Category Archives: Travel

Banggi Island, the largest island of Sabah

I was taking a bus to Kudat last week. It was a 3 hour trip. A pretty girl, sitting next to me, fell in sleep and leaned on my shoulder for hour. She gave me a sweet smile when she got down the bus. I saw she was heading to the Kudat / Banggi Ferry Terminal, so I was curious if there were more pretty girls like her on Banggi Island.

Pic: Ferry to Banggi Island from Kudat’s jetty

Banggi Island (Pulau Banggi) is the biggest island of Sabah. Before I went there, I only knew this island was a BIG dot on the Sabah map. That’s all. I never heard anything about it.

How to go to Banggi Island

To go to Banggi Island, you can take a ferry at the jetty of Kudat town (see schedule below). There are a few companies offers ferry transfer back and forth Kudat and Banggi. You better wait there earlier than departure time b’coz they may move a few minutes sooner.

Company	Kudat → Banggi	Banggi → Kudat
Banggi Express	9:00am	2:00pm
Sri Labuan Lima	2:30pm	8:00am
Pelican Express	2:30pm	8:00am
Labuan Express Tujuh	9:00am	2:00pm

*updated: 21 Feb 2014

In general, the Business Class ticket costs RM25 (≈USD7.58) per way (has air-conditioning), First Class ticket costs RM18 (≈USD5.45), Economy Class costs RM15 (≈USD4.55). For enquiry, you may call +60 19-8614006 or +60 14-8579480 (Vivie). Below is the location of the jetty:

View My Sabah Map in a larger map

There were a lot of 3-feet jelly fishes swam in the sea next to the terminal. I heard that a blogger fell (with his camera) into this sea before. Scary… they look very poisonous.

Click Here to see photos of Banggi Island >>

The ferry took one hour to reach Banggi Island. I was standing on the jetty and looked around. Hmmm… this island does not look anything like a tourist site. It is just an island, with some villages and building. The locals also looked at me, with the phrase “what is he doing here?” written on their faces. My 016 mobile line got no signal here. The fried banana is quite cheap though. Only RM1 (USD0.25) for 12 pieces, eat until I puke. The locals said I could rent a car to explore the island, and tourists usually went to this island for fishing. You can hire a boat to explore other islands nearby too. I only stayed there for half a day so I didn’t have time to do these.

The local also told me there was a Bonggi Resort on the island. If you don’t know the way, it will be hard to find coz the resort looks more like a house. I post the guide below FYI.

1. Turn right after you leave the jetty. Take the way next to the mosque.
2. Walk til the end, you will see two wooden shoplots.
3. Walk between the shoplots til the end, you will see a school.
4. The Bonggi Resort is a white building behind the school.

Click Here to see photos of Banggi Island >>

To overnight, you have two choices in Bonggi Resort: (1) Take the fan / air-cond room for RM30 / RM45 per night, or (2) Try the wooden hut (Banggi people style) for RM25 per night. Option (1) got bed, attached washroom, cabinet. Option (2) got light and a bed only, washroom is outside. I was not comfortable with the wooden hut coz it got too many “holes”, very little privacy. Just check out the photo gallery to look at both options more closely. But the most interesting thing is the “tree house” I found outside my room. It is built on top of the tree, and tourists like to take a nap or reading book there. I went back to my room and tried to turned on the light. No power. They told me that the resort only got power from 6 PM to 6 AM (huh!~). The room was so warm in the afternoon, so I climbed onto the tree house and slept until 6 PM, at least I could feel the sea breeze on top. I was a Sabahans lived on tree, haha. I didn’t find that pretty girl eventually, but I took a few photos of the island. Now you can see the photos of Sabah’s biggest island.

Click Here to see photos of Banggi Island >>

Lepa-Lepa on Newspaper

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OK, my article, about Water Festival in Semporna, was published on Overseas Chinese Daily News’s Sunday paper (May 14, 06) again. You can click the picture at the left to read it. Sorry lah, if you can’t read Mandarin (Chinese).

