I Heart Sabah ...

How time flies! It seemed like only yesterday I was back in Sabah after a long time away (having left in January 1993). Now, it's been 10 years since I went back to Kota Kinabalu in October, 2003, with the now-defunct Ford Lanun Darat programme. Much has changed. Back then, it was near-impossible to find camping gear in KK, now there are many shops offering first rate items.
Memories came rushing back on the Borneo Safari recently, when the first day's campsite at Kiulu seemed so familiar. Then ... of course, it was where we camped during Lanun Darat #17!
Sabah was where it all began for me ... 4X4, that is. First, the early years of the Borneo Safari in the early 1990s, then the unforgettable Camel Trophy of 1993.
Lanun Darat was a very successful and popular programme run by Ford to help customers of its Ranger and Everest 4X4s to learn the fundamentals of 4WD and how to get the most out of their vehicles while enjoying the great outdoors. It ended several years ago but there is talk, and some hope of it being revived. If you own a Ford 4X4 and want to see that happen, do let Sime Darby Auto Connexion know how you feel. Call them, write to them, text them, twit it ...  

My story from October 2003

IN Sabah, everyone drives a 4X4 vehicle. At least, that seems to be the perception among other Malaysians. A first-time visitor stepping out of the Kota Kinabalu International Airport may well think that this is one rough country, given the number and variety of tough-looking vehicles in the parking lot.
Toyota Landcruisers and Hiluxes, Nissan Patrols, Isuzu Invaders and Troopers and Land Rovers are everywhere. And, in the past few years, the Ford Ranger has won over many Sabahans as well.
Ford Malaysia, recognising the importance of this easternmost state’s importance as a market for its pick-ups, recently held the first-ever Lanun Darat 4X4 expedition for Sabahans who own the Ranger.

Since the programme began five years ago, the 16 previous expeditions in Peninsular Malaysia have proved very popular among owners of the tough Ford trucks, many of whom return again and again for more thrills. It is also an avenue for Ford to maintain close rapport with its customers.
Lanun Darat #17 proved to be different in several ways. Logistics was the first challenge since quite a lot of equipment had to be flown in or shipped over from the peninsula.
For example, Kuala Lumpur offers shoppers a bewildering choice of tents, sleeping bags and other camping gear. But the options are limited in Sabah. Therefore, these items had to be purchased in KL and shipped over, and then distributed, free of charge, to the hundred or so participants who had eagerly signed up for the event.
When all these difficulties had been overcome, Sabah showed that it had many advantages for the kind of back-to-nature adventure that the Lanun Darat programme aims to promote.
A typical Lanun Darat event in the west would require two to three hours of highway motoring before the dirty bit - the real fun - began. In Sabah, the adventure started less than 10km from the flag-off, held at the Ford Concessionaires facility in Inanam, a light industrial area just outside KK.
The terrain was spectacular. One minute, you were on a rather ordinary country road. One left turn later, the trail began climbing steeply, and kept getting steeper.

For those of us from West Malaysia who had gone along for the ride, the most amazing part about these tracks, which were so steep that low-ratio gears had to be engaged, was that the local residents traversed them daily, to and from their homes.
The GPS (Global Positioning System) showed that we were less than 30km, as the crow flies, from downtown KK. No wonder the high percentage of 4X4 vehicles in Sabah – there are so many places people need to go to which ordinary cars simply cannot reach.
Before long, the convoy of 35 Rangers moved into the really mountainous area of Kiulu, where swift streams churned up excitement and trepidation in equal measures.
First-timers probably felt queasy watching the truck before theirs plunge into the fast current, and seeing those big wheels disappear beneath the seething waters.
The knowledge that it was safe, that the guy in front made it across, should be reassuring. And, it was, but you just couldn’t help worrying a little. What if I got it wrong? There were so many things that could go wrong: going in too fast or too slow; steering too far right or left; easing off the accelerator too early or too late ...
And then it was over, and with success, a feeling of overwhelming exhilaration, of achievement! It was great. This was what life’s all about! Until the next, bigger, deeper and faster stream.
All along the way, we learnt from each other. There was always some useful tip someone else had which I had not thought or heard of, or something I considered basic but which the other fellow never knew.
There was also the spectacular scenery to savour while negotiating rocky tracks that clung precariously to the near-perpendicular sides of hills which soared straight up on one side and, on the other, dropped to lush green bamboo-clad valleys a long, long way below.
We camped next to a lovely boulder-strewn river which provided crystal-clear water for bathing, and a farmer’ s hut which had Astro, via which the Sabahan football fans watched their team lose to MPPJ.
Lanun Darat ended with a drive along the white sandy beach to the Rasa Ria Resort at Pantai Dalit. By then, the participants did not need any prompting when asked if another such event would be a good idea.

