Malaysia – Page 4 – Simply cycling around

Kinabalu Park > summit (4095m) > Kota Kinabalu (100km, 2h by bus)

This is the highest summit I’ve never been onto :-) We are the first two guys to get there with a Spanish guy. We did it without any torch which was even better (actually, my battery run out after 30 minutes this morning). Without any light we could enjoy the stars and feel all the atmosphere. The moon’s brightness was enough to see where we were going. We left this morning around 3am and arrived 2 hours and 15 minutes later. We now can see all the other guys walking slowly down there. The temperature up there is, I guess, between 0 and 5 degrees and it’s slightly windy. I won’t be able to stay too long up there because I will get cold if I don’t move.

Kinabalu Park, first day (4km by bus, 10min + 6km by walk, 2h50)

This is the first thing we saw this morning when we woke up. Mount Kinabalu! The weather is fantastic today. We only expect that we can climb this mountain! If I’m not mistaken, we are going at the further peak on the left hand side. Its name is Low’s peak. Let’s start the day!

Mabul Island > Kinabalu Park (16km, 30min by boat + 600m, 10min by car + 472km, 8h by bus)

As planned, well… not really, we stayed another night. I did not want to spend money on diving or snorkeling at first. The thing is there is no much else to do here. I’ve hesitated and finally paid a snorkeling session for 50Ringgit. Too bad I did not bring the GoPro with me because there is so much different fish here with amazing shape and colors.

Mabul island, first day

We woke up this morning and figure out that we will stay another night. This island is beautiful and really controversial. A part of Mabul island has been bought by Sipadan Mabul Resort in the early 90’s to develop tourism and since that time, many other resort has been developed around the tiny island. The Mabul backpacker is situated at the “border” between this luxurious resort and the authentic village. There is a community of people here (mainly from philippines) who live on their boats. This place is a community where rich and poor people lives next to each other, not really together. The landscape is wonderful but it doesn’t feel right.

Kinabatangan river > mabul island (212km, 3h30 by bus + 70km, 1h50 by car + 16km, 1h by boat) Few!

Today we are travelling from the Kinabatangan river to Mabul island. Stephane wants to go to Semporna because he knows there is one of the bests spots on this planet for diving and snorkeling. We share our thoughts with Mr. Aji who said that we should go to Mabul island which is very beautiful and a good base from where water activities start. Okay, sounds good, let’s do that :-)

Sepilok > Kinabatangan river (110km, 2h15 by car)

Yesterday afternoon we met Mr. Aji who came to us. He proposed a boat tour in the jungle which is 2 hours away from Sepilok by car. For 350Ringgit we will spend 3:30 hours in the boat seeking for monkeys and other wild animals, one night in an Home stay with dinner and breakfast included, a one hour night walk in the jungle and finally another bush walk the second day. That sounds honest. We texted him yesterday evening and met him at 11:00am this morning in Sepilok. Let’s start the adventure!

Kuala Lumpur > Sandakan (1848km, 2h40 by flight) > Sepilok (23km by minibus + 1km by taxi)

Here we are in Borneo! Rah, this is going to be different travelling without any bicycle. We will have to rely on public transports and I’m sure it won’t be funny everyday. Today, we want to get to Sepilok, a small village where there is a famous Orangutan Rehabilitation centre. We don’t know it but we are not going to meet orangutan the way we expected. This is jungle here!