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!

Bako National Park - Part 2

Weird mushroom with net?


Huge tree with huge trunk

To our dismay, we were only to see one Proboscis monkey, even so, it was laying lazily on a tree branch having his afternoon nap. Sigh, so much for the hoo-hah to check out the monkey. And there were curious Dutch visitors who posed (yeah, they were actually posing for me) for my photo.



But not all was bad, as we continued walking, we came to out first beach check point. Gosh, given the clear weather blue sky, the sea was in its best color. The water was so clear. Ah... nature's the best!


Check out the waters


A ray of sunlight (will spoil my CMOS sensor, no?)


Hiding under the shade (except Sze Leng who is basking happily under the sun)





Half way through our journey to the Pantai Pandan Kecil, we took a breather at one of the shacks. We took out our food supply and guess what, we had a visitor... jeng jeng jeng...


A wildboar looking for food

It looked quite hostile at first because it ran towards our hut. We were quite worried that it would attack anyone of us should we retaliate. But thank God, some hikers came and when the wild boar heard sounds from behind, it took off into the wild again.

Phew, close call!

We huff and puff cuz the weather, to say it was very hot is an understatement by itself. We just kept our head low and continued our journey. After 1.5 hours of hiking, lo behold...


What is this? Why is the ground like that?

Actually I have no idea how the earth became like this, but one thing I am sure is it took more than millions of years to form it...


The scenery is simply breathtaking


Group photo - Everyone is withered but still managed to smile for this shot!


More stones with spectacular topography


The landmark of Bako - Stone Stack!

This is the first time I have seen it after 3 previous visits to Bako.


More nice views of Bako...

The photo of the day has gotta be this street fighting pose by Gameniac and Wahoo...


Haiiii---yak

It was a wonderful trip overall, and I not only brought back nice memories of Bako but also a nice tan. :P

Bako National Park - Part 1

Was suppose to publish this much earlier but you know la...bz this,bz that....

Recently I have been actively indulging myself in outdoor activities. They just came fast and quick, which resulted to my being more tanned. But being tanned is a good thing, no? Last Saturday, me and my colleagues and friends went to Bako National Park.



At first I thought Bako National Park is located on an island, but from the map above you can see clearly that it's part of Sarawak mainland. :) Drove up to Kampung Bako at around 9am. Reached there after a 30 minutes drive. After registering at the Park's reception counter, we hopped into a speedboat and headed straight to Bako National Park.


from L to R: SzeLeng, Gameniac, Wahoo & Anna


Mind the crocs! There are crocs???

More camwhoring...




Bako is a fishing village


Calm sea and clear sky... the weather couldn't have been better


Boat No.5


A fishing boat returning to the village


Ah... we were greeted by our first boulder. The unique thing about Bako NAtional Park is that it's filled with this arrays of magnificent rocks. If you stand real close to it, you can actually see the lines of on it which gives you some idea how long it took for it to be formed... well, a couple of millions of years I guess.

After we had alighted from the speedboat (which was about 20 mins from the jetty), we headed straight to the information counter to ask for advice from the park ranger regarding the trails to take. Since it was already 10:30am, the ranger suggested that we should take the Teluk Paku (Gulf of Paku) and maybe the Pantai Pandan trails.


Treants from LOTR?


At the start of Teluk Paku trail. Our major objective was to spot some Proboscis monkeys because according to reliable sources, this trail actually leads to where most of the monkeys stay. We walked and walked...


Roots above the earth


Take a break, take a shot!

Stay tune to find out if we did see the femes Proboscis monkeys and the visitor who paid us a surprise visit right in the middle of nowhere...

Teaser - Into the Wild

Here's a photo of my up coming post on how I spent my Saturday (yesterday). Take a guess on where I went (only for those people whom I haven't told please)

Rock Climbing....Again

Thursday morning was just perfect for any outdoor activities. The sky was blue, the breeze was mild, even the palm trees look nice, don't they? Roy invited me to go to Fairy's cave to break my wall-climbing duck, which I jumped to accept. This time around we had Asang (the ever helpful Indonesian climber), Alex (seasoned climber who also happens to be my colleague who sometimes cycles to work, kid you not!) and Carol (Alex's gf) as company.


Turn left, turn right, go straight?


The last stretch leading to the climb site


Check out how huge and magnificent the Batman wall is. And yes, that's Roy at the bottom right of the photo. Mother Nature just never fails to amazes me everytime I come out to nature. I do wonder how this wall or other walls are formed in such away that there's actually a ceiling underneath the wall. Someone please tell me...


Me caught in the act of climbing the baby wall... which I conquered in 3 mins I guess. :P




Alex leading the way


Roy with the magic prism glasses. With these pair of special glasses, you do not have to tilt your head backwards to look upwards. Because the images are actually being reflected through the prism of the glasses.... Clever!


Hoh..Is that a buffalo up on the wall?


Asang and Alex going through their toolbox, getting ready to lay a new route up the wall


Cliffhanger Alex


Obviously this wall-climbing is not some easy peasy sport... Check out the droplets of sweat on Alex's shoulder


Roy belayering Alex


Beaners


The RED toolbox


What is this? This is actually a retractable pole with a special fastener on one end. It serves as a elongated arm to fix or detach beaners or ropes.


Yes, this is a vacuum cleaner


Asang fastening the portable vacuum cleaner for Alex who is up in midair to vacuum out the dust and debris from drilling

And of course, we manage to capture a few candids before we started headed home...


Alex and Carol...locking horn arms

But the shot of the day has got to go to Roy.... Terminator kononnya...


I definitely had good fun this time, but I still hope one day I will be able to climb Route 999.