It is less fun to write for newspaper coz everything has to sound politically correct. I hope I can joke a bit, make more personal comments though. I have submitted another article about Lundayeh Festival yesterday. Hope they will publish it. The Lundayeh people were really helpful and nice to me last time, so I hope I can do something to help them. That will be the last article I write for newspaper. I think I have gotten 7 articles printed on newspaper. Interesting experience but very time consuming.

Teck Guan Cocoa Museum, Tawau

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I never knew that my visit was unexpected. The Teck Guan Cocoa Museum is managed by a private company named Majulah Koko Tawau Sdn. Bhd. at Tanjung Batu Laut. It is a mini museum inside the Teck Guan cocoa factory. When I got there in the morning, the museum was locked (during their opening hour). A bit puzzled, I went to their office nearby to see if I need to buy any ticket to get in.

Their staffs were a bit surprised of my visit. According to them, any visit to the museum is arranged in advance and done in group. Each person will be charged RM10 that includes entrance to the museum, refreshment, a 20-minute video presentation, and a short tour to the cocoa factory. They also got a cocoa village (in Quoin Hill) where you can stay and see the cocoa plantation and seed processing.

They are not quite ready for walk-in visitor like me. Probably knowing that I went all the way there from KK, they were very kind and arranged a tour for me (free). The ground floor is a small showroom that exhibits cocoa fruits, cocoa end products, and some info on cocoa history. I was brought to a room to watch a 20-minute video to learn the origin, history, plantation, manufacturing processes and use of cocoa.

Then a friendly guide took me for a tour in their factory. She briefly explained the processing steps and the function of each machinery. The two primary output of the cocoa are Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Cake (powder). Cocoa Butter is more high quality and cost 3 times more expensive than Cocoa Cake. That’s why white chocolate, with cocoa butter as key ingredient, is more expensive. Nestle (Ovaltine), Milo, M & M Mars are their customers too.

They were curious to know how I found out the information about their museum coz they haven’t released such information to the press or media. I told them that their cocoa museum has been listed in the Sabah Tourism magazine for more than a year already.

Below is the opening hours of the Teck Guan Cocoa Museum:
Mon – Fri: 8AM – 11:30AM, 1:30PM – 4:30 PM
Sat: 8AM – 12PM
Sunday: Closed

To arrange any visit, you can call them at +60-89-775566 ext 2601.

Tawau Hills Park, Tawau

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If you are not a Tawau’s local, it is a bit hard to find Tawau Hills Park (Taman Bukit Tawau), and there is no bus going there. Tawau Hills Park is a recreational and national park about 20 KM away from Tawau town. During weekend and Sunday, many families and youngsters would go there to swim and BBQ. The locals normally call this place “Abacca”, “Table”, “National Park”, “Taman Negara”, “No. 4 Gudang”, “四號麻房” (Chinese)… If you say “Tawau Hills Park”, they will look at you with a “Huh? What?” expression, like you ask for direction to another planet.

To get there from Tawau town, go to the road that leads to “Jalan Muhibbah” and “Jalan Air Panas” roads. You will come to a few roundabout until you reach the one like the picture below. Take the left turn, you will see a yellow sign “Old Folks Home” after 10 meters, go straight for a few KM, near the end you will reach a T junction that got a “Muhibbah Jaya” sign at your right, turn right, go straight for quite a long way, you will passby Taman Semarak, Sungai Tawau bridge, big Golden Hope signboard… then pay attention to your right side, you will see the “Taman Bukit Tawau” sign, follow the sign to drive for another 8 KM, you will arrive Tawau Hills Park.

Click Here to see 24 photos of Tawau Hills Park >>

There is not much information about this park on the Internet. I thought it was just a small park. It is a very very big national park, with the size of 28,000 hectares. You need to pay RM3.00 entrance fee to enter the park. Most people go there to swim and picnic. There is a restaurant inside the park too. If you look at the map below (from the leaflet printed by Sabah Parks), you can see that there are lot of places you can go.

Click Here to see 24 photos of Tawau Hills Park >>

The popular extra choices are jungle trekking 2.7 KM to Gelas Hill Waterfall, or 3.2 KM to Sulphur Hot Spring. If you are lucky, on the way you can spot wildlife such as clouded leopard, hornbills, pheasants, giant tree squirrel. You may want to wear leech socks. For those who are adventurous, they can take the 10++ KM jungle route to climb a mountain. I am not sure if you need to get a climb permit and hire a local guide in advance, you may call the park at +60-89-918827 for info. You can stay in their jungle lodge (RM40 per night) or chalet (RM200 per night), or even sleep in the tents in camping ground for RM5.00 per night.

