Cuti-Cuti Sabah: Kundasang / Ranau

We decided to stay at Zen Garden Resort this time, the previous years were at Mesilau / National Park / Pine Resort. Quite spacious, a chalet with four bedrooms inc WC in each room. It has a kitchen, a dining area and a living room with TV (But who wants to watch TV during vacation? - Well, we did as it was a very cold and windy night that time, we dare not to go out - not after dinner, at least!).

It was a good decision that we did steamboat at the balcony, bought fresh vegetables at the close by market place. BILs barbequed some chicken wings while SIL & MIL prepared the steamboat tom yam & chicken s. Well, I was busy as usual, the amah (maid) for the kids who were monkeying around, having good fun.

Tickle Koko! Lately, the two boys were seen playing together well.

Cheeky C!

My turn!

We visited the Kinabalu National Park. It was raining, so we decided to visit the Kinabalu Natural History Gallery instead. Local handicraft, local musical instruments, animal/insect/plant specimen, history, rocks and minerals and other info relates to the National Park; a small gallery, but I think its worth visiting. But the best part was : hillarious when my nephew read the Malay text in his American accent : SELEMET DETHENG! bla bla bla. more reading..bla bla.. kewesen kundeseng! bla bla..... haha! We got nothing better to do as we were killing time waiting for the rain to stop.

We visited the Kundasang War Memorial too, which was built in 1962 to remember the 2,428 Australian-British POWs during the WWII who died during the Sandakan Death March in 1945. From the info I read, only 6 survived to tell the story. I remembered that my parents did bring us here some donkey years... But with the newly restoration done sometime in 2005, it is so beautiful with three gardens - the Australian, English & Borneo garden.

Lest We Forget!

As we entered, these notice board caught our attention. hmmm... Just wondering if they could have word them better.

At the Australian Garden (^_^)

The top is a contemplation garden to commomerate those names who didnt return home. Reading their names, age and how they died gave me the chill. I was taken aback, overwhelmed with what were written, at the same time remembered Agnes Keith's Three Came Home book where she did mentioned about her encounter with a few of the Australian soldiers who tried to run away from the Japanese. RIP, dear brothers!

Commomeration of those who never return home. Rest In Peace.

At the top of the roof, overlooking part of Kundasang village.

The next day, we visited the Poring Hot Spring... again! hehehe.. yeah, it will not be complete to visit Kundasang without going to Poring. With the little toddler with me, I decided to forgo the canopy walk this time, instead chilled (more like steamed) with MIL at one of the enclosed bath tubs. However, we were quit dissapointed that the running hot water doesnt smell rotten egg sulphuric enough.. U know, we were like, did they use the actual Hot Spring water? Just wondering....

Koko C decided to join Papa for the canopy walk, which again suprised us as he became more adventurers than we expected. (Did you know that the name Poring comes from a dusun word for a bamboo species found in that area? - Wiki).

On the hanging bridge

Lets hug a tree

This definitely more than a century old tree.

Taking a break before heading downwards.. corn corn corn!

And before we headed home, we stopped by at Tagal Sg Moroli, Ranau. Can you guess what we did there? Check out the few pictures below.

Care for fish massage anyone? hehehe

The kelah fish are so tame, they rub their body against our feet. With food in our hand, they rush towards it and start sucking the food - and suck our skin too, just like a sensation of a vacuum cleaner against our skin.. Suprisingly, they seemed to have no teeth....

Baby C was enjoying the massage. In fact he was trying to hit catch some fish around him.

Cant get enough of the fish, BIL carried him dipping the whole body in to the river. He just love the cold dip, refused to come out when we called him. Too bad, one only allowed to dip for 15 minutes. I guess the management dont want to stress the fish too!

and koko decided to stay out of the water, he rather feed the fish from the river bank.

It has been a fun trip, except that the majestic mountain has shied away from us. Too bad, with rainy day like this, its too cloudy to enjoy the scenic view.

Next post: Kinabatangan / Sandakan trip. Stay Tune!