Category: Photography

I was up on Bukit Tabur again last Sunday, committing to a more challenging climb. At one time, I could feel fear overwhelming rationality. My feet were clearly shaking uncontrollably, for fear of slipping down the rocky trail. At one time, I was hanging by a rock with a crevasse approximately 30 meters down. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think and I was trying to get a grip on myself, figuratively and literally. I am just glad I didn’t go there alone, as I had planned to. Without partners, I think I could have been in a dangerous situation, especially when it was raining, along the jagged trail on top of the ridge.

I haven’t felt such fear for a very long time. But I made it. Shaken but I made it nonetheless.

Despite that experience, pictures like this…

…made it worth my while. The adrenaline felt good after all been said and done. The Monday after however was a very painful day. My muscle was twitching so hard that I could not concentrate at work.

If you’re wondering, this is a picture of a colony of mosses on top of Bukit Tabur. Bukit Tabur is part of the Klang Gates Ridge, possibly the longest quartz ridge in the world, according to WWF Malaysia.

Exactly a week ago, I found myself on top of one of the hills that make up the Klang Gates Ridge.

While I was up there, there were a few songs that kept playing in my mine. One of them was Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill. Somehow, it was the right song for the right place at the right time.

Anyway, I think I have found a new hobby: solo climbing. So far in my life, there is no hobby that expresses my individualism as much as solo climbing. Somehow, solo climbing has strong connotation to obstacles to individualist effort to achieve greater height, literally. More importantly, I have found its philosophical attachment as extremely attractive. That, in turn, in one way or another, reminds me of Ayn Rand.