Trip to Sabah-Padas Rafting

On the 5th day of our trip, we went for rafting early in the morning. Sg Padas is the most adventurous and dangerous place for rafting in Malayisa, according to some of my friend. The rafting level is between 4-5 and many people died here before .

We travelled for 3 hours with half of the road uphill and our an crawling like turtle moving towards. We joined another 15 students from Unimas and UUM for this rafting to get a cheaper rate at RM140 per pax compared to normal price RM200. Upon reaching Tenom, we need to sit on a wooden plat to be moved uphill to the starting point by manpower as the train travelling there had been under repairing for 2 years after the frequent landslide there.

Here's the 'troley', moving using the stick.It's damn damn hot! We travel by the 'troley' for almost an hour more, and my butt was painful sitting,huh~~

Actually I really admired those natives that have fiigured out this way to replace the train temporarily. Along the way, I saw childrens sitting on this troley to go for school , the teachers were the one moving the troley under the sun. Salute those teachers that are so dedicated and resposible!

Finally we reached the starting point . After a short rest and some snacks, we started off around 1pm.

The rafting was a great one. This was my 2nd time rafting after Kampar river raft half year ago. The rafting took up a few hours as the river was really a long long one. We stopped by half way for lunch around 4pm. Damn hungry after breakfast at 7am.

Continued our journey after a full meal,hehe..Pictures of my group members.Others than those rapids, we could swim in the river. Or should I said 'pulled' into the river for countless times by tricking or simply being thrown outside the boat by my guide and members,haha..

Sg. Padas rafting can be described as the best one and most 'syok' in Malaysia for it numerous big rapids. For the first big rapid, everyone in the raft fell into the river except me( don't ask me why,haha). 1 of my friend who are phobia of water was terribly frightened, he hold on another friend's body and kept pulling her down. The scene was like my friend who know how to swim was being drowned by the one who froze there and think nothing except his parents,haha...(okok..stop laughing, my friend would like to kill me adi~~)

I didn't really feel the fun and got frightened till i fell off the raft during thebiggest rapid-the washing machine . I finally realised how it was the feeling of drowning and dying of suffocating. I was really so 'lucky' as I was the only one falling right into the eddy of the river. I just remembered the current kept pulling me downward and downward. I didn't have much time to think of the scary water as my shorts were nearly being pulled off by the strong current under. What's in my mind that time was tried to pull as hard as I could to hold my shorts, all the postures to hold myself into a ball that was taught by my guide was thrown behind my mind. Me myseld did not even know how long I was inside the water. Later did my friend told me that the guide and her was so worry about me as I was disappearing for so long under the water . My mind was really blank that time, just thinking of my shorts that were almost taken off by the currents and keep thinking of when can I go up above the water. Right after I got up the surface of the water, the 2nd current splashed on me and I went under the water again. Luckily I managed to got back to the raft after drinking so many water.( my advice : remember not to struggle when you are being pulled by the eddy, it will just make you drown and deeper faster)

After the end of all rapids, we board on a boat to be transfer back to Beaufort. It took us a few hours to be back on the shore. It was so dark in the river after sunset.

See all the tired faces!

Our guide-Amir. He was really a nice and funny guy, without him, our rafting won't be that much fun and joy. I bet our raft was the most noisiest one among the others rafts. We all miss him a lot! He is a fun friend to hang out with.It was already near 7pm when we got ashore. We headed back to KK town and reached Tune Hotel almost 10.30pm. A tiring day but surely is one of the most fun and memorable day in our trip.

Trip to Sabah -KK

We have spent 3 nights at kk-the capital of Sabah.Two days after our Sandakan trip, another day after our kk mount hike before we headed back for KL.

For the 2nd night, we spent it at Tune Hotel, just RM8.10 per person per night as we booked it quite early during the promotional period. I miss the hotel a lot as it was really a nice one, new, clean,cheap and comfortable although the room was not that big. It was connected with One Borneo's shopping complex-the biggest in east Peninsular Malaysia. We did not really had a good look at the complex since we were short of time , but it was really quite big, all branded shops there.

