Many people mistake Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia (4095m) or Puncak Jaya also known as Carstensz Pyramid in West Papua, Indonesia (4884m) as the highest mountain in South East Asia. Not many have heard of the Burmese peak that lies on the fringe of the Himalayas mountain range called Hkakabo Razi or Kaijiabo Feng 开加博峰 in Chinese that stands at an elevation of 5881m. This mountain is unique in that its snow capped peaks typical of the Himalayas rises from a dense rainforest creating an absolutely contrasting sight of pure white snow within lush tropical greenery.
 |
| The snow capped mountain of Hkakabo Razi rises drastically among the thick dense rainforests of Myanmar. |
Hkakabo Razi is still considered a highly unexplored mountain as not many people have scaled its peak. The first person who successfully scaled its peak in recorded history is the late Takashi Okazaki from Japan and Nyima Gyaltsen from Burma in year 1996. In August 2014, an all Burmese expedition team successfully reached Hkakabo Razi's summit to confirm its elevation at 5881m being Burma's highest peak. However this expedition lost contact just after reaching the summit because their communication devices ran out of battery. A large international search and rescue operation was launched but they were never found. Another expedition sponsored by the National Geographic in November 2014 set out to scale the peak of Hkakabo Razi to reconfirm its elevation with a GPS device but had to turn back just less than 200m from the summit due to bad weather.
 |
| Location of Hkakabo Razi at the Tibetan-Burmese boundary in the fringes of the Himalayas. |
Even the remote geographical location of Hkakabo Razi being located in the northern tip of Myanmar close to the border with China makes it difficult to access and unsurprisingly relatively unknown. It is a logistical challenge by itself to reach the foothills of the mountain. This remoteness has largely preserved its natural setting as perhaps one of the few places on earth that can truly claim to be the real Shangri La.
