Sabah Part Five (Kota Kinabalu)

Here we are, in a coach, on the way up Mount Kinabalu. As we aren’t the sporty type, we wouldn’t be scaling Mount Kinabalu. We will be ascending it via the bus that we are on. In this post, I will also be sharing an accident that we met with on the mountain which resulted in us being trapped and ended up having to spend a long and cold night on the mountain. Nonetheless, it was a thrilling experience.

On the way up, we passed by towns and stopped over to experience the local way of life.

Here is the local market that they have. This area sells mostly dried food like ikan bilis.

Some of my dad’s friends decided to try their local ikan bilis. 🙂

This is the amazing scenery from one of the stopovers that we had. We are nearer and nearer to the legendary KK!

It was an arduous ascent. I admit that even though I rarely have motion sickness when I travel, I do feel a bit of uneasiness. My grandma in particular wasn’t feeling very well and it made us really worried. She made it in the end but with much discomfort. Now I know why they always say that we should travel more when we are young. Hope I will be able to travel more often within these few years! 🙂

Really love this place! See, even this dog loves it here.

The other thing that you definitely must try is the pineapples at Sabah! They are really juicy and sweet. Very different from those that we usually eat. It was after this trip that I started loving pineapples all over again.

After a long drive, we finally reached the Mount Kinabalu Botanical Garden. The weather is fairly good when we were there. It’s around 19 Deg Celsius up on the mountain. As we aren’t climbers, we took a walk around this garden. There are pretty interesting plants around here.

Feels like a revision of what I have learnt about plants in primary school science. We were in the park for around 40 minutes, enjoying the cooling weather, the fresh air and the scenery.

So now, I will be sharing our adventure on Mount Kinabalu. What happened was that on our way down in the coach, there was a major jam on the road. At first, we just decided to sit in the coach and wait patiently but after 2 hours, we just realised that things weren’t right. We saw so many cars turning back uphill. It was already 5.30pm. Our coach driver stopped a few motorists who were going uphill and asked them what happened down the hill. What we were told was terrifying. Apparently, there is a landslide that happened downhill and the boulders were like the size of a truck so the two lane road was completely obstructed. No wonder things weren’t moving!

We decided to wait and see if the roads can be cleared but it just didn’t move. So our tour guide decided to call the local office to ask if they can make any necessary amendments. By then, it was 8pm. The skies were dark and we were all cold, hungry and tired. 

In the end, there was a minibus that came and sent us to a lodge uphill (cos we cant go downhill and our coach was too big to be reversed). This lodge is where mountain climbers will stay in before they ascend Mount Kinabalu.

Here is how the room looks like.

I was too tired to take photos of the room when it was all clean and neat. Only managed to snap these pictures after a night’s rest. There were a total of 6 beds in this room. The bed on the top right hand corner was where I slept on the night before. 🙂

Despite all the drama, we made it down the mountain the next day. It was pretty cool actually, to have a chance to stay in the climbers’ lodge. Good experience! Just a little note: If you are keen to mount the legendary Mount Kinabalu, do remember to register early. Heard that there is a long waiting list for this! 🙂