Lifestyle - watching sunrise on Mt Kinabalu

"My profession is always to be alert, to find God in nature, to know God's lurking places, to attend all the oratorios and the operas in nature." Henry David Thoreau

I was an avid trekker for many years. We trekked to many densed forests in Malaysia photographing lots of beautiful sceneries and waterfalls. We trekked almost every weekend, so it was like trekking 40 times in a year. There are only 7 mountains in Peninsular Malaysia that are 7,000 ft about sea level. They are :

1. Gunung Tahan 7,174 ft
2. Gunung Korbu 7,162 ft
3. Gunung Yong Belar 7,156 ft
4. Gunung Gayong 7,129 ft
5. Gunung Chamah 7,121 ft
6. Gunung Yong Yap 7,110 ft
7. Gunung Ulu Sepat 7,089 ft

I had trekked them all.

And since I had traversed the Peninsular, I will also do East Malaysia. So, I had covered many parts of Sabah and Sarawak, including the interiors and the beautiful seafront villages. The ultimate destination is of course Mount Kinabalu (13,455 ft). I had gone up 3 times to its summit. I had also trekked up the 2nd highest mountain in Sabah, ie Gunung Trusmadi (7,795ft).

My aim of going up mountains is not to reach the summit, touching the summit is incidental. My major satisfaction derived from camping and trekking in the wilderness is the feeling of Oneness with nature - I AM nautre, I AM light, I AM.

How could I describe looking at myself in every dew drop on a hanging bunch of montane growth? How could I explain how I feel when clouds passed through my body and leave me a stench of its rain? Or how could I explain camping and sleeping on a sheet in a 150 million-year-old forest infested with leeches yet survived the bite - with a smile? How could I even let you listen to the wind which carries messages from thousands of miles in the wake of dawn? These feelings are feelings of a child. How could an adult understand them? So, friends often asked me what I do when I trek in the wilderness for 10 days? or won't I get mucked? (by what? who?) or what do I do when the forest is dark at night?

Oh....... I am tired, not of trekking, but of answering such adult questions. I just know that I am here to play, to feel, to thank and just to BE -- I am not here to do.

I had, for 15 adventurous years of my life, enjoyed my connection with nature at its purest, simplest and funniest!