Click Here to see 24 photos of Tawau Hills Park >>

I was not so lucky that day. The weather was bad. I wanted to go to the Gelas Hill Waterfall and Sulphur Hot Spring. Their staff said these trails were next to the river. If the river flooded, I would trap in the forest. I really wanted to go, so I checked with a life guard at the riverside. He said it was quite safe to go. When I planned to move, it started to rain heavily. Well, my mission failed so not many photos were taken. The only place I can go is the small Tawau Hills Waterfall in the park. Due to the heavy rain, the waterfall was very big and strong. Quite a view. I have taken a video clip and share it here. Too bad, hopefully I can come back again one day.

Click Here to see 24 photos of Tawau Hills Park >>

I got a leaflet which has useful information of Tawau Hills Park (accommodation, contact, etc.). You can Click Here to download it.

Photos taken in Tawau, Sabah Malaysia

Hot Spring, Tawau

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At first I thought there was only one hot spring in Tawau. Actually there are two hot spring in Tawau. One is the big sulphur hot spring in Taman Hills Park. You need to walk 3.2 KM in the jungle to find it, so it is not famous among Tawau people. The second one is the small hot spring at Air Panas Road, and it is more popular.

Therefore, if you say you want to go to Hot Spring, the Tawau people will show you the direction to the small hot spring, not the big one in Tawau Hills Park. Damit… that’s why two Tawau people pointed to opposite direction when I asked for the way to hot spring. That made me very lost. Actually both of them gave the right direction, one to small hot spring, another one to Hills Park hot spring.

Clear? To get there from Tawau town, look for “Jalan Air Panas” and go straight, until you see the “JLN. HOT SPRING EXTN” sign at your right (see picture below), turn into that road, go straight again, when you see the “J. AYER PANAS LAMA BATU 3” sign, go straight for 50 meters and you will see a small wooden bridge next to the roadside.

Just cross the bridge and follow the path (see picture below). After you walk about 50 meters, you will see a bridge made of log. Congratulations! You have reached the hot spring.

“Huh? Where is it?” was my first response when I seemed to come to a dead end (see picture below). What I saw was just a small and stink river.

Suddenly I heard sound under the bridge. When I looked down, I saw some bubbling points in the river. The longkang (drain) smell is actually the smell of sulphur. Then I saw steam coming out from the bubbling points. I was told that the hot spring water was hot. Too bad I didn’t bring an egg to test if it can boil the egg. There are some white substances deposit near the bubbling points. I don’t know what it is. It is interesting but this hot spring is really small. Many locals don’t even bother to look at it.

Click Here to play the video clip >>

Anyway, I made a one-minute video clip for you to get an idea. You may decide whether you want to go there after watching the video.

Trip to Tawau

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The last time I went to Tawau was so many years ago. Whenever I wanted to visit my friends in Tawau, they would say, “why you come to Tawau Oh? Nothing to play here leh.” Tawau is too far away from Kota Kinabalu city and got no attractive tourism spot . I know they got a Cocoa Museum and a Hill Park. Unfortunately, even people from Tawau also don’t know much about them, so I really had doubt if these places worth a visit.

I have traveled in many places of Sabah. To “conquer” the whole Sabah, Tawau seems like a must-go destination, just for the sake of making the list complete. Luckily, there was a Tawau level Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) celebration on May 6. So I found more good reason to go to Tawau. Besides, I got an aunty stays in Tawau.

The next thing is to choose a transport. Taking a bus from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau will cost RM55 per trip, and the ride takes 9 hours. Getting there by plane will cost RM120+ per trip, but it takes only 40 minutes to fly to Tawau. So I took the plane. RM240+ is quite a rip off price, consider it is enough to buy a AirAsia ticket to fly to Kuala Lumpur. Once I arrived Tawau airport, I still had to pay RM10 to get a bus from airport to the town centre, which took another hour.

