The recent hot days make me think of a tasty ice-cream that is made in Sabah, the “Super Ice-Cream Potong” (translated as Cut Super Ice-Cream). Many Taiwan and Hong Kong tourists love it. They call it “Fruit Ice-Cream” (“????” or “????” in Chinese) and they always bring a few boxes of it back home, so their friends can get a taste of Sabah too.
As printed on their box, no doubt this fruits-flavored homemade ice cream is the product of Sabah manufactured by Taluwang (Facebook: Taluwang).
There are cartoons of Kadazan people and long-nosed monkey on the ice-cream wrappers, cute and truly Sabah!
The packing with Styrofoam box is also designed with tourists in mind. The styrofoam box can keep the ice-cream frozen for 3 hours, long enough for the tourists to carry it on flight until they reach hometown.
FYI, Malaysia Airlines (MAS) allows you to carry this box aboard. However, Air Asia does not, unless you buy this ice-cream from airport.
There are 12 ice-cream with different flavors in a box. The wrappers are so colorful. I can’t wait to try them all.
The box says there are 8 types of flavor, but mine only got 7. The sweet corn flavor is missing. Anyway, I’ll show you the 7 flavors one by one.
Ice-cream to be served shortly! Each one is about 4-inch long and in cube shape as if it is cut, that’s why they call it ice-cream “potong” (cut). Though this ice-cream can survive 3 hours in box, it tastes best when it is very cold and hard. For maximum satisfaction, you should ice it in the coldest compartment of refrigerator before you enjoy it.
Technically, they are popsicles as the main ingredients are fresh fruit juices and coconut milk (Santan), unlike the real ice-cream, which is mainly dairy-based.
Are you ready to get a taste of Sabah? Let’s start with tropical fruits…
Above: the mango flavor..
Above: the smooth taste of Durian, the king of fruit.
Above: Cempedak (jackfruit) flavor that smells like the fragrant fruit.
Above: the creamy Avocado flavor…
Besides fruit flavors, they also have dessert flavors…
Above: red bean popsicle is my personal favorite and I bet most think the same. Eating it is like having a nice bowl of red bean soup, a famous dessert.
Above: Cendol flavor for a taste of the traditional “green jelly” sweet dessert, popular in South-East Asia.
Above: I don’t like Yam flavor but my dad loves it.
You can see the red bean in the Red Bean and Cendol flavored ice-cream.
You see. Probably I’m a man, so I’m impatient. I just bite and chew the ice-cream LOL. I really don’t understand why girls like to lick and suck ice-cream. Such action creates wild imagination in my head, which I consider it as a sexual harassment. Haha, ok, I’m just kidding. Actually I enjoy seeing that.
One is never enough.. I ate three.. :-p
Super Ice-Cream Potong is common but surprisingly not every supermarket selling it. It’s not hard to find, but you need to look around. Most likely you can find it in our airports and shops that sell Sabah souvenir and products, like the “Souvenir Shopping Centre” (?????) in Warisan Square of Kota Kinabalu city center (see photo below):
The shop is facing the road and Le Meridien Hotel so it is easy to find. The contact is as below: Great Fortune Marketing (????????) Address: Lot B-G-16 & B-01-16, Ground & 1st Floor, Block B Warisan Square, Jln Tun Fuad Stephens, 88000 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Tel: +60 88-447699 Opening Hours: 10:30am – 9:30pm daily
If you buy 7 boxes, they can make special big pack that can keep your ice-cream cold for 10 hours, but you need to order 2 days in advance and the cost (7 boxes of ice-cream + special packing) is RM150 (≈USD45.50). The normal price of this ice-cream is about RM15 (≈USD4.55) per box, but they sell it for RM20 (≈USD6), probably the price is higher in city.
Besides the popular Hot Springs and Canopy Walkway, there are a few “Ex-Situ” gardens in Poring nature park. Ex-Situ means “off-site conservation”, which is a process of taking special plant or animal out of its natural habitat and place it in another location such as garden, for conservation, research, tourism and other purposes. Visitors also can have close-up experience to observe them all in one place, without going into the wild.
