Sabah / Malaysia - 23.-30.Sept.2006

Six weeks of studying are already over. Now we have one week mid-term break and no lectures
before the second half of the semester starts. At NUS it is quite normal that you write midterm
tests in all your modules, so you should use the week to learn for them. But as you can imagine,
no exchange student have ever done it.
We, a group of seven students - five Germans, a Swede and an Iranian- we have decided to fly to
Sabah. Flying is not very expensive, since there are many low budget airlines.
Sabah is one state of Malaysia and located on the island Borneo. We arrive at the airport in the city
Kota Kinabalu, where we stay in a backpacker's lodge for the next few days.

1.day
Our first day should be relaxing, and as we would know after
the whole week also the last day where we sleep longer than
7am!!! We go to a traditional Sunday market in KK (Kota
Kinabalu) and afterwards to one of several islands which are
near by: Sapi island. Unfortunately the weather is not good
enough to go snorkling. The sea is to rough. So we spend some
time walking over the island.

So many different sorts of prawns, on the fishmarket.











And there we see this amazing ant street.
Millions of ants...














2.day
The taxi awaits us at 7am to take us on a 2-3h way to the starting point in "Mount Kinabalu Park".
Here we are on 1866m.
The expedition crew to the highest mountain in
South-East-Asia (4095m):
Five of us students, a woman from UK and our Malaysian
guide. A guide is compulsory to enter the park. For the locals
it is a way to earn some money and for us the good
possibility to learn a lot about the flora and the national
park.













For the attentive readers among you who wonder what has happened to the other two in our group,
they are sick and have to stay in Kota Kinabalu.

Our hike leads us through tropical vegetation, through oak forest to the rocky sub-alpine summit
plateau. Just above the tree line at 3350m we reach a rest house, where we stay over the night.
Unfortunately we have bad luck with the weather and we are walking 3 of 4hours in heavy rain.
(In Germany it would never rain with this intensity for a so
long time!) As you can guess even near the equator the
temperature over 3000m could be damn cold and then this
horrible wind. So everybody of us arrives freezing at the
unheated rest house. And bad-equipped as we are, the very
first investment are these gloves, jackets and caps and then
a hot chocolate!

3.day
Before dawn next morning everybody is up. After baked beans for breakfast we start with the
second, more thrilling part of Mount Kinabalu at 3am in the night. We are climbing by torchlight
towards the summit. A steep rock step is aided by a fixed rope which continues all the way to the
summit even where the way becomes quite flat. Many people have been lost on the mountain in
the past, some never to be seen again ;-)
(click on the image to read the watch)








At around 6am we are all proud to stand on the top above 4000m!!!
But of course everything is in thick clouds.
And the beautiful sunrise is not
more than the pretty fast
increasing brightness of the
sunlight.
Nevertheless it was definitely
worth climbing Mt Kinabalu.
We all enjoyed the trip. And I
will never forget the
experience to climb steep rocks only by following a rope that disappears some meters in front of
you in the totally dark black night; and the feeling of thin air when your heart starts beating so
fast even after doing just two steps. I really had problems to fall asleep the night before, I had to
breath to much to get enough oxygen, hehe.












Many of the trees and flowers are unique or extremely rare.
The pitcher plant is an insect-eating plant. With a pint of liquid it
attracts passing flies or mosquitos.



There is no other way to get up on the mountain than to walk.
These people are carrying all the food and drinks up to the rest house,
for us tourists.












Mount Kinabalu






4.day
With the biggest muscle ache ever, we are hardly able to walk so we should find other ways to
move forward today. This train brings us directly into the green nature to the Padas River
- Wild Water Rafting -yeah!
But the train ride is almost better. The old steam engine
follows the winding river with not more than 40km/h and is
continuous shaking.
Doors doesn't exist and
some wagons are
more for the transport
of goods. So we can sit
outside on the loading
area.



The rafting in this scenery is also something special. And because of the current we don't have to
worry about crocodiles, they live more downstream.

Time for swimming... in brown water.
(pictures are following soon)

5.-7.day
We leave the west and take a bus to the other side of Sabah. We head for the "Kinabatangan River".
It is a National Park along this river. And we have booked a three day Safari to see some animals
of the jungle.
In the late afternoon the local guides take us on a boat tour to
watch all the animals on the river side.
We see a lot of different species of monkeys: Proboscis Monkeys,
Macaques, Silver Langurs and even an Orang Utan with his
baby.



left top:
Rhinoceros Hornbill

right top:
Long-tailed Macaque



right bottom:
Stork-billed Kingfisher






With the time and some experience we are getting better in
finding animals too. But nevertheless you must have an
incredible good knowledge of this area to find animals like this
mangrove snake, hanging in a branch over the water,



or the monitor lizard. Can you see it?
If the animals are not moving they are so well adapted to
their environment that it is hardly possible to see them.





On every morning from 6 to 7.30 before breakfast there is another boat trip to see and hear all the
birds singing. And it is not hard to realize that our guides really like their job. They know "every"
animal and bird by name. They can even distinguish them only by their different sounds and
they are perfect in imitating them.

flying Egret






My sunset picture is taken from the boat.


On a night walk we see some other animals, mostly
insects, like this Lantern Bug



























It is hard to put in words, but for me it was so impressive
to see all these animals in their natural environment: the
monkeys jumping in the top of these hugh trees, performing
real stunts or the Orang Utan climbing elegant from one
branch to another. If you have ever observed a Kingfisher
dipping into the water surface to catch a fish, you can forget
every zoo on the world!
And the humans are on the best way to destroy all this beauty of the nature.
The best example is Borneo itself. I haven't told it yet, but nearly all the forest and jungle is gone,
replaced by oil palm plantations. During at least 6 of the 8 hours that we needed to come to the
river, we were surrounded by plantations. Plantations with old palm trees, plantation with new
planted palms, burned plantations ...
And the National Park is about 25000 hectare large, which is an area of 25 times 10km !!!
Almost nothing!!!