10 TRAVEL THEPHUKETNEWS.COM FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014

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Borneobound

Simon N. Ostheimer journeys east to Sabah, the Land Below the Wind

Photos: Kiri Heald

It’s no small exaggeration to say that Malaysia Airlines has been in the news for all the wrong reasons this year, but it’s worth remembering that prior to 2014 the Kuala Lumpur-based air-line was rated as one of the best full-service carriers in Asia – for

both safety and service, and synony-mous with the ‘Malaysia, Truly Asia’ slogan of its homeland. Which explains why, on a sunny Phuket morning, we find ourselves onboard MH787 on the 10.25am flight to Kota Kinabalu, via Kuala Lumpur.

As the flight attendants – dressed in their distinctive batik-patterned uni-

forms and slightly bouffant hairstyles – hand out small bags of kacang masin (that’s salted peanuts), our thoughts turn towards our destination.

Probably the most distinctive part of the Sabah flag – a trio of sea-blue, pure white, and earthy red – is the outline of Mount Kinabalu in the top left corner. If you’re lucky like us, you’ll be sitting on the right side of the plane to see the majestic peak, some 90 kilometres away, as your plane comes in to land. The indigenous Kadazan people call it Aki Nabalu. “Aki” means grandparents, while “nabalu” is their word for resting place, hence “Kinabalu”.

After arriving at our hotel, we head

out for a dinner of banana leaf, a dis-tinctive Indian meal of vegetables and spicy curry eaten by hand, at local landmark Jothy’s before getting in an early night ahead of our journey the next day on the North Borneo Railway.

With five carriages, the vintage train is hauled by a British Vulcan wood-powered steam locomotive. Built in the 1970s, the carriages have been renovated to recreate a journey in the early 1900s, when the train line provid-ed a vital link between the interior and the coast, transporting goods such as rice, tobacco, sugar and pineapples for export. Now almost 120 years old, the North Borneo Railway – a collaboration between the state government and the sprawling Sutera Harbour Resort – pro-vides a nostalgic experience for tourists.

Boarding at the Tanjung Aru ter-minal, we pose for pictures with the engine before taking our seats in the Kinarut carriage. Sitting on cush-ioned benches, we admire the interior decked out in local timber, with ceiling-mounted fans providing a breeze, as waiters lay the table with a continental breakfast of pastries, croissants and jam, and a pouring of Sabah tea. As breakfast continues to be served, the train pulls out of the station and we slowly build up a head of steam. After passing through Putatan, a pretty little settlement partly built on stilts over the South China Sea, our first stop is Ki-narut, a historical trading post.

From here the scenery begins to change, taking on a more wild look – one of the train stewards tells me this is the Kawang Forest Reserve, a semi-protected area popular with

jungle trekkers and cavers. Admiring the scenery, we’re suddenly plunged into complete darkness as we enter the 450 metre long Pengalat Tunnel, a re-markable engineering feat built by the British in the early 1900s. Just as the whoops and cheers die down, we emerge into a vista of paddy fields, before cross-

11TRAVELTHEPHUKETNEWS.COM FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014

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TRAVEL TIPSFLIGHTSMalaysia A i r l i n e s (Tel: +66 76 213 749. Email: malaysiaairlines.com) has two flights per day via Kuala Lumpur (KL), where you change planes. MH787 departs at 10.25 and arrives in Kota Kinabalu (KK) at 16.50 (1 hour 20 minutes transit in KL), while MH791 leaves at 18.05pm and arrives in KK at 00.50 the next day (1 hour 35 minutes transit in KL). On the return flight there are several connections. A taxi from KK airport to town is a fixed price of RM30 and takes 15-20 minutes. First, buy your voucher from the office marked ‘Airport Taxi’ in the middle of the Terminal 1 Arrivals hall, and then head to the taxi rank found outside.