Once we arrived at KK, we visited the Gaya Market , a weekly market that sold lotz of the local things . Right after that , we rushed to the jetty to catch for the 9.30am boat the Tunku Abdul Rahman Parks. The park consists of 5 small islands, we just visited Pulau Mamutik,Pulau Sapi and Pulau Manukan.In my opinions, I would rather prefer those islands at Sipadan site eg Mabul,Mataking etc. as it was more well-preserved and the coral there was nicer. The fish variety was not many, and most of the coral was dead since there are many tourists visiting the islands and killed the corals by touching them. For island like Sipadan there, it was farer from the mainland and most of the tourists go for diving there know how to take care of the creatures underwater. But the sandy beaches at Tunku Abdul Rahman park is nicer and softer than Mabul island. So the conclusion we got is ,next time just hop for island at SEmporna , there's no need for a second visit to Tunku Abdul Rahman Park,haha...instead we felt quite bored there without much fish to see.

In the evening , we toured around the University of Sabah. It's really big and the view is spectacular. It will so nice studying at such place, the hostels are like apartment up the hill, surrounded by trees, really a best place to study .

Special thanks to my friend's friends that purposely met us up and showed us around for the nice food and places.

Besides that, we had went to the Monsopiad Cultural Village in KK after the tour to Kudat. It is not a very big one compared with Sarawak Cultural Village. And the performances were just ok for me, but the guide from the village did explain quite well for us along the way. And I missed the chilled rice wine served in bamboo cup.

Picture with the performers

One of my friend trying the Sago's worm. It's still moving~~~ It tasted like coconut milk according to my friends,haha

Yummy food in Sarawak!

From my previous post in my trip to Sarawak, I did not put any pictures of the delicious food I ate there since most of the photos are with my friend. So now guys, feel free to visit gohchoonfu.blogspot.com (May 21th post) to view the nice shots of the food. Guaranteed you guys will be having your saliva flowing over when you see the nicely arranged photos of all foods that we had tried of in Sarawak, editted by my artistic friend,wakaka...Miss the food so much!

Trip to Sabah-Sandakan

On Day 3, we drove back Tawau in the late evening to catch the 8pm bus to Sandakan-the 2nd biggest city in Sabah. We reached there 7.30pm, busy taping the exzon for 'n' times to avoid the loud sound being detected by the owner temporarily, rushed to nearby stall to get a RM5.00 economic rice each. The things in Sabah is damn expensive, even if you just pick 3 veges also cost you the same rm5.00.

Oh ya one more thing is that we can't find any Gardenia bread here( in most areas) , Gardenia in Sabah is selling canned drink instead, I just got to know it by then,haha....

The bus that we board was quite new and comfortable. The bus tickets sellers there were damn terrible, we were surrounded by so many guys upon walking near the area during Day 1 , everyone was trying so hard to promote their bus , stucking all the name cards with you although you don't need that much,haha..so my advice is, don't go to the bus station area alone.

Back to the bus we board, there was plastic bag in each seat (for us to vomit I guess as the road was so bumpy without highway), the bus conductors distributed sweets to us and also the anti-emetic pills. It was so special for us as in West Peninsular or even Sarawak, there's no such services except giving a bottle of drink . After 4 hours, we were dropped off in the middle of somewhere in the midnight as the bus was not heading to Sandakan, so we need to stop another bus passed by to hoop on to Sandakan, weird system.Luckily without long, a bus stopped by and we got to continue our journey , or else we will end up standing besides roadside in dark.

The bus stopped by the hotel we booked, so we just dozed off after checking in. The next day morning, my friend's friend came to meet us together with her dad. We were so paiseh as her dad offered to bring us around the whole day. Actually only 1 of my friend knew her, we others 3 just meet her for the 1st time. After breakfast, we headed to the Orang Utan Sanctuary, but we missed the feeding time in the morning, so we decided to visit the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey 1st.

The next place we visited was the Rainforest Discovery Centre. It was a still under construction centre which offer a great spot for bird watching at the 150m long canopy walkway ,providing a spectacular view of the lush rainforest of Sepilok from 25m above the ground. The canopy walkway is great for bird watcher to get a dlimpse of some 250 species of birds including hornbills, kingfishers etc.

There's an exhibition hall which explains teh different type of rainforest in Sabah and the unique plants and animals they support.

A crocodile sample donated by the crocodile farm.

