On 19 Aug 1997, everyone has learnt from the local and national newspapers that the official height of Mount Kinabalu is 4,095.2m (13,432.26 ft), not 4,101m (13,455 ft). After 10 years, someone still hasn’t updated the information. Just grab a copy of “Going Places”, a free inflight magazine for all passengers of MAS Airline. Flip to the page that has the Malaysia map and look at Sabah state.
The Sabah map below is from the Sep 2007 issue of Going Places. As you can see, the height of Mount Kinabalu is still posted as 4,101 M. I think million copies of such mistake had been printed for 10 years. Time to remind MAS to change it.
This error was even more obvious in older issue (see below) of Going Places coz the map of Borneo was taking a full A4 page.
Nevermind lah, people make mistake sometimes. I also thought that Mt. Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia. After doing a search on the net, I found that the Mt. Hkakabo Razi, with a height of 5,881 Metres (19,295 ft), in Myanmar (Burma) is the highest in Southeast Asia. Mt. Carstensz (Puncak Jaya), with a height of 4,884 Metres (16,024 ft), in Indonesia, is the second highest. So Mt. Kinabalu is the 3rd highest in Southeast Asia (but still the highest in Malaysia and Borneo). I also need to update my web site then…
This year the official State-Level launching of Pesta Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) was at Ranau on May 1, which marked the start of Harvest Festival month for KadazanDusun and Murut people. Last year the launching was at Kota Marudu. Different district has its own ways and colours of celebrating, so you won’t see the same thing. But one thing for sure is that the event will turn the town into a busy and lively spot. FYI, Sabah has over 30 districts.
Rice is the most important food for Sabah people, so the month after the harvest of paddy is the time for the thanksgiving festival. We don’t plant that much paddy nowadays, but the tradition is still carrying on. We will have Mangavau ceremony to recover Bambarayon (Paddy God), wishing for another bountiful harvest next time. You would hear the touching story of “Huminodun”, the name of a Goddess who sacrificed herself to save the people from starving. The Unduk Ngadau (Harvest Queen) beauty pageant is also meant to remember this greatest female in KadazanDusun legand and pass on her spirit.
Unduk Ngadau (Harvest Queen) beauty pageant will let you see the beauty of KadazanDusun ladies in their local traditional costumes. 14 contestants were competing for Ranau-district Unduk Ngadau title this year. If you look at the photos, you will find that most of them dressed in Kadazan Ranau costume, which has very unique design and pattern only found in Ranau and Kundasang districts.
There were two rounds for Unduk Ngadau competition. First round is catwalk and introduction. Then 10 finalists were selected for knowledge test in second round, where they picked the winners. The girls also performed some traditional dances of indigenous people such as Sumazau, Sazau, Limbai. The VIPs would be invited to dance Sumazau with them. In case you are curious about what questions were being asked in their knowledge test, here you go:
Malaysia is a country that successfully cultivates the unity among the people of different races and religions. In your opinion, how does our country achieve this?
Ranau district is a place of interest for Malaysian and overseas tourists. In your opinion, besides having great nature such as Kinabalu Park, is there any other way to attract more tourists to visit our place?
What lesson can we learn from the legend of Huminodun that should become part of the value in our generation?
If you are chosen to be a Unduk Ngadau and given the opportunity to organise a welfare activity, what is the FIRST activity you want to do and why?
The statistics, which shows the drug abuse among the teenagers, has come to an alarming state. In your opinion, what steps should be taken to resolve this issue?
In your opinion, what are the benefits and advantages that we can gain from celebration of Harvest Festival in Sabah every year?
Thanks to SESB. There was a 30-minute power blackout that delayed the programme. After a long wait, the Unduk Ngadau for Ranau district was finally born. Below is the result (see photo above, from left to right): 3rd Runner-Up: Sulina Musing (contestant no.6) 1st Runner-Up: Florisa Samin (contestant no.15) Unduk Ngadau (Ranau): Magdalen John (contestant no.4) 2nd Runner-Up + Best Traditional Dress: Merry Masion (contestant no.9) 4th Runner-Up: Fiona Fey Fedelis (contestant no.7)
Kinabalu Park is a heaven to nature and wildlife photographers. Every hour you would have new discovery or unexpected finding. Like a treasure hunt, it brings you excitement and satisfaction. I took hundreds of photos in 3 days, but they are not even enough to represent 0.0000001% of what we could find in Kinabalu Park. I categorise these 8 pages of photo album into 5 groups as below, and hope that you will enjoy watching them as I do. The pictures below are in low quality. You can check out the photo album for bigger and better photos.
