Gunung Datuk Done!

I can’t believe it…

I have been to hiking to 3 mountains already! I am amazed with myself! *feeling smug*

I admit, I am a city gal all my life. A docile person who prefers to curl up in bed with a book any day. I have been wondering why I am so into mountain climbing now… But it is a good break from all the mumbo jumbo of city life. You get to think about nothing else but about how to survive the climb up and down. Haha!

This time round, the trek is not as tough as Mt Ophir ( Gunung Ledang ). Mt Datuk ( Gunung Datuk ) is 870m/2900ft and it is in Rembau, Negeri Sembilan. We are the hardy ones apparently, for once again we opted for a night climb.

This time we reached the base camp at around 4am plus. I did not sleep at all this time round on the bus as the bus for this trip had movies showing on board – Wolverine and then some B grade horror movie that has people being cut up into pieces in forest by some weird hill billy cannibals (truly exhaustingly stupid and DUHHHH… had me laughing when the first person was slain… guts that spills out seems to be some jelly rubbery thingy – hmmf… ).

The moon was enormous and bright that night. It was surreal. Wished I had my SLR with me to capture the glorious bright big moon glowed. Here’s a feeble attempt using my dummy proof camera :

We waited at the base camp for quite a long time for our organizer as he was busy guiding the bus out from the narrow road leading into the base camp.

And it was obvious that we were not alone…

Pretty soon those pesky mosquitoes started swarming around us. And those of us wearing sleeveless shirts were easy targets and we became fast food for those mosquitoes. We were like standing there in the dark feeding the hungry mosquitoes… I think those mosquitoes must be having a huge feast with the 15 of us standing there…

We started the real trek at around 5am. And it was all the way upwards climb. But I must say, out of the three mountains, the view at the top for Gunung Datuk takes first place. Really beautiful and the wind is fabulously up there. It took us only 2.5 hours to reach the top.

Warning : There are many bees at the top of the mountain. I wonder why… But they were huge and they seemed to be particularly attracted to bags. Weird but true. Bees totally dig my backpack. Clusters of them just want to hover around my bag… Plus 4 of our group were bitten by leeches. EEEow…

Of course, I dreaded the way down. It was another harrowing experience for me coming down. But I think I did improve… In the end, I was the last one to come down

Another thing I learnt, must remember to bring a hair band to keep my perspiration from dripping into my eyes!

PS. If you are considering climbing this mountain, I heard some stories that when you climb it, do not bring or eat anything with pork. Seems like there are some stories about people who died because of that… anyway, it’s really better to be safe than sorry. So do take note!