Pam Usher - Back to Kota Kinabalu and Mari Mari Cultural Village

After being in Weston and Beaufort, we returned to Kota Kinabalu. There was a very impressive mosque on the outskirts of KK, so we stopped the have a look at it.

Our guide AJ is a Muslim and he spoke about the annual Ramadan which he participated in. This means that if he is taking a group of tourists up Mt Kinabalu, he does not break his 29 or 30 day fast. He talked about the strength mentally to maintain the fast.

After booking into our hotel, we had an easy day, doing some shopping. When we got back to our hotel, a few of our travel companions had settled in with a few cold beers. We joined them for a couple before 4 of us, with our guide EJ, drove 40 minutes to the Mari Mari Cultural village.

This is about 3 acres of land set up to display 5 local Sabah tribal houses to show how they used to live in years gone by. We had a local guide to take us around.

At each hut there was a person dressed in traditional clothes, who cooked or prepared something for us that was special to their culture. This varied from honey wine, rice wine, bamboo stick cooking (where chopped chicken, bay leaves, garlic, onion and rice was stuffed inside the bamboo which was placed in coals to cook), all of which we tried.

In one of the longhouses, a traditionally clad man was applying henna to tourists. Before I knew it, I had a design on one of my arms.

We came to a high fence and gate and Tom was our Chief for the night. He was stopped by the resident Chief and they greeted each other with loud shouts and a hand on each other’s shoulder. We were let through after this traditional welcome.

It was then that we sat and watched some traditional percussion music and dance. One of the dances was with bamboo poles being clapped together while dancers moved their feet in amongst the bamboo, ensuring they did not get ‘caught’ by the bamboos coming together. They then invited some of the tourists to join in...which I did successfully. We all had a good laugh.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Pam Usher - Back to Kota Kinabalu and Mari Mari Cultural Village

.
.

New measures to enhance hikers’ safety on Mount Kinabalu

KOTA KINABALU, April 4 — In the aftermath of the magnitude 6.0 earthquake that struck Mount Kinabalu nearly 10 months ago, the local authorities have identified several measures to enhance the safety of hikers, ranging from plans to install rockfall barriers to putting personnel on standby to help climbers.

The mountain was fully opened to hikers in December last year, after a new 1km trail to the summit — called Ranau Trail — was completed by Sabah Parks, mountain guides and local villagers. Construction on a second trail to the summit, Kota Belud, started on April 1 and will take about three months to complete, said Sabah Parks director Jamili Nais.

“The old trail to the summit was devastated (by the earthquake)... It is beyond repair and dangerous, so we built new trails,” he told TODAY at a reception dinner for the local government and mountain guides hosted by Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan last Saturday.

Dr Jamili said geological experts from countries such as Japan and Canada visited Mount Kinabalu after the June 5 earthquake and recommended installing rockfall barriers — metal nets to catch falling rocks — in certain spots to prevent a repeat of the situation last year, where hikers, including students from Tanjong Katong Primary School, were crushed during the earthquake.

“(We expect the rockfall barriers to be) completed in stages ... Phase One is expected to (be completed) by the end of this year,” said Dr Jamili.

Meanwhile, about five to six members from Malaysia’s first mountain search and rescue team (MOSAR) are on duty at Mount Kinabalu every day to help climbers in case they get injured on the trails. The unit, which was formed after the earthquake, comprises 38 mountain guides who double up as auxiliary firefighters under the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Services Department.

Nuhairi Kintai, 32, who joined MOSAR but still freelances as a mountain guide, said his shift from 8am to 4pm earns him an allowance of RM6 per hour. So far, he has encountered cases where climbers have sprained their ankles or suffered from acute mountain sickness.

“I had four climbers under my care during the earthquake. At that time, I wanted to help more people but I couldn’t. So now, I not only want to be a mountain guide, I also want to save people if anything happens,” he added.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: New measures to enhance hikers’ safety on Mount Kinabalu

.

.

Baleh-Kapit Raft Safari still a crowd puller

KAPIT: The Baleh-Kapit Raft Safari 2016, which ended yesterday, featured only 28 rafting teams, but the organisers were not worried.

Minister of Land Development Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Jemut Masing opined the relatively lukewarm response to the 21st edition of this spectacle could be due to the many activities held here recently and preparations for the coming state election.

