Photo of the Day - Borneo Sunrise

Dawn seen from Low's Peak (4092m a.s.l.), Mt. Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.

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Photo of the Day - Mt. Kinabalu

Mount Kinabalu (4092 a.s.l.) is the highest peak in South-East Asia. Rising almost two times higher than any other mountain in Borneo. From the top one can see over all Sabah and if weather is good also to Philippines.The air at the top is thin enough to cause altitude sickness. Temperatures close to the peak are considerable lower than elsewere in the region average temperature at nights being only few degrees above zero and during the day not more than 10 degrees. The weather can change extremelly fast. Winds might be unpredictable. Rain might come within minutes.

Sounds hard core, eh?

Not so. It's one of the most popular tourist attractions in Sabah and is probably one of the easiest mountains to conquer seeing its height. Every day 150 tourists try to make their way up. More than half succeeding in their pursuit. The well marked 8.7 km trail leading to the peak starts from 1900 meters and proceeds all the way to the top. Ropes are attached to steep parts. Tourists make it normally in two days spending a night in one of the mountain huts located around 3200 meters above sea level. However, the record to the top and down to the starting point is only 2 hours and 50 minutes. Oldest person ever conquered the mountain was a 90 years old Japanese lady.

Tommorow I am going to see, if I manage to do the same.

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Photo of the Day - Orangutans

Orangutans (suom. oranki) are the only species of the great apes living in South-East Asia. It's probably needless to say that the species is currently endangered. Although the species was found from many places throughout the region, most of the populations are nowadays driven to the extinction. Few populations remaining, Borneo is currently the hot spot of orangutan abundance. Population on the whole island is estimated somewhere 45 000 - 65 000 and is declining. Although populations in some conservation areas are stable or even growing.

A good example is Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (SORC) located only 30 kilometers outside Sandakan. The centre consists of a small patch of conserved virgin rain forest where wild orangutans can live without major disturbance. In addition to wild orangutans the centre is adopting injured and orphaned animals from other not so peaceful regions in Sabah. Active feeding programme gives easy nutrition for pregnant wild orangutans.

SORC is also a major tourist attraction, where camera-necked primates can observe the men of the forest (Orang in Malay means people and utan forest) during regular every day feeding events. Tourism is a way to preserve nature, if controlled properly.

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Sandakan

After well slept night, I took a bus to Sandakan, the second biggest city in Sabah. The air-conditioned bus was surprisingly warm, compared to Malaysian Peninsula or Thailand. My clothing preparations led to excessive sweating. Landscape was more of that same than on the way to Semporna. Hours of palm-oil plantations. Some random strips of bush that reminded of the old rain forested times on Borneo.

On the way we dropped off bunch of approx. 15 years old smiling kids - more girls than boys - to a fenced military camp. There was sings where a soldier was shooting apparently a too curious guy from behind hanging on the fence. Guards were standing with machine guns at the gate. The boys were dressed in neat black trousers and a light-blue long sleeved shirt. Girls outfit had similar colours, but they were wearing a skirt and a light-blue scarf. Every kid was behaving remarkably well - almost like adults.

Althought Sandakan was supposed to be a relativelly big city (350 000 inhabitants) and once the capital of British Sabah, it felt the most boring town in the world. Once it maybe had the charm, but it probably lost it during the II World War, when the whole town was bombarded flat. Nowadays Sandakan a shabby town with worn out high-rise buildings. It reminds a bit of eastern European cities, that had their days of glory during the Soviet Union times. After 10 pm the city was totally dead. No night-markets, no food-stalls, no bar life. Only some drunk locals and few urchins on the streets. Not a single car. Since I had problems to find budjet accomodation from the city, my hotel-room compensated the situation. I had a wide-screen TV, DVD player, loads of movies, air-con and hot shover in my room, for the first time during the trip.

It was clear that I would not spend an other night in the city. However, I managed in what I was looking for. I booked a trip to Mt. Kinabalu. More about that later.

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Photo of the Day - Sea Gypsy Home

On image tells more than a thousand words, they say. So, I'll introduce a new concept to my blog: Photo of the Day. The idea is to add one of my fresh photos here with a short story, if needed. Not every day, but few times weekly anyhow. I imitated the idea from a biking photographer Tom's blog. It's a good visual concept. Easy to check out without reading pages of bullshit. It also saves my time from writing and forces me to practice photography.

All right. Let's get started. First one: Photo of the Day - Sea Gypsy Home
Bajau Sea Gypsies are aboriginals to Borneo. They are quite literally living from the sea. This "village" is located about 10 km from Semporna, Sabah, on a reef few kilometers off the coast. Nearest piece of land is kilometers away, but fishery just under the house! Kids can swim to the school...