These gardens are more like the “secondary” attractions of Poring. A few require entry ticket and they may or may not worth your time and money. I will let readers to judge after reading this blog.
Butterfly Garden
Butterfly Garden or Butterfly Farm is the most-visited garden of Poring and open from 9am to 4pm (close on Monday). One reason is that it is just next to Hot Springs, and everyone loves butterflies.
Separate entry ticket is required. Just look at the photo above for ticket price. FYI, you also can purchase 2-in-1 ticket (Butterfly Garden + Canopy Walkway) there, which is RM1 cheaper.
Once enter, you will see an open garden. Probably attracted by flowering plant in this garden, there are many butterflies flying around. Butterfly is active from morning to 3pm during good weather, so don’t come here after 3pm.
The butterfly garden is also an excellent place for bird watching. During fruit season, many species of birds will forage around here in early morning. I even saw two flying lizards once.
When I was busy chasing and shooting butterflies, a nice guy told me that there are more butterflies in the Butterfly Enclosure and he is right.
Above: Butterfly Enclosure of Poring Butterfly Garden
In the enclosure, I was surrounded by hundred of flying butterflies in different colors.
However, most of the butterflies in Enclosure have broken wings. The green and blue butterfly above is my favorite photography target, too bad it’s wings are not perfect.
Anyway, there are still some perfect butterflies there. Like the bird-wing butterfly in photo above.
Look at this butterfly! It looks like a dry leaf.
The garden even has a few feeding platforms for the butterflies. You can get very close to them when they are busy feeding hence less vigilant.
You may watch the 1-min video below to see Poring Butterfly Garden:
Tropical Garden
Tropical Garden is more like a mini-zoo that shows some animals of rainforest. This garden is poorly-maintained and most of the captivities are empty. The park will tell you there is nothing much there too, so don’t waste your time and money (as ticket required).
Above: the gate of Tropical Garden
You will see a rafflesia plot at your left before the gate. I saw a few rafflesia buds that are about to bloom after a few months. You have to be very lucky to see blooming rafflesia.
There are a few private rafflesia gardens near Poring park. If there is any blooming, the owner will put up a banner or signage, like the Vivian Rafflesia Garden at entrance of Poring, shown in photo above. You may Click Here to know more about rafflesia gardens.
You will be disappointed with the aviary of Tropical Garden. No bird chirping at all, so quiet that as if nothing lives there. I only saw a pair of Bulwer’s pheasant, a rare Borneo bird which has beautiful white tail. I tried to get a photo of them but they played hide and seek with me. Too bad..
The Tropical Garden is a wood area with a 700-Meter trail. Just follow the trail and you will see some cages, captivities and enclosures along the way, but most of them are empty, not even any bone left. 🙁
Ok, at least there are one or two that are not empty. I saw two Borneo Blood Pythons (or Borneo Short-Tailed Python) sleeping in enclosures.
Ethnobotanical Garden
The Ethnobotanical Garden of Poring displays some useful and medicinal plants as well as jungle fruits. No ticket required.
Above: the entrance of Ethnobotanical Garden
Above: small pond of Ethnobotanical Garden
Honestly, I’m not a botanist, so this area is not interesting to me. Unless you have a plant expert going with you, this garden offers little or no entertainment value to ordinary tourist.
If you go deeper, there is an orchard with jungle fruit trees.
Bamboo Garden
The Bamboo Garden is strongly related to Poring because the name “Poring” means Bamboo (species Gigantochloa levis) in the dialect of Dusun people. The locals were using bamboo pole, which is abundant in Poring, to build their bamboo houses.
It is a small open garden (no ticket required to enter) not far away from park entrance. If you look carefully, they are a number of bamboo species planted there.
Poring Visitor Center is just next to bamboo garden. Besides introduction of flora and fauna in Kinabalu Park, the exhibition hall also shows some info on bamboo. They have video presentation scheduled daily at 10am, 12pm and 2pm.
