Part of my intern-ship is to tag along and evaluate BET (Borneo Eco Tours) tours. My first tour was Kinabalu National Park and Pouring Hot Springs. The guests, two couples from Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA were in Borneo for about a week. In their early 70's, they were on a month tour of Borneo, Singapore and Nepal (I can only hope I'm that cool when I'm in my 70's). They were an eager group, keen to see and try everything.
The park is about an hour outside of the city, a nice drive with occasional views of Mt.Kinabalu before clouds completely cover it. Malaysia’s first world heritage site, Mt. Kinabalu National Park (about the size of Singapore ) is home to the world’s oldest rainforests. The park fauna is rich in species with 326 bird, 112 mammals and two thirds of the islands reptile species.While the park contains the world’s highest youngest non- volcanic mountain and has diverse fauna, its unique flora made the World Heritage list in 2000.
The park’s flora contains elements of Himalayas, China, Australia, Malaysia, as well as pan-tropical flora that climb five vegetation groups, from a low rain forest to alpine scrubs. The park contains 5,000 to 6,000 vascular plants, including 1,000 orchids, nine types of pitcher plants (some can digest rats) and the largest flower in the
world the rafflesia. The rafflesia has an amazing life cycle see the picture below. I felt very lucky to see it!
All the different flora flora were so cool, from the various orchids to learning how the natives have lived off these forests for millennia. The jungle provides nearly everything-kerosene berries to start fires, plants that have hooks that catch fish and wild ginger (see picture below).
After the jungle walk and lunch of Nasi goreng ( fried rice) and fish (I even ate some of the head!) we headed about 40 minutes to Poring Springs. The canopy walk was amazing, but scary! For those of you familiar with the tree top walk in Walpole, it's similar to that. For some reason this petrified me, maybe because the walk was all ropes (it takes a year to change the ropes!) as opposed to steel in Walpole. And it very narrow so you really swung when you walked.
Poring Hot Springs was a bit of a disappointment; Yellowstone’s beautiful natural hot springs have spoiled me. Our tour, on a Sunday, was packed with local kids running around all over the place. And unlike Yellowstone, there were was all sorts of man made pools. But I'm sure soaking in the tubs would be amazing after a mountain hike.
The farmers markets on the way back were amazing and a good chance to stock up tropical fruit. The different varieties of tropical fruit are unavailable in some Western Countries (Mangosteen and rambutan sound weird but are both so good see the picture below) or the yummy bananas, mangoes or pineapples. Oh yeah, the fruit costs about a quarter of what it costs in Perth. I can't get enough of the fruit and have withdrawals if I don't eat a mango a day. Off to the shops to buy some mangos!
