Last month I was on a morning flight to Tawau and sat next to the window. When the plane approached Tawau and started to descent, I took out my camera, hoping to snap some beautiful aerial shots of Tawau. It ended up as a big disappointment because I saw only sea of oil palm, on the land, on the hill, next to the river, everywhere… There was also evident of forest being clear for planting of oil palm.

Actually you don’t need to be on the sky to see this. Just drive from Lahad Datu to Tawau. Along the way, you will see only oil palm. Everytime I passed by, I sighed in my heart, “the ecotourism of Tawau is over..” Most tourists also find this view an eyesore, as they know oil palm plantation is mainly responsible for clearing of Borneo rainforest and destroy of orangutan habitat. The tourists, who go for diving in Semporna, don’t even want to stop over in Tawau for a night. “What to see here? Oil palm forest?” I feel sorry for people of Tawau. They have no orangutan, proboscis monkey, elephant…

Currently Sabah is happily harvesting the fruits of ecotouri$m, as most tourists want to see our well-preserved nature. We are enjoying the success now, due to the right things we did 10 or 20 years ago. If we don’t stringently protect our forest now, we may not see the negative effects until 10 years later. Even Sandakan, our ecotourism city, can end up like Tawau one day, and it will be too late to do anything. The recent serious flood of Kinabatangan River was NOT the act of God. It was caused by overlogging and excessive land clearing. Do you know that oil palm plantation is taking 70%++ of Kinabatangan Floodplain now? Of course the politician will not want to highlight this.

Under the regulations, slopes that are too steep should not be clear. But look at the photo above. Oil palm is all over the hilly region. Can the authority explain why this happens? Who is responsible? Forestry Dept? Land and Survey Dept? Or Environment Protection Dept? Where is the enforcement?

Probably the only forest Tawau left are Tawau Hills Park and Bukit Gemok. Look at the photos below, and you will see oil palm is engulfing the forest area. It is so saddening. No wildlife can survive in such small patches of fragmented forest.

Maliau Basin (a.k.a. The Lost World), though not really inside Tawau district, should be monitored closely. It looks like a volcano crater but it is not. It is a disastrous decision that government allows the logging of timber in its buffer zone. Even politicians from Peninsular Malaysia are dripping for this natural treasure, which is full of coal and timber. The building of coal power plant would threaten this pristine forest, as it opens up an excuse for government to mine its coal. Remember the lesson of copper mine of Mamut? Its pollution is such a disaster that nobody can resolve it until today. We better watch out what government is doing, to prevent it from making second Mamut.

Just say NO to coal power plant. Politicians want to make it sounds like the only choice, “No coal plant = No electricity.” The fact is - we can have both electricity and a clean environment with alternative energy such as hydro-generated power. If you believe what the government says, you die lah. There is no such thing as “clean coal”, like there is no “clean shit”. If WWF says coal power plant sucks, then it sucks, no matter what others say.

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The Land Below the Oil Palm

Photos taken in Tawau, Sabah Malaysia

I don’t know how much you believe in Feng Shui (Feng means wind, Shui means water). But I know many bosses and companies do, some even spend 5-digit figure to hire a Feng Shui consultant to design the best Feng Shui arrangement for office interior. Damn… I should had invested in studying in Feng Shui. Look at the fortune of Lilian Too. There is a saying “Feng shui guru can cheat you for 8 years 10 years” because it is hard to prove that they are wrong. I am a bit skeptical about Feng Shui, but not totally in disbelief. After all, it is a thousand-year old knowledge, in many parts backed by science and experience.

Don’t know if you notice Chinese like to have fish tank in their houses and shops? Not that they really love fishes. In Feng Shui, fish tank is a body of water can neutralise bad luck. Chinese also think that best Feng Shui house is the one facing sea and backed by mountain. That’s why you see many Chinese temples built in such location. Building a house right next to a 3-road or 4-road junction is very bad in Feng Shui. Like the photo above I took in Beaufort, a house next to a junction setup feng shui cannon.

