Peviote everyone.

From the 6th of July to the 16th of July I will be attempting to climb the tallest mountain in Europe - Mt.Elbrus (5642m) with the international youth expedition organized by the Ukrainian mountaineering federation. According to my brief research, I might be the first Malaysian to reach the summit after reading about Zuraina Dato' Zaharin 's failure to reach the summit in 2006.

“Mt.Elbrus is a volcano located in the western Caucasus mountain range, in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia, Russia, near the border of Georgia, in the northern Iranian plateau. A stratovolcano that has lain dormant for about 2,000 years, it is the highest mountain in the Caucasus. Mt. Elbrus (west summit) stands at 5,642 metres (18,510 ft) and it is not only the highest mountain in Europe (depending on continental border used); it is also the highest point of Russia.” -Wikipedia

As the climb crawls closer and closer through my calendar, I'm getting more and more nervous and anxious about the climb. Worried that the experience on Kilimanjaro would haunt me after reading about a South African climber going through the same thing on the Elbrus. (http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/169838/highs-on-elbrus-and-lows-in-russia-uiaaf-meet-2004.html).

I wake up each morning with these thoughts banging on my mind's door. I sometimes try fending it away by praying or singing praises but it still disturbs me. I would say that my time in Moscow now isn't as enjoyable as I would have liked it to be due to the big worry in my mind. However, I do think that I haven't got this opportunity to climb by chance. And here's how I got the spot in this group.

One day I was just surfing the internet looking for Mt.Elbrus expeditions and guided groups. After awhile, I stumbled upon this International Youth Expedition organized by the Ukrainian Mountaineering Federation. It had stirred great interest in me and so decided to sign up for it. As I was reading the registration form, I found that the closing date has passed by a day. So yeah, so much for being excited. Despite the registration closing date, I decided to give it a go anyway. Telling them that I'm on a quest to climb the 7 summits (The tallest mountain in each continent) and that I'm a freelance photographer in Malaysia. Soon after I've sent that email, he replied with apologies being unable to register me with the group because they have already sent the list and details for the climbing permit application. HOWEVER though, he said that he could include me in the staff list and thus allowing me to climb with the team! I was shocked and ecstatic. What a fantastic opportunity! When dad heard this he was all out in support of me climbing together with this team. A few weeks after that, a letter from the government came and said that I'll have to report in on the 13th of June to join their National Service program. It was devastating, for such a thing to come up to ruin the party. I wasn't happy at all and so asked dad to see if they could postpone it to another time. Dad went to the national service office, sent in a letter to postpone my National Service, and we eventually got a letter of approval despite our reason not being an educational one.

We had got everything done, bought an ice axe, crampons, double plastic shoes, soft shell jacket and things and I was out of Asia and into Europe. So, I'm now in Moscow, all nervous about the climb.

An average of 22 people die in a year, with the worst record being 48 in 2006. Temperatures go down to -30c, winds blow in crazy speeds, weather changes from summer to winter in seconds, crevasses go down to 1000 feet, an amount of 12,000 calories being burnt on summit day. All that comes to thought giving me a nervous chill in sunny Moscow. If you've read what happened on Kilimanjaro here: (http://p-kzk.blogspot.com/2009/01/mt.html) You would know what had happened on Kilimanjaro. Anyways, in brief, on Kilimanjaro, on the summit day, I was climbing with ease and then suddenly my legs just couldn't hold my body up and couldn't walk without the help of my guide or my poles. On Elbrus however, I wouldn't have a guide next to me all the time and my poles wouldn't work on the traverse, and with a slight divert on the track would lead me to dangerous ground with crevasses (ice cracks knowing to reach more than 1000 feet in depth) covered with light snow making it hard to tell whether crevasses lie underneath. A weak leg could prove fatal. Being stuck on the mountain wouldn’t be pleasant; staying out over the night would mean severe frost bites or even death.

Knowing that the hand of God's always on me and angels guarding me even in the coldest temperatures and in the highest altitudes, I know that if it's God's plan for me to be on the top, I would be on the top of Europe.

So, I hope that you can join me in prayer that I would be able to make it to the summit with ease and also for His protecting over me. I would really hope to see you again back home with everything on me. God Bless you all. May all of us be lights in the dark.

PS: write up not edited. Mind the grammar/spelling

Understanding Women.

