The second day in Kinabalu was spent travelling to the Padas river for white water rafting. It was a crazy adventure and I hope to sit down and write about it properly soon.
We came back in the late afternoon, hungry and exhausted. We decided to try out this fantastic and famous Bak Kut Teh place that was along JalanGaya, opposite Jesselton Hotel. It wasn't easy to find, but once we got on the right street we could smell the characteristic smell of the soup. We almost ran to the place.
It was so crowded we were relegated to a table that was situated outside another shop that was selling western food and it had no customers at all. We felt a bit sad for them.
This was just the first round and we ordered another round of Bah Kut and innards. I can't remember if there were hearts but there were most certainly livers. I feel hungry and greedy just typing this! It was really worth it and it came up to less than S$10 per person.
We then dropped by a nearby shopping center and shopped till we dropped. And so it was time for Starbucks. Again.
Starbucks is reliably expensive and reliably comforting.
We went back to the lodge after this and my rashes had subsided somewhat. After coming back to Singapore and getting the dreaded rashes on a recent trip to Cafe del Mar, I have concluded that it was the fault of the fucking sunblock.
The next day we took a mini-bus.
And the mini-bus transferred us to a bigger bus.
That had somewhat dusty back windows. The bus took us to the mountainous areas and to the foot of Mount Kinabalu.
They let us get off at this "village" kind of place for a toilet break. There were a few interesting things for sale, but we didn't really buy any of them as we weren't feeling very rich. The day tour wasn't cheap at all and from what I remember, set us back by about S$60 each.
The views were fantastic though. We could see the mountain range and the temperature was significantly cooler at the higher altitude. It was the kind of place that I would like to have spent a day at.
Melvin was also rather inspired that he has vowed to go back one day to climb Kinabalu. I would also like to this and probably even stay at one of the lodges in the mountain for an extended period of time. This will really require some planning.
Us with said awesome mountain range and clouds that were wispy one moment and then threatening the next.
They were apparently gathering and the guide was slightly worried that it might rain. Thankfully it didn't but we still got wet at the end of the day!
The view from the top of the tower (from the previous picture). There was a rather idiotic female from another institution who said something like, "Why do they put maximum load of 15 people in the tower? As if I am going to count how many people are in the tower before I go up! How am I supposed to know? So silly?"
Er. Estimation duh.
We must be forgiving of people dumber than ourselves.
Anyway, we then took a bus ride to the Botanic Gardens where our guide pointed out many fantastic and interesting plants, for example:
The Naked Tree, because it has no bark.
I cannot remember what kind of orchid it's called but it is nicknamed "The Bikini Contest". HAHA.
And this is the pitcher plant. There's something so mysterious about plants that are insectivores.
After the rather educational tour we had lunch at a small chinese restaurant with a Japanese family. Funnily enough, it wasn't awkward at all and we were all inspired to have kids after that. The parents had 3 children, 2 boys and a girl. The girl looked like Pikachu. We were very tempted to kidnap them. It was horrible and we were thankful that they went to see the Rafflesia (which we had to pay to see GAH!!!) while we went to the tree-top trail.
It was a short walk up there. We were glad to be wearing track shoes.
The "hot springs" that we passed along the way and eventually tried.
A great percentage of rainforest activity happens above ground. However I have an untrained eye and I did not see that much activity.
The tree-top walk was initially used by field researchers and stuff like that before being opened to the public.
Aside from camwhoring we were amazed by how the bridge was built across trees and how the trees were amazingly tall and rather sturdy. The bridge was made of ropes and were rather shaky but it made the experience all the more memorable!
We had dinner Upperstar. The food was alright but it was slightly overpriced. It had good music though. It made me want to club!
On the whole I was really impressed by how eco-tourism was being managed in Kota Kinabalu. It had the right balance of rural, slow-paced living and decent toilets! It has managed conservation rather well from what I have seen. I'm not sure if this stemmed from the fact that the place wasn't as commercialised or popular but I think the measures that have been taken to preserve the area yet making it accessible to the public have been effective.
There is so much left to explore that I am sure that I'd go back again, even I'm not able to pretend to be a field researcher and live in the mountain for a month, then at least conquer Mt Kinabalu!
2 comments:
i had major rashes after using sunblock bought in phuket too!
weetz
EH yeah lor it's very bad lah. thankfully it doesnt "feel" awful, just very annoying!
Post a Comment