Some Feng Shui books say people live in house next to such junction could get bad luck easily. I was told that evil spirits are more likely to wander around such area. The fake cannons are probably to scare them away. Certain businesses tend to believe Feng Shui more than others, especially those that have strong connection with luck factors, spirits and crime, such as gambling, PR, lumbering and police. Many years ago, a fortune teller told me that water element was bad for my career, but fire element was good. After knowing I studied in computer science, he noded, “hmmm… computer is electronic, electricity is fire, good, good…” Though I didn’t really believe this, it was a relief somehow.

Some Feng Shui theories have scientific basis. For example, Feng Shui says you should not plant a tall tree next to your house. Well, the reason is quite obvious and common sense. If the big tree falls one day, it will crush your house. Instead of giving a scientific explanation, Feng Shui would give very “deep” reason such as the bad spirits would hide in the tree shadow, making the whole thing sounds so superstitious.

Basically, Feng Shui is about changing the flow of magnetic field to repel bad energy (e.g. sickness, bad luck, evil spirits) and draw good energy (e.g. fortune, luck, morale, health). That’s why in horror movie, you always can see a Feng Shui guru checks the site with Feng Shui compass. If the pointer spins like crazy, it means presence of ghost.. For this feng Shui house in Beaufort, the cannons are pointing to a old building only 10 Meters away. That is a gazetted building built by British colony hundred years ago. During World War II, Japanese used it as hospital. Some locals believe there are spirits lingering around it…

Photos taken in Beaufort, Sabah Malaysia

Continued from Part 2…

Day 2

The next morning we waked up quite early. Jimmy brought back more wild durians. Compared to durian on the market, wild durian is smaller. Its meat is thinner but tastes good. After having some fried noodle as breakfast, we started our last program at 8:30am.

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Jimmy taught us more survival skills. The most useful one is starting fire without a lighter. Just stack two flat bamboo wood, hold some coconut husk in between, cut a small air hole and “fiction rail” on top of a wood, then rub the opening hard and fast, up and down, on another dry wood. We saw smoke in a matter of seconds. The drilling-hole method we saw on TV is so slow and stupid. I bet many had tried drilling the wood but it never worked right?

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Another useful skill is making a bamboo rice cooker. Just cut an opening on young bamboo, put rice and water in it, then boil it on the fire. You also can boil the water in same way, as uncooked water is not clean. It is really handy if metal container such as empty tin is not available. Jimmy also showed us how to make a bamboo cup and pop-gun. It is not as easy as we imagine.

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Lastly we “graduated” and left the camp at 9:30am. Though cloudy, the rain stopped and it was a good weather. This time we were walking non-stop so we reached Kiau Village in about 2 hours.

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Mount Kinabalu showed her face clearly that day, forming a nice backdrop.

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Yesterday I missed the photography opportunity, now I could shoot happily. We passed through the farm land and saw many crops grew on the slope.

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Tapioca, banana, rubber, pineapples, hill paddy and vegetables are common crops in Kiau. Besides for self-consumption, they also sell them in market.

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Nothing much I need to say already. We arrived Kiau at 11:30am. After having delicious lunch with Miki and other guides, we headed back to Kota Kinabalu, took a shower and went to bed.

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Personally, I am a bit concern about the clearing of forest on the slope. At the moment it is still ok. Hope it won’t be overdeveloped, which would cause flood, soil erosion and landslide.

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Miki Survival Camp not only shows us how to survive in jungle, it also makes us appreciate the nature a lot more, as we know more clearly how resourceful a jungle can be. People could get almost anything (food, herb, building and handicraft materials) from the jungle. If done in sustainable manner, there is almost an unlimited supply of food and raw materials.

I believe this is how Penan people in Sarawak live in jungle. Sadly, the greedy logging companies come in and destroy their forest and living. The Sarawak government doesn’t do anything to stop this. Instead, the politicians try to label the Penan people as rebel. No newspaper speak up for them. This is what happens if voters give Barisan Nasional the full power. Absolute ruling by one party will bring only corruption.

Photos taken in Kiau, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Continued from Part 1…

Miki Survival Camp is a tourism project initiated by the community of Kiau. After they ran the project, villagers started to realize the benefits of the conservation. Instead of clearing the forest for farming, they keep the jungles, especially those near to Miki camp. Personally I like to visit those pristine places other than those attractions developed by blood-sucking and money-minded tour operators, who only want to build luxury chalets and charge tourists by thousand$$$.

