Sabah!

[This is me on Mount Kinabalu!]

Sean and I took a week-long trip to Sabah, which was basically one big outdoor adventure - mountains, beaches, rivers, caves, animal life. I divided the following retelling into sections to make it a bit easier to sort through.


KOTA KINABALU
We flew from Penang to Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah, on February 9th. We had a nice dinner, wandered around a bit, and went to sleep. The next day we spent exploring the city, which is very small; just walking around, visiting the markets, eating local food, talking to people. We walked through the fish market which had tons of all kinds of sealife, a very slippery floor, and groups of children who were very interested in us and followed us for a while.


MOUNT KINABALU
That night we took a van to the Kinabalu National Park to get ready to climb Mount Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia, half the height of Everest (4095 meters)! We stayed that night at a lodge in the park and started the climb that next morning and climbed part of the way to the top, which was about 6km and took about 3hrs because of the incline. You could definitely feel the air getting thinner toward the top and the scenery was gorgeous. We got to about 3000 meters where we stopped overnight at a guesthouse. We were hungry and tired and cold! We watched the sunset and went to sleep at about 8:30pm. We woke up at 2:30am and started climbing again at 3am. It was dark and cold and the air was thin and pretty unsatisfying to inhale. The hike wasn't too bad, it was mostly up rock and with the help of a rope at times. We reached the peak at 5:30am, watched the sunrise, froze (I think it was about 2 degrees Celsius up there) and then walked back down. Stopped for breakfast and a nap at the guesthouse and then made the trek the rest of the way to the bottom. The scenery was amazing, we were above the clouds for a lot of it!


SANDAKAN
That day we met some other climbers/travelers and together made our way to Sandakan, a small town on the east coast of Sabah, for the night. We found some dinner, got some drinks, told travel stories, and relaxed. My legs hurt! The next day, Sean and I tried to go several places none of which ended up working out, so we just stayed in Sandakan and had a really great and relaxing day, wandering around the town, eating, sitting, people watching. We spent some time at the market there which had fish, veggies, clothing, food, it was huge. Our hotel where we were staying is owned by a very practical-minded, very business-oriented Chinese man who had a gigantic DVD collection, so we borrowed some and watched in our room. It was a slow day, but a needed rest and we had some great cultural experiences and met some fun locals at the markets. Oh, and had a very delicious seafood dinner!


SUKAU RIVER
The next day, we woke up early and went on a tour to the Sukau river, a few hours drive south of Sandakan. First we stopped at Gomantong Cave where they harvest birds' nests. You may have heard of Birds' Nest soup. Swiflets build their nests out of spit which apparently has tons of health properties, so their nests are harvested and then sold at pretty high prices. This cave was filled with swiflets, bird poop, cockroaches, giant poisonous centipedes, and bats. Lovely. We had to cover our heads so as not to get poop in our hair, and put plastic bags on our hands so we could hold on to the railing without getting bird poop on our hands and to prevent slipping on the path that is also covered in bird poop. Those of you who know me and my fear of birds flying over me probably find this very entertaining. It was interesting to see the way they harvest the nests, but it was basically just really gross. BUT on the way back from the cave, walking to the car, we saw a wild orangutan and her baby!! She was fairly close and we watched her swing from tree to tree!!!!

After that, we drove down a crazy bumpy road to the Sukau river which has one of the largest wildlife concentrations in the world. We had lunch at a lodge there and then took a nap in our cabin (we stayed overnight), but were awoken by monkeys playing on our roof and making tons of noise. Then we went on a 2.5hr boat tour down the river. We saw long-tail macaques, pig-tail macaques, long-tail macaques battling pig-tail macaques, tons of different birds, a really creepy water snake, lizards, lots of proboscis monkeys (the ones with the giant noses!), and a very distant orangutan. After dinner, we went on a night walk in the jungle with a few guides. The jungle leaves are covered in leeches...luckily we were not attacked by any. Yuck. We saw some cool insects, a frog in a tree, sleeping birds, and glow-in-the-dark fungi!

We left the next morning and went to Sepilok, the orangutan sanctuary near Sandakan, for the 10am feeding. I love orangutans, they are adorable. That afternoon, we took the bus back to Kota Kinabalu and spent the evening at a Chinese New Year celebration on the street with a market and fire works!


BEACHES
The next day we went to an island where I did three dives and Sean went snorkeling. The diving wasn't anything too special, but definitely good. I saw a big turtle, lots of rays, nudibranchs (snails, very colorful), a snake, trumpet fish, pipe fish, puffer fish, lots of colorful smaller fish...overall very nice dives. That evening we had some seafood at a cafe on the beach! The next day we went to another island and spent the afternoon on a beach all alone.


We left the next day at 6am, got to Penang at 9:30am, Sean got on a flight home at 2pm, and then my friend from U of M, Ayako, came at 2:30pm and is now visiting me! So things are a bit hectic but in all the good ways. The Sabah trip was awesome, I have tons of friends visiting, and it's now Chinese New Year so there are a lot of celebrations and eating going on!