Saturday, March 22, 2008

Green Crested Lizard



The Borneon Chameleon atau Green Crested Lizard near Gomantong Cave. This one is only a baby.

Stork- Billed Kingfisher



Gambar ni bukan saya yg ambil. Diambil dari internet. Tapi saya pasti ini diambil dari Sukau. Satu dari antara burung rajawali yg terdapat di Sabah dan juga yg. terbesar. Memang cantik. Burung ni delalu daja terbag laju dgn suaranya yg tdk. indah didengar tapi unik.


Ini tukang masak di Pulau Libaran Lodge bahagian staff canteen tapi kemudiannya dipindahkan ke dapur utama. Lupa namanya...dia minta saya proseskan gambar ni tapi selalu ja tak ada masa. Makcik ni seorang yang peramah. Pandai bergurau. Dia dari suku kaum Cagayan yg. asal usulnya dari selatan Filipina. Sudah lama tinggal di Pulau Libaran. Cakap melayu pun fasih..kalah orang di kampung saya.

cruising up Kinabatangan river


This picture is for the previous chapter.
Cruising up Kinabatangan river. Sitting at the front is my assistant Rose ( with yellow raincoat ). The last one ( with blue singlet ) is Wendy. The boatman was Mr Jamal. We went down to see the limestone rock caves. There were bats sleeping upside down......

MAGUNATIP DANCE



My Welcoming Dinner with SAGA group. This dance also known as warrior dance or sometimes Headhunter dance. Their costumes are indicating a primitives style which is made off from forest products like tree bark and leaves. They used spears to hunt and they also got long machete to cut someone's head. This tribe are living in the southern part of Sabah and Sarawak also in Kalimantan.

Baby pig-tailed macaque above the tree. Very common in the area. This was taken on the bank of the Menanggul river

pig tailed macaque

this baby minkey is waiting for it's mother. It came near above our boat. They are common in the area. A close relative to Long tailed macaque.

Lunch at Ikan Bakar Mama Sim-Sim

My mother and Auntie Julie came from Telupid. She came home from keningau for election last 08 March Together was Kim, my eldest brother first daughter and Alvin's first son. They were having their lunch at Ikan Bakar Mama just facing to my apartment. The market is very busy. too many people comes for lunch everyday. Our foods arrived a bit late and my aunt started to get angry. My mother's fish also arrived late. We had to ask the owner to get the fish.

Dogs playing on the beach

Kundasang fruitstalls


We stopped by in Kundasang market before heading back to mt. Lodge. My guests Mary and Bryan infront of the Fruitstalls. At least 20 species of fruits selling in the market. Alien fruits are also available like orange and apels. Probably mainly from China and New Zealand.

Friday, March 21, 2008

KOKOB Rafflesia Center Ranau.


My SAGA guests from England from left: Mercy, Alan ( Mercy's husbund ) and Mary were looking at the Rafflesia flower. Mercy are so interested in almost anything including the rafflesia flower ( cannot be seen ). Behind them is the cluster of giant bamboo. They let them grow there to help in covering the Rafflesia to grow as they need a damp condition area.

Me again.......


Me again posing at Menanggul river. This river is just among hundreds of tributaries in Kinabatangan river. But this one is the most visited by guests from all over the world. The main attraction is the Proboscis Monkey. where is the Proboscis monkey then ? check at the other column.......

Mt. Kinabalu


The highest mountain in SEA. 4,095.2m within the Kinabalu National Park. Taken from Wildlife Expeditions Mounatin Lodge. Thay day was cleared. I have taken many Mt. Kinabalu photo but this one I guess the best. People climbed the Mt. Kinabalu every year. The permit must be obtained from the Park HQ a month in advance before climbing. This is also important tocheck the availability of the cabins in Laban Rata.

Pygmy elephant


This was in Sukau just infront of our lodge. A group of elephants are eating grasses along the bank near someone's house. He was trying to chase the elephants away as they might eat the vegetables and knock down the house but he failed. We didn't know what happened next because we went off after that. Pygmy elephants is native to Borneo. The are getting extinct. Sabah govt. is working very hard to help this elephants from extinction. Most of the area has been transformed into a Palm Plantation making this animal nowhere to go. They always end -up near human settlement and trespassing the palm plantation area.

Kundasang War Memorial


This is an English garden in one of the place in the Memorial. It was built in 1964 by New Zealand, Australia and British govt to comemmorate the POWs who died during the Death Marches commmanded by Japanese military. Other section is Australian and Bornean Garden.

KUNDASANG


My 2 friends, Zul the F&B supervisor at Sukau River Lodge ( left ) and my driver Mr Idris are posing along the Kundasang Vegetable market. Dusun people are the native people in Kundasang and most them are farmer. Kundasang is the main vegetable supplier in Sabah. It's climate is suitable for most of the vegetable species as it cold enough for the vegetable to grow.

Sandakan Buddhist Temple


My friend Joel ( green shirt ) is taking photo to his guest in this temple. It's the biggest temple and is one of the best location in Sandakan. It is facing to the beautiful Sandakan bay.

SEPILOK


2 orang utans at the feeding platform. They were waiting to be fed by ranger at 10:00am. Usually the ranger feeds them banana everyday. Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Center is so famous around the world. It's been going on since 1964 and succesfully rehabilitated more than 300 orang utan.

Macaque


A male Long -Tailed macaque came into our boat and got fed by Sabanah, the boatman. this was taken during our Lalasun river cruise. The macaques expected our visit as we always feed them biscuits every time we go there. They are quite very common and very succesful monkey in Sabah that they becomes a threat by the villagers around as they steal foods and raiding vegetable farms.
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A freswater prawn trap in Oxbow lake , Kinabatangan river. Mr. Jamal, the boatman pulled it out from the river to show it to us. The fisherman set them in the evening and check it every day.

OXBOW LAKE


A beautiful lake in Sukau, Kinabatangan River. It is used to be part of the kinabatnagna river but was cut off from it's source a decades ago by nature factors. The water is murky all the time. For nearly 9 years as a tour guide I never see this lake became clear. The river people used them for catching fish activities.

Libaran Island


Me posing on the Libaran's island jetty. The jetty was about 250 meters long towards the sea to overcome the low tide problem. The boats cannot landing on the beach during low tide. I got nothing to do. A little posing might change my mood.....

Rafflesia


Rafflesia is one of the biggest flower in the world. This one is a species called rafflesia keithii taken from Kokob Raffleisa Conservation Center in Ranau district. It was about 1 meter accros. It produce a smell of dead animal from it's center.