Btw, I saw a headhunter legend about the bamboo, which is quite interesting:
“Long time ago, there was an area which was covered with the growth of unusually huge bamboo. The hollow inside the bamboo was big enough to accommodate a child. The bamboo grove was known to be a resting place and shelter. During the bygone age of Misangod (headhunting spree), male infants were targeted by enemies as it was feared that they will grow up to be warriors. Whenever adults went out to tend their farms or involved in war, the babies were hidden inside the bamboo hallow and were retrieved on their returns.
One day a thirsty hunter stopped by the bamboo grove and slashed a pole to get water. He was greatly shocked when blood spurted out of the bamboo and found a lifeless child inside the bamboo. He was greatly moved at the sight. Suddenly a poisonous snake called Mantakag appeared from the bamboo grove and licked the wounds of the child. The wounds magically healed and the baby came back to life, and grew up to be a great headhunting warrior of the village.”
Source: The late Gambakon Bin Gondou (1983) Kg. Poring Ansow Gunsalam, Kg. Bundu Tuhan
Site Map of Poring Hot Springs
Below is a Site Map of Poring for you to know the location of each garden:
You may click the picture above to see bigger map.
Early this month I was driving to Kinabalu Park, when I was near the junction to Kota Belud, about 42 KM before Ranau, I saw a roadside stall selling a fruit that I’ve never seen before. As I was in a hurry, I didn’t pull over and check it out.
However, my curiosity keeps on bugging me and I couldn’t stop thinking what it is. After nearly 10 KM, I made a U-turn to come back to that stall. The fruit looks like mini-orange with smooth skin. The stall is quite striking with this orange-color fruit hanging and displayed all over the place.
The owner, Ms Latifah told me that this fruit is called Tampui or Tampoi. It’s a familiar name to me coz my friends who live in villages of highland told me about it, but I never taste one.
Latifah says this fruits are pluck in her orchard not far away. The Tampoi tree takes about 3 years to fully grown and it normally flowers near year end. This is a seasonal fruit that is only available between Jan and Mar.
Fruiting Tampoi tree
If you like, you can sample the fruit before buying.
Latifah is busy taking Tampoi from her bamboo basket (called “wakid”) and string them into a clump of ten, each is only sold for RM2 (≈USD0.60).
Actually I am more interested in photographing the stall as it looks so visually pleasing with these orange fruit. Latifah gladly agreed. I bet she was thinking who the heck I am coz I shot so many photos. I also bought Tampoi from her to show my appreciation.
Tampoi also grows in Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Ambon.
Of course, photo-taking is not enough. I got to try one. Tampoi has very thick skin but it’s effortless to peel it into half to reveal the white pulp inside.
Tampo is known as puak by Iban in Sarawak, its fruit is also used to make a fruit wine.
Tampoi looks like mangosteen. Its pulp is divided into a few slices, each with a seed in it. However, unlike mangosteen, the pulp of Tampui is dry and slight harder. I ate it and it tastes sweet with a bit of sour, very similar to mangosteen but less sour. Actually Mangosteen is a Garcinia species, while the scientific name of Tampoi is Baccaurea macrocarpa.
The seed is small and has a layer of pulp glued with it. I believe such feature will make monkey consumes the whole seed, so Tampoi can take advantage of its mobility to spread to further place via excretion.
Hi friends, this fruit is so awesome, I just can’t wait to tell you this.
Let me introduce you the “Kesusu“, the strangest but coolest fruit of Borneo island. It has other names such as Karon, Buruni and Ematak. According to the guide, Kesusu belongs to Jackfruit family (Anacardiaceae), a type of latex plant. Its scientific name is Prainea limpato.
Isn’t Kesusu look like an exotic fruit from outer space? The edible part is the protruding seeds in orange color. The seeds are soft and loosely embedded in the fruit and easy to pull out.
The surface of the seed is oily. The pulp tastes sweet with a bit of sour. Nice..
