In light of Ms @Bellerants of Twitter Fame being ensconced in a foreign clime, I thought I'd share my travelogue from said clime. It makes, I think, for some interesting - for me if no one else - if somewhat lengthy (I could only send these out infrequently so had to really get my money's worth) reading... Whatever. Enjoy:
Sun, 21 Mar 2004
Hi. Did you miss me? Anyone? I know you're out there I can hear you breathing......
So yet another travelogue email wends its merry way across the world to your pc screen. And this particular missive finds our hero (that's me, obviously) in Sabah, Northern Borneo.
When I last wrote we were languishing in the shopper's paradise known as Singapore - an entire island state that has gradually formed itself into one giant amorphous shopping mall, all linked by the most amazing and efficient underground rail system it's ever been my pleasure to travel upon. In a city where chewing gum, spitting in public, urinating in elevators (?) and generally being naughty in a public place are all outlawed and/or carry heavy fines, I found it to be an extremely pleasant and enjoyable place to be indeed.
I just wish they could do something about the weather cos it was too bloody humid for too bloody much of the time.
From there we travelled North across a small causeway into the southern tip of Peninsula Malaysia, then a short flight North-east to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah.
KK - as it's known locally - is a fairly new city, mainly because the Allies decided to bomb it back to the stone-age in the name of liberation in 1945. Then the sneaky Japanese decided to burn whatever was left standing to the ground so that there was nothing left to liberate. So the conquerors/liberators/slightly confused looking chaps standing in the ashes decided that the best option would be to rebuild the whole town from scratch.
So here it is that there are many historic monuments, representing hundreds of years of civilisation, and not one of them over 50 years old.
No actually I tell a lie. There is one landmark that predates WWII. It's a clock tower built by the parents of some English statesman that worked and died of malaria here. So to commemorate his life (and possibly to say "thanks for letting the nasty insects bite my son") they built the teeniest clock tower imaginable.
It says in the guide book that it used to serve as a beacon for ships until the buildings grew too large for it to be seen from the sea.
The question is, how tall were the ships that could see it in the first place?
We've decided to stop taking the advice of the guide book. Especially as it recommended that we stay at a guesthouse called Uncle Tan's. It was described as "huts in a jungle paradise". Where you can enjoy traditional village life and get eaten by leeches and water snakes. Wonderful, we thought.
What we actually got was a chance to stay in a modern concrete-block-type-affair of a house with a huge, noisy fish-tank and be completely ignored by some sullen teenagers and a sleepy, old Chinese woman.
But, it was a good place to use as a base to visit our main reason for coming to Borneo. The Sepilok Orang-utan Sanctuary. A place where they rescue orphaned orang-utans and help them learn to fend for themselves in the wild before eventually releasing them.
So there we went and, along with another 40 or so eager camera carrying individuals, stood waiting on huge wooden platforms in the steamy jungle for about 45 mins. Then from the undergrowth, emerged a little man in a blue boiler suit, carrying a bucket of something liquidy and a huge pile of bananas.
Then the orang-utans began to arrive. Swinging from ropes handily slung between the trees (by some thoughtful rope-slinging fellow).
2 youngsters came at first. They then proceeded to do battle with various types of monkey that had also turned up for the free food.
The jungle was then filled with the sound of snap-happy tourists all jostling for the best pictures of these slow moving arboreal denizens. The whir of camera lenses, the ooh's and ah's of many impressed people and soft under-the-breath swearing of people realising that they hadn't brought spare batteries for their video cameras was all that could be heard for several minutes.
Then, just as people were beginning to tire of taking the same pics of the same group of monkeys stealing all the food from two slightly dazed (yet unfazed) looking orang-utan youths, a large male orang swung into view. Sensing his power - and the fact that he could pull all their limbs off without even thinking about it - the monkey's all backed off leaving him to feast alone.
And feast he did.
More snapping, whirring, oohing, ahhing, clicking, jostling and subtle swearing for many minutes more until the food ran out, the boiler suited man departed and the rains came down.
