An epic pilgrimage

Excited to find the Rafflesia

Today was nothing short of a pilgrimage! I went to the Sunday Market in Gaya Street but there wasn't much I wanted - well there was a cat I would have liked to take home but not sure how Quarantine would feel about that. I remembered there was a Sunday market in Kota Belud, so I went back and used my new knowledge to get in a nice air-conditioned taxi cheaply. Oops! There weren't any so I was stuck with a van. My legs are too long to fit in the seats so I spent an hour and a half basically sitting on the woman next to me, hotter than Hades and wondering what on earth I was thinking! (Silly woman could have swapped seats with me but ignored me when I suggested it... her loss!) About ten minutes into the trip I remembered that an English man I met yesterday had seen a Rafflesia near Poring, and I thought "damn, I should have gone to Ranau!" I got out at Kota Belud and went to the market. Picked up a couple of things, then spent about 15 minutes walking around town. I felt like a circus freak, everyone was staring at me! In Lahad Datu I was a celebrity, here I was just plain strange.

The big smelly flower!!!

There wasn't much happening so I went back to the bus depot hoping to find a bus to Ranau. Of course, there IS no bus to Ranau from Kota Belud so I had to get a taxi. I'm starting to see the dollar signs add up at this point, but they put me in a share taxi and then dropped me at a random place near Tuaran so I could get on a bus. I hadn't even sat down before a huge coach came by with "Sandakan" on the front. It was the right direction so I flagged it down and got on board. To my surprise it was extremely comfortable and there was a movie playing. It took around an hour and a half to get to Ranau and I was starting to wonder how (whether!) I would get home, and perhaps I should have brought a few more things or worn proper shoes. I decided I was prepared to stay a night there if I had to, even if I didn't have my stuff with me. The bus dropped me off at a suitably empty stretch of road, but a troupe of young men gave me a clue that civilisation wasn't far away. I walked towards some shops, saw a transportation booth and walked over, just in time to watch her close it for the day. It was only about 2:30. I asked in my best Malay where the bus was and she pointed (with her thumb, as they all do here) in a direction, so I started walking, jalung jalung. Walked straight through a game of hackeysack that had the entire town watching (oops) and down to where I could see Unsers (the nice airconditioned share taxis).

Cacao tree

Here followed a conversation involving koalas and various offers for taxis to take me to Poring, none of which were within a bull's roar of what I was willing to pay. Finally I found a van that would take me, wait for me then bring me back. When we got underway he asked how long I wanted to stay at the hot springs. I explained that I didn't care two hoots for the hot springs, all I wanted was to see a Rafflesia. He was happy (and a bit relieved) then because he knew where one was. We drove straight there, a family had a sign on the side of the road saying "blooming Rafflesia". By now I knew to ask how many days old it was, since they only last 9 days then die and smell like rotting meat. I was glad to hear that this was a "tiga hari Rafflesia" (3 days), and happily handed over my 20 ringgit. A young boy led me along a track and up a short jungle path for about 5 minutes, and there, under a shade tent, was a blooming Rafflesia about 60cm across. Fantastic!!! I took plenty of photos, and then we left! On the way back he showed me Cacao trees, one with ripe pods. I got back in the van, muddy but very happy. Back to Ranau, and I was in great luck because the last Unser for the day was just about to leave. I got in and enjoyed the air-conditioned 2 hour drive back to KK.

The day, however, did not end there. I got dropped at Warisan Square, where there are about a billion massage places but one in particular which has a fish spa. Having done this in Singapore, I was excited to have all the dead skin eaten off my feet by small hungry fish. It took me 10 minutes to convince them that I didn't want to take up their "special promotion" and only wanted the fish spa. 4 cups of different herbal teas, 5 mins foot scrub, 15 minutes in a fish spa and 25 ringgit later, I walked down to the fish market with a spring in my step. Navigating the seafood sellers, I ordered tiga rasa fish and watermelon juice, and happily chatted away to the Filipino chef (who offered to take me to the Philippines and on a "special" tour of KK...) He said he had just moved into the staff quarters and so didn't have to pay rent anymore. The rent was ridiculous, he said, it was 200 ringgit a month. I thought to myself, well I just spent 150 ringgit to go and see a bloody flower today. How different our lives are.