I took a walk in Tawau town. Tawau is really a big town. I think that the road system in town is a bit messy, like not systematic and well-planned. There are many faces of foreigners who look like Indonesians. I walked to the Dewan Masyarakat Tawau. They would have the Kaamatan celebration there that night, so I wanted to survey the place. Yeah, you can expect photos of Tawau Unduk Ngadau Beauty Pageant here later.

My Tawau aunty lent me her old car, so I could roam freely in town and made it felt young once again (but the wheels almost went off). She only showed me the way back home once, then I was totally on my own. I had no problem to drive home, even in the dark. Not because I have 6th sense or great memory, I got pen and paper mah, hahaha… The faintest ink can beat the strongest memory. Why burden my brain so much? What I need to do is just taking note of the important junctions and building. Now I only remember that Tawau road got a lot of roundabout and bridges. My aunty asked me not to lock the car at night. The car window was broken twice coz the thief tried to look for something in the car. Might as well just leave the car unlocked for them. When I was staying in Tawau, there was power blackout of one to two hours every day. I could hear that Tawau was sighing.

Tawau may not have a lot of places to travel but it is definitely one of the most place to eat seafood. My aunty and her husband treated me dinner at Sabindo. We had some prawns, fish and seashells, cost about RM80 for 3 persons. The taste? Not bad lah..

Marudu Bay Carnival, Kota Marudu (Day 2)

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This is to continue the last blog on Pesta Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) launching in Kota Marudu. The Marudu Bay Carnival was part of the program of Kaamatan Festival launching. The event was carried out in Tanjung Batu of Marudu Bay, which is more than 20 KM away from Kota Marudu town.

Click Here to see the photo gallery of Marudu Bay Carnival >>

The carnival looked more like a fishermen festival for me. They organised some interesting competitions such as oyster shell handicraft, oyster food *drool*, beautiful boat. Let’s look at the pictures and see if you know what they were doing. You can check out the photo gallery for the answers. Hope that will give you a good laugh.

Click Here to see the photo gallery of Marudu Bay Carnival >>

🙂 OK lah, tomorrow I will blog about the Unduk Ngadau, the Miss Harvest Festival Beauty Queen Pageant. I know some of you have been waiting for this. There were about 30 Kadazan Dusun ladies took part, so it will take me some time to pick the photos. I am quite sure MySabah.com is the only place you can see the most complete photo collection of these beauties. Haha… advertise for myself a bit. Please tell your friends about this site.

Click Here to see the photo gallery of Marudu Bay Carnival >>

Tamu Besar, Kota Marudu (Day 1)

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This year the launching of Pesta Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) month was held in Kota Marudu town from April 29 to May 1. I didn’t want to miss anything, so I was already there on the first day. To go to Kota Marudu, you can take the mini bus near the Padang Merdeka (in Kota Kinabalu). The ticket costs RM14 and it takes less than 3 hours to get there.

Most of the events were carried out in the football field of Kota Marudu. The first day was only a “warm-up” day, so the only highlight was the Tamu Besar (big local market), where you could buy some food, drink, fruits, vegetables and handicraft. Besides, there were some exhibition booths of government and a mini fun fair.

The second day was the Marudu Bay Carnival with lot of water sport activities. The BIGGEST attraction was on the third day (May 1), the Unduk Ngadau (Miss Harvest Festival beauty pageant). I will blog about them and upload the photo gallery ASAP. Make sure you come back and check later.

There were lot of handicraft on sale. I think most of them are made by Rungus people, who are skillful weaver live in Kudat and Kota Marudu area nearby. The prices are so cheap, can be up to 50% lower than the price in Kota Kinabalu! One of the booths even offered to weave my name on a bead bracelet, everything for RM5 only. The handicraft sold in the city was marked up really unreasonably high. It is the “tourist price”, I guess.

After shopped around for a while, I decided to buy the ship handicraft below. This 9-inch-tall ship is made of seashells and requires great deal of time and labour work. But it only costs RM10 each, so unbelievable, so I bought two. If you want to get this in city, I am afraid you will have to pay RM20 or more for each? But it was quite a headache to carry these fragile things back, on a bus. Glad I made it. They are in my room now.