Still alive

5:30 – we wake up and get ready for the trek.

6:40 – we set off to the Pinnacles.

7:10 – we have made 500 metres, I’m swimming in sweat, wondering if I had enough for breakfast. Judith and Eugenia are seriously slowing us down.

7:35 – we reach 800m mark and it starts to rain. The guide tells me and Clare to go up and wait at the mini-pinnacle stop at 900m.

7:40 – we reach the spot and wait in the rain.

8:00 – trip cancelled. Rain means everything is slippery and while climbing up would be ok, going down would be really dangerous. We stick around for a bit longer, just because we can.

9:00 – I’m back down in the camp, waiting another half an hour for the others. End of Pinnacles trip.

Boo! Damn you, weather! Naturally, before noon it was all clear and sunny… Bad luck, but to be fair, the climb was really steep and going down in the rain would have been really risky. It’s about 2.4km hike that gets you up by 1.2km, so pretty damn steep, and that’s all through a jungle path of slippery roots and really sharp limestone. So yeah, shame, but then again, I am still alive. And, as Ishmael told us, people did die on this path, and many had serious injuries. Broken femur, pints of blood lost through a belly wound, helicopter rescues, that sort of thing. He only told us after we came back though – when I asked about this yesterday he refused to say anything.

A quick note on how tourism is organised here. It might seem like they have less concern for safety and all that, but I don’t think this is the case. I think that they simply have a different understanding of what is a ‘default tourist’. In here, a path marked ‘normal’ is structured in such a way that an average fit and decent person should find it mildly challenging and not destroy anything on the way. In Europe ‘normal’ level is aimed at couch potatoes with tendencies for vandalism. For example, the Lagang cave, which is a beginner adventure trek (so the lowest tier of terms that aren’t just walks on a path): no stalactites were protected by screens despite the fact that you could easily vandalise them, and you needed to do a fair bit of jumping on rocks and be fairly slim to squeeze through tight passages. The Pinnacles have sensible rules – no climbing in bad weather or darkness, no getting off the path, if you’re slow you have to turn back at the first checkpoint (because you wouldn’t finish before dark). It’s really not dangerous if you follow those. It’s tiring and challenging, but safe. I like this a lot, none of the western ‘we can’t go there because once a drunk dimwit couch potato slipped and sprained his ankle’.

Back in camp, I decided that there is no point to spoil milk over broken eggs, and actually had a wonderful day. I read my book while enjoying warmth and amazing views, had a delicious skinny dip in the river… After lunch we decided to go for a walk – the headhunters trail leaves from Camp 5 and we could go a couple kilometres up and back. Ishmael and Richie offered to guide us, but asked us to pay 50RM each, so we decided we’d rather go on our own.

We did the 2km loop pulling leach after leach off our legs and didn’t see anything really interesting – supposedly you can spot some monkeys and jungle peacocks there, but you have to be pretty lucky. We thought that this really isn’t our day when on the way back I noticed a snake coiled up on a low branch right next to the path! I hushed everyone and we got closer to see it – as I was a bit over a metre away, it woke up, raised its head and started to open its jaws… I took the hint and we backed off, taking a wide circle and joining the path some ten metres later. We got a bit closer, but at a safe distance, and had a look again. What a glorious creature! And it never closed its mouth with its silent threat…

We left it alone me for back to camp, where Ayr, a guide who just came with another group, looked at the photo and told us that it’s a female Sumatran pit viper, very rare and very venomous, with very long teeth. As in, it’s teeth can reach your bones and the venom can dissolve them. So yeah… Still alive.

I later caught Ayr and asked him more questions about the viper. Turns out he’s a snake researcher, part of a research group from Kuching, and knows a lot. Yet he’s not seen this type of snake for four years! He actually asked me where we saw it exactly, hoping to find it in the evening or tomorrow, and asked to send him photos if he doesn’t. He also told us much more about this and other snakes, and invited me to join a night trek he’s doing with his group tonight.

He also told us about how the park is managed – apparently from the 20 million RM that the government sends it a year the park only sees 5, and of that nothing trickles down to the local community. In 2000 management went to an Australian guy and stories of corruption abound. Basically, it comes down to the fact that the place is managed like a corrupt business and doesn’t give much back to the local community. I feel really bad for sleeping in the park itself now, rather than renting a room from some locals. Ayr is doing some excellent work on changing this, including creating a new, independent park HQ which will give 25% of its earnings towards supporting local people. He’s also helped save a part of the forest from being chopped down to make space for more oil palms. Awesome man.

And so was the night walk. We spotted so many creatures! Lots of different insects, including long legged centipede, a few other kinds of centipedes, more stick insects, a big roach, and several huge bugs that I don’t remember the names of, but they all belong in horror films. Then three different types of geckos, various frogs, a few dragons, including a baby one, and some other lizards the names of which I don’t remember. We ended the walk at the snake point – the viper was still there! Super happy we got to show it to Ayr! And now here’s the best bit. After he saw it, he said he’d not sure anymore if it’s the Sumatran pit viper, because they have black tails, and this one had a red one. Looking suspiciously like another type of viper that was last sighted in the 18th Century. Holy shit! We might have discovered a snake from a species thought extinct?!

Now, back in the camp, still giddy, getting ready for another early night, as tomorrow we’re catching a 9am boat to the camp. My pillow, which is my backpack, smells horribly sweaty, I hope it will knock me out soon.