Whilst we had a little mix up with our accommodation and only had a squat toilet (!) for five days, we loved staying in our homestay in Ranau on the flanks of Mount Kinabalu. The tallest mountain in SE Asia, which comes out of the cloud occasionally to show it’s impressive peak. We did a lot of walking in the cloud forests and enjoyed the cooler temperatures of the mountains.
Day 192 – Leaving the Kinabatangan for Kinabalu National Park
The morning was unexciting, except that breakfast was nearly a Full English – fried egg, beans, toast and sausage. Such a rare treat for us!
Our minivan left before 9am, taking us to the bus stop on the main road, where the bus was waiting for us. Either excellent luck, or the B&B had contacted the bus company and asked them to wait. The other members of our minivan were also on our bus, along with some others from another guesthouse. Between us we took up half the bus! All the locals were at the front, so we were like the naughty school kids at the back. It was a nice bus though, new seats, lots of space. Not particularly cheap though, and there was some confusion about pricing when they came around to charge us. We’d all been told different prices, and he tried to start at RM50 for a ride for which the maximum cost is RM43. It was all a bit confusing, but people paid the RM43 in the end. We were ok, as we were getting off earlier than most, we were being charged less than we expected anyway.
The lunch break was at a little roadside restaurant where there was a buffet on offer. Standard. One of the best we’ve been to though and really cheap – £4 for four meals and two drinks. We didn’t have much time to eat though, and had to stuff the last bits down and down the drinks. Where did that half hour go?
The ride was comfy, and the scenery green and hilly once for the bus section. That didn’t take away from the fact that almost 90% of the roadsides for the entire six hour journey were palm oil plantations. Only the steeper slopes and odd patches were still jungle. A lot had obviously been cleared recently, with young palms looking like pineapple plants. What’s the solution to this? We couldn’t come up with it on the bus ☹. Whilst we want them to stop, what right do we, with all our mod cons and huge carbon footprints in the western world, have to tell these people that they can’t do what we did and clear their forests to make way for agriculture? We can argue that ours weren’t as biodiverse, but they want to better their lives as much as we do. The rainforests have to make them some money by being intact, which can only really be done with tourism? That made us feel a little bit better, that perhaps we’re helping. That won’t stop me from trying harder to reduce my palm oil consumption to try to stop them from clearing more land to increase the size of the plantations.
Ranau is a small town, nestled into the hills and with a lot of greenery. There are restaurants, and shops here, but nothing too touristy. We had planned to walk the kilometre to the AirBnb homestay, but when we contacted the owner he got his wife to come and pick us up. How nice! Then, when they discovered that we didn’t have a car, she drove us to the nearest shops. I think she would have driven us back, but it was not far and we were happy to walk, shopping bags and all. It only took ten minutes to walk back.
The weather here is pretty hot right now, given that the town is 1000m above sea level. We had expected it to be cooler but the house was so warm! It took hours to cool it down. Still, it was spacious with mountain views.
We cooked for ourselves, using the few things we’d found at the shops – almost no veg ☹. Hopefully there will be some at a market in town?
In the evening, our host, came over to check on us and discuss plans for the next few days. We decided that it’ll be best if we hire a car, as taxis are quite expensive around here and the places to visit are up to an hour’s drive away. His friend is sorting us out apparently.
We also gave up on our ideas to climb Mount Kinabalu. We’d dismissed it during planning, partly due to cost, partly due to difficulty and the kids. With Mum along, we could leave them behind, so we did investigate the possibility of getting a permit and guide and climbing the tallest mountain in SE Asia. In the end though, with the cheaper Government permits already gone, we decided that £500 for the two of us to hike a mountain is just too much. We can climb cheaper mountains elsewhere.
Day 193 – Hiking Kinabalu National Park
Our car turned up bang on time at 8am. In the end our host had decided to offer us the use of one of his as it is easier than trying to get hold of one from the next town up. He really is super nice!
The Kinabalu National Park is just over half an hours drive away, uphill pretty much the whole way. By the time we got there we were almost regretting our decision to wear cool clothing and risk leeches and mosquitos in favour of not being really hot and sweaty. It was pretty cool – very nice walking weather. We were in the cloud too, which I guess should be expected in cloud forest…
Even though the entrance fees are a lot higher for foreigners than locals, at £3 each to enter we weren’t complaining. They let us take the car in for free, so we could drive up the road to the furthest part of our planned trails, walk back down to the entrance, where all the restaurants are, for lunch, and then walk back after.