The crowds left and eventually we dejectedly tore ourselves away from our ape watching and made our way back to the visitors centre. Where we were told that the centre was closing at 11.30am for no discernable reason and we would have to vacate the premises on pain of something undisclosed - but no doubt horrible - but would open again at 2.30pm.
Not wishing to stand round for 3 hours we, along with 2 random Geordies we happened across in the steamy jungle paths of the park, decided to head into "nearby" Sandakan to find an hotel and chill out for a while before returning to the park in the afternoon to try one of the suggested nature walks.
After a lengthy bus ride showed us that Sandakan was further away than we thought, and wandering through the sweltering streets of the town showed us that they hadn't considered the idea of giving tourists a place to stay when they billed the place as a "tourist town". We checked into a only-just-in-our-budget-if-we-eat-rice-for-a-week hotel which offered hot showers (yay), air-con (double yay) and TV (more yay's than you can shake a stick at).
Ok, so the aircon wouldn't switch off and the reception staff kept random remotely changing the TV channels which can be a touch annoying when you've just spent an hour watching a movie....
but hey, you can't expect miracles.
The next day we decided to visit Gomantong caves, far famed for the swift nests that hang in the entrance, which are regularly harvested and sold to restaurants for the famous "bird's nest soup". The guide book (damn it to heck and back) promised us buses leaving regularly from the central bus terminal.
So it seems there aren't any such buses, or indeed a central bus terminal. Nay mind. We're told there are regular boats and they're very cheap. So we went to the boat leaving place and indeed there are boats. They leave regularly. They are cheap. We can get one in about an hour or so. Great we thought. When can we come back?
Tomorrow......
Or you can hire a speedboat back for a ridiculously exorbitant fee.
We went back to the hotel to enjoy snippets of major hit films that change channel to ESPN live basketball whenever they got to the good bits.
We'd booked tickets on a bus leaving early the next morning so I asked the bell-hop for a wakeup call.
Luckily I was awake at the time we weren't receiving the wake-up that morning or we would've slept right through. That's the 3rd hotel that has failed to bother waking us in time for a bus or other similar appointment out of the 3 that we have requested the service.
Yay for the efficiency of my body clock.
The early bus took us to the site of our next adventure - Mount Kinabalu National Park.
The park itself "covers a staggering 754 sq km (291 sq miles). This is bigger than the entire of Singapore. Established as a state park in 1964, this "botanical paradise is blessed with an astonishing variety of flora (that's plants to you) and fauna (that's animals) that range over 4 climate zones, from the rich lowland dipterocarp forest through the montane oak (do you think they mean "mountain"?), rhododendron and coniferous forests to the alpine meadow plants and stunted bushes of the summit zone"
It's billed as a "popular getaway from the hustle and bustle of city life. Where visitors can enjoy the cool invigorating air. Or, for the more intrepid to explore the forest trails or conquer Mount Kinabalu itself"
We decided to attempt the latter. And, after very much being pissed about by idiot bearcats and brainless secretary type women, we undertook what we both agree is most definitely the most challenging experience of our lives......
Ros climbed it partly for the sense of achievement that doing it would bring and partly because her dad (allegedly) climbed to the top of it in 1971 and she wished to follow in his footsteps. I climbed it mainly because I thought I would get lonely hanging round at the base camp waiting for Ros to come down.
Starting from the base point (at a mere 1563m above sea level) we, along with a random, bald wanker called Mick Walker - who we later vowed we must beat to the top of the mountain at all costs - and 4 wandering doctors (who were all very nice, if a little middle aged, thank you very much) shared a mini-bus the 4.5 km to the starting point at Timpohon Gate and began the gruelling climb.
The guide book (curse it's ears and whiskers) said that the climb would take between 3 and 5 hours depending on the level of fitness. It also described it as a leisurely climb. we plan to sue...
