As in, No, I am not dead. I assure you.

But I’m pretty sure I felt, tasted, smelled, and reeked like death throughout the entire hike. Not necessarily in that precise order.

In a nutshell, my foot dropped off, my thighs disintegrated into thin air, and my hips were turned into stones. I kid you not. I’m pretty convinced that I had actually passed out, dreamed about walking 11 hours to the base camp, had some dinner, trailed another 4 grueling hours to the peak of the mountain in the middle of the night, faint-walked all the way back to where I originally collapsed, and oh, took infinite pictures along the way. Because I multitask, that’s why. Anyway, it was so surreal.

Never has any living creature been ever so grateful to sip on droplets of water and nibbling crackers when rotten maggot poop would’ve been a delicacy. All while awing the lonely ray of moonlight lighting up our dark pathway with the welcoming heat of your lover as you brace yourself through the cold, cold wildlife.

I was that living creature. That half alive creature. Modestly beholden.

Ok, so maybe we had a bit of help like porters carrying our backpacks to the top of the mountain, a roof above our heads, warm blankets wrapped around our bodies, bathroom facilities equipped with water heaters, doors, and yes, even mirrors. Dinner, supper, and breakfast buffet along with those mini sugar and creamer sachets. And perhaps some other extra amenities like electricity, Internet connection, and what not. But the point is, it was an adventure. One that has stricken me deeply in a bundle of emotions. Beauty. Pain. Joy. Exhaustion. Passion. More Unimaginable Pain. Love. But mostly gratitude.

So to all you skeptics out there, I say Yes.

As in, Yes, it’s overwhelming. Definitely something worth crossing off your bucket list.  I assure you.

My mum had brought my family along with my cousins up to Templar’s Park. The long exhausting drive to our destination was immediately washed away by the icy cold splashes from the breathtaking waterfall. I can still feel the warm sun rays painting our faces in stripy yellow hues as it penetrates itself between the hovering tree leaves above us.

Nature was something my mum thought us to love. And I love her for that.

Ironically, at the bottom of the waterfall was this Olympic size man made pool, about 8 feet in depth. Seeing that my brothers and I attended swimming classes as little as 3 years old, 8 feet was somewhat non-life threatening for us. My cousins however, all four of them, had no swimming experiences whatsoever, so they spent the day clinging to the sides of the pool.

After spending hours in the semi nature pool, with the sun shining at the tip of our heads, blatantly signaling that it was lunch time, my brothers and I crawled out of the pool. Soaking and dripping wet, our tummy growled even harder as we chewed hungrily into our sandwiches.

Everything was perfect. Until suddenly, there was this loud commotion coming from the direction of the pool. It all happened so fast, yet so slowly. It’s really hard to explain.

From where I was seated, I saw Azrin in the water first. He was steered a couple of feet away from the side of the pool. His safe area. Aware of his desperate cries for help, his elder brother Azmi instantaneously jumped in after him. It was amazing. He jumped in to save his little brother, which obviously turned out to be a foolish idea seeing that neither of them knew how to swim.

It didn’t stop there. Next, their sister Shima, loosened her grip from the side of the pool and unhesitatingly pushed herself into the middle of the water to save her two drowning younger brothers. Now, there were officially three people choking water and violently gasping for air. As a finale, their eldest sibling Lia, leaped from the side of the pool and splashed into the drowning trio making herself the final member of the drowning fools.

My mind was going into slow motion as I watched my cousins flapping their hands wildly above the water with their heads bobbing in and out like a cherry. They were ALL drowning!

Fortunately, several men, who made sure they knew how to swim first, jumped into the water and pulled all four of my cousins into safety. My mum was clearly worried out of her mind. I, on the other hand, was just baffled at what I had just witnessed. Why? Why would anyone do such a thing? They were still too shocked from their mass near death experience to explain.

