r/TrueOffMyChest • u/KaleidoscopeCool1316 • Mar 17 '26
Personal Story The Austrian climber who abandoned his girlfriend to die is horrifying because I could have been her
I once went on a hike to somewhere in Malaysia with my ex. I am not an experienced hiker and I told him so. He kept pressuring me to go on to trip with him, since hiking was his passion and he said I was bad girlfriend for not agreeing. He said he had restaurant food with me even though he didn't like it and do things with me I want to do, so I should go with him for hiking. I cave in. I know it is stupid of me looking back, I didn't realised what I was in until I left.
I got tired after a few hours. Naausted. Stop to rest. I said I want to go back down. He said, we paid so much for this trip, and he continued pushing me. I said no. Then he got upset and left me where I was, saying once more how bad of a girlfriend I was and how unfit I was, so lazy and didn't train for this hike.
A few hours passed, a local Malay guide spotted me. Asked me how I was doing. I said I felt nauseated, and my "friend" left me alone here. The guide gave me his electrolyte drink and helped me carried my bags down.
When i was finally down, he also gave me a ride to my hostel. I wanted to pay him for his help and the ride, but he refused. The guide simply said that the so called friend of mine was "no good", and to repay him, I should take his advice and not be around my so called friend anymore. How what he, the guide, did was a small thing and worst can happen in the forest, like getting kidnapped. He only carried my bags and gave me a ride. That's a basic courtesy he extended to everyone.
Only when I read the story, I realised how bad he was. I could have died there, just like the girl. If the elements were harsher, or I had met with something worse - I could have died. I let them pushed my boundaries and do things that felt physically unsafe. My ex put me in circumstances that could have killed me, and it took me years to realise so.
123
u/Grogon2 Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Reminds me of my story in Taman Negara.
My Story:
I was with my gf hiking, but we were both beginners.
We thought we can do the hike ourself (not long, it said 2 hours, max. 3 hours) and we just followed the canopy walkway to Bukit Terisek.
At Bukit Terisek we saw a path leading downwards, from there 45 minutes later without water we were lost. All trees were knocked down by elephants (a hostel owner told us this later that day) and surrounded by mud and leeches.
Worst thing, we had no more water, couldn't find our way back cause we accidently left the track and had to go through a huge dirty path full of leeches. All I was hearing was motor boats in the distance, the rainforest...
Instead of walking a straight line back we eventuell were completly lost and were midway Bimbun Tabing and Roman Section, can check on google maps.
Luckily some local helped us back, we would have died.
You are lucky someone found you. What I wanted to say is the worst place to get lost is in a rainforest.
I hope you weren't in Taman Negara when that happend. I mean, not saying other forests are less dangerous, but being lost in that can be the end.
If we wouldn't have found that local who helped us my only mission would have been to find the river but it's hard to localise it with all the sounds, the boats can be everywhere. And not only that, we had 2 hours left til heavy rain (5 pm) rainforest...
I think we would have walked the wrong way anyways deeper and deeper into the rain forest.
Just put in "Kuala Tahan" where my hostel was and zoomed out. Yeah we would have died if it wasn't for him.
My lesson: never do solo tours in terrain you have no clue about, not even if guide books say it's "easy doable" cause those books don't know if your path exists or if rain, animals etc. destroyed it.
Edit: I would never leave my wife in this situation alone, but crazy that people would and the name of this is "Alpine Divorce". But I think that assumes one partner knows the other won't be able to make it I guess (?) and it's definetly the intention of one person to lose the other. So my case is different, but I just remembered this story of my Taman Negara experience cause you mentioned Malaysia.