10%

Sabah - The Revenge of the Mountain

Part 3 - Around the World 06/2015 - 02/2016

Por Beyond All Maps - Portraits of our Planet by Thorsten Mehret

01 de July de 2015

Itinerary

Coming from Mulu Nationalpark, I stayed for 2 days in the rather boring city of Kota Kinabalu. A bus brought me to Mt. Kinabalu were I did some hiking around the base of the Mountain, then heading on to Sandakan to visit the Orang Utans in Sepilok and joining a 3-day rainforest tour along the Kinabatangan River. The last week I spent diving in Mabul and famous Sipadan before making my way to Palau via Kota Kinabalu and Manila.

Kota kinabalu

For me the town lacks the atmosphere of Kuching. Uninteresting buildings, lot´s of traffic and often no proper walkways. Overall Kota Kinabalu is a rather boring experience. At least 4 EUR buys you a 3D movie, softdrink and popcorn in one of the multiplex cinemas. Not a bad deal. I enjoyed Lost World and Spy. The later one was a positive surprise. It´s a while ago I had to laugh so much in a movie, and it was not only me.

Mari Mari Cultural Village

Analog to the Sarawak Cultural Village close to Kuching, the Mari Mari Village gives an insight into the tribes of Sabah. Compared to its counterpart it´s better organized and more informative. Each group gets a own guide who explains about the different tribes. Everywhere you can try something out like rice wine, rice cooked in bamboo, sweets, honey, etc. A nice experience overall.

Mt. Kinabalu - Revenge of the Mountain

5th of June 2015 a 6.0 magnitude earthquake hit Mt. Kinabalu. 18 guides and tourist lost there life on the mountain that day. 10 tourists were blamed from some locals for causing the earthquake by stripping on the sacred mountain, 6 days before. Not very realistic, but nevertheless quite a stupid and disrespectful idea. 4 of them were arrested and face charges of “committing obscene acts in public”.

10 days after the earthquake I went to the tourist office in Kota Kinabalu to get some information about the situation on Mt. Kinabalu. I was told, that the trail to the top of the mountain is closed but the trails at the base are open again. As the climb to the top was not my plan anyway I decided to go. As most of the tourist come here to climb on top, everything was very quiet. I meet almost nobody on the trails. Unfortunately some of the longer trails at the base were closed as well due to landslides, so I had plenty of time exploring the few open trails and taking photos with the tripod.

Write your story here. (Optional)

Sepilok - Rainforest Discovery Center

After a 6 hour tiring bus ride, mostly along palm oil plantation I arrived Sepilok. I had booked a 3 day / 2 night Kinabatangan river tour with Uncle Tan and as the tour start was scheduled for afternoon the next day I stayed on night in Uncle Tans hostel. There was some time left and I went to the close by Rainforest Discover Center in hope to see some hornbills, the famous bird of this region, from the walkways and viewing platforms. Unfortunately without luck but instead I could do some good shots of the plants around.

SepiloK Orang Utan Rehabilitation Center

It´s a similar experience like its counterpart close to Kuching. This time 7 Orang Utan showed up, including 2 moms with their unbelievable cute infants. It´s always fun to watch this creatures. After they had their share of the food on the feeding platform and slowly made their way back into the jungle, the macaques took over the scene. They are even more funny to watch, as there is always something going on with them. When one big male suddenly appeared on the viewing platform showing his long teeth, even the caretaker grabbed a loose shield (interestingly a sign warning from the macaques) just in case to protect the guest and himself.

...she looks a bit bored, but he seems to enjoy.

Write your story here. (Optional)

Kinabatangan River

The river is one of the few good places in Borneo to see wildlife in the jungle. Unfortunately the reason for the high density of wildlife are the palm oil plantation all around the river forcing the wildlife closer and closer towards the river benches. Fortunately some areas are now under protection. The camp was very basic. Open shared huts with mattresses and mosquito nets and bucket showers. It was advisable to check the buckets before using them to avoid supprising encounters with frogs on the head. With the approaching night the jungle orchestra started with thousands of frogs and other critters. In the early morning lots of rustling could be heart. The jungle rats were on the search for food. But all of that was no problem as it really added up to a great jungle atmosphere. Additional the staff from Uncle Tan did a great job. The food was some of the best I had in Malaysia so far and our guide was really enthusiastic, so we had a full program of early morning and late afternoon boat safaris, day and night walks and a fishing excursion.