Chemistry of women
MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET

Woman--Chemical Analysis

ELEMENT: Woman
SYMBOL: WO+
DISCOVERER: Adam
ATOMIC MAKE: Accepted as 110 lb. but known to vary from 45 to
220 kg
OCCURRENCE: Copious quantities in all urban areas

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES:
1. Surface usually covered with a painted film
2. Boils at nothing, freezes without reason
3. Melts if given special treatment
4. Bitter if incorrectly used
5. Found in various stages ranging from virgin metal to
common ore
6. Yields to pressure if applied to correct points

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES:
1. Has a great affinity for Gold, Silver, Platinum and
precious stones
2. Absorbs great quantities of expensive substances
3. May explode spontaneously without prior warning and for
no known reason
4. Insoluble in liquids, but activity greatly increased by
saturation with alcohol
5. Most powerful money-reducing agent known to man

COMMON USES:
1. Highly ornamental, especially in sports cars
2. Can be a great aid to relaxation

TASTE:
1. Pure specimen turns rosy pink when discovered in natural
state
2. Turns green when placed beside a better specimen

HAZARDS:
1. Highly dangerous except in experienced hands
2. Illegal to possess more than one at the same time

Hold on tight, more to come.

Hey guys,

Sorry for the lack of updates and the idleness of this blog. My apologies. Anyways, the reason for this is because I'm moving to my own website and thus, stopped blogging for a while due to my efforts in preparing my website to be up and running. 

The website will be up and running in about a month's time, and at the time, the domain is still unregistered, so I'll let you know my website address when it's done. So yes, from the 1st of April, I'll be blogging on my very own website! 

Our frequent soccer sessions with the Sudanese kids. We can't speak Arabic, but can certainly speak football - the universal language that draws everyone together. Red and Yellow, Black and White.

Schools under the boiling Sudanese sun. It gets up to 40 degrees celsius at this time of year, which is, for your information "winter". 

Me and my crew - Wai Kin, a childhood buddy. "partners-in-crime". It is truly becoming a great experience working with one of my closest buddies. 

Just a short update, Sudan has been an absolutely different from all the other countries I've been to. It's a world on its own. People that threaten to take you to the police for taking pictures to people that would offer you food as you pay a visit, the beautiful meeting of the 2 niles to the riots on the streets. Completely different from the other connecting countries that I've been to (Kenya and Egypt). It's been good so far though, surely, worth the time and money traveling to this part of the world - the second most unstable country in the world. 

Anyways, just for those of you who are following my travel footsteps, I'm planning on heading north to Meroe for a night to see the pyramids of the "Black Pharaohs".

©Anthony Ham Lonely Planet Images

And then leave Sudan for Egypt on Sunday to visit Luxor, Aswuan, Alenxandria, Dahab (Red Sea) to dive and hike up Mt.Sinai and then head back to Kuala Lumpur Malaysia tentatively the 18th of March but most likely on the 23rd of March.

I'll update more soon. Will update about the websites progress and address.

Cheers.

Life on the other side- the blog

Hey Guys! 

Sorry for the late post. Haven't had time to update in ages. 

Anyways, I'll now have two blogs, this one, and one that I'm partnering with my friend, Wystan (Wai Kin, as some of you guys may refer him as). 

The new blog would be known as L.O.T.O.S meaning "life on the other side".

"Life on the other side is owned by both me (Paul Koh) and Wystan. We came up with this blog while we are traveling to the hot, dry, and dusty Sudan (we're still here as I write). We got bored due our inability to take pictures or shoot video because of some policies and the political instability. But it is indeed a good experience though, this trip gave us inspirations of crazy ideas and ingenious inventions! So, yes, we'll share it to you here, on this blog."

The link to this blog: http://pwcrazylife.blogspot.com/

Updates on Sudan coming your way soon!

Paul.kzk

Name Card!

Gosh, haven't been updating my blog in ages!!

But guess what? I've got my name card done! Woots!! and I'm uploading it here for the sake of someone.... whose MSN cannot download sending files. :P

Front.

Back. 

Cool much? :P

Mt.Kilimanjaro

Wow. What a climb. Just over 2 days ago, I summited the tallest mountain in Africa and the tallest freestanding mountain at 5695m

I took the longest route on the mountain called the Lemosho route. It normally takes 8 days to climb up this route but I chose to do it in 7 days instead to push myself a bit.

