Kundasang

The sacred mountain in Malaysia with a rich biodiversity - Kinabalu Park 1012

Low's peak

What and Why

Mount Kinabalu (Malay: Gunung Kinabalu) inside Kinabalu Park (Taman Kinabalu) is considered a sacred mountain within the local community, especially the aborigines of Malaysia. The park is located near a small town called Kundasang, an hour drive away from the main city Kota Kinabalu in the state of Sabah. They believe that their ancestors will eventually inhabit at the mountain's summit, Low's peak (Puncak Low) and previously a chicken was sacrificed at the peak whenever a successful climb is made. The mountain's altitude is 4.095 km and is the 20th tallest mountain on Earth.

Aside from its superstitious connexion, the mountain together with its associated national park is one of the most important biodiversity sites in the world. It contains more than 6,000 species of flora and fauna, including 326 avian and more than 100 mammal species, which is more than half of the species of the entire island of Borneo. One of the most important plant species, endemic to Southeast Asia, is the huge parasitic plant rafflesia, the largest flower in the world.

Toponymy

The name Kinabalu is derived from the term 'aki nabalu' meaning 'revered place of the ancestors'. 'aki' means 'ancestors' and 'nabalu' is the name for the mountain meaning 'spirit' in the local Dusun language .

Kundasang's toponymy is untraceable.

See

Kinabalu Park Headquarter (Ibu Pejabat Taman Kinabalu)

Kinabalu Park Headquarter site map

The botanical garden of the Kinabalu Park Headquarter (Ibu Pejabat Taman Kinabalu) is a well-managed garden exhibiting the flora and fauna of the region. One important feature of the park is that it displays its plant collection in its four climate zones; lowland dipterocarp forest, coniferous forests, alpine meadow and summit zone.

Guided walk inside the park

I am not botanist so I can just enjoy how these plants look like.

Plant 1

More plant pictures...

Plant 2

The park and the region is also famous for its carnivorous pitcher plants.

Poring hot spring (Kolam air panas Poring)

Poring hot spring site map

Poring hot spring (Kolam air panas Poring) is an integrated eco-recreation area, as shown above, inside the park that includes various hot spring pools for bathing, waterfalls, hiking trails, botanical gardens and tree-top canopy walk.

Poring hot spring

To me the highlight of Poring hot spring is definitely the canopy walk of the rainforest. The walkway is at its highest 40 m above the ground and the canopy is a convenient hideout for many animals. A good fun.

My wife on the canopy walk

While I enjoyed the canopy walk, the pleasant surprise was that I was able to see the rafflesia flower! Rafflesia only blossoms once a year for a short period of a week and we were fortunate to visit the park during that window.

Rafflesia with a bud on the left of the tree

The plant has no visible stems or leaves and starts with a brown spherical cabbage-like bud. The flower is five-petalled with a huge hole in the centre. A few of these buds are seen to be lying around.

Against common belief, rafflesia is not carnivorous: it does not consume animals or insects. It is a parasitic plant and gets most of its nutrients from a host, hence it usually blossoms next to a grape-vine or grape tree. The flower smells real bad like rotten flesh, and can be smelt at a distance. We were standing on a boardwalk 10 m away from the plant and could still smell the foul odour. The odour is naturally secreted by the flower to attract insects for pollination and is unrelated to any flesh or dead insect.

The plant that we saw was a Rafflesia arnoldii. It grows to a size of approximately 1 m in diameter and more than 6 kg, with the largest in record being 1.2 m.

In spite of its smell, rafflesia buds and flowers are actually consumed locally as a herbal medicine, usually as a mean to reduce fever and more popularly an aphrodisiac.

Mount Kinabalu (Gunung Kinabalu)

Climbing Mount Kinabalu

Climbing Malaysia's number 1 peak is unexpectedly straightforward unlike the difficult trek my wife and I did in Mulu, which we blogged earlier. It is just long and strenuous and other than being athletic, there is no special mountaineering skills needed and anyone above the age of three is allowed to do the climb.

The biggest obstacle is to make a booking with the authority. Only a certain number of permits are issued per day by a monopolised operator and the permit is expensive: The cost of the permit is MYR RM400 per person and one must book the operator's accommodation at Laban Rata Resthouse and the climbing guide. The climb must be accompanied by an official guide and with all the basic expenditures, one will have to set aside around RM2,000 for the entire trip, not including the gear required. One usually has to book two to three months ahead to secure a slot for the climb.