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TOUR AROUND CAMPSITE

After having warm porridge as lunch, our guide, Jimmy, led us for the afternoon education tour. He showed us some of the common traps used by the locals to catch wild animals. All traps are cleverly designed, with ropes, wood, strings, gravity and spring force as mechanism, no battery required. They either setup the trap in the animal path or put bait inside the trap. Jimmy also blew a folded ginger leaf, making sound to lure kijang (a lamb like small deer).

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Few traps can be quite nasty, like the Vunsoi trap, if the wild boar or deer trips on a string, it will release a wooden bow spring that swing a spear. They even have smaller traps for snake, squirrel, mouse and jungle fowl. To avoid being wordy, I put more photos in album with captions, for your further reading. Tourists who join Miki Camp will get a small book, with info on trap setting. Besides the traps, Jimmy also told us the edible stuffs such as wild ginger fruit (tampo) and fern (pakis), herbal plant such as wadan vine, poisonous plant such as tohipoi, wild plum and bekago. It is interesting and useful to know all these.

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Because of the wet forest floor, as we moved deeper inside the jungle, we were attacked by legion of tiger leeches. The leeches were hiding in the vegetation next to the trail, as we walked by, our raincoats were also sweeping the plant, harvesting leeches like vacuum. Haha… this is also part of the experience. We checked on each other regularly, remove leeches on our raincoat, so nobody got bitten (miracle!). Jimmy collected over 10 leeches and rub them in his palm, the heat killed all the leeches, and he showed me the “leech ball”, iyaak!

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Later we were back to the campsite and Jimmy demo some craft works and skills, like making bamboo mat and roof, splitting firewood (in fastest and effortless way), creating bamboo fish trap (berusat), using blowpipe, etc. While we were happily sharing our excitement of the day, Rayner had started cooking our dinner, probably lizard soup and worm noodles, just kidding..

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Early dinner in jungle is advisable. If you eat at night with light on, it will attract all sorts of flying bugs from the forest. We had fried rice, mixed vegetables, ketchup chicken and crab soup as our dinner. Rayner is such a good cook, or we were too hungry. It was also nice to have a cup of coffee or tea in the cold.

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Jungle seemed to get dark sooner. The cold night kicked in, after a heavy meal, everyone already felt sleepy next to the fire place.

NIGHT WALK

The next programme was the one I anticipated the most, the night walk. In daytime, we didn’t see a lot of wild things, I only saw a huge stink bug and a Daddy Long Legs (Harvestmen Spider). However, the jungle is a extremely busy world at night. We started the night walk at 7:00pm and the noisy surrounding sounded very promising. In search of rare and weird bug, some foreigner photographers had visited this site much more earlier than me. In fact, this area is the buffer zone between Kiau Village and Kinabalu Park that is rich in biodiversity. With the aid of torchlight, we slowly walked across the jungle and scanned the plant and trees like treasure hunt.

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After a short walk, the guide said, “turn off your light.” “Huh? what?” I replied but did so anyway. Then we saw patches of glowing green in total darkness (see photo above). “That’s a glowing fungus,” Jimmy said. When we turned on the light again, we only saw very ordinary green fungus on a rotten tree log. I was really thrilled and setup my tripod, attempting to capture the glow. I only took one shot coz I didn’t want everyone waited for me. Later we also spotted glowing mushroom.

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Then the next interesting creature we saw was a very tiny frog (see photo above). It is so small that any normal frog can swallow it in one snap. It was sitting on a ordinary-size leaf. We carried on and saw more bugs, most were creepy types that could make girls screamed. I didn’t stop clicking my camera, every few steps there would be new things, like firefly, frogs (some are poisonous), stick insect, cricket, grasshopper, forest cockroaches, gecko, cave centipede, big snail, etc.

