, whereas the reverse at Gunung Lambak. It took me 25:30 mins to reach the clearance place from the summit.

We decend all the way to the foot of the hill, before we went up for the 2nd set. This time round, i am better prepared for what lies in front and should do better. At the end i did 19:30mins, which is 1 min slower. I have no idea what happen, but i did feel more relax this climb compare to the previous. Roland was behind about 3 mins for this set. The sun is coming up on the top, about 9am+ currently i guess when we make the trip down. Going down is a slow process for myself as i have to engineer a safe path downwards.

I didn't clock how long it takes to decend to the clearance area. No bother. We meet and chit chat with a local chinese with his Singaporean friend. We chat about the mountain and chalets at the bottom of the hill. What happens to the 8 million Ringget that was used to develop the hill? You know lah, most of those money will ended up........

We came down from the second sets and i pretty much have enough for the day. I would love to go up for another set, but it is 10am then. Pretty hot i feel. But in the hill itself the thick canopy did provide good shelter from the heat and it is actually cool i feel. Roland was saying the weather is kind today.

We went to the water "theme park" for a bath there. Wow, they have a mini water park that have "nobody" inside? mecham like a ghost town. The water was "blue-ish" blur, not the kind i would take a dip inside.

We left the Gunung Lambak slightly after 11am. The journey back to the town is pretty okay. We went around hunting for the Beef Noddle shop that was recommended by the chinese guy we meet earlier. At the end, the shop is just about 100 meters from our hotel.



Beef Shop

I find the soup is good, the food is so-so, maybe doesnt suit my tastebud favour. We left the car at the shop and walk around the town area, since yesterday evening was pretty late and didnt get to see much. The weather was hot as we walk around. We went across the tim sum store and went in for another round of makan. haha...need to reload lah...



Tim Sum

It is a small town, nothing much to walk around, we took the car and head towards Giant to grab some grocery before heading back to Singapore. We left Giant around 12:50pm and reached Singapore closer to 2pm via 2nd link.

It was an interesting trip to Gunung Lambak. The training is okay, though a bit short, next time will do belumut ba

The rest of pictures can be view here