The creepy, the weird, the slimy, the unknown… bug are all in these 2 pages. Most of them is active at night. Click Here to see more photos >>
The leech from Bukit Ular trail is only 0.5 inch (1 CM) long. After I removed it from my shoe, it just “stood” upright still on the ground, pointing to sky for minutes, like it was praying to God. Poor leech, in this cold day, I really hoped I could give him a few drops of blood and a warm jacket to put on. BTW, Kinabalu Park is also the best place to find big beetles.
Those plants live well in low-light condition under canopy. Some of them may carry secret ingredient that can cure the deadly diseases. They are such a potential precious asset that our government is very strict in controlling the export. I can’t identify most of the plant. Probably those who know can tell me what they are.
Day-shift rangers will tell you that it is rare to see snake, while night-shift rangers will tell you they see snakes every day. Most snakes show up at night. I consider I am quite lucky coz I see 4 snakes in Kinabalu Park. The green viper is only 1 foot long, but it is highly venomous. I saw them twice. The first time was in the grass next to the main road, near the hostel in the evening. When I took photos, those busybodies gathered around me and scared away the snake… The 3-feet brown snake below was found in Liwagu trail. It was hidding under the grass. I tried to use my walking stick to move it gently to open space for photography, but it escaped. Click Here to see more photos >>
One day later, seeing me busy searching around for snake at night, a ranger took out a mineral water bottle, which contains a small green viper inside, and asked me if I was interested in taking its photo (heck, wonder why he was carrying such a deadly snake around in his bag). The snake refused to go out. We used our torch light to light up the bottle, to make it moved to the opening (darker). It has a heat sensor near its nose and will not hesitate to strike if it senses any threat. Luckily, I managed to take a few photos.
The last snake I saw was near Balsam Cafe. This yellow snake saw me and crawled inside a burrow. Damn my stupid and slow camera that needs more than 3 seconds to focus in the dark, so I couldn’t get a good shot. It has a very small head and a few yellow stripes on its body.
Moths are everywhere, especially at night, and it has become an interesting “feature” of Kinabalu Park. They come with different size, shape, pattern and colours. For those scientists who look for many moth specimens and species, all they need to do is to sit under the street lamp at night and see hundreds of moth come to them. Click Here to see more photos >>
Pop Quiz: How do you differentiate a moth and a butterfly?
They both look alike. While roosted, the moth will open its wing, but butterfly will close its wing. I can easily get photos of hundred types of moth, but I picked only 24 good-looking or odd-looking moths for sharing here. Click Here to see more photos >>
Kinabalu Park is the BEST tourism spot of Sabah, for overseas tourists and even the locals. Over 90% of people having a vacation there do mainly 2 things: (1) Relax and enjoy the cooling fresh air, and (2) Prepare to climb Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South-East Asia. To me, it is such a waste not to explore its nature trails, where you can see unique vegetation and animals in this park, something that made Kinabalu Park qualified to be a World Heritage Site. Do a search on the Net, you will find tons of good photos and write-up, saying how great it is to climb Mount Kinabalu. But there is very little information about the jungle trekking in Kinabalu Park. In fact, in my 3 days of jungle trekking (for 20 KM) in Kinabalu Park, I only saw 4 tourists on the trails. Just to let you know how unpopluar this activity is.
Below is a map that shows you the location of the nature trails in Kinabalu Park. I got a black & white copy of this map from Kinabalu Park, then I used Photoshop to create a colourful version for better illustration here. Now you know that Kinabalu Park is really big, don’t you? FYI, Timpohon Gate is the entrance to the trail to Mount Kinabalu.
The trails that I have explored were: (1) Liwagu Trail, (2) Silau-Silau Trail, (3) Bukit Tupai (Squirrel Hill) Trail, (4) Bukit Burung (Bird Hill) Trail, (5) Bukit Ular (Snake Hill) Trail, and (6) Bundu Tuhan View Trail. I haven’t walked the Kiau View Trail, Pandanus Trail, and Mempening Trail. Maybe next time then.
