Sabah - Land Below The Wind

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To start off, some may be wondering exactly where, and what, Sabah is. Sabah is one of the two East Malaysian states on the island of Borneo (the other being Sarawak). Borneo itself is the 2nd largest island on the planet and is home to the 2 East Malaysian states and The State of Brunei, Abode Of Peace (to give it it's full, rather splendid official title) and the Indonesian province of Kalimantan. Jungle-clad Kalimantan covers the majority of Borneo with the other 3 states squeezed along the Northern Coast. (Pub quiz fans, our own dear England/Wales/Scotland combo ranks number 8 in the largest island stakes.)

Sabah is growing as an eco-tour/nature holiday destination with a wide range of opportunities to get up with-in smelling distance of wild and semi-wild animals, visit protected national parks or stretch out on some incredibly beautiful little islands. Unfortunately much of what is not protected appears to have been ripped down already to provide land for Palm Tree plantations which supply the Palm Oil which the local economy is built on. Hopefully the eco-tourist dollar flow into Sabah will continue to promote the protection efforts that have already been started.

Before flying to Sabah i had the joy of dealing with Air Asia. Turning up at the airport without a ticket i was forced to pay nearly double for my ticket and then had to try to circumvent Air Asia's ludicrously low luggage limit of 15kg. At first weigh-in my pack was just a little over at 23.5kg! Several wardrobe adjustments later and my pack was slimmed down to a svelte 16kg (the surplus 1kg gladly ignored). In perfect symmetry i blossomed as more layers were tied, tucked and stuffed anywhere they'd fit. Leaving a rather uncomfortable wait wearing multiple layers mid-afternoon in an Asian airport. Mmmm. Memories of my pre-Rocket airport run definitely came flooding (or should that be sweating!!) back.

My starting point in Sabah was it's provincial capial of Kota Kinabalu. KK is ok but lacks any real sights or activities and is more of a starting point en route to Sabah's star attractions that lie further afield. One of the few things in KK that has stacks of charm and character is Lucy's Homestay. A lovely little backpackers hostel/homestay Lucy's has a nice cozy homely feel and an absolutely lovely owner in Lucy. After many sterile backpackers/bamboo huts Lucy's felt more like being dropped in the middle of your grandma's house. Highly recommended.

The bulk of my time in KK was spent with a lovely Dutch girl Karin (and her friend whose name i forget) who's path was unfortunately going in completely the opposite direction to me. Main activities were Lucy loving, Toby bashing (more on him later), random wanderings, drunken Karaoke (the most terrifying think i have done yet and definitely not to be repeated) and a lot of frustration with dormitory living. I also felt happy after successfully booking all the tours i wanted on pretty much the dates i wanted. Virtually everyone else i later met seemed to have had to skip something due to scheduling problems so i felt rather lucky (and a little smug) to have got my big 5 of Mt. Kinabalu, Turtle Island National Park, Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Centre, Uncle Tan's River Tour and Scuba Diving at Sipadan without hassle.

I'll skip saying too much about the 2 towns i dipped in and out off en route to my big 5. These being Sandakan and Semporna. Neither have any charm. Sandakan appears to virtually completely close at 6pm. Luckily the Mayfair Hotel provides DVD players and a large DVD collection as standard with there rooms. The rooms are a bit more expensive (if you're a backpacker) at 50RM (approx 8GBP) but with KFC appearing to be the only option if you fancy "getting out" the entertainment is needed. (Random film thoughts. Miami Vice is really enjoyable though i have no idea why, it manages to simultaneously be completely crap and supercool. Maybe a boy-film. Casino Royale gets better every i watch it, Daniel Craig was the perfect, bring on Quantum of Solace, more of the same please. The new Bond's muse the Bourne Trilogy continued to bring the awesomeness too. The Bourne Ultimatum kept up the momentum of the first two and is a great film. Much like Daniel Craig for James Bond, Christian Bale looks a great choice to take on the Batman role. Batman Begins is great (apart from the massive hole in the plot), looking forward to the next one.) But anyway. Semporna is a dirty shit-hole but is the gateway to Sipadan so can be forgiven. Dragon's Inn has good rooms all built on stilits over the water though. Not much else to say

Mount Kinabalu

Climbing Mount Kinabalu (Gunung Kinabalu is Malay) was absolutely awesome. The climb is not too tough, not technically difficult, just an endurance test with a LOT of steps to deal with and a very, very early start to see the sunrise at the summit. It is hardwork, but the views at the top more then make it worthwhile.