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Sipadan

Remember how it was like, when you were a kid and your mother took you into a toyshop?

Imagine a white sand beach. Imagine an underwater cliff that drops down to 600 meters just tens of meters out from the beach. Imagine swimming with huge sea turtles and reef sharks. Imagine being surrounded by a school of two meter long barracudas. Imagine all the colours. Imagine seeing more different kinds of fish in one dive than you have seen in your whole life. Imagine much more.

That's Sipadan. Advertised as one of the top dive sites on the planet. Haven't tried the other top spots, but the dives here were definitely the best ones in my life. I was like a kid in the toyshop. It's just not possible to describe. You must see it. That's why, I'll add some photos (sorry, the scenery and the colours are not correctly presented). Photographer: Marius Bratrein.

Surrounded by barracudas (sp.?)

Crocodile flathead fish.
Making friendship with the barracudas (sp.)
Malabar (??) grouper.
Our dive master quite experienced (10000+ dives) was blowing the most perfect air rings I have ever seen. Trying to pick up some skills from the champion.
A green turtle.
Giant (??) moray eel.
Turtle tomb is a more than 100 meters long cave in about 12-18 meters depth, where one can find turtle remains, because they got lost and couldn't make it to the surface to breathe. We just scratched the opening. Divers without proper equipment could face the same fate than the turtles...
A hawksbill turtle.
Turtle madness at Sipadan.

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Scuba Sipadan

Because everybody hates the tourist (Pulp, Common People)

I was sitting on a porch in the front of Scuba Sipadan dive shop and following the action. People were running around, browsing papers and test shouting names. No-one replied. Most of the people demonstrated various degree of confusion. One voluble English girl was complaining about unprofessionalism and the worst dive shop in the world. One of the instructors was sighing loudly. An other one was very concentrated on smoking. It was not the easiest morning for Scuba Sipadan.

One of the reasons why I chose Scuba Sipadan from many dive operators was that it was the only IDC (Instuctor Developement Centre) in Borneo. I wanted to check it out. Maybe I would have liked to come back and possibly learn more about teaching diving. After hearing all the stories, I don't want to do it here. The staff is complaining. Some of them are not getting paid anymore. The customers are complaining. They are feeling being ripped off and forced to dive at worse dive sites. In the diving business world a shop like that cannot exist very long. Not even, if it would have the desired PADI 5-star IDC rating. Customers are escaping. It seems that Scuba Sipadan has turned from one of the most respected dive shops in Borneo to the most unwanted one. Every other shop has booked Sipadan for months ahead. At Scuba Sipadan one can get a spot after diving two days in the other places. Booking less than a week ahead. Althought the staff are professional and very, very experienced, it's not easy to work in a dive shop, where the management does not care about anything else than money. The problem seems to be the managers wife, who actually owns the whole place. She just can't run the business. The shop is diving into deep waters.

However, back to the story. Finally after an hour of fixing, customers complaining, changing boats and the managers wife looking stupid and angry at the same time we managed to depart for my first dive drip to Semporna Marine National Park. We would not to Sipadan this time (since I had to have those two days elsewhere), but to Sibuan, an island nearby. After twenty minutes of driving (and listening the voluble English girl complaining) we arrived to the most lovable island in the world. It was just like those paradise islands in the TV.
Yellow sand, coconut trees, small huts and turquoise lagoon. There was a Bajau sea gibsy community living on the island. Their kids were running naked on the beaches. Small hand-made boats were resting on the shore. The sea was as calm as in a small lake on a windless summer day. Sun was shining and the sky was blue. The diving was something different.

It was like hiking in a graveyard. A bomb field. Sand everywhere. Once living coral reef was turned into small gray pieces of stone. The pieces were covering the slopes as far as one could see. There was lots of confused looking small fish trying to hide between the dead coral fragments. Some living soft corals, occasional chunks of living reef, few turtles, a lion fish, sea urchins, mandarin fish hiding under the urchins, one sea snake, quite lot of plastic wrappings, glass bottles and cigarette buds. That's about it.

I was especting quite a bit more. Of course it was beautiful in a sad way, but it was supposed to be something over the scale. I had seen enough dead reef on Koh Tao.

However, there was a reason for the destruction. As in so many other reef places, also here the locals had found an effective way to fish. Dynamite.

Dynamite fishing was banned already years ago, but still some small scale bombardment was going on. No matter how hard the army and police was trying to guard the area. People needs to eat. Sea gibsies were apparently doing whatever to ensure their food supply. Can't blame them. It's their home. They don't have the education to understand the impact of their acts. That coral need hundreds of years to form a new reef even without any human impact at all.

Borneo is apparently a land of destroyed nature.

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