1. Liwagu Trail (5.5 KM)
I would say this is the BEST trail. It is nearly 6 KM long (take 3-4 hours one way) and is located next to Liwagu River. Nice river view along the way and no leech (surprise!). Hundred-feet old trees are just a common scene. I saw pitcher plant, orchid, fern, birds, bug, wild fruits… and even snake. You will see thick layer of algae and moss on the trees. Click Here to see more photos of Kinabalu Park >>
Since Liwagu trail is just next to the river, at certain points you can even walk to river for a cool break. There are some small 1-2 inches fishes in the river. I think most of them are sucker fishes, mainly in black and brown colours. If you are lucky, you would spot bigger animals drinking water near river bank. Click Here to see more photos of Kinabalu Park >>
But I made a big mistake. I started walking from my hostel (5,000 feet) to Timpohon Gate (6,000 feet), which is the ending point of Liwagu Trail. So what happened was – I ended up spending most of my time to walk on upward slope, to reach 1,000 feet higher point. Very tiring… I guess this trail is meant to be the route for climbers to walk back to the Park.
2. Silau-Silau (3 KM), Bukit Tupai (300 M) and Bukit Burung (1 KM) Trails
These 3 trails are interconnected, so I explore them in one go (take 2.5 hours). It is a bit dark coz most of trail is inside the forest. You will see lot of fungus and mushroom grow on the fallen trees. FYI, this area is the best bird watching spot for montane birds endemic to Borneo (e.g. Whitehead’s Trogon). They are important in ecology system because they decompose the decay wood to “recycle” the nutrients. Click Here to see more photos of Kinabalu Park >>
Shortly it rained and the forest turned a bit misty. I smelled the presence of millipede (stink!) a few times, but too bad I couldn’t find them. At the bottom of every big tree, you would see holes between the big roots and ground. According to their staffs, this little “chamber” will become very busy at night. Click Here to see more photos of Kinabalu Park >>
3. Bukit Ular (Snake Hill) Trail (1 KM)
This trail starts next to the Power Station. I heard this area will have a lot of snakes at night, and this month is their session to come out “socialising”. Well, too bad I didn’t see any snake. But there were leeches. If you stop for a few seconds, they will crawl on your shoe. After I exit the trail, I went back to my hostel through the main road (Power Station Road), and I saw 2 Chinese graves next to the road. They have Park Rangers patrol here at night, and they say they can easily spot 7 or 8 snakes along this main road to Timpohon Gate.
This is the shortest trail and takes you less than an hour to reach the shelter on top of a hill. The place is an opening view to see a village (Bundu Tuhan?) far away. Great spot for landscape photography. The bamboo orchids near the shelter attract some insects such as butterflies, beetles and dragonflies around. Click Here to see more photos of Kinabalu Park >>
Overall, all nature trails are well-maintained and safe to walk. If you follow the open cleared path of 1 Meter wide, it is impossible to get lost. For every 100 or 500 Metres, you would see a milestone sign. It is good to have a trail map, so you know where you are heading. Certain spots are a bit steep, so a walking stick can help a lot (Get your own or rent it from reception office for a few dollars). I am sure I will come back again to try Kiau View trails, Pandanus Trail, and Mempening Trail, hopefully having a night walk as well, to see more interesting and rare animals such as horned frog and ghost spider.
There are many scary stories about leeches. While telling a story, people tend to add salt, add sugar, so I don’t really believe in any of them. One of the biggest bullshits I heard was – there was someone camped in the jungle, when he waked up from sleep, he saw a cucumber-sized stuff hang on his body. He looked closer, and it was a leech which was fully filled with his blood (now I think it could be real)! If you walked in jungle before, most likely you only saw two leeches, which are only a few inches long, like pictures below. You can see my blog on how to prevent leech bite.
Last week I attended a talk conducted by Mr. Quentin Phillipps, who is a bird photographer lives in London. The photos that he presented were so shocking that I asked for his permission to post them on the web. This happened after Quentin finished climbing Mount Kinabalu (of Sabah Malaysia) and on the way back. It was raining heavily, and some giant earthworms crawled out from the soil. Quentin found one giant earthworm, which was nearly 1 meter long.
When he busy checked out the big earthworm, he saw a 30cm (1 foot) giant leech coming his way. Surprisingly, it was not coming after Quentin. Instead it chased after the giant earthworm all the way to its burrow.
