No people say they don’t find butterfly fascinating. Kipandi Butterfly Park is the best place to see these beautiful insects in different colors and it is fairly accessible. Just take the road from Penampang to Tambunan. After an hour of driving, you will pass by a road with 120 degree turn going uphill. Be careful coz it is a black-zone for car accident. People believe there are spirits wandering on the hill next to it, the Widow Hill. Within a minute, you will see the park at your right.

The ticket fee for Malaysian adult is RM10, foreigner tourist is RM20 (about USD$6). Childern get half price.

Butterfly is most active in the morning, so that’s the best time to visit the park. Less butterfly will come out in rainy day and hot afternoon. I went there in noon. There were some butterflies still busy looking for nectar. If you come in big group, you can book a night tour to hunt for bugs at night.

Kipandi is more than a butterfly farm. They also keep a few insects as “pet”. I almost could not see praying mantis on the branch coz its body looked like dry leaf. The rhino horn beetles don’t fly in daytime, so the workers can leave them on the grass for me to photograph freely. Hmm… the rhino horn got horny too. They feed the beetles with sugar cane. At first I thought its horn is for display only, but they told me the horn really can deliver a painful pinch.

There is a small shop where you can buy souvenir, light food and drink. No lunch is offered so you better have your meal before you come. For beetle lovers, you can buy the insect keychain (RM15) and other bug specimens.

Before you enter the butterfly garden, you must check out the exhibition room of hundreds of bug specimens. I didn’t know that bugs in Sabah can grow so big. Besides impressive collection of various local and overseas butterfly species, beetles, tarantula, spiders, millipedes, scorpions, cicadas, centipedes, etc. specimens are also found here.

The guide, Jay, seems to able to answer any questions that I throw at him. He mentioned a lot of species names end with dae. Damn those latin names, I can’t remember any of them. I only know he spends a lot of effort to memorize these. According to him, a few beetles are poisonous. When provoked, they release acidic liquid that is extremely irritating to skin.

Even though I myself has seen so many bugs before, I could not stop saying WOW WOW WOW to all the display. This park is really something.

Later I entered the butterfly garden. As nectar is the food of butterfly, many flowers are planted. I was busy chasing the butterflies, trying to take their photos. It is a tough job though, as they always keep a distance away from me.

Jay says the caterpillars of butterfly do not have poisonous hair like the moth caterpillars. I can place it in my hand, and it feels like a soft plastic. When the eggs of butterfly become pupa, the workers will move them into a incubation room, to ensure a better chance of survival for butterfly to hatch.

How to distinguish a butterfly and a moth? A friend told me that when butterfly perches, its wings are closed, whereas moth’s will remain open.

There is another garden that has pitcher plant but I didn’t visit. Anyway, I will come back again.

Photos taken in Tambunan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Bongawan is about 70 KM away from Kota Kinabalu (KK), located between Kimanis and Beaufort. On the way to Beaufort, when you see a gambus musical instrument in the roundabout, just take a right turn. Most of the population here are Orang Brunei. I went to Bongawan on Saturday when they have tamu (open market), coz that’s where you can tell a lot about the locals by looking at what they sell and what they eat.

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Actually I didn’t know what to expect in Bongawan, as very little is known about this place. My presence soon attracted a lot of attention, probably due to the camera that I was carrying. I walked in tamu, pretending I was a tourist and thought they would lose interest in couple of minutes. I was wrong. They greeted me warmly and learnt about my purpose. One of the hawker even gave me a free “cap-kuih”, a fried bread with very crispy skin, soft and creamy inside. I also tried the “Bachal”, a rojak-like (mixed vegetables) food wrapped in banana leaf.

The people are friendly but a bit camera-shy. When I took their photos, their friends will tease them. When it was their turn, others would laugh back. A young Orang Brunei girl even can speak Chinese.

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When I was walking around, a few locals kept on pointing at a old wooden building, trying to show me the feature of the town. It is (see below) a pre-war shophouse built in British colony time. A senior local says this 10-shop building is a mix of 1922 and 1939 shop joined together, though there is a year stamp “1939″ on it.

Kimanis and Membakut also have this kind of building but look newer. Fire has destroyed some post-war building in Tamparuli and Beaufort. Once this historical heritage is gone, it will be replaced by cement structure (which would last less than 20 years by the standard of Sabah developers).

Below is a photo of 1950 post-war building, just in front of the 1939 shophouse. The shops in ground floor are usually sell food or grocery stores. The first floor is family house.

Bongawan was once a heavily guided town of Japanese during World War 2 coz Beaufort railway was the key transport centre. I was trying to know more about the Japanese occupation from a 80-year old local. He said everyone was hiding in the wood, and there was a massacre happened in Kota Belud but the bodies could not be found.