The trip is typically done over 2 days. Guides are mandatory (though not necessary, the path is very clear) so it's better to get a group together to keep costs down. Luckily i found Colette (Essex) at Lucy's, and Fatimah (Reading) and Edo (Holland) on the way to the mountain and soon had a little climbing group together. The first day involves arriving early at base camp (1563m), sorting out guides/permits etc. and getting a lift up to the Timpohon Gate (1800m) to begin the ascent up to Laban Rata (3300m) where the night's accomodation lies. I curiously opted for non-heated, though this didn't turn out to be much of an issue. The path follows a 6km route along a clear path with lots and lots of steps. We arrived at Laban Rata around 4pm and not feeling particularly tired i wasn't too concerned about the following days climb. The 2nd day begins around 2am to make the final 2.8km ascent up to Low's Peak (4095m) before sunrise. So common sense, which virtually everyone else followed, dictates getting into bed around 8pm and actually getting some shut-eye. Fats and me had other plans though and didn't make it into bed until past midnight. To make a sensible choice seem even more sensible one of the guys in my dorm was in and out with altitude sickness and i "awoke" after my "sleep" feeling spectacularly fresh. The last bit of the climb was over naked granite, no steps but a continual gradient to slowly trudge up. Tiredness, and the altitude, made the last 0.5km a whole lot of hard work and getting to the peak, and my reward of Dairy Milk, couldn't have come any sooner. Once there everyone huddled together, or in between rocks to keep warm while we waited for the sun.

Kinabalu's peak at 4,095m is often promoted as SE Asia's tallest mountain. This is wrong, Hkakabo Razi in Myanmar (5881 m), and Puncak Jaya (4884 m) and Puncak Trikora (4750 m) in Papua, Indonesia are all markedly taller. But this matters little. Once the sun comes up the views are stunning. Often mists roll in soon after sunrise leaving climbers with only a short glimpse over the sprawling hills of Borneo. Luckily we had a beautifully clear day and got to enjoy the views for as long as we wanted.

The long walk down felt much more punishing then the climb up. The trek down is broken up with breakfast at Laban Rata but doing 8.8km downhill, down a lot of steps is very demanding. The legs, and particularly the knees take a pounding. Post climb we took ourselves to Poring Hot Springs for some soothing rejuvenating soaking. However less the natural spring we were expectating, more excrutiatingly slow filling little hot tubs Poring Hot Springs was absolutely shit.

Turtle Island National Park

The islands in this national park are unique in that Turtles come ashore year round to lay eggs unlike most other turtle beaches which have a season. There is a peak season here, when upwards of 50 turtles come ashore each night, but even during off-season 3 or 4 turtles come ashore nightly. Only the females come ashore, laying, and burying their eggs, before heading back out to sea. The wardens at the park then relocate the eggs to help control their temperature (the sex of the hatchlings is very dependent on the temperature of the eggs), and keep predators away. 2 months later the little hatchlings emerge and head out to sea to fend for themselves (where unfortunately a lot end up as a tasty appertiser for some other aquatic life).

Visitors stay on Selingan Island which is a beautiful little island. It's beauty enhanced by only 50 guests and the resident wardens being allowed on the island at any one time giving it a deserted paradise feel.

The actual turtle sighting itself was part amazing, part disappointing. Only one turtles egg laying session is interupted by the group which results in 50 people crammed round one turtle all fighting to get a picture, or even a view of what was going on. This would seriously benefit from having less people on the island, or splitting people into 2 groups. Though i understand that more people means more money for the conservation effort and one group means everyone (hopefully) sees a turtle. Realistically you'd be pretty pissed if you were in the 2nd group and only 1 turtle came in. Still the trip is expensive and only getting a glimpse of what you've paid for because the tour is oversubscribed isn't great (other people i've met have done similar tours elsewhere where the max group size was 10-12 people). Further there were no hatchlings on my night which added to the disappointment.

All in all this tour could have been a lot better and i was left hoping that Sipadan would deliver much more on the turtle front.

Sepilok Orang-Utans Rehibilitation Centre

Orang-Utans and Macaquees feeding and generally monkeying around. Awesome. Enough said.

Well i'll say a little more. The Orang-Utans on show here are semi-wild having been slightly tamed due to their crack addictions. These poor primates are exploited by shady ganglord types and are trained into lives of crime and petty primate theft. Brought into the towns they are taught how to steal from children, single mothers, OAPs and undernourished minorities in order to feed their growing habit. Luckily the good people at Sepilok step in and stop this shameless trade where they can and after prolonged group therapy sessions the primates are usually once again off the crack and back on the bananas. So remember, Drugs don't just ruin lives, they can ruin monkeys too.