Besides the hall, there's a plant discovery garden which displays many types of plants and economic crops. A very nice and informative garden.

There's some discovery trekking trails to learn about the rainforest ecology, since we were in a rush so we don't spend much time to walk around it.

Subsequently, we rushed for our lunch and headed to Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary for the 3pm feeding time. Actually it's nothing much to see there, only 2 utans were seen plus whole bunch of monkeys.

Next we stopped by a large temple on the hill. The view there is quite nice with the blue sea behind. We ended our one day journey at Sandakan with our 2nd seafood meal. Right after the dinner we caught another bus to Kota Kinabalu. We reached KK around 2pm , and since we have no place to head to and we were allowed to stay in bus till morning, so we just slept in the bus till the sun rose in 6am.What to do, save budget,haha...

Trip to Sabah- Tawau, Semporna, Mabul Island

Mabul Island

We started of our 12 days journey in Sabah on 20th by taking the early flight to Tawau-our first destination 3 of us arrived roughly near noon time due to the delay, we changed our plan by staying a night at Tawau town. We planned to visit the Tawau Hill Park, but ended up getting lost nowhere in the kampung. The villagers that directed us there had mistaken Bukit Gemok with Kampung Bukit Gemok, we can just laugh at ourselves,haha....So we ended up going nowhere in Tawau. Tawau was once a small coastal fishing village under the Sultan of Sulu until it was ceded to the North Borneo Company. Now it is a bustling town for the cocoa and palm oil plantations industry. Due to sesak jalan, we didn't manage to visit the Cocoa musuem also.
After my friend arrived in the evening, we had our 1st seafood dinner , a nice and cheap one, should have ordered more like Lobsters etc if we knew that Tawau's seafood is far more cheaper than in Kota Kinabalu.At night, we just played cards and having our nice supper-durian.

The next day, we headed to Semporna, a small town an hour away from Tawau and also the gateway to world's best dive sites,Sipadan, Kapalai etc islands. Initially we just planned for a day hoop on one of the island, but it started to rain when we reached there, and due to others cirsumstances we decided to stay a night at Mabul island. Sipadan island is too expensive for us, rm4xx, so we just chose Mabul island, opposite to Sipadan which is far more cheaper, RM160 for 4 meals, a night stay and snorkelling trip.Next time I must visit Sipadan and Mataking island after I learn diving,haha...

Oh ya, forget to mention about our back luck on the car rented. The stupid car made a large noise when we nearly reached Semporna, after checking we realized that the exzon pipe had broken ( actually there are a few broken and mending scar there, so it was not totally our fault to break it, perhaps it was rusted and already in a nearly-to-break condition when we rent the car). So what to do, we can just get some rubber tape to glue it,haha...

Pictures taken before we went to Mabul Island at Dragon Inn.
On the boat to Mabul Island
Clear crystal water of Mabul island. We can see the bottom of the sea from afar from the island, really amazing.

this is the place we stayed. There are all Bajau's etnic groups staying on the islands, so all the houses behind are Bajaus one.If you could stay longer in the island, one would get to know better of the culture of their group. From what other tourists told us, we have to watch out wen walking on the island as many of them still pass their motion in this land of nature. Some of them even got the chance to witness the wedding of Bajau etnic. The children there own their small little boat since they are small, you can see them fishing in the sea or join them in playing al those traditional games that seldom known by the city youngsters nowadays. We could get free fish from the boatman too if you see them passing by before they passed it to those sellers.

At first I thought it is some kind of chicken, later did I know that it can fly . It's bird.






Some of the budget accomodation that our agent supplied.

Actually Mabul , Kapalai and Sipadan do not really have nice beaches like West Peninsular Malaysia, but there are great for the underwater view. We did not have any waterproof casing, so can't show you guys how amazing and beautiful it is under the water. I bet that's the most beautiful underwater scene I have seen compared it in many islands in West Peninsular, even the islands on the other side of Sabah( Kota Kinabalu side, the West China Sea) is not as beautiful as the Celebras Sea side here. So if you are an avid fans of diving, or sea lovers, it is a must to visit here once in a life time, you will know how beauty it is the living creatures under the sea.

