if im not mistaken, we went there in the year 2004. i was in the company of arey, paie, zani, mazli and ita. the mission was to conquer mount rinjani in lombok and mount agung in bali.

i think this is the first time that the all of us went to an overseas expedition. maybe arey and paie has been doing it for some time but not me certainly.

i still remember, i had to do some tender preparation till the wee hours of the morning, the day?we depart to denpasar. my bos had forgotten that i have applied for the leave for sometime and he asked me to finish up the tender by hook and by crook. oh yeah?i did finish the thing and it took me the whole night to do it.?i sent in the tender doc by 6 am. packed up my things?and at 7 rush to the nearest commuter station to take a train to klsentral.?at klsentral, i took?ERL to KLIA. not sure about the time i checked in, but it is half an hour late. oh?finally i managed to catch up with my friends and i think by 1030 we?were off to Denpasar. ?

i think we arrived at denpasar by noon local time. it was a 3 hour journey and of course i had my breakfast on the plane. yeah?i love air asia?s nasi lemak. yum yum.
will write some more later.

yeah, i made it again. i have succesfully asked my bos to approve my leave with immediate effect. yeah, i still remember, the time was 3 pm in october 2006 in which i had asked my bos for a leave for the next?6 days. fortunately, he approved the leave or i might say, the flight ticket will flown with the wind if i couldnt get the leave.yeay?yeay?yeay?i am so happy. ive completed all my pending tasks and now i can go on the much needed break. yeay?.

?

?will continue later?

?for the time being, here is a good link

http://mount-kinabalu-borneo.com/

hey, ive been there, conquered merapi, and so can you?this was one of the most memorable trip. i would say, this is the first time that i have ever climbed an active volcanoe. I repeat, an ACTIVE?VOLCANOE. thank god,?nothing uninvited has occur. we come in peace, and we return in 1 piece .

ok, the story begun 7 months ago when me, arey and paie was discussing which is the best place to go for our next expedition. fortunately, at?that time, the USUAL air asia very very low fare or ( FREE tix) promotion is on the air. we have very limited information on where we are going but we have decided, mount merapi, here we come. the tix is considered very cheap. at 525, we got 3 return tix to Bandara SOLO.

from there we start planning the trip. as usual, the man who is in charge of the planning would be mr arey. he did some research and he suggested that we conquer 2 mountains i.e. Mount Merapi and Mount Merbabu of Central Java. oh..gosh, 2 mountains at one go?i am not so sure. i know i can conquer both, but i think, i want to climb one mountain only?hahahaa, at this time, they dont know that i have already thinking of not climbing the 2nd mountain

ok, then the day we have waited comes. me and paie went to LCCT by car, driven by zani. while arey, dr jamal and dr ali comes together with arey?s wife. we arrived there around 3 am and had our breakfast at the nearby food court @ lcct. The nasi lemak is quite cheap?rm 3.50 with a massive amount of rendang and nasi.

only @lcct, i came to know dr jamal and dr ali. my first impression was like, WOW, these guys are really into photography. Just look at their lense, 70-200 f2.8 VR?WOW?and the best part of it, both of them are NIKON users. arrghh?.that makes me the only guy using CANON.

and as time passed by, i only realized that waje has not yet arrive. called him and he said, he is on the way to lcct. Fortunately, he?manage to?make it at LCCT by?6 am. took him to check in and at 6.10 am we went to musolla. we thought we were late but we found out that those Dr(s) and mas paie and arey just entering the musolla?huhuhu. and after that, we proceed to the boarding area and i think we departed from LCCT at 7 am.

?on your left is the pix taken during taking off. we arrived at solo?s airport at round 11 am. ( 10 am locally ). oh?what a fresh air. solo is not an industrialized state. We could see paddy fields from the high ground.

When we arrived, we were greeted by mas kabul and mas bagus. Mas kabul was our guide and mas bagus, was our driver. He drives an avanza and i bet, that avanza is new. The plastic cover of the seats is still intact.

all our baggages were loaded on top of the avanza. after that, we proceed to selo, in which the base camp for merapi is situated. actually there are other basecamps, but this basecamp is the most popular for climbers. This basecamp is the starting point for the trackd via ?jalur selatan? or southern.

ok, at?selo, we stopped for lunch. while arey and paie were looking for some?logistics neccesities, some of us went?for shooting spree.??i think, mas ali is quite excited when we arrived here. he took few good pictures like below. here, we also bought our dinner and we had our lunch too. And for me, this is the time to try indonesian delicacies. My first on the list was Mie Ayam. Others might have opted for bakso. The Mie Ayam, i would say, emm?is a bit like Mee Soup back at home in malaysia. The people here, should try Mee Sup at Pasar Malam TTDI. That is the best, and i tell u, mie ayam is not as tasty as TTDI Mee Sup.

ok, then after that, we proceed to the base camp and it is actually near to the small town of Selo. We unload our baggages and started to repackage our things. Mas Eros was there to keep an eye on our belongings.

Actually, mr ali and mr jamal were not interested to climb. They followed this trip just to take photographs. But unfortunately i have succesfully influenced them to climb merapi. heheheh??baek punya racun?. After performing the jama? prayer, we started our journey up to pasar burbah. Pasar burbah is the last camp site before we proceed to summit the next morning.

all i can say is, the trip going up via this route was not that difficult. Why? I have been told that is the easiest and the fastest route to summit. As for me, i still can manage the climb. I didnt experience the usual leg cramp and the best part of it, i didnt even put on anykind of training for this trip. we started to climb at 2 pm and arrived at pasar burbah at? 8 pm localtime.

when we arrived, if i am not mistaken, it was drizzling. others have already set up the camp and we (remi,dr ali and dr jamal) were sharing a tent. unfortunately, as dr ali and dr jamal was not prepared to climb the mountain, they didnt bring enough equipment like sleeping bag. The night was freezing cold and i sensed that dr ali woke up several times. em?actually i have given him my sarong, trackbottoms etc but somehow there was miscommunication and he didnt use it at all.

the next morning, we started to summit at 5 am. It was too late but we had taken the oppurtunity to perform subuh prayer first. i was the last to start my journey. in front of me was mas waje. there was one incident that happened to waje. he needs to go the loo while climbing and he thinks that he could not proceed if he did not do THAT thing. He vomitted and he had no other choice but to find a big rock to hide and to do THAT thing?ehueheuhe. what an incident.

i will write something about the merapi trip soon

welcome to ecoTravelogue. @ecoTravelogue, we will be sharing eco &?leisure?traveller?s experiences within?the?South East Asia?region.?This travelogue will feature articles written in local language as well as at least a translated version to english.

i am welcoming contributors. as a start, all my friends are invited to contribute their article on regional travelling. i am sure, most of them have been travelling around since the launching of low fare travelling extravaganza in south east asia.

?hope you will enjoy your stay as we will be sharing our experience for the benefit of all. cya soon?

remi?

hi all,

?if you have been to this site before, i am truly truly sorry. All the comments and posts before had been vanished. why? the parent webhoster has been missing in action (MIA)…arrghhh….i have lost all the post and your comments and rite now i am trying to recover past posts from google cache.

?thank god, google search tech is based on caching the actual site.

nuff said. lets get to work.

“mountains are for mountaineers”

remi