Or maybe i got the wrong end of it?!!

Uncle Tan's Wildlife Tours

This was a 3 day, 2 night river tour made a little bit different by the fact that the River Kinabatangan (Sabah's longest, Malaysia's 2nd) had flooded Uncle Tan's camp. The entire camp was nipple deep in murky brown water. Trips to the (floating) toilet, or your room, or anywhere requiring a boat (and patience).

The high waters meant that instead of a combination of boat trips and hiking we'd have to make do with boat trips. This wasn't too bad but did get a little tiresome near the end. Lots of Probocious Monkeys and Macaquess were seen (the later making daily attacks on camp to source some food), a few Orang-Utans, some Gibbons (apparently a rare sight), lots of birds, and some rather large monitor lizards (one of which also came to have a look around camp). Unfortunately without a decent zoom getting good pictures was nigh on impossible.

The group were ok though not particularly exciting. This was the first time i'd found myself somewhere thinking i don't really particularly get on with anyone. But with nearly 5 months clocked up in Asia thats not too bad going me thinks.

An odd little highlight of the trip was watching our toilet being towed off downstream on the day we left. Very surreal

Sipadan/Mabul Island

My final stop was Suba Diving at Sipadan, rated as one of the top 10 (or top 5 depending who you ask) dives sites in the world and home to a substantial population of greenback and hawksbill sea turtles. In a rare, and commendable, step the Malaysian government kicked all the dive shops/resorts off the island in 2004 to help preserve the islands special eco-system. Limited numbers of divers are then let in each day using permits which are surprisingly strictly adhered to. I saw people being told to get off boats because their dive school did not have enough permits for them to do ther 3rd dive of the day! Gutted!!!

Unable to stay on Sipadan i stayed at Uncle Chang's resort based on lovely little Mabul Island nearby. Mabul is a beautiful little island. Walking around it takes about 45 mins. The little village is full of friendly children (making you wonder exactly what the adults do all day) who all demand to have their picture taken (and don't ask for money in exchange!). I managed to get a good group of people together at Uncle Changs as well as Toby. Never before have i met someone who was soo good at creeping people out. In KK and in Mabul Toby managed to rub just about every female he came into contact with up the wrong way. A slightly overweight ginger fellow Toby was certainly not a looker but had somehow convinced himself he had a special talent with the women (which he did, just not how he thought). The problem was if his looks were average at best, his personality was even worse. Be it not leaving the room, or even turning around when girls came into a dorm towel-wrapped post shower. Or boasting about lovely Lucy forgetting to charge him for a night (despite her waking up at 4am every morning to let him in without complaint). Or asking to be put in the same room as 2 Malay girls who had spent 2 days less and less subtley showing they were not interested (who quickly asked me to move in to block his seedy plans). Or constantly talking about his Yellow Fever (and i don't mean the disease!) Toby, despite his self-image, managed to totally disgust every woman i saw him come into contact with. Legendary. Never have i seen someone with such skills.

But anyway, before i could dive Sipadan i wanted to complete PADI advanced open water course. This required 5 speciality dives which i did around Mabul. A navigation dive (hilarious for Johan and my attempts to trace out a square). A night dive (different but not quite as spectactular as i'd hoped for). A deep dive (now allowed to go to 30m). A peak performance bouyancy dive (does what it says on the tin). And a fish aware dive (not sure exactly what we were really doing on this one). In reality their is little to do to get the certification and it is a case of turning up to do the dives and paying PADI their fee to get the certification. We messed up the navigation big time but that wasn't cause to not pass us. Perhaps cause to never go out without a guide! After not diving for 5 months it took a couple of dives to find my feet (or should that be fins) again. On the 1st dive especially i annilihated my air and had to share my instructor Eric's air so we could stay down a reasonable time. It all soon came back though.

After a day off my last day on Mabul involved the trip out to Sipadan. Simply stunning. On one dive i stopped counting turtles at 20. We saw 3 swim past in formation, some surfacing for air, some plunging down to the depths, some scratching their shells on the coral, and plenty just swimming round. For animals which seems slow and cumbersome on land the turtles look like the epitome of elegance and grace when effortlessly gliding through the sea. And it wasn't like turtles were the only things to see. There were a few white-tip sharks around, though none came too close. Healthy vibrant colourful coral and scores and scores of beautiful fish which i have no idea of the names of. Sipadan blew away all the few other dive sites i have seen. Truly mesmerising.

Well ok - this is quite long now so i'll stop here! Miss everyone lots - think i'm actually feeling a little homesick now after 5 months away but sure that'll pass soon! Big love to all x

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