He said the Ibans were now busy harvesting padi and the Sejiwa Senada event was only held recently.

“Normally, teams from outside, like from Bintulu, Sri Aman, Kanowit, Sibu, Song, Belaga and Kuching would participate, but this time around, they are all busy preparing for the election,” he said in an interview at the Kapit Wharf Terminal.

On a related matter, Masing urged the business community here to sponsor the race in future as events such as this drew a lot of people to Kapit town.

“Kapit town was full of people the last two days. When they come, they drink and eat. Who stands to benefit? It’s the business community in Kapit, of course.”

On the races, which also included power boat racing and engine-pump boat racing, he noted there were participants from Brunei, Miri, Sarikei, Kuching, Limbang and Sibu.

He said the engine-pump boat category attracted many young racers, and interest in this form of racing in very small boats had gathered pace due to its low maintenance cost compared to power boats.

“Now even the Ibans here can dismantle and assemble such engines within one hour. They can also modify the engines.”

The three-day Baleh Kapit Raft Safari started on April 1 at two points: along Baleh River and Gaat River, and the racing distances from there till Kapit town was between six and eight hours.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Baleh-Kapit Raft Safari still a crowd puller

.
.

Nick and Liulye - Kuching: City of Cats

To start of our adventures in Borneo, you should probably know a little bit about Borneo itself.

Borneo is the name of an island that is split up into 3 countries, part of Borneo belongs to Malaysia, part Indonesia, and the other part the country of Brunei.

This time we visited 2 states in Malaysian Borneo, Sabah and Sarawak. 

Despite both belonging to Malaysia they are on opposite sides of Brunei.

Our first stop in Borneo was Kuching, the capital of the Malaysian state Sarawak. 

Kuching itself is similar to the Malay word for cat, so a lot of people tend to refer to Kuching as the cat city. 

The city itself really embraces that description, and there are a lot of statues of cats throughout the city. 

In addition to the statues, we did see a few stray cats running around, and Nicholas and I guessed that they are probably better treated here because of their being the namesake of the city. 

We also saw in tourist information that they have a Cat Museum, but we didn’t come across it in our wanderings.

Kuching is a popular destination for people who want to experience the natural side of Borneo.

It’s located quite near to several national parks where among other things you can see the Rafflesia flower, a flower known for its large size, and it’s intense, stinky smell. 

There is also an orangutan sanctuary nearby and lots of hiking trails.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Nick and Liulye - Kuching: City of Cats

.
.

Orangutan Oops: Rescue Efforts Led to Genetic Mix-up Among Borneo’s Endangered Apes

Crossbreeding between subpopulations of an island’s orangutans could weaken the species, a new study finds.

The forests of Tanjung Puting National Park in southern Borneo contain some unusual orangutans that, by all rights, probably shouldn’t even exist.

Scientists say decades-old attempts to rescue, rehabilitate, and release orangutans unintentionally created an unnatural mix of genetics among the park’s orangutans that could pose future health problems for these endangered apes.

Their research was published in February in the journal Scientific Reports.

The situation dates back to the pioneering work begun in the 1970s by orangutan researchers and rescuers Biruté Galdikas and her husband, Rod Brindamour.

At that time, scientists still debated whether the orangutans living on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra were different species, something that wasn’t fully accepted until 1996.

Beyond that, what no one back then yet realized was that the orangutans living on Borneo actually represented three different subspecies, each from a different part of the island and each with widely divergent genetics.

“Bornean orangutans last shared a common ancestor around 176,000 years ago and have markedly differentiated over the last 80,000 years,” said Graham Banes, the lead author of the new paper and a scientist with Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “That’s an incredible amount of independent evolution.”

Galdikas and Brindamour rehabilitated more than 90 orangutans at their famous Camp Leakey research site and released many of them back into the national park.

The animals, most of which were rescued from the pet trade, came from all over Borneo and, we know now, were not all from the same subspecies.

At least two females released into the park came from the western portion of the island, home to a subspecies different from the orangutans that already lived in the park.

Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Orangutan Oops: Rescue Efforts Led to Genetic Mix-up Among Borneo’s Endangered Apes

.
.