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Sep 17, 2007
They climb volcano in slippers
Urban males are wimps. If you want to know what manly is, just travel to Third World countries
By Teo Cheng Wee
THIS time last week, I was on my last legs trudging up Indonesia's Gunung Rinjani with three friends.
Situated east of Bali on the island of Lombok, Rinjani is an active volcano with a scenic crater lake in its centre. It's also the country's second highest volcanic peak - a fact that became increasingly apparent to me on my ascent.
I had been climbing since 3am that morning to escape the heat and by 8am was pretty much running on empty. My body was sore, the sun had already risen and was beating down on my weary face, and my lips were parched because I didn't bring enough water.
And the 3,726m summit was another hour away.
It might as well have been 3,726 hours away. Our thighs, stinging from nine hours of trekking and climbing the day before, felt like they were going to give way any minute.
Perhaps as a form of encouragement, our Indonesian guide, Kian, told me that no Singaporean he had escorted had failed to make it to the top.
Now Singaporeans really hate to spoil a record, so we continued, willing ourselves up that infernal trail, losing one step for every two we took on the loose scree.
By the time we made it to the top, we had barely enough energy to celebrate or really take in the sights, so heavy was our breathing.
But needless to say, our party of three guys and one girl were delighted that we had pushed ourselves as far as we did, and didn't bring any shame to Singapore.
On most days, this minor achievement for a fairly sedentary animal like myself should have got my chest all pumped up with masculine pride - and it did for a while. Yet I've never found myself feeling more macho and yet less macho at the same time.
You see, we had these five porters who had to tag along for the trip.
(Okay, I don't really mean that. They were very helpful local men we hired to carry our tents, cook our meals and clean up after us. I'm pretty sure we would have died some time on Day 2 if they didn't 'tag along'.)
Still, these were the very same guys who made me realise that however much my male ego may have been boosted by scaling this challenging peak, it still pales in comparison to the Real Deal.
If you want to see extraordinary, you need look no further than the quintet, who are Sasak natives on the island. The oldest looked like he was in his 40s, the youngest no more than his early 20s.
What they had in common were abundant fitness and steely grit.
At the summit's base camp, when the temperature dipped below 10 deg C and the howling winds chilled the four of us to the bone, we struggled to keep warm with our fancy thermal wear, fleece jackets and windbreakers in our windproof tent.
All our porters had was a thick blanket each and they huddled together by a fire for warmth.
When we were scaling Rinjani, we did it with good trekking equipment: polypropylene shirts that kept us cool, Gore-Tex trekking shoes that provided us with good cushioning and balance, and trekking poles that took the strain off our legs, among others.
Our porters were dressed in grubby T-shirts, sarongs and trudging up the mountain in - believe it or not - slippers.
Not that this ever seemed to affect them. Although we usually started trekking first, these Indonesian supermen would invariably catch up within an hour, after they had finished cleaning and packing up the camping gear.
Each man would easily be lugging some 20 to 30kg of camping equipment and food, their muscular shoulders balancing a thick bamboo pole with the wares on both ends as they navigated the rocks and paths with ease.
True, they probably had more experience climbing up this mountain.
But visiting a Third World country always makes me redefine what physical abilities and limits a man ought to have.
What we considered a minor milestone, it would have been laughed off as child's play by these men - literally.
Kian, who is 34, made my jaw drop when he told us that he had already climbed Rinjani when he was 10. The only peak I recall scaling at that age was the top of the playground slide.
It's not just the men in these places either - even the women sometimes seem more masculine than us urban jungle males.
In Myanmar, I remember a pint-sized villager in her 40s in the hills, carrying a full load of firewood on her tiny back as she overtook us on a walk.
In Laos, there was a grandmother guiding a group of young children down a waterfall's path. They waited impatiently for me as I gingerly made my way around the slippery rocks.
After I let them pass, they were out of sight in mere minutes.
These incidents are enough to make my male ego whimper, but since I have had a few days to reminisce about these memorable incidents since returning home, I feel I would still rather celebrate my own little breakthrough on Gunung Rinjani and the ruggedness of the men living and working on the mountain.
After all, wallowing in self-pity would be even less macho.
chengwee@sph.com.sg
there ought to be a season 2.
at's not love and respect, what is? these are not my kids to name but if i had my way, i'd have squeezed in something somehow. they didn't get to see him, but that doesn't mean they can't get to know him. we are so lacking in that in our culture. or is it just my family? 