The mountain was first climbed in 1851 by Sir Hugh Low after he had made a pact with the local tribes people stating that he would in no way interfere with their sacred mountain or upset their gods. He also pointed out it would be a good idea to start charging admission and that a couple of overpriced restaurants and gift shops wouldn't go amiss either.
Oh and that he would sacrifice a white cockerel and 7 eggs half way up the mountain too.
The locals duly agreed and set about building guesthouses and finding the least efficient staff to work in them, and also got a box that makes a pinging noise and said that it was the computer system but "it's not working right now..."
They were mildly confused by the cockerel sacrificing thing. But decided it must be some quaint English tradition and continue to do it every year on the same spot that Lowe did all those years ago.
Lowe also described it as an easy climb but then he was unusually cruel to poultry so he can't be trusted..
It took us about 6 hours to climb the 6km up to the 3,500m mark. Along the way, stunning examples of pitcher plants, nepenthes (don't ask me), 80 species of fig trees (!), dozens of animals and squawky birds and loads of different types of rare(ish) orchids were passed unnoticed as I puffed and panted my way up the bloody steps.
I did however see some amazing views, a couple of slightly crazed looking squirrel type things and a shrew type creature that allegedly "had a different nose" (I have no idea). Oh and I saw what, I'm reliably informed is called, a Grey Drongo and a long-tailed Malaysian Treepee. Which is nice. They both said "tweet" - only with more of an accent.
So we got to the staging post 6km from where we started and a mere 2km higher up and, needless to say, we were a bit tired. Luckily the hotel staff had decided to house us in the 2nd highest dorm room on the mountain and we had another 10min climb to reach our beds.
That night after a slightly weird buffet dinner and going back to the dorm to discover that the people we were sharing it with had nicked our blankets we went to bed at around 8pm (!) This stupidly early time was because we had to get up at 2.30am the next morning in order to get to the summit (2km away, 595m up). And so in the darkness, with a rented torch we left with no breakfast inside us and staggered up the steep hill. The hill became rocks. The rocks became bigger rocks. The path became steeper and steeper until we had to use ropes to rappel ourselves up. Finally, after much slipping and sliding, puffing, panting, losing the feeling in our fingers, dragging ourselves up rocks, occasionally losing the rope and wandering off the path towards staggeringly big cliffs and stuff, we reached the very summit. And boy was it cold.
Ros was the 1st girl that day to reach the summit. She was also the 10th person. But the first non-Malaysian. I was 13th.
We both beat Mick (yay) but only by a few minutes.
Then we sat there, shivering, as gradually more and more people staggered up and tried to find places to perch around the summit, until the sun came up. And rise it did. Spilling its light all across the country. We were above the clouds and could see snippets and snatches of Borneo spreading out all around us for miles and miles.
Then it was time to make our way back down again. We contemplated running down just so we could say we did, but the middle aged doctors brought out the middle aged fraggles in us and we walked down to the dorms at a safe and easy pace.
After a hearty breakfast of stuff and things (with extra eggs) we set off back down to base camp again, promising to take more notice of flora and fauna on the way down but managing only to find one type of pitcher plant, some more freaky looking squirrels and a sort of shrew thing with, I swear, the same nose....
We didn't see Mick again. We can only assume that he made it down the mountain or else the guides would've looked more panicky. But we don't like him so we don't mind not setting eyes on him at all.....
We've spent the last 5 days or so recuperating. First at a place called Poring Hot Springs. Where you can treat yourselves (and we did) to Japanese style hot sulphurous baths in the open air. And secondly back here in the friendly world that is KK with its teeny clock towers.
We've been soaking away our pains and those that wouldn't soak away were numbed with aid of tiger balm - miracle stuff, try it if you haven't already - and we are beginning to feel much, much better for it.
Tomorrow we set off for the next leg of our adventure when we fly back to the mainland and head north into the rest of Malaysia. But that's another story and you'll need to tune in next time to see what happens.
Ok bye bye for now
say hello to a local bridge for me, love hugs and stuff
Cantus J Fraggle Esq.
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