The forest trail was really enjoyable, through thick cloud forest alongside a streambed.
It was good underfoot, so we got quite a pace up for the first km (it’s mainly downhill heading back to the entrance), so much so that we worried that we’d arrive at lunch way too early. We were walking out along a ridge way, so whilst the rest of the mountainside dropped away, we maintained height on our metre wide ridge top path, with sides which dropped further and further down. It felt like being on a canopy walkway as we were right up at the canopy level of the trees either side of us.
But then we had to join the rest of the land and dropped height steeply, which slowed us down quite a bit, zigzagging down the hillside. The trails got a little hillier, and much harder underfoot after this, with lots of roots and logs to stepover, and uneven steps which had been partly washed away.
We also stopped to try and spot some birds as we were nearing the entrance, so we actually arrived at the restaurant at just past 12.
Lunch was pretty standard, rice and a sauce like lemon chicken, sweet and sour or cashewnut. Huge portions though, so we all left feeling pretty full. Time for the uphill slog back up the slopes of Mount Kinabalu to the car. The massive mountain itself was totally hidden in cloud all day ☹.
The walk back was tougher, but still really good. It was nice to just be able to get out and walk without it being too hot, or there being lots of things to see and reasons to stop. Whilst there were clearly birds around, we could hear them everywhere, they were up in the canopy and almost impossible to spot through the dense leaves. We saw very little of anything else living, except termite trails…
Having covered a fair few of the trails, but not the big one as we had feared it would be too hot to walk over 10km, we decided to come back in a few days and do the big trail. It’s such lovely forest to walk around in. And we had forgotten to look for the pitcher plants that this area is famous for. So we needed to come back to the wetter path by the river and look for them.
On the way back we decided to stop at one of the highest rated things to do in the area according to TripAdvisor – the Desa Dairy Farm. This was for the kids, as there’s meant to be good ice cream there and the chance to feed some calves.
The turn off was on the way back to Ranau, but the road there took us winding up some very steep roads into the hills, passing through little villages with farm covered terraced hillsides.
The Dairy Farm itself was a little odd. Firstly you arrive at a tyre dip and ticketing counter. You then drive in and see a building on the right painted like a cow. So we stopped there only to be told that this was something else entirely and only for people who speak Malay!? We carried on down the road and soon saw some cows in the fields, Fresian cows like we know from home, and some large barns. This was it. We parked in the very busy car park and joined hordes of Malay people who were wandering around the farm, eating ice cream. Very strange.
It was lucky that entry was really cheap (£3 for all five of us) as there’s not a huge amount here. We arrived at milking time, so got to see the cows come into the shed and get milked. I’ve seen this before, having stayed on or near farms all over the British countryside. But for the kids, and Chris this was a first. Todays learning was about dairy farming, the process, how its treated and then how it’s packaged, as you can watch the processing plant shaping the cartons, filling with milk and loading them into the fridges.
Outside, the calf barn had four young calves, and some goats. We bought some milk and grass to feed them. The calves downed it in about four seconds, and Aiden’s first attempt to feed a goat resulted in it snatching the whole bundle from his hands in one go. So feeding was pretty short lived. We got some more for another go. The goats looked like adults, but were very keen to suck milk from the bottle.
Evie in particular loved feeding the grass to the goats, breaking it all up and feeding them little pieces one at a time. She’d love it if we got a goat when we get back and get our house in the country…
We headed up to the café/shop area for some dairy goodness, and came away with ice creams, milk, yoghurt and cheese. Cheddar! Let’s hope it’s proper Cheddar or we’re going to be very disappointed.
On the way out we were watching people posing with the cows. I guess they’re not used to seeing our familiar black and white friends. Their small pale cows look pretty odd to us too…
After our massive lunch and sneaky cakes and ice cream, we were not really hungry later. A simple dinner of veggies in oyster sauce with rice did the trick.
Day 194 – Poring Hot Springs, waterfalls and massive flowers
We headed in the opposite direction after breakfast today, back towards Sandakan, and were treated to views of the top of Mount Kinabalu as it was a clear, sunny morning. The tallest mountain in SE Asia, it has a pretty impressive craggy summit and towers over the surrounding hills. The route into Poring Hot Springs took us through more local villages, but not up as high, so the sun was hot when we reached the Springs. We knew we were in for a sweaty walk.
We ignored the springs initially (geothermally heated water rises up here from a spring and is channelled into baths and pools for visitors to enjoy), and headed up the 4km each way trail to the Langanan Waterfall. The initial path was wide and well trodden, and we made easy progress to the first set of falls, Kipungit. A quiet recreation area with benches and the waterfall flowing through jungle.
From here, the trail heads steeply up the hillside past a bat cave, in which we could see loads of bats flying around (it’s not very big, more of a collection of large boulders which create a sheltered area for the bats).
The path continued on up, getting rather overgrown in places and providing leaping points for leeches. Evie got one on her leg pretty early on; but managed to pull it off before it bit her. At the time she seemed pretty calm about it. Having had no issues in the Kinabalu Park forest the day before, we’d worn shorts as it was hot. The more appropriate attire for jungle trekking of long trousers was starting to seem like a better idea…
The further we went, the rougher the trail became. We were still heading up, but the paths became slippery mud or stairs made from roots which varied massively in size. I have no idea how the kids get up some of them – they go well above my knees! Still, they’re usually leading the way and setting a good pace. Great little walkers.
We had to ford a stream with a rope for help. Always fun!
We were rewarded for our climbing efforts with some views back down across the valley in odd clearings in the forest cover. Not bad!
Finally, we reached some sort of flat ground on top of a ridgeway (there seem to be a lot of these in this National Park). Here we spotted some Red Leaf Monkeys moving through the trees 😊
With around 1.5km to go, we met a couple coming the other way, who said that the falls were big and worth it, but that the path gets rougher. We’d need a stick each and they didn’t think the kids would make it. Oh dear! We know our kids can handle more than most though, so weren’t too worried about that and carried on.
After meeting some more bugs, and finding leeches climbing up our shoes from the leafy floor though, it started to get a little less fun. Evie refused to stand still, and decided to just get to the end as quickly as possible, charging off ahead. She was also feeling hot and sweaty, which was making her back itch so she was not loving the walk. We didn’t realise how worked up she was getting herself about it all though until she came back down the path crying and saying she couldn’t breathe! A sort of panic attack seemingly. We calmed her pretty easily, but she was tired after. She said she’d go on, being very brave, but of course we turned around to take her back down.
We headed down, stopping to have lunch at the stream we crossed. It was a lot quicker heading down! We got a bit of a system going with the leeches, turning it into a bit of a game. Aiden went first, swishing his stick through leafy bits to dislodge the ones on the leaves trying to jump onto us, and then we would all stop and check each other for leeches at the end, making use of Aiden’s stick again with his leech cleaning service for our shoes. No one got leeched, but Aiden did get bitten/stung by a fly, which he was not happy about. Ah, the joys of the rainforest. At least we felt like we had been properly forest trekking.
We rested for a bit at the first waterfall, before wandering back into the main area for a cold drink and a dip in the pools. We’d not read great reviews about this place, so hadn’t come with our swimwear, but we really should have. There are a few cooler pools which the kids could have played in, one of them a whole slide park (although it was possibly closed today?), and then some pools which you can fill with hot spring water, and mix with cooler water from another spring.
We had fun in our own little pool, occasionally braving the ‘leg only’ hot pools. One of these was really scalding, we couldn’t put our feet in!
When Mum got in and took her shoes and socks off, Aiden noticed a lump on the back of her ankle. A leech! The cheeky blighter had been sat there feeding in its hidden position for hours and was pretty bloated. Maybe it was full; it came off very easily when Mum poked it about a bit. Still, as she was bleeding from it for a while, she thought she’d best not put her feet in the hot pools shared with others.
The kids had gone in the pools in their clothes, so we sat them on our rain ponchos in the car for the way back. Before we could head home though, we stopped off at a place where you can see Rafflesia flowers; the largest flowers in the world. These can get up to almost a metre wide so we were pretty keen to see one.
Some enterprising locals have planted them in their gardens, and put out signs for passing tourists when one flowers. The flowers are only really good for a couple of days, so there’s no guarantee you’ll get one when you come to this area. This place had one though, four days old so pretty much perfect. After paying the same fee you’d pay to enter the Kinabalu Park or Poring Hot Springs (!) we walked the 30 metres down the side of their house to a fenced in area at the bottom of a tree. Here they had some buds (the size of melons), two flowers which were over and slowly rotting, and this one blooming. It didn’t smell of rotting flesh, as they can do, and was not the biggest specimen, but it was still the largest flower we’ve ever seen!
Back at home, we rested and cleaned up before heading out to the local restaurants for some dinner. We chose the Malay place, called Chicken Rice, where nothing in the menu was in English. After a bit of Google Translate, we chose some options, all of which were pretty ok, but not amazing. The drinks list was longer then the food list, and when we were looking some of them up they seemed to be desserts.
We ordered a couple to see what the locals have for pudding and got a sweet, pink drink, and the strangest pudding we’ve ever seen! Put some red kidney beans, grass jelly, a can of sweetcorn and a can of mixed fruit salad in a sundae glass, cover with shaved ice and sweet pink liquid and top with a scoop of mint choc chip ice cream and you get this bizarre concoction…
I liked the ice cream, and the pink liquid with jelly was ok. Chris was the only one who braved the beans, fruit and sweetcorn together with the liquid. We didn’t manage to finish it though.
We also popped into the shop next door as we’d run out of loo roll. When we asked our host about it he said that they don’t have any as they never use it! We ended up buying a pack of 12 rolls. At least they can put some out if they get many Western visitors in the future (which is fairly unlikely as they only have a squat toilet here!).
Day 195 – Sabah Tea, the local market and a fish foot spa with giant fish
We had a lazy morning, heading out just before Midday to the local market in Ranau as it was Saturday morning. We didn’t need any more veg, which was most of what it was selling, but there were some food vendors so we tried a bit of street food. We had to introduce Mum to some food from the street vendors! We ended up with some sort of sausages rolled in bread (?) and covered in breadcrumbs, which were actually rather tasty, an assortment of cake slices, some green pancake things, creamed rice in bamboo and a purple yam drink.
None of us were hungry yet, so we saved most of this and drove a little way down the road to the local fish spa which had been recommended by our host.
It was not quite what we were expecting, basically a section of river with some large Koi carp and other fish in it (presumably not wild!). You are given some fish food to let them suck from your hand whilst you dangle your feet in and wade about. The fish don’t really eat your feet, so it’s not really a fish spa, but it was a novel experience to be so close to such massive fish, feeling them slide past your legs and having their massive mouths sucking food from your closed fist.
Evie has a bit of a phobia of fish (and was nervous of any leeches there), so we knew this one would be a bit hard for her. She took a while to even dip her toes into an area with few fish, and managed to stroke them, but it wasn’t until we’d nearly run out of food that we were able to convince her to put her feet in and leave them there. It was fine of course. Then a while longer to convince her to hold her hand under the water and let the fish suck her fist. When she finally held it under, her worried noises quickly turned to squeals of delight, and she was soon running her feet along the sides of the fish and feeding them all the remaining food from her fist. She didn’t want to go!
A really fun thing to do with the kids, surrounded by locals enjoying the river and fish on the weekend (no Westerners here). It was very pleasant to wade around in the cooling river water too.
We ate our snacks in the car afterwards, and headed for Sabah Tea. We’d heard pretty mixed reviews, but they did have internet, and the kids can only use their Spanish and Maths apps online. Basically we were going there for Mum and Chris to try some tea, and for the kids to do some learning. I planned to use the internet to put up a blog post. Our plans to chill out for a few hours in the café were a little ruined as it was so busy when we got there; barely a table free! There were some insects calling from the trees on one side, but louder than we’ve ever heard before (and we have, by now, heard a lot of insects). It was almost painful it was so loud and high pitched. We sat on the far side of the café, but could still barely hear ourselves speak! So much for the calm afternoon we had planned! The internet was also awful, so we couldn’t really do our learning, or blog post ☹.
We shared two meals between us as we were still a little peckish, which were double the price of eating elsewhere, but pretty tasty, and tried some of the Sabah Tea from the plantation. Mum tried a coffee tea, a mix of both! She liked it as it wasn’t as sweet as most the iced coffees here, which they insist on adding super sweet condensed milk to.
