A self employed General Practitioner who lives with his lovely family in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. He dedicates his spare time serving people with precious information on climbing the Majestic Mountain of the Borneo, Mt Kinabalu. Reachable at drizad(at)gmail.comMount Kinabalu is NOT the highest mountain in South East Asia
Rants and raves about the height of Kinabalu were audible last year, 2007. I knew that Mount Kinabalu is not the highest mountain in South East Asia, but I did not know that Mount Kinabalu was ranked 5th on the highest point in SEA.
Dan Low is the person who was responsible for the information to be conveyed to me. LeongWK was the first person who raised this issue but I did not take it seriously, until I read a blog post by Bisean. Fortunately, we share our information together through Multiply social networking platform and I am glad to be connected to a group of people who are really concern about our World Heritage Site.
You can read the heavy discussion in Bisean blog, which some of the commenter did not really agree with the facts. They gave a very different description and definition of the countries and the borders of Asian continent and South East Asia, in which, according to their definition, Mount Kinabalu will rank differently on the highest point list of mountains in this region.
We could actually argue the facts on the border definitions, but personally for me, it is not as important as taking the responsibility to take care of the mountain.
Most importantly, our young generation must be teach to love our mountain and take care of our environment. No point having the highest mountain in South East Asia, but nothing is done to preserve the heritage.
By the way, I think it’s about time we change our Malaysian Geography syllabus, by not mentioning Kinabalu is the highest mountain in South East Asia. Our neighbouring countries may get insulted with it.
I hereby give you the 10 highest peak in South East Asia, courtesy of Dan Low…
1. Hkakabo Razi, Burma (5881m)
2. Puncak Jaya, Indonesia (5030m)
3. Trikora, Indonesia (4751m)
4. Mandala, Indonesia (4701m)
5. Kinabalu, Malaysia (4095m)
6. Kerinji, Indonesia (3809m)
7. Rinjani, Indonesia (3727m)
8. Semeru, Indonesia (3677m)
9. Fansipan, Vietnam (3143m)
10. Agung, Indonesia (3142m)
P/S: Anybody could tell me how many of them are NOT volcanic mountain?
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January 7th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I noted this too when one of my Indonesian friend told me that Mt Kinabalu is not the highest mountain in SEA. He told me that their Puncak Jaya is taller than Mt Kinabalu and even gave me sites to look at.
But you are right, it is not about being the tallest mountain that matters. It is how we preserve the mountain the way it suppose to be for our future generation.
January 7th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
This is very interesting. I’ve wondered for years whether Irian Jaya/Papua New Guinea is considered part of SEA, cos there’s a 16,000+ ft mountain there, a full 3K ft higher than Kinabalu. I didnt know there’s another, even higher one in Myanmar/Burma!
January 8th, 2008 at 12:27 am
err… true… Mount Tivung near my house is taller… LOL
January 8th, 2008 at 8:31 am
@chegu carol: Yes, I agree with you on the preservation of the mountain. Some says that we actually “borrow” the mountain from our children. It’s up to us to take goos care of it.
@ben: Yes, that’s the argument that I meant.
@swordie: bah… di mana itu gunung tivung? penampang ka?
January 8th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Some years ago, many locals already knew that Mount Kinabalu is not the highest mountain in SE Asia. And most Sabahans know that its height is 4,095.2m, not 4,101m. However, I don’t know what’s wrong with the people and government in the Peninsular. 99% of them still think Mt. Kinabalu is the highest mountain with a height of 4,101m!
I also wrote a blog about it:
Mt. Kinabalu = 4,101M?
http://www.mysabah.com/wordpress/?p=415
Besides, I also informed MAS in Oct. But they still don’t update the height in their magazine in Dec.
So it is not hard to understand why the people, even Malaysians, are not well-informed of the changes…
January 8th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Thanks Murphy for the feedback. I think that it’s our responsible to give the correct information about Mount Kinabalu to the world.
Forget about our government on getting this one straight, as we know, it would take ages for the information to be conveyed. For them, this is a very small matter. Or, they were just ignorant.
Unless, it’s about scandal… Then, they will open their eyes wide!
Cheers!
January 10th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
hi..
Mt. Kinabalu is NOT volcanic mountain.
Have a nice day..
January 11th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
This is a good information indeed…nevertheless, I’m very pround of our mt. Kinabalu and I never heard of publicize tourist info about the other mountain…do people climb up these mountain?
January 16th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Hi,
Hkakabo Razi is a sacred mt and no climbers are allowed on it
Indonesian mountains, I have been on the top of Mt Rinjani and I believe that the others are climbable… as long as they are not affected by the recent volcanic activity that has been happening during the last few years.
Fansipan is climbable and is becoming a popular destination as more tourists are going to vietnam!
January 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Nobody allowed up Hkakabo Razi? That’s a pity, but I thought any mountain is considered sacred by the locals? Isn’t Mount Everest too?
I bet if you add another zero to the offer, they’ll allow you to climb it.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Ha! Now the whole truth revealed!
Knew Mount K wasn’t the highest in SEA, thinking it was number 2. Wa lah now is number 5!! Never mind. I’m still proud of our mountain. We always have a story to tell ….about our mountain…. today, tommorrow and even at our old age.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
This is correct if u r refering to political boundaries, but geaographicaly speaking, the burmese mountain is in the himalayas, ie south asia n the indonesian mountains is in papua, hence its not in south east asia. Even if most of indonesia is in south east asia, its region in papua is not.
July 20th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
huhu…
no doubt that kinabalu mount is the highest…
kinabalu mount high is calculate based on above sea level….
the Hkakabo Razi, Burma high is calculate under sea level..
sory to say…but kinabalu mount is still the highest….
think bout it before ur say something that is not true….
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:23 am
@ pali:
Unless you could give us the relevant information data on what you said, we have to admit that Mt. Kinabalu is not the highest in SEA…
July 30th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
ok, so we have arguement on wic is the highest mount in south east asia……..is there any arguement that Everest is not the tallest mount in the world??? any one with any info whether is there a mount higher than everest out there??
October 6th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I think it’s part of Malaysian gov’t strategy to boost their image for the sake of tourism giving the title of the highest mountain in SEA to Kinabalu thus foreign tourists will be attracted to climb it. That’s why Malaysian gov’t and other related parties such as MAS didn’t respond to your inputs. I’m sorry to say that data manipulation is normal in Malaysia. Their government has manipulated many data to boost the country’s image. The recent discoveries about it are the data of poverty, export, and number of tourists came to Malaysia which have been manipulated for purposes I mentioned above.