A local let me visited the kitchen inside the 1939 building. Besides tap water, there was a well behind the shop. The toilet has no toilet bowl, and you only see a small hole at the bottom. It makes me feeling uneasy to pee to the ground. Frankly, it was quite fun coz I didn’t need to aim, haha…

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Kopi-O Ping (ice coffee) costs how much in KK? RM1.80 per glass right? A bottle of ice coffee is only RM1.40 in Bongawan! They fill the coffee in used Tiger / Carlsberg beer bottle then cold it in refrigerator. The glass bottle allows the thorough cooling of coffee, and the ice coffee has been served like this for at least 20 years. So far I only find such”featured drink” in Bongawan.

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Besides the town itself, I also checked out the Kopi-O+Teh-C (coffee + milk tea) rivers in Ulu Bongawan, a village and plantation region 1.5 KM away from town. When the brackish river flows into the brown river, it looks like milk tea special. Too bad it is not big enough, otherwise it can be one of the 7 wonders in Sabah. Bongawan beach, about 2.5 KM away, is also a nice and white sandy beach to hang around.

I wonder what will happen to the old shophouses in the future. Hopefully the government will preserve them. I will come back again many years later to see if they will vanish under development…

Photos taken in Bongawan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

I have been waiting for the blooming of Rafflesia flower. I went to Tambunan Rafflesia Information Centre in August last year, but came back empty-handed (I mean no photograph). Rafflesia is the biggest flower in the world and out of 15 species, only 3 species are found in Sabah. You also can find rafflesia flower in Sumatran, Peninsular Malaysia, Java and Philippines.

Rafflesia arnoldii species, with 90 cm in diameter, is the biggest flower in the world. Too bad it does not live in Sabah. I am tired of hearing tour operators advertise we have the biggest flower. Just to get the fact right.

Tambunan Rafflesia Information Centre is about 80 KM away from Kota Kinabalu city. However, you will be driving on a long uphill road with many turns. Unless you own a powerful 4-wheel, otherwise you will need about 2 hours to arrive there. There is an exhibition hall that shows some info of rafflesia species. They open at 9am daily and close at 3pm. So don’t be late.

Only Rafflesia pricei, about 30 cm in diameter and second largest species in Sabah, is found in the Tambunan forest reserve about 1,200 - 1,400 Meters above sea level. Daily sighting is not guaranteed and in fact consider rare. many small brownish protuberances (bud) of rafflesia can be seen on the forest ground. The seed will need 6 to 7 months to grow! Rats and other animals would feed on this juicy bud thereby adding the rate of fatality. It is difficult than bearing a human baby.

Rafflesia is a parasite plant that hosts on the vine of Tetrastigma. Rafflesia is a single flower that has no stem, no leaf and no root, and it is smelly like rotten meat. Rafflesia pricei is not as smelly as Rafflesia keithii. But when I get very close and sniff, I still can smell something unpleasing. Rafflesia relies on this smell to attract insects such as fly, to carry on the pollination.

Photo above shows the reddish-brown cabbage-like protuberances of rafflesia. As you can see, they grow on a vine. Few months later, their flower will bloom in the night, showing their fleshy petals (perigone lobes) like the picture of rafflesia pricei below. The whole plant is a bit soft and look like plastic flower. I like its beautiful white spot pattern. I was so excited, coz this is my first time seeing a blooming rafflesia.

Last Saturday there were two blooming of rafflesia pricei, one was 3 days old, another one 6 days. I was very lucky because one of the blooming rafflesia is only 10 minutes walk into the forest, and there was no forest leech due to the dry season now. The worst experience will be walking in the trail for an hour and get annoyed by the little blood sucking slimy leeches throughout the trekking. The extra water, raincoat and leech sock that I carried were needless.

When I was busy photographing the rafflesia, the park ranger kept on asking if I would use the photos for filming. If the photos are for commercial use and I photograph it for very long, I would have to pay RM3,000 (USD900) for such purpose. According to him, a Korean even paid RM2,500 (WOW!) to picture this magnificent flower. Rafflesia pricei is pricely to photograph then. Well, I drove here for 2 hours and paid RM50 entrance fee, there was no way I would take two shots and left. I was done with the priceless moment anyway.

Just for your info, the blooming flower will last only 1 to 5 days. On 6th day, the petal will dry up and the whole plant will totally wither in next few days. By the time you are reading this, the pretty rafflesia flower that I saw last week should have gone. Give the centre a call to confirm if there is any blooming, before you visit. By the time I left, there were 2 tourist buses came in, the travel agent is quite well-informed I guess. When there is no blooming, the whole place is like yours.

For other two species, rafflesia keithii, with 80cm in diameter, is the biggest species in Sabah. You can see them in Poring, Crocker Range, Tenom Agriculture Park, and Lohan. If I am not mistaken, Keith, the person that discovered rafflesia keithii, is the husband of Agnes Keith, the author who named Sabah “The land below the wind.”

