"Ten days in Sabah" State of Sabah by martin_nl

Me and Heidi in Laban Rata on Mount Kinabalu

After my 9 months Down Under it was time to move on to South East Asia. Having spent 4 great days in Singapore I took the bus to Johor Bahru, from where my flight would leave to Kota Kinabalu. The flight with Air Asia was good and after a long day I finally arrived in KK, the capital of Sabah on Malaysian Borneo.

Borneo is partly Malaysian, partly Indonesian and a very small part is Brunei. The biggest part of Borneo Kalimantan is Indonesian. The Northern bit is Malaysian with two provinces, Sarawak in the northwest and Sabah in the northeast. Borneo is one of the last wilderness areas in the world where new species are still being discovered in the dense rain forests. However Borneo is very fragile. The governments of both Malaysia and Indonesia have taken some steps to protect the land, but at the same time they allow that large parts of the forests are being chopped down for the palm sugar industry. Of course this is a big problem and various organisations like WWF dedicate a lot of their resources to protect what is one of the last rain forests in the world.

On a less serious note I have to say that spending time in Sabah is amazing. The land is beautiful and the people are very friendly. Infrastructure is good and so is transportation. I spent around 10 days in Sabah which is way too short, but there were other things I wanted to see too in the short time out in Malaysia. So when I arrived in KK I went for some food close to the night market. Day two I spent in KK looking for a place to book some accommodation for Laban Rata on Mount Kinabalu. That was one thing I really wanted to do. Another thing was to go to Sepilok, do a jungle river cruise on Sungai Kinabatangan, dive on Pulau Sipadan, see turtles on Turtle Islands NP, wildwater rafting and go out to an island in Tunku Abdul Rahman NP. As said before way too much in just 10 days. I had to choose and on top of the list were the climb, see orang utans and turtles. Unfortunately there was no place at all for seeing turtles for the coming 6 weeks, so I had to cancel that idea. Luckily Mount Kinabalu was possible, so was Sepilok and it was possible to book with Uncle Tan's for the river cruise.

The group at Uncle Tan's

So after a full day in KK I met up with a Danish girl and we decided to tackle Mount Kinabalu together. Next day we first went to Pulau Manukan which is just off the coast of KK. A very nice island, where my back got very sunburnt of snorkelling. With a sunburnt back and a backpack on my shoulders we took the bus to Mount Kinabalu the following day. The trip was very cheap and we were given a free bottle of water too. After a few hours we got to the park HQ's where we paid a park permit and paid for a guide that would accompany us for 2 days. After two rough days climbing up and down the mountain we rested our limbs in Poring Hot Springs. A good nights rest and the hot tubs couldn't help our soar limbs feel any better. Every step we took felt like we were pulling a freight train. We make it into a bus and on we went to Sepilok. Here we stayed overnight in a guesthouse right next to the entrance of Sepilok. At Sepilok you can see loads of young orang utans together with loads and loads of tourists. This is not how I imagined myself seeing an orang utan.

Fortunately in the afternoon we were picked up by Uncle Tan's for a jungle river cruise. After a very nice lunch we were transported to the river Sungai Kinabatangan. Immediately after we arrived at camp we had to run back to the river for a real treat, elephants! After quite a few safari trips it was time to get back on a bus ride to KK. We saw quite a few Jackie Chan movies and also I-Robot in chinese. Very interesting. Last day was spent in KK, checking e-mail. Also met up with a Canadian guy for a walk around town and a drink. And then it was time already to fly back to Kuala Lumpur.

• Pros:Adventure, challenge and wildlife
• Cons:Chinese movies on ekspress bas