Deja view ... same place (as photo above), 10 years later.

The "road" to Mulu

Who said "it's not the destination, it’s the journey”? That sounds like a nice philosophy if you’re into zen and all that mystical stuff. Personally, I think it’s a cop-out, a sorry excuse made up to console oneself when the destination turned out to be one huge, disappointing mistake.
Give me a good journey AND a good destination any time. Give me a trip to Mulu, and give it to me the old-fashioned way, of course.
For the benefit of the uninitiated, that’s the renowned Gunung Mulu National Park in the north-eastern corner of Sarawak, famed for its superlative caves – world’s largest cave chamber, South-East Asia’s longest cave passage, longest cave system, etc.
Twenty years on, memories of my first visit, and what felt like an epic journey then, are still vivid.
From the seaside town of Kuala Baram, about 25km from Miri, I had to take a pre-dawn express boat journey to the small riverside town Marudi, three hours away.
Change over to an open top longboat for another three-hour ride to an even smaller riverside town, Long Lama, where another transfer is required, to an even smaller longboat for the last stretch up the calm Melinau river.

Waiting for the Long Lama ferry.

Today, Mulu has become one of Sarawak’s most popular tourist destinations, thanks to regular flights that deliver visitors almost to the doorsteps of the first-class Royal Mulu Resort and another dozen or so lodgings clustered on the banks of the pristine Melinau river.
When the opportunity to revisit Mulu came up in April 2006, it was the destination that got me excited first.
Then came the offer I couldn’t refuse – it was a Ford Lanun Darat expedition so the trip would not be made either in progressively diminishing boats or Twin Otter aircraft. Instead, we would drive there in a convoy of four-wheel-drive vehicles.
For most of the journey, the Ford Ranger pick-ups and Everest SUVs would travel on a well-used trail from Miri to Long Bedian, a remote settlement of the Kayan tribe.
Just how remote is it? Well, it’s about 125km from Miri, and the natives have e-Bedian (check out www.unimas.my/ebedian) and lots of satellite dishes.
And, when the convoy of 25 or so vehicles finally rolled up at the longhouse after a long, hard and dusty journey, the native women whipped out their snazzy camera phones to snap pictures of the visitors from afar!
The drive to get there had been a gruelling ordeal of dust, bone-jarring bumps and monstrous hills with steep climbs and descents like roller coasters.

The dust was so thick in places that visibility was down to a couple of metres.
For city slickers, there was one thing worse than driving virtually blind – knowing that we were sharing the trails with monster 80-tonne logging trucks that dwarf most of the semi-trailers on peninsular highways.
The long drive to Long Bedian and our overnight rest stop at the nearby Tenyok Rimba community resort had taken the best part of an entire day, and sapped all of our energy.
The locals put on a warm welcome, complete with dancing girls and traditional music but most of us were simply too tired to party for long.
But, as I was to discover the next day, that was the easy part. Next stop, Mulu!
A quick look at the topographic map and a consultation with my trusty GPS showed the objective was less than 50km away. But, that’s in a straight line, and nothing goes anywhere in a straight line in this part of the world.
It turned out to be four-and-a-bit hours of traversing some of the steepest slopes and, at one stretch of around seven kilometres, definitely the bumpiest bit of dirt and stone trail I’ve ever driven across.

There was the added pressure of a deadline. We absolutely had to reach that dot on the map by 1.30pm or else we wouldn’t have enough time to make the last stretch into the national park and still have enough time to return to our camp before nightfall.
Jury-rigged bridges made from a couple of logs, hastily cleared landslides, dizzying heights of hills and plunging depths of valleys were all par for the course, which ended abruptly at the river.
With barely minutes to spare, we had made the rendezvous. There, patiently waiting for us were the boatmen who would ferry us on the final leg of the journey into the national park.
Unfortunately, the tight schedule meant we could not explore the wonders of Mulu at a leisurely pace.

After a short boat ride through a sudden yet typical thunderstorm, we climbed 200 steps up to the gaping mouth of the magnificent Clearwater Cave, South-East Asia’s longest cave passage with over a hundred kilometres surveyed.
Descending deep into the chasm on wobbly legs, I realised that every step downward meant yet another upward step that must be taken on the return trip, and all these steps would lead to the 200 steps back down to the river. So much for “the journey, not the destination”.
Still, there was just enough time for a refreshing dip in the crystal clear lagoon fed by the underwater river flowing out of the cave before heading off for a quick lunch and then back to the vehicles for the long, bumpy drive back to Tenyok Rimba.
More bumps, more dust and mud, many more hours of arduous driving lay ahead before we returned to “civilisation” but when our tyres finally met bitumen, I felt I could say that Lanun Darat #28 had been a tough but enjoyable journey to and from a great destination.

Worms grow big in the highlands!