Crying into my cornflakes - selamat tinggal Yvonne!

Yvonne's "shark"

Yvonne left at 5:30 this morning to go to Johor Bahru, so of course I am missing her! It was so good to have such a great travel buddy. Not that I can't travel on my own of course but so many times today I wanted to say "oh look!" or something and she wasn't there.

I woke up (again) and had breakfast very quickly due to the revolting manners of one of my fellow dining patrons at the hotel. I had 2 hours before checkout so I went walking to the tourist info centre and along to the Filipino handcrafts market, which was about ten thousand degrees inside. And most of the stuff is rubbish. But I ran into a lovely couple from New Zealand who are living in Miri, working for a few years before they retire. They gave me their number to call them when I go there, which was very nice.

Went back to the hotel to stay another night but they wanted to raise the price so I checked out and went to the backpackers 5 doors down. It's called Masada Backpackers and it's actually really nice, they're the ones who helped us get to Kinabalu Park yesterday. There are only a few rooms (sleeps around 30 people?) and I am in a six-share with one other girl. The mattresses are comfy and it's airconditioned so I'm happy, and it's a quarter of the price of the other hotel - 35 ringgit ($11). Expensive laundry service though so once again I am doing a reasonable impression of a backpacker. I do have a new t-shirt though which is pretty exciting! Trust me to wear it on a day when there's nobody to take photos of me anymore. From the photos so far it looks like I did Borneo in a day.

No pencils in the toilet, thanks. 

I took the shuttle bus to 1Borneo shopping mall, which was a bit of a strange experience actually. I'm not sure whether it's just because I can't read any of the signs, or whether I just didn't feel like shopping. The website is grossly misleading, there is no Seaworld there (yet... looks like it's still "on its way") and the food is limited to overpriced fast-food. I went back to town and visited the seafood market... wow. There were more mantis shrimp than I could count (and I get SO excited when I see one :( ) and one tank had four sad moray eels in it. I can't imagine moray tasting very nice. They were very insistent that I sit down and eat but even though I was hungry, I couldn't do justice to a fish tonight. So I went to a restoran cafe instead and had mee goreng ayam (chicken fried noodles).

Diving blog!

Yvon and I

Since I didn't have any internet on Mabul I didn't get to update the blog while I was scuba diving. But it's done now, 3 days worth. Here are the links!

Day 1 Scuba Junkie
Day 2 Dive! Dive! Dive!
Day 3 Frogfish and Pygmy Seahorses

Mt Kinabalu Park

Signs in the forest

Although we rocked into town at midnight last night, we got up early this morning to go to Mt Kinabalu Park. After breakfast at the hotel (noodles, rice, curry, fruit) we asked at the desk how to get to the park on the bus. She tried to get us to book an expensive tour but we said no, we just wanted to go on the bus, and she looked at us like we were totally insane creatures. "One moment, I will find out." We waited about 10 minutes and finally she handed the phone to me, where a man said "I am the driver, it is 350 ringgit..." We gave up, obviously the clientele here does NOT take the bus anywhere (no great shock I suppose) and walked around to the backpackers down the street where a lady happily walked us over to a taxi area. We thought she said 60 ringgit but it turned out to be RM16 ($4.50) for a 2 hour ride in a shared airconditioned car. Score!

Wild orchids everywhere

I actually slept most of the way but the view was really nice, though we couldn't see the mountain because of low cloud. We got there, found a trail map and proceeded to get thoroughly lost and take 3 hours to do a 1 hour trek! We had a good walk though, beginning in the botanical gardens. I was disappointed because it's supposed to be pitcher plant central, but I only found one tiny one. There are 9 species in the park including a giant one that can hold 3 litres of water, but they were all hiding today.