The ripen Kesusu is in orange and yellow colors. It really looks like a star. This kind of funky fruit should be a superstar fruit of Borneo, so hard to believe that I never see this fruit.
Mangosteen is also known as “Queen of Fruits” and most of you may have tried it. The skin of ordinary mangosteen is in purple color, as shown in photo below:
However, I only find out recently that there is a type of wild mangosteen only found in Borneo. It’s called Selabi (hope I spell the name right).
As you can see in photo above, Selabi is in bright yellow color.
When you peel off the skin, you will see orange pulp, instead of the usual white pulp of common mangosteen. Selabi tastes similar to mangosteen but sweeter and less sour.
Above: The wild mangosteen tree.
Due to deforestation, wild mangosteen is now very rare.
In the past, Weston is the first town to have a railway station in Borneo, but it is under-developed and remain a seaside village today. Now tourists find a reason to visit Weston, as it is one of the three places offers wetland eco-tourism in Klias Peninsular to see long-nosed monkey, besides Klias and Garama.
Weston town is about 3 hours drive (125 KM) from Kota Kinabalu city and accessible by paved road. You will pass by Papar, Bongawan and Beaufort towns on the way.
Last month I joined a river cruise tour in Weston. I arrived Weston around 10am and our guide, Richard, and his boat, were already waiting at the jetty. It had been raining every day that time, so I was so glad that we had sunny day. For a start, we had a river cruise tour on the Weston River. The wetland here is mostly intact and well-preserved. Unlike the brackish and lifeless water in peat swamp of Klias and Garama, Weston wetland is a wide river with flowing murky (like color of milk tea) water.
Compared to Klias and Garama, Weston wetland is located at downstream and closer to the sea. In fact, its estuary is where Padas, the largest river of Sabah, ends as the meeting place of sea and river. As tide level changes daily, so is the depth of the water. We can see some lands exposed during low tide, with mangrove trees growing on it. During high tide, about lower half of these trees will be submerged into the water. A funny view but these vegetation have the ability to live in such intertidal environment.
Within 10 minutes, our boat spotted the first proboscis monkey. It’s a female monkey foraging at the river bank. Crocodiles also live in Weston River, but most are concentrated in further upstream, so this monkey is safe.
Then we saw about 4 herds of proboscis monkey (about 4 to 8 monkey per group) on the trees next to the river. Each group is dominated by a male proboscis monkey with big nose and belly. Proboscis monkey is one of the biggest monkey species but they are very elusive. They fled into the forest before our boat could get closer, so a binocular would help a lot.
Besides monkey, you can spot some water birds such as kingfisher, egrets and Lesser Adjutant.
Weston is rich in seafood too. We saw some fishing boats in the river, and a few of them were checking the fish traps.
Surprisingly, as an old town, the river of Weston is not really dense-populated. We found wooden houses of fishermen scattered along the river. Richard says the contour of the river always changes, so I assume any area near the river is not suitable for permanent settlement. Due to land clearing upstream, more silt is carried into Padas river, and this would affect the course and flow of the river.
Klias and Garama wetlands have beautiful peat swamp forest, but I think Weston has the densest and most beautiful view of Nipah forest. Someone told me that nipah tree is an invasive species and very easy to plant. You can see nipah tree in swampy area and wetland in Sabah.
Does nipah tree sound so unfamiliar to you? In fact, most of you (Malaysians) have eaten its fruit. Its popular name is “atap fruit”. Chinese calls it “水椰” (water coconut). The sweet Nipah fruit is a common item served in dessert called Ais Kacang or “ABC” (acronym for Air Batu Campur, literally means “Mixed Ice”).
Above: the semi-transparent and oval-shape nipah (nypa) fruits. The fruit is sweet with chewy texture, taste and feel like jello candy.
Above: nipah fruit is a nice addition to Mixed Ice dessert.
But what Weston most famous for is its crabs. For unknown reason, the crabs from Weston taste sweeter and more chewy. Even my mother knows this and ask me to buy some from Weston.