Back from Sabah

It is the fifth day since I ended my trip to Sabah. Finally I have regained my energy after having rested for so many days. I felt the pain in every muscles on my legs the next day I came back for the trip, probably due to the climb to KK mount that make me exhausted. Luckily the pain just lasted for a day . My leg that has been stung by the jellyfish began to swell again , so I have to turn to a doctor for some medicine and cream again to hasten my recovery, really hate looking at my leg now, it is damn ugly,wuwu...don't know when it can fully recovered..

Returning from trip means I have to start working again for the upcoming APPS. There are whole bunch of loads waiting me to be done and settled upon coming back, feel so reluctant to check my mails and get all those messages and calls. I have lagged behind many things since it was inconvenient for me to serve the net during my 2 weeks trip.I guess I have a long list of to-do-list others than the event preparation, just feeling a bit lazy to get myself moved,haha....

My junior paid me a visit 2 days ago, so once again I be the tour guide to bring him around, but I think I was nor performing well for my task due to my tiredness,haha...bring you around again next time, and don't forget your treat for me when i visit Melaka next holiday ya =p

Sarawak trip- Miri & Mulu National Park

Day 5
Another bad experience for us to travel for 8 hours by bus to Miri. There's no highway, so the bus was moving in those bumpy road, some times even the sandy or road with rocks. I don't really remember how many times the bus had stopped for each small town, what my advice to you is that, don't drink too much water before you board the bus! There 's no resthouse along the way, all I could see was the forest, trees , the only place you can get rid of the urine is the small bus station the bus stopped every 2-3 hours.
It was difficult for us to sleep, so we ended up chatting, talking nonsense for the last 3 hours before we could finally reached. In Sarawak, it is dark around 6 something in the evening, so can you imagine all those people kept going down the bus in the middle of the journey, in place i could only see darkness, trees, forests, I wonder where they stayed at ? some where in the middle of the jungle?

We spent our last 3 days in Mulu National Park. We board the Maswing to Mulu since there are only two means to reach there, either by plane or by 10 hours boat.It was the most expensive part of our trip I guess due to the airplane ticket. It just took us 25minutes to the Mulu airport, a very small one without air-conditioner.

Taken at the balcony of our hostel. Since it was really an 'ulu' place, our hostel only had electricity supply from 6.30pm-11.30pm, meaning that we can't have nap during noon time, have to be in bed before 11.30pm.

Here we are at the entrance of the headquarter and the hanging bridge. During the 1st day, we went to the Deer Cave and the Lang Cave. We had to trek around an hour to reach the caves. We saw a lots of creatures and unique plants along the way.

Guess what's this? A ball? It's actually a flat insect which will roll itself when being touched.

Deer Cave is the largest cave in the world- it got it's name as there were lotz deer staying in the cave in the ancient time. There lived by feeding the guano-bat's feces mixed with mineral. It was an amzing cave, so sad that we din have a good camera to capture all the pictures , so the pictures I posted was not really looked like the actual scene

Do you see the Abraham Lincoln in the picture?

This is known as the Garden of Eden

Lang Cave

In the late evening after our visit of both caves, the rain poured down. We didn't get the chance to the bats flying out the caves due to the bad weather, so we had to walked in the heavy rain back to the headquarter. We got totally drenched after an hour walk although we bought along the umbrellas.
At night, our guide Khairul brought us to the opposite Royal Mulu Resort to sing karaoke upon request by us. The sampan was so scary as it seemed it will turn over easily, so we had to walk so carefully and sit in good balance,haha...
The next day, we went to the Penan settlement before headed to the Wind Cave and Clearwater Cave.

The wind cave was really windy, while the clearwater cave is one of the longest underwater tunnel in Asia. We had our picnic lunch after climbing 200 steps to the Clearwater Cave.

We dipped ourselves in the ice-cooled water after the lunch. It was really chilling and I experienced 1st time how difficult it was to swim against the tide!

In the evening, we climbed up one of the small hill opposite our hostel
The next day before we left for Miri in the afternoon, we went kayaking, some of friends even went fishing under the hot sun!We wished to come back here again next year to climb the pinnacle, a nice view to behold =)

Miri

We didn't have much time to spend in Miri, so we just visited the place with the symbol of Miri-the Seahorse and tour around in the car.