Mount Kinabalu site map

The route is well marked and signposted and the steepness is mostly reasonable, except for the last sections near the summit. The entire journey is 8.72 km, with a compulsory stop about 3/4 up the mountain at Laban Rata where all climbers must stay overnight. Usually, the climb starts at the headquarter Timpohon Gate (Pintu Timpohon) at 1.982 km altitude just before dawn at around 7 am, reaching Laban Rata around noon time. The following morning, one starts at around 2 am and reach the summit just before 6 am to catch watching sunrise from Low's peak. The second day of the journey is tough: the route is narrow, rough, rocky, slippery, windy and dark. The price is the above picture of the iconic Low's peak, named after Sir Hugh Low, then British administrator of Perak who made the first documented climb to Mount Kinabalu in 1851.

There are porters and stops (pondok) with oxygen tanks in the last section for those who are not as athletic. Many people do suffer from altitude sickness during the hike as the altitude is more than 3 km at the final stretch. Once one reaches the summit, one must return and stay in Laban Rata for another night before making the full descent. This is a new requirement.

Since the main hike takes place at night and early morning, taking photographs is quite difficult, not to mention the danger of losing grip and slipping on the damp trail.

There is a tip for climbers, one does not need to bring a lot of water for the hike. There are many water tanks along the journey providing free water, marked untreated, from the rainwater collected and piped from the peak. They are safe for drinking. At least I drank and nothing happened to me afterwards.

I would like to report that in 2015, a bunch of British and Canadian foreigners made headlines by reaching the summit and posed naked pictures at Low's peak. Subsequently and coincidentally there was an earthquake in the area and almost all locals agreed the bunch was to blame for the earthquake, as reported here. This group was also allegedly rude to the guide who asked them not be pose nude at their sacred mountain. Eventually the group was arrested and jailed for four days, of course not for causing the earthquake, but for 'loitering and conducting obscene acts in a public place' and all of them were no longer welcomed to enter Malaysia. Do show respect when entering into people's territory.

Experience, Buy and Do

Kundasang has a big local market selling lots of fresh local produce.

Eat and Drink

Sabahan cuisine (Masakan Sabah)

Sabah is multi-cultural and multi-ethnic and is seen as more liberal than the peninsular state of Malaysia. This is likewise reflected on its cuisine where local, Chinese, Malay and Indian cuisines are cross-bred. There is more tolerance in terms of food ingredients with respect to faith and race. As a result the food and ingredients are distinctly different from the peninsular counterpart.

I have been to Sabah a number of times and there are a few Sabahan dishes that I always savour:

• Tuaran noodle (Mee Tuaran): a specialty fried egg-noodle dish that originates from the town of Tuaran. The noodle is usually served with Chinese roast pork.

• Ox offals (Ngiuchap): An iconic Sabahan dish which cannot hardly be found in peninsular Malaysia, the offals are usually served in a light broth.

• Paku pakis: A local fern plant which is consumed as vegetable in Borneo.

Paku pakis

Stay

Aside from Laban Rata Resthouse, we stayed in Le Méridien Kota Kinabalu in Kota Kinabalu, one of the best in the city.

Travel Suggestions and Logistics

Kota Kinabalu is around an hour drive away from Kundasang and is the main transport hub to reach the park. We took a guided tour and all entry and climb fees were taken care of. Clearly hiking up Mount Kinabalu would take three days while a day trip will suffice for the headquarter park and Poring Hotsprings.

UNESCO Inscription

UNESCO sign

Kinabalu Park, in the State of Sabah on the northern end of the island of Borneo, is dominated by Mount Kinabalu (4,095 m), the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. It has a very wide range of habitats, from rich tropical lowland and hill rainforest to tropical mountain forest, sub-alpine forest and scrub on the higher elevations. It has been designated as a Centre of Plant Diversity for Southeast Asia and is exceptionally rich in species with examples of flora from the Himalayas, China, Australia, Malaysia, as well as pan-tropical flora.

References

Kinabalu Park | Sabah Parks

Kinabalu Park | UNESCO World Heritage Centre (📹)

Kinabalu Park | Wikipedia

Mount Kinabalu | Wikivoyage

Comments

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