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Guess what was the biggest bug we saw that night? It was not frog and lizard. The jackpot of this night walk was a giant caterpillar (see photo below)! This caterpillar is longer than my palm, probably about 7 inches long. Jimmy said, “I also never see anything like this before. You are so lucky.” Anyone can tell me what it is? We tried to look for the horned frog but didn’t find any. I was so happy already anyway. The cold weather drained the power of my camera battery very fast. My last battery only had two bars of power left. I needed to save it for next day. Damn… otherwise I would have spent more time and shot more…

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About an hour later, we returned to our camp. There was no electricity and TV, so we went to bed, without taking a bath, lol… Though our camps were not too far apart, it was totally dark and I felt that my camp was alone. It was so noisy at night, with sounds from frogs, bugs and birds. Some lame writers like to describe this as the “orchestra” of jungle sounds. To me, it is just plain noisy. Since I was so tired, that didn’t really bother me. In midnight, I was waked up by a loud bang. Next day the guide told me it was bamboo “exploding”, it is common and can be as loud as gun shot.

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Temperature still dropped in late night. So cold that everyone of us waked up and put on more clothing. Very soon I wanted to pee. I grabbed my torchlight and walked to the toilet. On the way back, I saw something moving slowly on a log. It was a very beautiful snake, with gold color and tiger-like stripes on its body, and got red eyes! It saw me and stayed motionless. Quickly I ran to my camp, took my camera and shot some photos. Next day the guide told me that this is a very venomous viper, it is not aggressive but its kiss is fatal. I was so glad I didn’t step on this snake by accident.

Click Here to continue to Part 3…

Photos taken in Mohan Tuhan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Rainforest is one of the worst places to get lost and there was one recent case in Sandakan. To learn the skills of a jungle man would make a difference. If you know how to use the resources of the jungle, the forest will be a buffet place, which offers plenty of food. That’s why I joined the Miki Survival Camp, a 2 day 1 night programme in Kiau last week. In Kiau, we still needed to walk to the forest in Mohan Tuhan, at the foothill of Mt. Kinabalu. The low mountain forest looks like the photo below, cool huh?

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Kiau Village (Kampung Kiau) is 29KM away from Ranau town. If you drive to Kinabalu Park, you will see a junction at your left, somewhere between Nabalu and Kundasang towns. There is a brown sign of Miki Camp. Kiau Village is under Kota Belud district. I waited at the junction, and Mr. Sadib Miki, the owner of the camp, picked up me and drove another 30 minutes of bumpy road to the starting point (Kiau Nuluh Village). Most people in Kiau are Kadazandusun work as farmers and civil servants. Every house seems to have a farm there.

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However, the weather started to turn bad, and the rain was kind of putting off my passion on photography. Below is a photo of the Miki team. From left, Jimmy, Sadib Miki (owner), Maik (his brother) and Danson. The rain didn’t seem to stop, so I had no choice but to proceed at 10:20am. Jimmy, Maik and Danson were our guides. They were so nice and helped to carry my heavy tripod. Thank you!

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TREKKING

Walking from Kiau Village to Miki Survival Camp (in Mohan Tuhan, foothill of Mount Kinabalu) takes about 2 hours. We would stay in the forest for a night and came back in next morning. At first I was disappointed with the poor weather and hang my camera under the raincoat. Suddenly I saw a 5-inch earthworm crawling near the trail. Grew up as half a village boy, I noticed this earthworm crawled in an unusual way. After a closer look, I almost screamed, “that’s a giant Kinabalu Leech!!!” Giant Kinabalu Leech can grow up to 30cm long and we saw the baby leech. As sighting of this leech is very rare, I was as happy as a lottery winner. Giant leech only comes out after heavy rain, to chase for its prey - earthworm. Once it finds the earthworm, it will swallow the earthworm like a snake. Surprisingly, it doesn’t suck blood. Miki says such leech can be found in Kinabalu Park and Kota Belud, but it lives in very confined area. Very little is known about this creature. I should thank the rainy day.

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Beginning of the trail was to walk pass a farm land for about an hour. Due to the cooling fresh air, I didn’t feel really tired or dehydrated. Then we walked into the dark, humid and dense low mountain forest. With an altitude of 1,000 Metres, this forest is characterized by abundant amount of mosses, lichen, algae, fungus, and mushroom on the tree and forest floor. Frequented by fog and mist, some trees even have hanging long roots that can absorb moisture from the air.

