Blogs from Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 118

url='/Videos/3356.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/3356.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Kids dancing in Miruru After 2 days at Borneo Paradise Resort chilling out…..well trying, as we had to use that opportunity to clean clothes and get ready for our next project - sort food rations and tools etc… Anyway we headed to Miruru for the community Phase: a small village about a 5 hour drive south of Kota Kinnabalu. The Village had little running water and a few houses with no electricity so we were there to build a “Water Gravity feed System’ from the source of the river 4km away into the village. The project was challenging and a lot of hard work but very rewarding. The Villages spoke Dusan as their first language and Malay second and very little English so they were not familiar with white people and were very shy ... read more

The highlights of a trip to Sabah include the diving at Pulau Sipadan, the Orang-Utangs at Sepiloc and climbing Mount Kinabalu. Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain between the Himalayas and Papua Burat (New Guinea Island). It's a very steep climb from 1,800m to 4,100m through 3 different ecological zones. The park surrounding this massive granite rock is a world heritage site with one of the greatest ecological diversities on earth. You can tell the tourists who have just climbed the mountain. They're the ones that limp; that can't, or at least don't want to walk up steps. I was one of Mount Kinabalu's victims. It's not the climb up the mountain that's the problem. It's the walk back down. For days after my ascent of the mountain I was intimidated by the high kerbs on ... read more

I am in a world of pain. Mrs Deane is in a world of pain that appears worse than mine. I don't think she'll be allowing me to drag her up any big mountains in the near future. I am of course talking about our assault on Mount Kinabalu, the largest mountain in South East Asia standing at 4095.2m. A big bugger... Anyway, all the details will come a little later in the program as well as lots of pictures and other stuff. When we left you last we were awaiting a flight to Malaysia. I had also mentioned that we had kind of cheated in our visit to Phi Phi as we didn't head there in the true spirit of travellers. We were keen to make up for this and did it in style by ... read more

Our launch ceremony, which was held on 6th March, was a tremendous success, and attended by project partners, sponsors, press, participants and staff. The programme was officially opened by Puan Suzannah Liaw, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth & Sports Sabah, and the evening concluded with some lively traditional Malay Dancing, including the Sumazu dance, which involves dancing nimbly in between bamboo poles which are being clapped together. There was, of course, extensive audience involvement in the dancing, from both participants and staff, some of whom were more successful than others in avoiding getting their ankles nipped by the bamboo poles. ... read more

The Participants! Last week, the first batch of participants arrived, a group of 19 Malaysian young people, they were greeted by the staff and taken to ‘Jungle Camp’ to begin expedition training. They then prepared to welcome their international team mates with a local song and some traditional Malaysian dancing the next morning. The following day, the rest of our participants arrived, in total we’ll have around 110 participants and 29 staff across three phases of the programme. They hail mostly from the UK and Malaysia, but we are joined by participants and staff from Canada, Chile, the Netherlands, Ireland, Ghana, Australia and Lithuania. They have all volunteered to have come to Sabah to work together, to help the environment and local communities, as well as to embark on what for many will be a ... read more