Broga Hill also known as Bukit Lalang due to its speciality of having lots of couch grass instead of tress along the hill is a well known place for people to hike. It is located in Broga, just a stone's throw away from my university. Thus, it is even more popular for students from UNMC to hike there.
Me as an UNMCian for about three years, had the thought of hiking Broga Hill since I knew the place but never really do it. However, two days ago I was invited by my housemates to hike together this weekend. To be honest, I consider it more than twice before I promise to go along.
For a non-sporty person like me (if you want to categorise people from the scale of 0-10 on how sporty they are, frankly speaking I might even fall into the negative caterogory), this is undoubtedly a challenge. I rarely go for sports and never hike. If you mean walking up and down through "slope" or something like Perkasa Hill back in the little town Tenom then yes I did it quite a few times especially during my childhood period. But talking about the real 'hiking', I have no experience, at all. I even did research on Broga Hill from the Internet, all the reviews, the pictures of the trek, the "must know", the "do and don't", the "N things to prepare" etc. Many of them define it as "beginner level" for hiking which made me feel a lot relieved. In the end, I decided to join as I do not want to have regrets before leaving this little town during my last year here.
I worried a lot the night before. We promised to leave campus at 4:30am so that we are able to enjoy the breathtaking sunrise scene from the peak. It is already a challenging part for me as I don't usually wake up too early, I mean ya I can be awake till 4 it seems normal to me but when it comes to sleep early and wake up early, I am not so sure if I can do that. However, I managed to get up before 4am, with three hours of sleep.
I went there with another four young and ambitious (I am not sure why I chose this word but it suits,anyway) girls. We started hiking once we reached there. Only about 15 minutes later, I started to feel defeated and do not want to continue. They kept encourage me to continue hiking. I couldn't remember how many times I stopped and asked them to go without me. I felt bad for needing them to stop with me and wait for me to get my rest before continue. These beauty souls kept motivate me to continue and did not want to leave me behind, alone. They helped me a lot and cheered me up over and over again.
After all the fights between my poor stamina vs the steep trek, I finally got to the first peak, which I originally intend to reach.
It was still dark before the sunrise. The first empty space that can have a view from top where we only see nothing but rocks, clay and some trees with thin barks before reaching there.
Then, we decided oh no, I mean they decided to hike to the next peak. If you asked me to choose I would say just stop here. But since all of them are still so energetic and I seems like a bit used to the tempo and still can cope with it, I joined them to hike to the next peak.
It was also still dark up there. We didn't actually take much time to get there as the distance between peaks isn't that far.
And I guess this is another reason to push the girls once again, to hike further, to the summit. It is indeed harder to hike but we still made it.
It doesn't leave good impression to me as there are a lot of smokers smoking up there made me suffocated with the carbon monoxide all around. To make it worse, it was actually kind of crowded with limited space. I randomly took the picture of signboard showing 'Puncak Bukit Broga' then we left together as it was approaching dawn.
We went down the hill simultaneously with the daybreak. Upon reaching the second peak, it was already shining bright.
We somehow managed to witness the sunrise, but not a really clear one. The panaromic view on top is attractive. We stopped by and took a lot of pictures together, and selfies of course. I told them I gonna take as much as possible since this is the first time, and might be the only time I ever hike.
We then continued to go down the hill. Forgot to mention about the crowd went for hiking today. A lot of people were there together, cheering each other up, warning each other to be careful at dangerous steps and helping each other out. I am not sure if the pictures speak for me but the crowd was referred as 'a happening bazaar over there' by us. We even trapped and forced to sit on the rock waiting because we could not go down since people are hiking up and it is a one way route.
Going down the hill is comparably easier for me, it went smooth and we reached safe and sound. After breakfast at Semenyih we head back to campus, and I continue sleeping for three hours straight after bathing. And now I guess I really need to get back to my awaiting assignments and works. I had no intention to blog this initially but it is definitely a precious experience which worth a little bit of my time to be sacrificed.
Hiking is just like our lives, we may face a lot of challenges, obstacles and temptations. We often feel defeated, demotivated or wanted to give up. There will be time others overtake us, or drag us behind. What we can do is only keep our targets straight, leave the worries and negativity aside, then work for it. Do not stop until it happened.
For me I often endure all emotional stress, but the physical one is rare, but I did it today. "Conquer your fear", I remembered I was told by one of my teacher before. This is the attitude we need to apply on daily life, I guess.
So yeah this wrapped up my memorable first hiking experience with the girls!
