Sabah Tea Plantation
Sabah Tea Factory
Sabah Tea for export
Rungus Long House
Leaders Update
After our long flight o Brunei and our very good day trip around Brunei , courtesy of Royal Brunei Airlines, it was great to join up with the Singapore contingent in the Sedco Restaurant in Kota Kinabalu the capital city of Sabah.
Our Fieldskills guide Lee is a great success and we are all being very well looked after by him. As I write this on Friday July 16th it is 8pm and as the rest of the group watch a cultural display at the Sabah Tea Estate, Quintin and I are updating the blog as we have Internet access.
Our first real day saw us visit markets where we found a variety of different foods on sale, ( see weird and wonderful foods on the blog), a visit to Melisau Nature Reserve on Mount Kinabalu where Ansau, a well known and stylishly attired Botanist showed us a variety of Pitcher Plants growing on the SE flank of Mount Kinabalu and we finished the day with an emotional visit to the Kundasang War Memorial. [DIARY LINK]
One member of the group will write a Diary entry each day
The whole group are settling in well and both old and young had an excellent first day in Sabah. Lots of photographs from all and you must be careful when Tom Mitchell is around with the clip camera as he is an expert at recording embarrassing moments as well as the wildlife. Yes the leader has been caught out!
They slept well at the Kinabalu Pine Resorts last night despite a full blown tropical rain storm with lightning illuminating Mount Kinabalu and rolling thunder. Even a temporary power cut did not prevent the team settling down to an hour’s work on recapping on what they had seen and gaining more insight to life in Sabah.
Today after another visit to the market and some more weird and wonderful foods we moved via Ranua to the Sabah Tea Estate where we are staying in a Longhouse. Once again Lee’s knowledge added to my experiences from previous expeditions to Brunei and Sabah have allowed a great deal of information to be passed on to all. [DIARY LINK]
Sam has been tremendous in keeping everyone’s health as a priority and Stan’s support in all the admin details has been very welcome. Support from Sasha and Ali and the great
Tomorrow is a big day as the 5 Malaysian teenage students join us from the orphanage for the rest of the expedition. We will be at the Orangutan Centre at Sepilok and the Rainforest Centre. I will be giving you another update hopefully in 3 days time but we have a great team, and the expedition is really developing into even more than we planned.
Please note that we will not have Internet access for 3 days.
Paul Baker
Day 4 Diary by Eloise Haylor
We left the Pine Resort this morning after Breakfast. We had started the day with an ice cold shower (who forgot to put the water heater on?) and a very civilized coffee on the verandah from where we looked out on a clear but ragged and uninviting peaks of Mount Kinabalu.
Quote by Hamish Sandison
‘Despite popular belief, the top of Mt. Kinabalu is actually relatively warm. Often the locals say it is very cold but for us Brits it is the same temperature as a warm spring day.’
Our first stop was the vegetable market where we tried the bizarre snakes skin fruit. (real snakeskin?) and spinach tempura before stopping off at the supermarket at Ranau for some exotic junk food such as seaweed and freshwater prawn Pringles)
After a short journey we arrived at the Sabah Tea Plantation where we are staying in a traditional longhouse so called because it can be extended each time there was a new family unit as the community expanded. We were shown how the tea is picked and processed in this .The only tea plantation in Sabah which supplies a surprising array of countries from Malaysia to the USA.
We then had an excellent ‘light’ lunch of Chinese food and the we met in our Longhouse for Lee, our incredibly knowledgeable guide, to explain the structure of the Longhouse and the culture of the community from collecting termite free bamboo to how to buy a bride. Though Longhouses are no longer used in this part of Sabah the Iban of Sarawak still live in them, though Sarawak Longhouses are further off the ground and slightly smaller. This was historically due to them being Headhunters and needing to defend themselves.
We walked back to the restaurant for a birthday celebration tea for Harriet – 20 today- and as we arrived he heavens opened for a great tropical storm which curtailed some planned birdwatching.
Supper now in the restaurant before we return to the Longhouse for hopefully a good night’s sleep.
