Broga Hill Bruise

I get home from a lovely meal out with some friends about 1 am and piss about on the internet for a while before realising I really should be heading to bed as I am supposed to be up at about 6 am to meet Arif to go to this place called Broga Hill: we need to go early 

1. to avoid crowds
2. to avoid the heat

Anyway, I am out of the flat by 6.20 and at Arif’s in about fifteen minutes later and we set off to Broga, about 40 minutes drive out of town. The weather was OK in KL but the further we got away, the cloudier it became and I really didn’t fancy climbing up any hills in the pissing rain, remembering the Bukit Larut experience…

Well, we’d come all this way and we could just about see people at the top of the first hill, so we assumed that it would be OK, and so we parked (opposite what looked like a children’s farm) and made our way to the hill. I wore slightly more sensible shoes this time and was thankful of that – it was no picnic climbing this hill: there was no path and in many places you were clambering along rain-gouged clay tracks, right next to sheer drops into oblivion. No health and safety here (apart form the occasional piece of string tied to a tree to prevent you falling into said oblivion).

It was pretty hard going actually, and very busy – amazingly with people climbing down, which must have meant they were there much too early on a Sunday morning – we were here at about 7.30, so who knows what time these lunatics had gotten here? As we marched up and up, it was getting tough going and I was glad to sit just before we reached the peak of the first hill, and it was all too much for Arif who ran to one side and vomited! I was feeling pretty feint, but nothing a sit down and swig of 100-Plus didn’t cure.

It was quite crowded here so we didn’t stop here for long and moved on to the next peak, slightly further away and higher in the clouds: less crowded, but get slightly annoyed by a couple of idiots who are playing techno music on their mobile phone and disturbing what was probably beautiful tranquillity. So we move away and climb to a third peak, and have to use these ropes to pull us up the rocks! Deciding that it’s probably as far as we want to go, we sit for a while taking in the fantastic view and fresh air.

Time to go down, which was a darn site easier than climbing, though still strenuous and a few times I nearly broke my neck by slipping on the wet sandy clay path. I did fall once and still have the bruise a few days later...