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During the trekking, Jimmy, the Bear Grylls of Sabah, would stop occasionally, showing us some of the edible and herbal plant in forest, more like an interpretation walk. We didn’t only see, but also touch, smell and taste the forest produces such as wild durian and salak (snake skin fruit). Whenever Jimmy talked, I would take note. Otherwise I will forget what he says. I decide to post these info in my blog here. It is only a record, do not use my info as a forest eatery guide ok! Some food still needs special handling in order to consume safely. Don’t blame me if you get ill.

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According to the guide, sometimes honeymooners also had their vacation in Miki Camp. A couple once carried a 2-year baby into the jungle. The 2-hour walk made us sweat but it was not too physically demanding. A walking stick and “kampung addidas” shoes (Village Addidas, a Malaysia made rubber shoes) will be your best friends. The forest floor can be wet, muddy and slippery, and you also need to cross a river. If you wear your hundreds dollar hiking shoes such as Camel and Timberland, you will soon find your shoes soaked with water and its bottom sticks a thick layer of mud. Kampung Addidas costs only RM3 (USD $1) but it is sold for RM7 (USD$2.20) in city. It is easy to dry and have firm grip on slippery rocks, but will not stick mud. Most guides wear it to climb Mt. Kinabalu and even won climbathon race.

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Friends, I have 1 good news and 1 bad news for you. Good news - even though the forest is dark and wet, there was no mosquito. Bad news is - there are plenty of blood-thirsty slimy leeches, 90% of them are tiger leech. If you stop walking, they can crawl on your shoes in seconds, moving up and sucking blood on your feet, legs, neck and armpit. I was wearing leech socks with anti-leech spray on it, so I was safe. If you are a leech-phobia like me, you can wear leech socks or come in dry season. We crossed Hoya-Hoya, Inokok and Mohan Tuhan Rivers on the way, by slippery bamboo bridge, swinging suspension bridge and on foot (3 methods!).

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CAMPSITE

Finally, after nearly 3 hours, we arrived Miki Survival Camp at 12:45pm in Muhan Tuhan. Actually the trekking took 2 hours, but we stopped many times for learning thus taking longer time. Probably coz of the rich negative ions, I didn’t feel exhausted, and the chocolate bars and 100Plus that I brought were untouched.

Miki Survival Camp started in year 2000. They have about 1 thousand tourists every year, mainly from UK. Miki Camp is in the middle of a forest, which was considered a sacred forest in the past. The hunters always buried some offering near the river, wishing for a safe and fruitful hunting trip. There are about 6 or 7 scattered raised floor huts, which house 1 or 2 camping tents. The campsite can accommodate 40 people at a time. Sleeping bag and carpet are provided, but this is not quite enough to fight the cold night. Besides, they have a kitchen that uses wood and gas for cooking.

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Electricity and warm water are not available in the jungle. Since the camp has no attached bathroom, you have to walk to the toilet nearby. You shall not expect a 5-star toilet in a jungle right? In my previous camping, we only dag a hole, surrounded it with canvas and called it our toilet. I posted some more photos of the campsite in photo album, in case you like to see more. The guides said primates like orangutan, slow loris and tarsier were spotted in deeper site of this jungle. Wild boar and monkey were living around but they seldom come to the campsite.

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They also have bathroom, but it is “underutilized”. It is so cold that none of us took a shower, haha… The temperature can drop to 8 degree Celsius, between wet and dry season. The Mohan Tuhan River is only a stone throw from our campsite. It is so clean that you can drink it right away, and the water is also freezing cold. Jimmy said we could take shower in this river, but I’m afraid I would never see my “little brother” again if I did so. In fact, this area is an important water catchment area, with unpolluted water straight from our majestic Mount Kinabalu.

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Besides the guide, our cook, Rayner and his daughter, Diana also came in earlier. Dinomysia, the little daughter of Sadib Miki, was there too. The girls were very shy, probably I am too handsome, hehe… And their dog, Kurak (means white in local language), was a friendly company too. Kurak likes to hang around with Dinomysia and Diana, following them in and out of forest.

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Another heavy rain approached, making afternoon even colder. We setup a fire place and sat next to it, to keep ourselves warm and dry. Same as us, Kurak also loved to stay near the fire, so near that I worried she would become a hot dog. If she was not sleeping, she would patrol around in the campsite, keeping wild animals at bay.

Click Here to continue to Part 2…

Photos taken in Kiau, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo