Some sort of hut at St. James Park…

Birds at St. James Park…

Somewhere in London, no idea what it is when I went inside; it’s sort of like a library and a park, but thought that it looks cool to have places like that at the corner of a busy street…

Many foreigners still mistaken London Bridge with Tower Bridge, the real London Bridge looks ordinary like this…

This is the Tower Bridge; the middle of the bridge was raised occasionally to allow the flow of cruises…

Tower Bridge at night…

Reading thousands of books is unmatchable to walking thousand miles of roads

True that, every journey provides wonderful experience and great memories, regardless of overseas or in Malaysia.

It’s also special to have gathered with some old buddies again, and met some new friends.

This is how we started and ended our 9d Sabah journey..

24-March-2006
Departed to Kota Kinabalu on an AirAsia airbus.

25-March-2006
Drove to Kudat to visit Tip of Borneo, longhouse and honey bees farm.

26-March-2006
Island hopping at Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, Snorkelling, parasailing and a nice sunset at KK Waterfront.

27-March-2006
An 8 hour journey to visit Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary.

28-March-2006
Began our Mt Kinabalu hiking from Mesilau to Laban Rata, made it in 9 hours and heavy rain.

29-March-2006
Unable to conquer the peak of Mt Kinabalu, walked down the mountain using Timpohon Trial.

30-March-2006
Departed from Pine Resort to Poring Hot Spring, walked the canopy and saw Rafflesia.

Dropped by Kundasang War Memorial before heading back to Kota Kinabalu.

31-March-2006
Went for Padas white water rafting before headed to Klias Wetland for prosboscis monkeys.

1-April-2006
Leaving KK, back to KL.

Thanks for the girls (especially EP) for organizing the wonderful trip, thanks to CheeMing in Sabah for coordinating things for us and getting us the discounts.

We arrived at our resort almost evening and hopped on a motorboat where it took us into the mangroves swamp in search of the monkey famous for its big nose.

It’s not easy to spot the proboscis monkeys, and not easy to see it clearly even with a binocular. YM used her 40x zoom camera to took the photo (left), which still required a bit of editing, and that’s as good as it gets.

We spotted a few ‘shadows’ of the proboscis monkeys before the sky turned yellowish red, yes it’s sunset, and I always love sunset.

We had some difficulties when getting back to the resort, our boat engine jammed a few times. Just as we thought we were ending the day with bad luck, we saw something clipping from the trees.. Fire flies!

It’s a pretty cool scene to watch, the trees with bit of light clipping here and there, it’s pretty amazing. Too bad our cameras don’t have the ability to catch any photos (or maybe we just didn’t know how to).

We made it just in time to the resort to enjoy the buffet dinner, a bit of seafood and meat, and some great pancakes. We ended the night watching a musical video from Rod Steward, it’s the final night we had in our Sabah trip.

There’s another round of boat trip the next morning, not much excitement as we knew what to expect anyway.

We headed back to Kota Kinabalu, grabbed our luggage and went for a bit of souvenior hunt at the Filipino market before finally heading to the airport.

Ending of a great Sabah trip, I’ll be back again!

I always wonder why it’s called WHITE water rafting.. water is never white, and in the Padas river scenario, it’s more like a brown-ish teh tarik.

Padas water rafting is rated as grade 3 by international standard, and if it’s raining season.. it could get to grade 4. We were ‘lucky’ that it’s a rainy season, and it rained heavily just a night before, so.. it’s good lol.

Each boat was guided by at least an intrustor and an assistant, we were joined by another dozens of adventure-seekers and were briefed by a guide before boarding the raft.

We were also taught to learn body rafting and how to handle cases when we fell into the river.. actually everything was kinda exciting the moment we stepped into the raft and got into the middle of the river.

The journey was dang fun, it’s an hour of adrenaline pumping, gut rushing and exhaustion. Time passed by pretty fast though, we didn’t realized that 60 minutes had passed when we ended our adventure.

That’s shower and buffet provided at our ending point, a nice and fun experience that I would recommend to everyone.

Ability to swim is not a necessity, the instructors and guides are great rescuers. Well knowing how to swim will perhaps prevent some excessive water drinking, like our CY with stomach full of free teh tarik.

I actually had a water-proof camera with me, but I forgot to bring it along when leaving our bags at the drop point. The tour organizer did get a photographer to snap our photos, with a price.. but worth every cents in my opinion.

At first we thought we would be visiting a museum of some sort, turned out it was more to a garden memorial, with great decor of plants and flowers.

The Kundasang War Memorial is one of the Sabah’s 3 memorials dedicated to the WW2 heroes and heroins, the other 2 is in Labuan and Sandakan.

I am not sure if it was originally a POW prison or even a fortress of the Japanese Imperial Army.. point is, it’s a historic symbol to a violent past, which we hope will not repeat itself in anytime.

I felt like staying at the resort for another day, I love it pretty much. Lovely decor, plants, flowers, nice staffs and comfortable room.

The only thing that s*cked was the water heater, which I don’t need anyway. If anyone happen to spend a night around Mt Kinabalu, consider Pine Resort.

We left the resort to head for Poring Hot Spring. My friends enjoyed the spring water very much, not for me perhaps. See, I’m the type of people that don’t like to bath in warm water, not at all.

Anyhow around the hot spring area, there’s plenty of nice place to wander around. It’s a enjoyable place to be at regardless.

After soaking in the hot spring water for some hours, my buddies and I decided to take the canopy walk. CY was sick then, probably taken too many heat from the hot spring..

Getting to the canopy walk was stupid, a few hundreds metres of climbing.. probably not a good option after some exhausting hours from Mt Kinabalu just a day ago.

Anyhow we still got to the canopy walk.. it’s not as long as the Pahang Taman Negara canopy walk, probably not as high as well. It’s nothing much for me, probably would be a bit more exciting for people that are fear of heights.

Just as we were about to leave and head back to Kota Kinabalu, we were told that there’s some Rafflesia plants nearby in a private land.

We decided to give it a visit. This was the first time I got up close and personal with the largest flower spesies on earth, and it’s the kind of flower that you won’t like to smell.. it stinks.

So it’s another day at Sabah, 2 more days to go before flying back to Kuala Lumpur.

After some meals and rest, we started going down the mountain at around 1130am from Laban Rata.. destination, Timpohon Gate.

The Timpohon Trial is shorter than Mesilau Trial, and although it’s going down, it’s still estimated a 3-4 hours of walking needed, with lots of strain on the knee and ankle.

Well the weather was better than when we were hiking up a day before, as we going down the mountain I was feeling better and better.. pretty obvious I was having some altitude sickness back at Laban Rata, which didn’t matter anymore.

We seen people from all around the world when we were walking down.. from US, UK, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, France, Finland and fellow Malaysians. Welcome to Sabah and hope they enjoyed their trekking.

Timpohon Trail is definitely not as scenic as Mesilau Trail, but we still managed to capture our view on some flora and fauna.

We reached the Timpohon Gate in different time, HL actually jogged down in just 2 hours with most of us reaching in around 4 and a half hours.. CY was suffering with some dead leg and took just more than 5 hours to reach the end with the mountain guide.

A coach was arranged for us, we went to the headquaters and got the certificates before heading to Pine Resort, which we would spent our night.

The resort was suprisingly a good place with great view.. what a nice place to end the 2 day of exhausting event.

Even when sitting on the bed I had to take continuos deep breath, my heart was bumping like bull rushing and I felt like wanted to vomit.

Not sure if it was mountain sickness, or over-exhaustion, or as my friend suggested panic attack (I don’t think so).. whatever it was, I was not feeling well.

I took some pills and some hot drink try to make me feel better, it didn’t really work.. I had a decision to make, to climb or not to climb.

At first I thought of giving up, but with some encouragement from my buddies, and that we wanted to celebrate one of our mate’s birthday at the peak, I decided to hang on and hike the mountain.

It’s 230am, the Mt Kinabalu Summit Trail was opened for hiking.. it’s going to be a 3 hours hiking up, and I was going for it despite the ill feeling..

Things obviously didn’t went as well as I wished, just after 5 minutes of walking I almost lost my step.. I couldn’t really stayed focus and suddenly I realized how dangerous it could be to climb to the peak with my condition.

I’d to call it a quit. I wished my friends luck and strolled back to my room. At that moment I was not sure how I felt, I was just so blur and couldn’t even climbed up a double decker bed. I was not sure if I slept or fainted, the next thing I remembered was waking up at around 5am.

Feeling slightly better I walked out of the dorm, the sky was clear and full of stars, it’s so beautiful.. and I wondered where were my friends then, were they at the peak yet, or still trying their best to do so.

At that moment I started to felt a bit regret and disappointed, I probably could have tried just a bit harder.. or maybe not. A song suddenly rang in my mind, it’s weird but I bursted into laughter, with no one around.

Ya.. it’s “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter..

BAD DAY by Daniel Powter

Where is the moment we need at the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion’s gone away
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life’s been way off line
You’re falling to pieces everytime
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

You had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day

(Oh.. Holiday..)

