Sabah 沙巴之旅

Before my memory fails me, before the excitement fizzles out, before lights are off and before no one's interested anymore, here's my post on our sabah trip! Sketches'll will come later, after I paint them but for now, words and some simple photos!

First off, this is a crazy  trip planned by Kuan Yew the nature and adventure lover, who dragged me along with him but now that I've been to Sabah, I must thank him a million cuz this place oozes of personality and warmth from its people. Malaysians from the peninsular who's never been to this beautiful place must visit it at least once in their lifetime!

To my pleasant surprise, this is not the ulu( remote) place I imagined it. How 'frog under the well' I was. It boasts of many shopping complexes that're comparable to some of KL's! They have 1 Borneo, KK time square , Suria Sabah(which is not even half full but will be in a matter of a year, which means by the time I start my housemanship there, I get to chill out in mega shopping malls!! yay! Provided i have the time la, fingers crossed). 

By crazy trip I mean renting a small Kelisa which power we have not tested and driving it( all by ky, poor thing) from kk to kundasang and then to sandakan on the Road of  Thousand Holes. But the lodge that greeted us and the next day's trip to Sepilok Orang Utan Santuary was all worth the horrifying journey. That said I was more than happy to be heading back to KK( I've never thought of myself as the hustle bustle city girl but I am one, no matter how much I'd like to be more balanced). The thought of everything at a stone's throw away is a hugely comforting one and of course, not being surrounded by bugs and creepy mysterious animals promotes a sense of peace in me.

Anyhoo, we went to Kundasang on the way to Sandakan and got a taste of how New Zealand ( where sheeps outnumber humans by 17 times!! baa baa baaaa) must feel like in Desa Dairy Farm, Mesilou. baa baa..

Here's a picture I took with my handphone, which is of course not so nice compared to ky's DSLR photo, which i promise that I'll steal and put there once he uploads it on facebook hehe heh.. 

Interesting things that I learned on this trip:

1. Cows are surrounded by buzzling flies 24/7 and they smell like their own feces. Sketching among piles of cow dung is as exciting, though.

2. Been invited to dine in a wedding by mother of the bride in a village called Buli Sim-sim. It's a long time since I felt so warmly welcomed  by friendly strangers.

3.  Sandflies are sneaky lil creatures. I was tortured with painful, extremely itchy bites the very first night. Avoid them at all cost!

4. Living cost in kk can be even higher than in KL because of the transport fee( from west msia to east msia) and it being a tourist area. So the extra allowance for housemen are rightly justified.

5. The aborigines are more often than not warmer than the owner of the food stall  you paid through your nose to have dinner at.

6. In KKGH ( Queen Elizabeth Hospital) , housemen perform DAILY lumbar puncture, compulsory quota of 3 Csec and 3 appendisectomy. How cool is that? hehehe...

7. Once you get past the tiredness, dirtiness and smelliness, backpacking is actually the funnest way to travel.( minus the sandfly bites and sleepless night, of course) We get to interact with people from different countries and travelling tips( it's not safe to rely solely on Lonely Planet and the like cuz it may be outdated. Like what Lonely Planet says about my hometown Ipoh. It says that its new town's traffic is congested and ipoh is only a transit to Pulau Pangkor and Cameron! And said nothing about the famous food like taugeh chicken, white coffee, YeeHup hiong beng etc! How dare they =(

Okie, here's all first. More coming soon!



5. 

Near to Nature in Cameron Highlands

After a blissful day of tea and scones, we went on a nature walk around Kea Farm, Boh and Cameron Valley tea plantations and the lovely, lovely Rose Centre. Here're some sketches done. 

This is a sketch of Cameron Valley( aka Bharat) tea plantation. I arrived there feeling ok but within seconds, I was attacked by mosquitoes and quickly plummeted into this foul mood ( YONG SUI mood) and gone was my sketching mood. Kuan Yew disturbing a bee hive did not help alleviate the bad mood either( Great, now not only do I have to worry about mosquitoes, I'v BEES to watch out for)

 Luckily Kuan Yew encouraged me to sketch so here it is! hehe...

This is the LOVELY Rose Centre! It looked haunted and worn out from the outside but once you enter( entrance fee rm5), you'd be amazed(deeply) by the beauty of the myriad of flowers you see!

On the contrary, the Butterfly Farm(also in Kea Farm) dissapoints with a lazy worker( who was obviously Anglo-philic as well) and overcrowded display boxes of creatures. They did not bother to move some of the poor animals to another box when the population in the box was apparently too packed. 

Tea and Scones in Cameron Highland

Tea and scones is a must on visits to Cameron Highland. I just got back from Cameron two days ago and had found some really nice places for tea and scones. I didn't try the tea cuz my system is accustomed to chinese tea and the taste buds would not 'tolerate' tea other than Chinese tea. The first stop for tea and scones was T cafe in Tanah Rata town. It is owned by a 70 something year old man( who looked 20 years younger). A man with serious humor:

The man actually stuck an obituary of his first pet fish on the tank in his restaurant!

Here's a sketch of T Cafe

The next stop was Cameronian Inn, just a few metres from where we stayed. It served nice scones but what blew us away was the pancake with honey and banana. Bananas! Nothing can go wrong with bananas, not even Quaker's oats.

Here's a night sketch done in Cameronian Inn.