this was what we had for breakfast. not bad... not bad at all...
Next stop is Ranau. Ranau is about an hour away from Kundasang. It's a small town. Main tourist attraction there would be the Hot Spring. There's a huge waterfall there too but it's 3800++m up the trail. We almost died when we walked up the volcano mud trail. Mt. Kinabalu is 4108m,it's only a few hundred metres higher. There's no way I could make it up there. Probably next time...
beautiful ya?....
This is the open bath tub. There were two silly kids,jumped into the tub fully clothed.. in JEANS...with their BELTS on. in fact,everyone was fully clothed except for the foreigners. What is wrong with these people..sigh..
This is the individual tub. But it takes forever for the water to fill up. In the end,I changed my mind. Snapped a couple of pictures,and continued our journey to Sandakan. We reached Sandakan after 4hrs of drive...(i think),had dinner,and called it a night. The next day, we went to Sepilok's Orangutan rehab centre. I must say I'm quite disappointed. Feeding time is at 3pm. If you go before that, you'll have to play "Spot the Orangutan' game. Otherwise it's just a jungle. So we went there during feeding time.
There weren't that many Orangutans....
Since there weren't that many monkeys to look at or play with, we proceeded to the crocodile farm... and their feeding time is at 4pm. Check out these fatty crocs man..
this guy is showing the most expensive part of a crocodile's body... the stomach...
and this guy doing the traditional Kadazan dance, Sumazau,with that thing over him... 
I thought they were going to feed chicken to the crocs,but I was wrong. Fishheads. Stinky fishheads..very smelly..ew...
they have other animals in there too... here's a bunch of catfish and koi...
There were ostriches, monkeys, wild cats, peacock, CHICKENS (all types!) and few others. But Adrie doesn't seem to find them interesting enough so he didn't bother taking their pictures.. SO,after a long day with all sorts of animals,Azlan brought us to this beautiful place on top of a hill. It's called the English Tea House. Very nice place.
Apparently u can practise your croquet skills here too..
we didn't have tea of course... the weather wouldn't allow us to... too hot... but I like this place. They have weddings and other functions here too. That's pretty much IT about Sandakan. We took a flight back to KK... thank goodness.
These two pictures were taken in Nexus Karambunai Resort. I thought I'd show the boys around before they go back to KL.
It's their last day in KK. I brought them to Waterfront in town to catch sunset.
nice right?
After sunset, I brought them to the city. Since Harvest Festival is coming soon,I brought them to the Harvest Queen Beauty Pageant, Unduk Ngadau. Every year,a month before harvest festival, there'll be a pageant carried out in every town and district. The winners of from every district will then compete with each other on Harvest Festival Day itself. There'll be cultural and traditional dance and singing performances by local artistes. All the VIPs would be there too.It's an eye opening experience. After everything,we do what we're best at.... we drink. Tapai. Yummy sweet rice wine. Aramaiti!! (it means cheers)
we had chicken kon lau mien for lunch.. quite yummy..
After lunch,we continued our journey onwards to Kudat. It's about 2 hrs drive from Kota Belud. Along the way,we stopped by at this Rungus Longhouse. I find it quite interesting because there is an entrance fee, but there are also people living there. I don't understand why are there charges if we're actually visiting someone's home...hmm..
This is the hall
someone's bedroom..
For a kampung looking residence,they actually have very decent, modern toilets...which I like of course. After everyone had their pee break,we continued our long,painful drive to Kudat. Road conditions were very bad... gravel gravel gravel.... it was such a relief when we saw this signboard...phew....
Finally we're at the Tip Of Borneo. I've seen this place on postcards before but never had the chance to go there. I'd say it's worth the trip. But I'm not too sure if I want to go through the painful drive again..
love the view. It reminds me of the view in Cape of Good Hope, Capetown.
very windy...very nice... 
This trip to Kudat alone took up the whole day. By the time we got home,everyone was plastered. The next day,we went to Pulau Tiga in Kuala Penyu. Pulau Tiga is also known as the Survivor's Island. It's less commercialised as compared to Pulau Manukan and Pulau Sapi because it's further. The other 2 islands are in the city centre itself,whereas for Tiga,you need 2 hrs to get to Kuala Penyu jetty,and another 1/2 hr boat ride to get to the island. A good friend of mine, Shireen,her parents own the Pulau Tiga Beach Resort. Although we made a day trip,she gave us a room to change and shower. It's about RM118++ each for a day trip,and RM280++ per room. Lucky for me,Shireen was my schoolmate since forever... so we got a very good deal...
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love the room... the next trip I make, I'm definitely going to stay there for a night...
check out the view... the best part was,the whole island was very quiet. we were the only ones on the beach!
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Our day trip is inclusive of lunch. After toasting ourselves, we had a quick lunch... because the next activity was the highlight of the day... VOLCANO MUD SPA!!
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from the left: Imran, Azlan & moi.JPG)
This is the volcano mud. There's 3 of them on the island. We managed to find one only. And we had to walk 1.1km up the trail just to get there....JPG)
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It feels funny at first because there's a lot of foreign objects inside... but we've gone thru so much just to get there,no matter how disgusting it is,everybody MUST jump in!.JPG)
This is Nik Adrie. He's our photographer. I don't know why he finds the need to pose like this. I suppose he suddenly felt like an orang asli after coating himself with mud. Notice the dried leaves on his head? Imran puts in a lot of effort to prepare the props just so this make-belief-orang-asli picture will look convincing enough to humour themselves. *applause*.JPG)
There isn't any shower near the volcano mud area... only one small pipe. We had to walk back to the beach just to clean up. Notice how all the boys are covered with mud from face to toe?(i know you can't see their toes but they are...) They are metrosexual men. To them,this natural mud spa,can do wonders to their skin (although there were leaves and twigs and other unknown objects in there),therefore,it is important to leave the mud on until it's dry,otherwise your skin will not be able to absorb the nutrients. I couldn't be bothered,so with the little water that I could get,I washed the mud off my face. Believe it or not,it does feel smoother than usual. This is definitely the 1st time for me,and it's really fun. You guys should try it!
Next... of course we cannot miss Mount Kinabalu. The next morning we headed off to Kundasang. We checked in to The Peak Lodge in National Park. It's a bit pricey,but I really like our chalet.
This was my room. I slept on the top bunk...
this place costed us RM420...
we took a stroll down on one of the main trails...
It wasn't the best weather to make a trip up to Kundasang but we didn't have much time. So we went anyway. True enough,it was very foggy. We couldn't see the mountain at all. So we went to the nearest town for dinner whilst waiting & hoping & praying for the clouds to clear. We spotted this kid on the way to Kundasang town. I just thought he was cute.
this was the best we could do... Anyway,I'm going to pen off now. There's a lot more actually but it's time for dinner... I'll post another entry tomorrow. Hope you girls like the pictures so far. Ciao.