The camp owned jungle tiger was without doubt one of the favorite animals of our group, as he knew exactly how to play the game. Always around us, looking for a stroke or a can of beer.

Kinabatangan is a birders paradies. Many different types can be seen. Unfortunately it´s hard to take good pictures of the majestic hornbills. They are quite common in the area but always stay very high in the trees. The biggest surprise was the nigh walk. Just behind our huts we saw several birds sleeping on the low branches. Even taking pictures from 30cm distance did not scare them off.

Unfortunately we did´t see wild Orang Utans or even the Pygmy Elephants. There is always some luck required. Nevertheless there was enough wildlife to see around. Probably the highlight was a fight between Proboscis Monkey (the big nose monkeys) and some Macaques. The Proboscis monkey, double the size of the Macaques, have made up there night quarter on top of 2-3 nice tall trees, when suddenly a group of Macaques passed by taking over the place after some fierce fighting. No wonder that the locals call them the jungle mafia.

Diving in Mabul and Sipadan

Many dive magazines rank the tiny Island of Sipadan as one of the top 5 dive sites in the world. In 2004 the Island was declared a National Park and all resort on the island were closed. Since then the numbers of divers and snorkelers are limited to only 120 per day. This is strictly enforced and due to the demand, permits must be booked many weeks or even month in advance. Mostly a permit comes as part of a minimum 3 to 4 day dive packages, whereof one day is diving around Sipadan and the rest on Mabul or the nearby Islands. I booked the 13 dive package with Scuba Junkies as they had a excellent reputation and was not disappointed. Mabul is an excellent place for smaller critters, whereas Sipadan is more for the big stuff. On the way and during the first dive in Sipadan it was raining very hard, it felt almost wetter outside than inside the water, but this was compensated very well. The first view under water and I was shouting Woowwwwww. Directly under us a huge school of big bumped parrotfish, during the dive followed by many sharks, turtles, enormous schools of Jackfish and so on. After the 2nd dive the weather cleared up and so it became a really amazing day.

Write your story here. (Optional)

Saftey in the paradise

In 2000, 22 tourists and hotel staff were kidnapped from Sipadan by the Islamistic Group of the Abbu Sayyaf from the Phillipines. It took several month until every hostage was released. Since then several smaller kidnappings happened, most targeting Chinese and locals. In an attempt last year at the Mabul Bungalow Beach Resort one police man was killed. As a reaction the security was increased with military bases and police stations. The Scuba Junky Resort is just beside a big police camp and more camps can be seen all around the islands giving at least a certain feeling of safety. Beside this all the police and military staff was very friendly and tries to avoid a to martial appearance.

The Sea Gypsies

Beside the Scuba Junkie Resort lies a Sea Gypsie village. The living standard appears very basic but watching them gives a strong feeling that they are happy with their lives. Lots of interaction, laughter and smiles can be seen and heard. Nevertheless a big problem of the villages is education and rubbish collection. Rubbish is still often disposed in the sea as it was done since decades with the difference that in former times natural materials were used and nowadays lots of plastic. Scuba Junkie has installed a rubbish collection station and provides bags to every households. Once a week the rubbish is transported to the mainland. They also organize regular beach clean ups and educate children about environmental protection. But it only partly helps as the habits of decades only chance slowly.

Sunset over Mabul

Write your story here. (Optional)

Let´s talk about Food

Bic Mac Index: 1,8 € (Price for a Big Mac in Kuching)

Beside the classical western braches like Mc Donalds, KFC, etc. Chinese, Malay and Indian restaurants can be found widely and sometimes also exotic places like a Swedish restaurant in Kuching (the homemade Köttbullar was a nice variation). In seafood restaurant, you discuss with a waiter in front of many basins with all kind of critters what you want and how it should be prepared. Definitely worth a try. My personal favorite dish in Malaysia was the Laksa. A delicious noodle soup with curry, chicken and sometimes shrimps. It´s a perfect dish for lunch.

Button Label

Story Told With

Start publishing stories like this