Rafflesia tengku-adlinii, with 20cm in diameter, is the smallest but the rarest rafflesia that can only be found in eastern slope of Trus Madi range and Lutong Mountain in interior Sabah. If you are able to show me its blooming, I will not hesitate to pay you handsomely!

Due to forest clearing for logging and agriculture, sighting of rafflesia is something depends on luck. Hope we can find the way to grow them in nursery. In fact some villagers are unhappy to see rafflesia. They would remove it to prevent their land is gazetted as protected forest reserve. And I also hope Sabah Parks can create a web page that announces the blooming of rafflesia, so more tourists will come for the sighting. I have no doubt the interest is strong.

Photos taken in Tambunan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Despite the economic downturn, life goes on and we were still grantly celebrating the Kaamatan Grand Finale at KDCA (Kadazandusun Cultural Association) Penampang on May 30 and 31. In fact, I saw more tourists coming this year. From the news, some of them knew this event via Facebook. I don’t have a foreigner look, so no yellow-shirt volunteers came to offer a guided tour. In fact, they couldn’t, as there were thousands of visitors.

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Each year different indigenous groups from all over Sabah, some live deep inside countryside, to KDCA to show their colorful traditional customs and dances to the visitors. If beautiful girls dress in beautiful customes, you will hear never-ending of camera clicking around them. They will be more than happy to smile at our lens. Who knows their photo will appear in the tourism poster and leaflet all over Malaysia. I just snapshot whatever caught my heart.

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Basically, this year was same as last year. The new tribes that were invited this time were Dusun Puawang (Kota Marudu), Dusun Begak (Lahad Datu), and Murut Paluan. All Dusun sub-ethnics can look very different from one another, but they speak very similar Dusun language. Sometimes, you can hear few of them speak Chinese, coz nowadays many indigenous people send their kids to Chinese primary schools.

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Besides being offered Sabah local wine “tapai”, you can check out the handicraft making. The turtle shell “drums” of Murut Paluan (from Keningau) attracted most interest. It is made of the shell of land turtle that live in forest.

Some VVIPs also came to visit around, shaking hands with people, pretending that they are the people’s leaders. But~ bunch of police chased away any audiences that stayed near the stage, making all cultural shows like the performance for VVIPs.

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Later in the afternoon of May 31, there was Unduk Ngadau (Harvest Beauty Queen) beauty pageant, with over 40 contestants which represented different districts of Sabah. Many photographers, whom I believe are bloggers without media pass, also went crazy about the beauties, blocking in front of official photographers. Well, I hope they will be well-behaved next year.

Related photo albums
Kaamatan 2005
Kaamatan 2006
Kaamatan 2007
Kaamatan 2008

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

6th June 2009, I was standing in Double Six Monument, the exact spot where a Nomad aircraft crashed 33 years ago. On 6th June 1976, this plane was on the way from Labuan to KK International Airport. For uncertain reason, the plane plunged into coastline of Sembulan and killed all 11 passengers onboard.

Those who perished were Chief Minister of Sabah at that time, Tun Fuad Stephens, ministers like Datuk Peter Mojuntin (Local Government and Housing), Datuk Salleh Sulong (Finance), Datuk Chong Thain Vun (Communication and Works), Datuk Darius Binion (Finance Ministry Permanent Secretary), Datuk Wahid Andu, Dr Syed Hussein Wafa, assigned bodyguard Corp. Mohd Said, Ishak Atan (Tengku Razaleigh’s personal secretary), pilot Captain Ghani Nathan and Fuad’s eldest son, Johari.

Memorial service is carried out in this monument annually on 6-6. Though I was not a grow-up in 1976, that can’t stop me from wandering why this happened. Besides the list of victims and date of crash, there is so little background information behind this tragedy.

However, the elder generation, who had experienced the shock of losing their beloved leaders, still cannot forget the pain until today. Half of the cabinet died.

None of them believe that the crash was an accident. During that time (you can call it a coincidence) there was disagreement and tension between Sabah and the federal governments about the oil royalty and Sabah’s rights. Tun Fuad Stephens wanted to fight for 25% of the oil royalty, a huge difference with the 5% we get today.

What convinced Sabahans more that it was a political murder is - a politician, who was supposed to take the same flight, didn’t go onboard. After he gained power later, the government was so generous to accept the rip-off 5% oil royalty deal.

Anyway, that is just guessing without any proof. I just describe what they thought at that time. Whether it was an accident or conspiracy, this will remain the biggest mystery in Sabah history. The memory is fading out. Only a few politicians and victim’s families come for yearly remembrance now.

Well, I was just there to remember these past elites who were so bold, in contrast to our boneless-chicken YBs who have become the gut-less Yes-Men to anything that against Sabahan interests. It is not difficult to understand why some federal ministers have become so arrogant and indifferent when dealing with us. Just see some cases like the prohibited use of word “Allah”, cabotage policy, hospital and coal plant.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo