Borneo Highlands - Part 1

Have I been neglecting my blog lately... I admit. I can come out with one thousand and one excuse but fck it.

When someone mention the word "Highlands", what is the first thing that pops into your head? Genting Highlands, Cameron Highlands...yadda yadda. Being a true Sarawakian, I am proud to tell the world that we too have a nice highlands... and it's the Borneo Highlands. Some might wonder, where on earth is this Borneo Highlands.


Courtesy of Google Map

It's about 40 mins drive from Kuching City Center. Road condition to the foot of the highlands, which is also the entrance to the highlands is good. And if you are wondering how the entrance of the highlands looks like just in case you missed it, here it is...


Entrance

At this checkpoint, you will need to fork out RM65 (RM50 for entrance fee + RM15 for highlands tour). And upon getting your tickets, you'll need to wait for a specially modded "tour truck" to get you up there.



There are flowers around the entrance to encourage you to start snapping photos.





The whole journey from entrance down here to the entrance up there will take about 20 minutes. But expect some crooked and winding roads, and at some point of the roads, you will start to wonder if the fully loaded truck will even make the 40° climb in 1st gear. But of course, we made it in one piece. We alighted from the big truck and hopped onto a smaller tour truck to start our highlands tour.



Our first stop was to the viewpoint for Malaysia-Indonesia border.


SWK = Sarawak


IND = Indonesia

See the marker on the ground? This is actually one of the many markers to indicate the border of Sarawak and Kalimantan, Indonesia. One second you can say "Hey, I am in Sarawak!" then next second "I am in Indonesia (without a passport... hahaha)"

We were pleasantly greeted by sakuras (there's another name which Bernard told me but I just can't seem to recall)



These sakuras actually come from the same family as the more famous ones found in the Land of the Rising Sun. Behind the Sakura tree is Kalimantan.

I couldn't have asked for a better weather that day (maybe the Sun could be kinder la :P) and the view was fantastic.





See... even the trees here look un-Malaysia.

That's all for Part 1. Stay tuned for more flower shots in Part 2!

Happy Merdeka to all Malaysians!