In all our travels so far, we’ve never visited a tea plantation, so it was interesting to see all the tea bushes on the estate. No one was picking them today. You can also get great views of Mount Kinabalu here, but unfortunately the clouds were not co-operating again and so we only got the briefest of glimpses of the top through infrequent breaks in the clouds. If only we’d come yesterday!
As people left, the internet picked up and so we managed to get some learning done which was a relief – Spain is less than two months away!
We headed back for a home cooked Kurma curry.
Day 196 – Kinabalu Park again
Having had such an enjoyable day wandering some of the shorter trails in the Kinabalu National Park a few days ago, we decided that we’d walk the longer trail there today. The plan was the same, to park up at the highest point, and then walk down for lunch at the restaurant, before climbing back up to the car.
The start went mostly to plan. The sun was out today and there was no cloud so we finally had some amazing views of Mount Kinabalu.
We decided to park up slightly further down at the view point to get some of the climbing done whilst we were fresh.
It was here that we learned about the earthquake in 2015 which killed 18 people on the mountain, many of them children, and caused a lot of disruption to the trails here.
Another reason to start here was that this first trail was the most uncertain part of our walk, and it’s never fun to have difficulty finding the path when you’re nearly back. Maps.Me was reporting that the trail we wanted was closed as recently as 6 months ago. We could see that there used to be a fence across it, but this was laying to the side and there were no signs about closure. We decided to try it, rather than taking the road. Things started well, there was a large tree blocking the path and surrounded in mud which was a little tricky to navigate – I got a very muddy shoe when I jumped down off it and sank right in! Perhaps that had been the reason the path was closed? We hoped so, as it continued along easily after this.
Then, perhaps 300m from the end, it started to get really quite overgrown, and there were increasing parts of the path that had fallen away, leaving a narrow rim to edge around. It was a bit hairy. Then it petered out entirely. No path to be seen, except perhaps a very awkward scramble up a gravel slope not in the direction the path was meant to go. Had Chris and I been on our own we may have tried it, but it was not the sort of slope you want to come back down, and we were not happy doing it with the kids. So we had to turn around – a very bad start!
Luckily, whilst making our way back, Chris spotted another trail on a bend, climbing steeply up the slope. The trail sign had been put up here, and, when we looked, we could see that the route we’d taken had once been fenced off, but had fallen down and been pushed to the side.
We reinstated the fence as best we could, tried to put the sign so you could see it to the right, and tried out this new trail. It was really steep, and went straight up a hill that we had not expected to climb.
By the end we were basically climbing up the tree roots as steps, and emerged on the top of a hill at a shelter with pretty amazing views.
Going down was just as steep, but at least this was a proper trail this time, with ladders and a zig zag trail. At the bottom was Timophon Gate, where the Mount Kinabalu climbers start and end. It was pretty busy here, although I’m not too sure why. Many cars here seemed to be minivans waiting for the climbers to descend, and there was a tour group about to head down the trail we were taking. We slotted in ahead and started our descent to lunch. It was pretty steep (we’re starting to learn that there are no gentle slopes in this park!), and the path switched back and forth. I stacked it on the way down after the branch (?) I stepped on rolled off the end of a step. Another great way to start a long walk. Muppet!
We had expected an easy 5km down to the restaurant, but the trail wound up and down the hillside. We were generally heading down, but there were enough steep ups that it didn’t feel that easy. The downs were pretty steep too in places. Again, we marvelled at the kids ability to keep up with us up the oversized steps. A river flowed in the valley to our left. At times we descended to it, but then always climbed up and away straight after. It was a very interesting trail, although one which didn’t allow much time for looking around, and as we’d spent over an hour and a half on our first km with all the route issues, we were now up against the clock for lunch.
Route-finding on this path was easy at least, right until we reached the rest of the trails, and then a stray trail to the left confused us. Chris and I had to do a scouting mission up both paths, one steeply up and the other down. Upwards was the way we had to go.
It turns out that the ticket office is actually up a bit of a hill, as there’s a deep valley between it and the mountain. We had to climb our way out of it to get to lunch. Phew. 7km or so done and we were all feeling the walk. It was also gone 2pm by the time we sat down to order food. Luckily, we’d taken some emergency popcorn with us!
Now we’re moving on to our last spot on Borneo, Kota Kinabalu. Follow us there to the sea and beaches (coming soon), or head back to the Kinabatangan River, which has the highest biodiversity on the planet! We saw six different money species in one day!