So, the 7 days consist of 5 days of 8 hour long trekking and then summit on the 6th and down on the 7th. I had headaches on the first day at 2200m which was very weird and got me worried that I'll get AMS (acute mountain sickness). People usually get it when the body can't acclimatize well or in time for the altitude. Most mountain climbers die from this as a if its serious one can die within 24 hours without proper treatment. But well, I just took some aspirin, prayed and went to sleep hoping to shake it off before we start again the next day. So, for 5 days, I sleep with a headache and wake up perfectly fine just to get the headaches again just after about 2 hours of hiking. Then I'll have to suffer the other 6 hours with a pounding headache banging my brain to my skull. Each day I arrive at camp just lying dead on top of my sleeping mat, don't even have the headache break to take off my boots. It was terrible. Absolutely hated it. Well, despite the headache, my body was perfectly fine. No muscle cramps, no body aches nothing at all! In fact most of the time, me and my other climbing mate (Tomas from Austria) make it to camp the earliest, over taking everyone else on the other groups. I found the whole trek to be easy and not physically challenging even though my guide and a guide book I was reading said so. So yes, the only potential threat to my summit attempt: altitude headache.

So, on the 5th day, I started off feeling awesome. Even had the energy to wake up early to set up my camera of catch the sunrise over Mt.Kilimanjaro. So, I started the hike singing and beat boxing. My guide was surprised and joined me in melody soon after he got over the fact that I'm actually feeling better than ever. But just as I reached to sit in out mess tent for lunch, suddenly a huge roar screamed through my veins in my brain. A headache that felt like a mental elephant stampede. I told the guide about it, so, he asked me if I still want to go up the lava tower (4200m, a 200 meter gain from my current altitude) which would be extremely tough for me to go through as going higher would worsen the pain on my head but would be good when I up there and down to the next camp 400 meters lower than the lava tower as my body would have a chance to acclimatize. While I have the option of taking the short cut around the lava tower instead of over the tower. I did make a decision, to go up the lava tower. Hooyah.

It was tough. Very tough. Every time I put my forward, it would shake my head a bit causing intensive pain. So I keep praying and singing trying to get the headache off me. Then I started thinking of my sisters Phoebe and Priscilla, and then my little brother Philip and my parents. And then my friends who've really provided me mental support throughout the whole climb.

Eventually, God sent an angel. This time in a form of a strong, Godly man also known as my assistant guide. As I was slowly pulling away from my main guide and Tomas, the assistant guide who never treks with us as he's in charge of organizing the tents and the porters had come joined me. We chatted, about life, money, real happiness, about my 7 summits, about him possibly doing homeschooling as his children's school fees has been a heavy sack on the back. I told him how much I needed to be on the summit. He then said that he'll do everything in his power to get me up and down, alive. So, the whole climb up the lava tower and down to our camp (Barranco Huts) had been a breeze.

The next morning, I woke up with frost decorated around my tent. Looking at my thermometer, 0 degrees Celsius, and I felt fine! It's amazing how the body adjusts so quickly! Well this would be the last hike/climb before we get our bodies ready for the summit attempt. We climbed a 800meter wall and did 7 hour hike. It was physically exhausting but not something I couldn't handle.

Finally, I reach the last camp, Barafu Huts, 4800 meters above sea level. Talked to some dudes from Europe across the other tents and then straight to my mess tent for dinner and then rest.

We eventually woke up, at 12 midnight. Gearing up for our summit attempt. I got up, -10 degrees, got ready, had 2 cups of hot tea and went off to the long, hard, physically demanding uphill climb for over a thousand meter gain in height.

I started of as one of the strongest climbers on that night. Going on for 4 hours without a break or a pause or decrease in pace despite having your mouth all frozen up and literally seeing tears on the ground going up. I was destined for the summit, that was at least what I thought. But just after 4 hours, my whole body just went to a complete shut down in a period of a clap. I started feeling extremely sleepy, and I couldn't stand on my own feet! It felt extremely weird like touching your body's limit for the first time. I still had the strength to go on though. Not physical strength, but you know, the willingness to push to reach the summit. So, I went really slow, eventually dropped to be the last climber. I couldn't use my legs anymore. I was literally using my trekking poles as clutches. Jamming them in the scree and pulling my body forward. It was long, tough and not so handsome. I got myself at the bottom of the scree wall at 6.45am. The scree wall is a 45 min vertical climb for a absolutely professional climber. The scree wall is extremely painful and tear indicting because scree is like small rocks that causes you to slide back each step you take. It's literally one step forward and two steps back. As I start climbing up the wall, Tom and my main guide were ski walking down the scree wall. And when he met up with me and my assistant guide, they both talked and were discussing something serious, but I couldn't understand Swahili but kinda got an idea of what the discussion might have been about from the seriousness and the fighting response of my assistant guide to what my main guide has said, probably the need for me to turn back because of my speed and physical condition. Eventually, my assistant guide negotiated with my guide that if I made it up the scree wall to Stella point (one of the summits on the mountain and a turning to the summit ridge to the tallest peak, Uhuru peak) before 8am.