Another popular seafood of Weston is the freshwater prawn “Udang Galah” ( “大头虾” in Chinese). You can fish this prawn with specialized fishing hook. Normally the fishermen throw some rice in the river, after a while catch it using the fishing net. You can buy directly for cheaper price from local fishermen in Weston. In fish market, Udang Galah is sold for RM20 (about USD$6) per Kilogram. Unfortunately, due to overfishing, the crabs and shrimps in Weston are getting less.
At the end of our morning river cruise, we stopped at the jetty of Weston Wetland Resort, which has its dining area and reception building built next to the river. We were welcome by a fat and friendly cat, aww… so cute.
Below is a 5-minute video of our river cruise tour and Weston Wetland Resort. Sadly, I notice my video has very low click rate. Now I’m not sure if I should waste my time making video next time.. 🙁 At first I thought it was a great idea..
After taking some coffee and pineapples as light refreshment, Richard wanted to take us for a “pitcher plant” walk in a forest nearby. I thought I was the smartest one in the group. Assuming that it might be a “mud” walk, I was wearing short sleeve shirt and short pant, without knowing that I was totally unprepared what was coming next..
The 5-minute walk on the boardwalk allows us to take closer look at the nipah trees, without getting ourselves wet and dirty in the flooded swamp. However, the boardwalk is not well-maintained, so I had to watch my steps for missing plank.
Then we came to a bush area with dense shrubs. Wow, there are pitcher plant (Nepenthes) everywhere. Some are hanging on the shrubs and there are carpets of pitcher plant on the ground too. We have to be very careful of our steps. Pitcher plant is also called “Monkey Cup”, but it has nothing to do with monkey though, except that it looks like a miniature cup used by monkey.
Some are smaller than finger… This is Nepenthes tentaculata I think.
There are a number of nepenthes species around this small area. The one above is Nepenthes rafflesiana if I’m not mistaken.
Overall, we saw 4 or 5 species of nepenthes in just a small area. The one above is Nepenthes ampullaria, the highlight of our Nepenthes Hunt. Cute, isn’t it?
For those of you who plan to visit the Weston Wetland, you need to prepare for horse fly, an annoying blood sucker. I saw no horse fly in Klias and Garama but there are plenty of them near the Weston River. Horse fly is so persistent that they keep following you until you kill them or they are done sucking your blood.
There were more than 10 horse flies following me. According to Richard, my clothing in dark nature color attracts horse fly. Horse fly would not come near to people in bright color dress. In one case, one of his visitors killed 40 horse flies. When I didn’t pay attention, the horse fly cut a small wound on my exposed skin and fed on the blood. I ended up having 4 or 5 bites. They said the bites would become really itchy on next day and they were right. The worst thing is it will get worse if you scratch.
Normal insect repellent can’t drive horse fly away. One of my friends introduced me the repellent spray above. It is really effective against horse fly but this spray is not available in Malaysia shop. What you can do is to dress in bright color and cover your skin as much as possible with long sleeve and pant. Horse fly may carry parasite or disease, so don’t take it lightly.
Richard showed us his resort, but the room and accommodation is not ready yet, as of this writing.
We had our seafood lunch in Weston Wetland Resort. I remember my Sabahan friends and I once ordered shrimp in a restaurant in Peninsular Malaysia. We laughed when we saw the dish, coz the shrimps were so tiny that they are only qualified for making dried shrimps in Sabah. Sabah is blessed with abundant and “big” seafood, is because of our well-preserved wetlands (e.g. mangrove, coral reefs), which is a nursery and breeding ground for our seafood. Remember, our mangrove forest and swamp are not wasteland, they are important supply of our seafood.
Before we said bye-bye to Weston, we had another river cruise near the exit of estuary (river mouth of Padas), where we can see Brunei in front. Do you see the light area in the sea, in photo above? The water there is only a few feet deep. We had too many people onboard so we didn’t move further or we would risk our boat stranded in shallow water. Yes, you are correct that the last photo is the land of Brunei.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
