Climbing Bukit Mengkabong

"You know, we could see the sunset at the beach too..." - Yu Li, L.

But the view from the top of Mengkabong Hill was absolutely worth the hike. It's just a little unconventional to climb using the drain albeit it looks like stairs.

Bukit Mengkabong is situated on the right side of the road (if you are driving from KK to Tuaran) just before the Mengkabong bridge. It's not a very high hill, so it only took more or less 30 minutes to reach the top. I would say it's pretty much an easy climb except when the foliage is in the way, and there was a teensy part where the steps are really high.

Plus point is not only the gorgeous sunset, but also the view of Mt. Kinabalu on the other side.
We stayed till the sun almost vanished behind the horizon and that's when we saw the fishing boats coming back from sea.


Families waiting eagerly for fathers and brothers to return with the day's catch. It's a very nice thought.

fishy fishy

Well, it's more like "shrimpy". I didn't know there's so many prawns 'neath the waters which I pass by every single day.

Right, so I went "fishing" with Jim. More like "sat-in-boat-looked-at-stuff-and-provided-minimal-labour". Bet none of you have been under the Kingfisher bridge although you've lived here for years!!!



To begin with, the weather was SUPERB. The clouds were rolling in when we were starting out. I was like "OMG".


Got really excited at first, what with the one fish, couple of prawns and a mantis shrimp. Then the prawns just came pouring in...

But there was a jellyfish, some horseshoe crabs, and sea-otters too!

And yes, I'm yet again at a loss for words as there's only so much one can exclaim over sea turtles.

We didn't catch those turtles by the way, I just really like them and got excited that I can (again) touch them.

Mr Mantis

and half of the amount of shrimp we got :)

And yea, here's doing my part to welcome the freshies.

My gosh, time really does fly when you're having fun. It's gonna be July already!

x's and o's

Sandakan Wednesday

"As if we don't get enough of being in the wilderness, we paid five bucks to traipse in some 'rainforest'."

At eleven in the morning -- a time where no wildlife will show up, even for goodwill. And it's not as if we haven't seen our share. Since Sunday my list now looks like this:

- proboscis monkeys

- long tailed macaques

- an out-of-porportioned crocodile (small head, big long body haha)

- hornbills

- kingfishers

- egrets

- hawks

- a good number of other birds

- a tortoise

- two snakes

- two monitor lizards (one we almost turned into roadkill)

- a bushy black scampering squirrel

- a plantation rat

- a bunch of bugs

- sapi

- kerbau

- dogs

- cats

*meow*

Wednesday was our driving back to 'halfway point' day, so since we put up a night in Sandakan the night before, Claire and I decided to take in the town a bit. I realised that our sampling dates usually coincide with some kind of event which makes accomodation a bit of a problem. Like the last month when we were in Telupid, the Deathmarch was going on, so practically all the accomodation in that small town were full (all reads TWO places to stay).

This time, Sandakan is hosting the Sabah Games, while there are some other goings-on in Sepilok. Anyway, we gave up hotel-hunting and stayed in Swiss-Inn at Sandakan's Waterfront (which still had rooms).

YuLi, when I saw this, I was reminded of you :)

I've been to Sandakan for *lost-counted* times and yet I've never actually done any sightseeing. It's always been for work, with no extra time to spare. But this time at least I drove by and saw Agnes Keith's House and the English Tea House. And we decided to go look for 'pi dan kao' for breakfast.

'pi dan kao' = century egg dumplings

It's in one of those houses in the Chinese water village area in Buli Sim-Sim.

We next drove to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre just to realise that we were one hour late for feeding time. So I yet again did not get to see orangutans and have to make do with BuBu till my next opportunity :)

And just for some unknown reason, Claire and I thought we'd visit the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC) and paid 5bucks to go 'jungle trekking'. Come to think of it, that was oddly random of us. It's like fishermen paying for a boatride, or natives paying to spend a night in a longhouse, that kind of thing.

And it's not like we don't get enough sun everyday when we work haha

But yea, RDC is not too bad a place for amateurs who have never been to the jungle before. There's a Canopy Walk, observation towers, hanging bridges, the works.

We had to climb a lot of stairs to get to the walk.

But the view, as always, is good.

I love the rainforest because of the really really tall trees.

And the canopy is always wondrous. One day I hope I get to try out canopy climbing...maybe with the GCP.

This is how you walk on the hanging bridge without risking it to flip over.

And this is supposed to be some 1000-over years old tree...The Belian doesn't look that spectacular though..

I've been driving long-distance a lot and I absolutely love it! I'll blog about driving one of these days :)

x's and o's!

And I'm wearing a Green shirt...

World Environment Day today. So be good.

See, it's one of those times when I'm motivated to procrastinate again (though it's unfair really, I have been on un largo break from the office) so what I did was updated myself with random news. What I got was the country's seem to be going to crap.

"Apex-uni" and their major imbecillic fiasco omg so effed up.

And then there's that scadalous news regarding a northern state of this country and our neighbouring country. Which actually is about two individuals. Just so happened that one is of royalty and the other is on the social scene. Let's not forget that both of them are rich. And thus it all becomes some intercountry issue. Like omgwth but yea, newspapers are beginning to sound like gossip columns.

Yea, you know what I'm talking about. Go google it yourself. I've just found out about it anyway.

Or better yet, ignorance is bliss. Here's a nice random shot from outside the office:

Have a good weekend y'all!

Gayu Guru, Gerai Nyamai

It's like celebrating Chinese New Year all over again with the amount of good food :)

They even made their own tuak (rice wine) and lemang!
And this is how you eat keropok (prawn crackers) -- with acar (spicy pickled cucumber)

The 1st of June is Gawai -- Harvest Festival for the Dayaks in Sarawak. It's also the Gawai Baby's birthday and he turned ONE!

Sebby was pretty affectionate on that day. I know the photo made him look as if he's attacking another kid with his four teeth...actually he was just attempting to smooch (I think). I feel extra close to Sebby..for one thing, we're of the same Chinese Zodiac (as if that has anything to do with anything haha) and for another, we have some stuff in common ;)

Baby acrobatics every single night... :)

So anyways, here's wishing y'all:

Selamat Hari Gawai ngagai semua bansa Dayak ba Sarawak! Gayu guru, gerai nyamai!