Upon receiving the challenge, I pushed myself to my utmost physical limit. Well, not exactly my physical limit, but my limit under that condition. I slowly had the pole stab, drag body, pole stab, drag body rhythm. I eventually reached the top of the scree wall, at 7.55am. Just 5 minutes before the 'time limit'. So, I then continued to push for another 1 hour, up and down the summit ridge and finally, eventually, amazingly reach Uhuru Peak. The tallest point of Africa. At 9.00am, 19th jan 2008, I was the tallest man in the whole continent of Africa. I had tears in my eyes. I never thought I would make it up here, with my body almost useless, I sat below the "Uhuru peak board", motionless. My assistant guide pulled out my camera, I verbally gave him a 1 minute photography course and then he started snapping photos of me on the summit with the glacier below looking polished, huge and intimidating, after about 10 short minutes on the summit, I tried getting up on my legs to make my way down the mountain. I stood up, and then boom, fell back on the rock I sat on. I was dead meat. I pulled out my poles, then snap! My left pole broke in half. Now instead of having 2 legs left (my poles which were literally acting as my legs on that certain day) have only 1 legs left go drag myself down. I couldn't move. And if my assistant guide wasn't with me, I would have no choice but stay up on the summit and eventually lose my hands and legs to frost bite or kill myself trying to come down on one pole. But well, the angel was still there with me. He took my 35 liter bag and my 2kg monster camera and pulled one of my hands over his shoulder while I support my other leg with my pole. Each time we feel the wind passing through with great wrath, he keep saying, "the time is bad, the time is bad, we have to go down in hurry". This might be because the strong winds and cloud comes in as soon as late morning comes into play (10.30 to 11.30). I didn't have the strength to worry about the situation all I had strength for is to drag my 75kg, 5'11" body down that snow capped mountain. I, must, go down. We took the shorter but steeper way down which only porters use. I dragged myself down the scree slope, trying my best to keep myself up and not rolling. We had to stop every minute so that I can regain my alertness to stay up and not fall. I fell a few times, slid, rolled, but did not have the energy to feel any more pain. After 4 hours (felt more like 10 hours) of pushing myself and using every grain of energy I had left, we met up with my porters who purposely came up this high giving me some juice to drink and using their shoulders as support for me to get down to camp. I eventually made it, at 2.30pm. As I reached the camp, tears started to drip into my sunglasses in relief of me being alive and physically "complete" or in tact. I couldn't believe I actually made it down. As I saw my guide, I immediately gave him a huge and shake his hands saying, "feel my hands Mann, feel my hands! I have them with me Mann!" After lunch, I had to hike for another 2 hours down to the next camp where we were allowed to sleep at. And then another 2 hours down to the mountain gate.

It was a rather life threatening climb. It made me reconsider, if I should still continue pursuing the 7 summits. I did consider giving it up. But I personally feel the 7 summits will allow me to experience God, one to one. Having no choice but to rely on Him. Seeing the worst a person can go through and fight through it with the strength from God. This, is truly life changing. The different ways God has shown himself throughout the climb. God, is truly unbeatable. So, I encourage you guys, you, who took time to read my story on Kilimanjaro, to climb your own mountain. Be it physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. Do it. And push to reach the summit and come back alive.

Also, you know, sometimes, too much determination might not be good. My determination to reach the summit wasn't entirely good. Like they say, have a bit of everything. 

Like what my mom always says when she gets the chance to: "make your climb count."

PS: It was a good experience to see your body at its limit and a total shut down though. We don’t get that chance very often =)

Me and my assistant guide, Sam.

Merry Christmas

Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Local time: 10.14pm

Status: No time to update.

But I've got 5 mins to drop a big Merry Christmas on my blog! =) 

so, here you go,

Merry Christmas.