Pitcher plant

We went up the Bukit Tupai trail to the shelter, which was all stairs at the beginning but then ok after that. It was well signposted until we reached a fork in the road and had to make a choice - neither direction said Bukit Tupai. We chose the left trail and went down, down, down. After 5 minutes or so we realised we should have been there already and there was no sign of stopping, re-checked the map and decided we had looked at the wrong part. So we turned around and went up, up, up! Back at the signpost we now took the other trail, walked 6 steps... and realised the shelter we had been trying to reach was actually just above the signpost, concealed by trees. Go team! After some water and well-earned chocolate we continued towards the Bukit Burung shelter and then back to the park headquarters. On arriving we discovered of course that it's a tourist trap, and you may be able to get there for RM16 but getting home is an entirely different affair. Nobody will help tell you what the bus looks like or when it comes, because they want to sell you taxi rides. We bumped into an Aussie couple from Melbourne and decided to share a taxi, bartering and negotiating from the "normal price" of RM250 down to RM90 for the four of us. This offer was from a randomly-passing taxi, which irritated the rip-off merchants who were waiting in the park NO END!!! I have learned to count to 5 now so I negotiated for "empat orang" (4 people) and off we went.

See the lightning strike?

Back in KK we went out for some lunch/dinner and wandered around the city. We went to the most dead, empty shopping mall I've seen, not just empty of people but empty of shops! I think it's new and they're still selling the space. We thought we might go to the movies but the only things showing were very violent and horror movies, same as in Tawau, we think the people who go to the movies in Borneo must be a bit warped by now. Yvon had a big win on one of those games that you pick up lollies etc and drop them onto a board which pushes them out. Don't know what she pressed but she ended up with a huge bag of lollies, stickers, toys on one of the turns. She took out a couple of things and gave the rest to a passing family. We then sat outside with some watermelon juices and watched an amazing electrical storm.

Oh and if you're wondering - yes there was a bus crash last night in KK and no I wasn't on it. Mostly because nobody will tell me where to get the bus.

Tawau local-style

I'll have the mantis shrimp thanks.

Yvonne slept in until about 11am this morning and then we went off for breakfast - roti pisang (banana roti) at one of the local joints. Back to the room to pack (which took a surprisingly long time, even after our laundry party last night) and then we checked out. We had 9 hours to kill before our flight, so we went walking to find a post office (Pos Malaysia). After asking at the Polis we finally made it (go straight, then straight, then straight, then left and it's behind the Mosque) but apparently Pos Malaysia does not have Australia Post's enterprising spirit and does not in fact sell postcards. Nor does anywhere else in Tawau. In fact you can't buy a souvenir saying "Tawau" anywhere except the airport. I might start a business. Then again, given our celebrity status based on the colour of our skin, perhaps I won't. Not too much tourism in Tawau! We spent some time walking, wandering, drinking nice drinks.

Our wonderful hosts Ancu and Lyn

As we were sitting at one cafe I recognised the Kapalai (Pulau Sipadan) logo and remembered that their office was in Tawau. Because Veronica, who runs the business, was so nice to me when I was at Kapalai, I thought I would go and say hello. We talked about where I'd been (and my disappointment with Scuba Junkie!) and she actually organised an airport transfer for us, as she had people that needed to be picked up! She then asked whether we had tried the Malaysian satay (which we hadn't), and said to come back to the office at 5pm. We did, and Ancu and Lyn picked us up, took us to the most delicious satay meal ever. There was chicken, beef and goat satay (the goat was fabulous actually!) as well as two rice dishes, one in banana leaves which I loved. Then we went to their house and met their beautiful children, and they brought us to the airport. It was such a nice evening that we weren't expecting at all.

The flight was late but not too bad, and I talked to an American man who was here working with conservation projects. We got to KK around 10:20, and took a taxi to the backpackers. But by then I wanted a comfy bed so we walked around all the different hotels looking at their rates, and we've ended up at the King Park hotel. It's nice except I forgot to ask for non-smoking so it smells a bit. We'll live. The shower is HOT, like actually hot and not just warm, so we are very happy.