I know leeches sometimes attack fishes and frogs, but they usually have a strong preference over warm-blood animals such as buffalo. So the behaviour of this giant leech puzzles me. Look at the photo below to see the length of the giant leech, relative to the size of adult’s foot. No doubt it is at least 1 foot long, when its body is fully extended.
Above: I spotted the juvenile Kinabalu Giant Leech in Kota Belud in year 2009.
Later I found a shocking description about True Cattle Leech in Malayan Nature Journal (page 156, Vol. 15 December 1961): “These are very large leeches measuring up to 50 cm in length and 5 cm in breadth when fully extended. They include two well-known forms, Dinobdella, restricted to the Asian region and Limnatis which is found also in the African region. Both species occur in the nose, throat and vagina of horses, cattle and buffaloes. They prefer highly vascular areas where it is not necessary to pierce a tough skin. These leeches have been reported in the nose, throat and vagina of man, monkeys and dogs. The human cases have been reported mainly from Africa, India, Indonesia and China.”
Eee…. Such a “ham-sub” (horny) leech… However, I don’t think True Cattle Leech is Kinabalu Giant Leech.
Then in year 2014, BBC filmed this Kinabalu Giant Leech the first time ever. You may watch the video of Kinabalu Giant Leech swallowing huge earthworm like spaghetti (the scene can be disturbing, so viewer discretion is advised). The scientific name of this leech is Mimobdella buettikofer and it’s endemic to Mount Kinabalu.
Photos of Giant Leech are provided by Mr. Quentin Phillipps
This is just another follow-up attack to the poor service provided by Sutera Sanctuary Lodges. Yes, after the bad experience in my trip to Mt. Kinabalu, I still want to criticize them, until they improve (which I doubt)..
Anyway, it is a mistake to appoint a company, which does NOT know anything about service, to manage Kinabalu National Park, the most important tourism site in Sabah.
I went to the Balsam Cafe in Kinabalu National Park last week. When I ordered a coffee, they said coffee was self-service, I had to get it myself. I don’t understand lah. The coffee maker is just a few meters away. Was she handicapped or what, so she couldn’t get the coffee for me? It is a small job for me too. But I paid RM4.00. The coffee costs me RM1 in other places, but the waitress still brings it to my table, even Coffee Bean does that.
Later I saw a group of foreigner tourists standing in front of the coffee maker. I believe they had difficulty to understand English instructions, so it took them quite a while to get the coffee. There were a few staffs roaming freely around, but none of them came to help. I also tried their fried rice. Their food still sucks and expensive.
FYI, you can go to the Bayu Kinabalu Restaurant in front of the park entrance. Their food tastes better and more affordable.
Coz of Nunuk Ragang event at Ranau, I passby Kinabalu National Park. My initial plan was to take some photos of flowers but it was raining. So I paid a visit to their Kinabalu Natural History Gallery.
The entrance ticket costs a few RM. Actually I am not even sure whether I had been here before, everything looked quite familiar. It is a small gallery. They displayed the handicraft, animal / insect / plant specimen, geology info, history, rocks & minerals, photos and any item that related to Kinabalu National Park. For those who are interested in learning, the tour can take half a day. For normal and time-constraint tourists who just want to walk walk look look, it will take less than an hour.
They will show you a 20-minute video about the Mount Kinabalu and National Park too. It gives you a brief introduction about the flora and fauna you will see on the way of climbing to the top of Mount Kinabalu. That can make your experience more enjoyable coz you know what to expect. Many don’t want what they see.
There were too many things to read, and my time was limited. What I usually did was – use the digital camera to take a picture of those writing and document for later reading. If you are a nature lover, you will be pleased to see the specimen of hornbill, lizard, pitcher plant, butterfly, etc. I wish to take more photos but most items are displayed behind the glass, adding unwanted flash reflection to the picture.
This one is fun. Last week I saw TWO Mt. Kinabalu at Nunuk Ragang. They both look so identical that when I asked a few persons on the spot, “Where is the Mount Kinabalu?”, ALL of them pointed the WRONG one.
Make a guess before you click for the answer below. If you got it wrong, don’t call yourself a Sabahan, go home and draw 100 copy of Mount Kinabalu. 🙂
