Dumbo up the Hills - #9: Tokun

As part of our preparation for Mount Kinabalu, we practiced on the hill of Tokun. The road is, again, actually a service road for several telecommunication towers on the top of the hill.

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We started when it was still dark. The first part of the climb was in pitch darkness, and, without a flash on my phone camera, I took no picture. But at the first light, I set my phone camera to "night mode" and took the following picture:


OK, there's nothing impressive about the photo. But it was beautiful in real life. :-)

It was during the first part of the climb in complete darkness that I came to realize why God would not give us ordinary folks (as opposed to His prophets) glimpses into the future: the first stretch of the road was very steep, as can be felt by the angle my ankles had to bend upward. But it was quite easy to climb, because I could not see what difficulties (a long stretch of very steep road) lied ahead of me, so I climbed without the psychological burden. I just took each step as it came. But later, after the first light broke, and I could see when lied ahead, all of a sudden I felt heavy in my feet, even though the road was not as steep as the first stretch.

I believe that God is sparing us the psychological burdens as well by not letting us see the future. If you can see what difficulties lie ahead of you, your heart will melt before you even come to that evil time. Our Lord taught us that, "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (Matthiew 6:34).


Some interesting-looking rest facilities are strewn along the way... the picture below seems to be a lookout platform or something like that. Eager to get to the top, we did not stop here to have a look.


The picture below shows a resting area where many hikers take their rest here and turn back downhill.


There, we took a rest...


... and pressed on.



That body of water in the following pictures is the Mengkuang Dam.





At the end of the road (hilltop) looking back on the road whence we came...


Back at the foot of the hill, I saw what I did not see when we arrived before it was light: a recreational area featuring a sort of man-made water cascade fit for the whole family to bathe in.