HOTELSLocated halfway between the airport and downtown Kota Kinabalu, the Sutera Har-bour Resort (suteraharbour.com) is a huge, sprawling 384-acre property with two onsite hotels (The Magellan Sutera Resort and The Pacific Sutera Hotel), a 27-hole golf course, and a marina from where you can explore the surrounding islands. They also operate the North Borneo Railway (northborneorail-way.com), making transfers simple. A quick speedboat ride from the Sutera Harbour Marina brings you to the stunning Gaya Is-land Resort (gayaislandresort.com), where 120 luxury villas and suites are hidden amid lush jungle, and an admirably ecologically-minded ethos extends to an onsite natural-ist and marine biologist who showcase the indigenous wildlife, local coral and even a turtle rescue centre.

ing an old steel bridge and slowing down into the terminus at Papar. We’re given 30 minutes to explore the quaint town, taking a stroll through the local market to pick up a bag of deep-fried bananas – a local specialty – and a cou-ple cans of 100 Plus, a Malaysian iso-tonic drink much needed when you’re sweating as much as we are.

We arrive back at the station just in time to watch as the huge steam en-gine is swivelled around on a turntable, ready to take us back to the capital.

Just a few hours later, we are on the move again, this time aboard a small speedboat as it pulls out of Sutera Har-bour Marina and heads south-east to Gaya Island. As a local tour guide had explained to us, this isle had housed the first settlement of the North Bor-neo company, before it was razed to the ground in 1897 by a local folk hero by the name of Mat Salleh and the British set up shop on the mainland instead. As Kota Kinabalu thrived and grew, the villagers on Gaya Island maintained a simple life, until it was declared a national park in 1974.

These days, it’s a central part of the state’s eco-tourism push, and is home to three hotels, including the stunning Gaya Island Resort, where luxury vil-las peek out between lush jungle, and tropical fish swim in abundance right off the hotel jetty.

The morning after our arrival, this is exactly where we find ourselves, as the resort’s very own marine biologist, transported New Yorker Scott May-back, leads us into the balmy waters.

At times it’s a little difficult to hear him over the screams of my one-and-

a-half year old daughter – to be fair, it’s her first time swimming in open ocean – but he tells us what drew him to this far corner of South-east Asia. “I actually came to Sabah to help open up an aquarium, but when I heard that YTL [owners of the Gaya Island Resort] were looking for someone to head up their new marine conservation efforts, I jumped at the chance.”

With my daughter having finally quietened down, we’re able to appreci-ate the fish all around us, and – more importantly – the live coral that lives in the bay. What makes this abundance of marine life even more remarkable is that the skyscrapers of Kota Kina-balu are so close – at it’s closest point, the island is only 1.5 kilometres from the mainland. “Although more could always be done, the Sabah government are making a real effort to preserve what we have, and as a hotel, we have even cordoned off our bay from boats and fishing,” says Scott, who also runs YTL’s Gaya Island Resort Marine Cen-tre, where he and his team nurse sick and injured turtles back to health, help restore coral reefs, run educational pro-grammes for school kids, and meet with local fishermen to explain the impor-tance of using less harmful practices.

It’s an impressive, pioneering set-up, and looking around it’s easy to under-stand the importance of preserving the area’s natural beauty. It’s a message driven home the next day by the re-sort’s naturalist Justin Juhun.

“I was raised in the jungle,” says Justin, when I ask where his passion for the wilderness comes from. “My dad worked on a plantation some 60 kilo-metres outside of Tawau [a small town on the south coast of Sabah], and as a young boy I remember seeing injured animals and wanting to help them. Soon, people were bringing me all sorts of creatures – hornbills, monkeys, squirrels, wild pigs – and our home became like my own personal zoo!” We’re walking along a narrow track through deep bush in the hills above the Gaya Island Resort. It’s part of a series of tracks that Justin himself cre-ated a few years before when the resort opened. “I spent two weeks up here by myself looking for the best routes.”

His knowledge and passion are in-fectious, and soon we’re all pointing out wildlife, swapping photography tips, and sweating buckets – it’s hot in the bush. A few hours later, after a refreshing swim, we’re on the way to

the restaurant when we’re attracted by an excited conversation on the beach between a young Australian couple and Justin. “I was having a drink at the pool, when I saw something in the water – a python!” the tourist tells us. We’re then shown photos of a five foot long snake in the pool we’d only re-cently left.

Like with the raw nature that sur-rounds us, Sabahans seem to have struck the perfect balance in life – al-lowing development but promoting conservation, looking to the future while preserving the past. There’s truly nowhere else like it, this land is below the wind.

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