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Published: August 7th 2008
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Hey all sorry for the delay in doing this and i am now trying to write this from memory as i have forgotten to bring my journal with me so may forget stuff, i know i have only been away just over a week but it feels longer!!!
Well as you know i left on mon night and the flight was delayed which meant i only just made it to the connecting flight in bangkok on time - it is such a big airport and i think i went the longet way possible so had to run!! Anyway flew to Kuala Lumper and arrived there 23.20 (we are about 7hours infront of you) and then flew from there to Kota Kinabulu (KK) in the morning. Kota Kinabulu is in the north of borneo in the Sabah region.
On the plane to KK we were speaking to an Indian man called Ambah, he manages a palm oil estate in the Sabah region, and he intitially offered us a lift from the airport into town but we ended up going to stay with him! His friend Sam, a huge indian man, picked us up in his pick up and then we
all went to lunch. The lunch came on banana leaves and involved a lot of spicy food and i was sure i was going to be on the toilet for days - but so far so good!!! After lunch we drove for 2hours to Keningau. To get there we had to drive over the Crocker Range national park which was beautiful, also had a great view of the mountain (Kinabulu - which is the highest mountain in Borneo) and so many steep hills and sharp bends and Sam seemed to spend most of his time on the phone driving on the wrong side of the road!!!
When we arrived in Keningau we went to Ambah's office and then to the local eating centre - loads of different little stands under one roof - and Ambah bought us some mushrooms which are a traditional local dish. Very nice, however, they seem to eat sooooo much here even for me!! and they eat with their fingers which is quite cool. After we had eaten we dropped Sam off and then drove out to the palm oil estate. It was about a 2 hour drive with at least half of it being a
off road dirt track into the jungle! At this point did wonder slightly what we may have got ourselves into!! It was pitch black (gets dark here at about 6.30pm) and we were with a man we hardly knew on a dirt track literally in the middle of nowhere!! But hey you only live once!! The drive along this track involved some serious off roading and Ambah said that often when it rains the road gets washed away - again not filling me with confidence if you could see the drop at the side of the road! Plus the largest insect i have ever seen landed in the car and i couldnt reach to close the window oppostite me so was imaging all kinds of spiders crawling in!!
On arriving at the Palm estate the day to day manager met us there, they have a generator for elec which is switched off at 10pm. The manager's wife and family live in the main building which none of the workers are allowed into. The writing on the wall made me laugh - 'stay calm, think before any job!!' His wife cooked us the most amazing meal of noodles and vegatables
and then we had teh tarik - which is a really sweat frothy tea. After dinner had a shower, well stood in a room and chucked cold water over myself using a bucket which they refer to as showering!! Was actually really refreshing but did spend the first 10 mins checking for spiders!! The toilet however was a different matter, have still not mastered the hole in the ground squat and they dont use paper just have a hose or pale of water. I am sure this is a very much better way of washing yourself but cant work out how to do it without completely soaking yourself and all your clothes!! Went to bed about 11pm and the sound from the jungle and the nearby streams were amazing.
Up at 5.30am to wash and get ready for muster - which is the daily role call for the workers. There are about 80 workers and some of their families living on the estate and they work in groups each with different jobs. The ave pay is between 12 - 30 RM a day which is not that much when there are 6.4 RM to the pound. The estate is
On the Wall
Written by the workers in the palm oil plantation in total 4000 acres and Ambah says this is small. He took us all round annd explained all the process to us from start to finish. Malaysia is the largest exporter of palm oil and the majority comes from the Sabah region. It is such a gorgeous estate so quite surrounded by jungle. After breakfast Ambah took us to the oil mill where his palm fruits are processed. Mr Gunn the manager here showed us round, it was really interesting but bloody smelly! We werent allowed to take any pictures unfortunately so you cant see wht i looked like in white hard hat which didnt fit!! Every part of the palm collected is used in one way or another. Then we drove back to Keningau where Ambah bought us lunch and then paid for our bus ticket back to KK. He would not let us pay for anything at all, he even offered to hire us a rental car!! He was such a nice man, extremely intelligent and talked alot about his Hindu religion. It was a brill experience which was completely unexpected.
The next morning we flew to Sandakan and stayed in the Selligan hotel and
i got flu!! Was literally dying!! We had arranged to do a day trip to the Gonmantang caves but when we went to pay it was fully booked so the tour lady gave us the number of a local taxi driver who she said would guide us. It is really difficult to do this trip indepently because very few cars will tke you there because the roads are so bad so the only other way was to get dropped off at the junction and make the 5km walk, which in 36* with a temp did not really seem like fun!! Our taxi man picked us up at 10.30am - he was called Abdul but call himself Ringo Star!! and he was crazy! Hi fav saying was its ok no problem!!
The cave is one which is harvested for its birds nest which are used for birds nest soup and are worth a fortune. It is a really dangerous buisness collecting them though because they are just using bamboo ladders and climbing up metres, three people died from falls last year. They were just setting up when we got there, the harvesting season begins in august. There were also millions
of bats in the cave and there is walkway round the edge but we decided to get off this and walk in the bat poo!! It was absolutely crawling with cockroaches and beattles. Up to my knees in shit - just the way i like it!! The real treat however, came when were about to leave and we spotted two orang- utans in the tree by the cave. So amazing to see them in the wild. As soon as they spotted us they quickly dissapeared into the leaves.
Next we went to Kinabatagan (may be spelt wrong cos havent got anything here to check at the moment) river for a boat trip. One of Ringo's friends took us up the river and we saw more orangutans, proboscis monkeys (with very funny long noses!), a yellow ringed cat snake and my favorite pygamy elepants!! We were so close to them it was absoutely amazing, the boat man kept the engine running incase we needed to move away in a hurry!! But there were about ten of them and two babies and they just stood looking right at us. And then they dissapeared back into the jungle, it was wicked the way
Chainsaw Man
All the wooden planks to build the houses are cut by the chainsaw man!! something so big could just dissapear out of sight. But you could still hear them crashing around.
The next day we were picked up for a three day two night stay at nature lodge which is back on the Kninabatagon river.
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Mumsy
non-member comment
WOW!
what more can I say....WOW!! And Soooo wish I was there with you! Miss you, but pleased you are experiencing life! xxx