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I’m not wrong

(yeah…)

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You’ve seen what you like
And how does it feel for one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

(lyrics from letssingit.com)

I went back to my room, packed myself and took some more rest.. and was woke up by some noices at around 7am. Some other hikers were coming back from the peak after the sunrise.

I walked to out of the dorm, the sky was blue, the air was cool.. life was beautiful. Suddenly it appeared that I wasn’t that disappointed after all, it’s just a bad day but still many days to come.

I gave myself a grin, next year.. next year I will be back again, with better fitness and preparation.. and next year, I will make it to the peak of Mt Kinabalu, and I swear I will.

We had to wake up at 3am and started our journey from Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary back to Mesilau Nature Resort. It was a ~5 hours drive and we arrived at the starting point of Mt Kinabalu Mesilau Trail at around 830am.

We waited a while for our guide Duis, bought our walking stick (RM3) and started our hiking.

For information, there are 2 trails to go to the Laban Rata mid-checkpoint of Mt Kinabalu, the Timpohon Trail and the Mesilau Trail. Mesilau (~7km to Laban Rata) is actually about 1km longer than Timpohon but it’s said that Mesilau is easier to climb and much beautiful.

Heck.. whatever. Our guide told us that we would probably need 5-6 hours to reach Laban Rata, and since that my friends were all hyped up and decided not to hire porter to carry our bags, I followed the team and carried my own 7kg loaded bag.

Carrying the bag was a mistake for me, I felt exhaustion just after an hour walking.. obviously I didn’t share the same fitness as my mates. One of our girl actually carried 13kg and made it to the top, brava to her.

Anyhow I was lucky that the guide offered to carry my bag, charging the same rate as the mountain porter (RM7-8 per kg). Thanks to him I still managed to continue walking with my mates’ pace.

Just as I thought things were getting better and started enjoy some scenery.. the sky turned dark and in minutes it started raining. It was just 11am, we are not half way through yet..

At first the rain was dropping mildly, we had to slow down our pace a bit. Our guide had estimated a delay on arriving Laban Rata, probably will reach there by 4pm.

We walked and we walked and as the attitude increased I began to feel the shortness of breath, the air was getting thinner.. and cooler too.

Things turned from bad to worse at around 2pm.. the rain started pouring without mercy. It’s not like a storm or something, but enough to soak everyone wet even with raincoats.. and it was cold.

The heavy rain slowed our pace further, most of us were still 1km away from our first destination at 4pm, that’s after 7 hours of hiking. Gosh I had not been enduring this kind of physical challenge since I was aged 17.

The trail was actually the steepest in the last 1000m, I seriously felt the difficulty of thin air and began to trail behind my friends, I didn’t ask them to wait for me as it’s plain useless to have everyone soaked in the rain waiting for the last man. I still had the guide to accompany me anyway.

That must had been my longest journey of my life, I actually took almost 2 hours to hike the last 1000m.. hell knows how did I made it, even I myself was not sure how I spent that 2 hours, it’s so blur and exhausting, but yes I at least made it to Laban Rata.

I joined my friends and had a great dinner, took a hot shower and jumped to bed. That’s still plenty to conquer for the next morning, the peak was the ultimate destination.

We rented a coach (a van actually) to drive us from Kota Kinabalu to Sepilok, which will took us an estimated 8 hours to reach there.

The driver AhBoi was a cute and good looking guy, the gals all went crazy about him.. all the way during the trip was “AhBoi this.. AhBoi that.. AhBoi blah blah.. AhBoi.. AhBoi..”

On the way we got the chance to have a look at Mount Kinabalu from a close range.. it was grand and majestic.. and that’s the mountain that we would climb the next day.

We reached Sepilok at around 330pm and checked in to the lounge, and was told that the Orang Utan park was supposed to close at 4pm.

We rushed to the park in hopes of catching some shadows of the apes, despite being told at the ticket counter that we were not guaranteed to see any of the Orang Utans because of the time constraint, we still got in anyway.

We search and we search.. and luckily a few of the Orang Utans were still at the feeding spot enjoying their meals.

8 hours of travel to see a few apes that can be seen at some zoos, so was it worth it? I still have no clue until now, well probably yes.. at least I can tell the world that I’d been to Sepilok to see Orang Utans.

The lounge we were staying was quite a nice place, the owner was actually from my hometown Ipoh (as well as most of my travel mates). We had some great chat and she recommended us a better route to travel Sabah next time, which I will reveal later.

(The 2 orang utan photos were taken by my travel pal, Za)