As I sat there in Raja’s mom’s living room, my eyes finally relaxing and my ears allowing the laughter to race back into me, I realized that it was all about love. Foolish as it may seem, leaping into the arms of death one after another, it was all for the love of the family.

Here’s a shot of Raja and two of his cousins during our trip to Templar’s Park using my iPhone. I’m pleased to announce that no mass drowning incident occurred during this trip. I just hope that should an unwanted event ever happen, there will be others out there to leap for me too. For the love of the family.

For those of you who are not on the same page, Keith Floyd happens to be one of the finest chefs in the world. Finest. Fine-expensive-est (See how I added that subliminal message in between? See it? See it?). But it was worth Raja’s money. I’m presuming it seeing that I’m his favorite wife.

Anyway, Keith Floyd’s food is simply amazing. At least his recipe is amazing because obviously Mr. Floyd didn’t personally cooked the meals himself. He was definitely somewhere on the other side of the world whipping up god knows what miraculous dish for his hundredth cook book. Show off. So whomever his prodigy were, they made an excellent dinner for us.

The menu was crazy. Pages and pages of mouth-watering dishes. Everything looked so good. We ended up ordering the lobster bisque as our soup starter. The tom yam goong and green curry prawn, which are clearly main courses, as our appetizer. And a heavenly juicy steak with a really really long name. I seriously can’t remember. The serving came exactly in those order. So when the “I-can’t-remember-the-name-steak” arrived, we were already stuffed.

But come one, this is FLOYD we’re talking about. I didn’t care if I had to sleepover there to finish that steak. I WILL finish that steak. As I successfully cramped that last cut of meat in my mouth, I glimpsed at Raja. He looked bewildered. Bewildered that he just married a ‘black hole’ monster. What? I hate wastage. And I don’t care because I know I’m still his favorite wife, regardless.

This wasn’t just any dinner though. It was our first formal dinner outing together as a married couple. Yeah yeah, you can count on Mrs. Big-a-Dealio to list all the “first” activities as a couple. Brushing that aside, I can’t think of a more suitable, more romantic, more fabulous place to have our first dinner than an exquisite restaurant on an island. Floyd’s Brasserie. Thanks baby. And Juliana too for recommending the place.

Here are some shots from day 1.

These were snapped along the Tembeling River. It rained the night before, thus the chocolaty colored water.

I like the texture and color of this board.

Day 2. Didn’t manage to find out it’s scientific name. Let’s just call it freakishly-huge-spider. Btw, i absolutely love spiders.

One of my favorites. The water bottle managed  to reflect some light onto Didie’s face. Entirely accidental, of course.

Raja Azrie in action. Almost at the top of the hill. Exhausted like crazy yet still clicking away. Must be the adrenaline.

After the hike, along came the canopy walk. Can you guess whether he’s enjoying every moment or tormented by the height?

This was taken at the aboriginal village (Kaum Batek). These are NOT the native people. From left to right, KB, Linni, and Amee.

More shots around the village.

See this boy? Doesn’t he look like he’ll have a wonderful day? Wrong. Seconds after this shot, another kid appears. Kid with stick, stick hits boy, boy cries. Happy ending.

These are some photos from the night walk.

This is the view of the floating restaurants from across the river. Accidentally managed to capture the lightning. Yeah, many accidents in my photography skills. It’s getting more obvious what a newbie i am.

Another thing i noticed was the full moon.

Day 3. One last stop at a waterfall located in Jerantut, Pahang.

Attention: I’m never good at giving advices but this is a must-know. Behold, the greatest shoes ever created by mankind, Cap Gajah (No joke). Suitable for jungle trekking and slippery surfaces.

The best part, it only cost RM6.90! Some of my friends got theirs for RM5 (A slightly different version). Needless to say, i love these shoes to bits. They truly complete me.

Overall, the trip was great! I’m glad i decided to tag along. Kudos to the event organizers. Next stop, Gunung Kinabalu? =)