It's a crazy thing to do for a guy who is at least 30kg overweight, but I said, "Yes, why not?"
***
The climb was scheduled for early May, so that left me with about three month to train up this bloated tent I call my body, and the first thing to do was to look for a pair of decent shoes for hiking.
I went around looking for high-ankled hiking shoes, but those that I have found are either too expensive (way off my league, for example, from Timberland), or unknown to me (I saw this pair of Hi-Tec hiking shoes that sort of fit my bill, but I wasn't sure it was reliable; the last thing I want is for the sole to come off half way through the climb - as it turned out, we did meet a girl whose very nice pair of new Nike "opened" up during the pre-dawn climb; but more about that later), or seemed downright dubious (there was this pair of hiking shoes selling for a mere RM70+, and I was totally not convinced).
In the end, I bought a pair of Camel Active outdoor walking shoes (I think it's outdoor walking shoes):
And the second thing I needed was a coach. And a guide to the local hills. And the perfect person for the job was of course my second uncle on my mother's side (二舅). He used to be rather overweight when he was younger, and now that he has retired, and with a diabetic condition to contend with, he exercises regularly, particularly by hiking up the numerous hill paths found around the Ayer Itam area (a valley at roughly the center of the Penang Island) where he lives, with his wife and my grandma and two of my aunts who are still single. Before I started kindergarten back at my hometown in Ayer Tawar, Perak, I lived with my grandma (because my mum already had too much on her hands taking care of one of my elder sisters who was very ill), and it was this uncle and his wife (along with my grandma and the two single aunts) who took care of me, so I called them "Daddy" and "Mommy", which I still do till this day (they have three children who are one, three and six years my junior).
To start me off, he decided to take me on an "easy" hike: up the Ayer Itam Dam.
The road up Ayer Itam Dam is a local favorite for casual hikers (not those serious off-road hikers), young and old alike. The dam is not very high up, and most people can complete the hike in around 30 minutes. Less if you are fit. The road is tarred, wide enough for two-way traffic (yes, you could also drive up to the dam, and walk around its circumference for a dose of exercise, if ascending slopes is too much for you), and most parts of the road has a gradient of 10%.
Sounds easy.
But what was not easy was that it was not this "official" tar road that my uncle had in mind. It was what the locals call "the hill road". It is a narrow cemented path that people who live on the hill slopes use as access road, and at some point off this cement path is a small mud path that leads to the "back gate" of the Ayer Itam Dam. It is what the more-serious-than-casual hikers prefer over the tar road, because it is steeper (much steeper), and it is shorter. Sort of like double the work rate, which gives you a better workout.
Precisely what I needed on the first hike. =.=
After the first stretch of the many very steep stretches, my lung was practically bursting. As for my uncle, who is 61, he just "sailed" up that slope with an even pace that seemed effortless. He was not even panting. I felt very ashamed. :-p
I made it up to the dam in (I think) about 50 minutes. That just shows how "fit" I was. :-D
***
On that hike, I left my camera phone behind, thinking I would have no need of it. Big mistake. That's why I have no picture to share here for that "climb" (yes, "climb"; I was almost on all four at certain points). That's why on subsequent hikes, I made it a point to bring the phone along (I don't have a camera, so the phone is all the picture-snapping tool I have) and take lots of photos.
No comments:
Post a Comment