It is hard for the average Sarawakian to get by a week without indulging in our favorite local noodle dish. Here it is.

Locally, this dish is known as ‘kolo mee’, which is means ‘dried noodles’ in Chinese. The dish is very much hybridized to suit the local taste but its origin can be traced to Guangdong province in southern China, which is where my grandfather came from.

It’s been exactly a month since my trip to Sabah with James and Liew, and I believe that this post is long overdue. Since I do not wish to write everything in chronological order, I will just post some pictures below and tell you a little story behind each of them. For the time being, consider this post a work in progress.

The picture you see above is that of Mount. Kinabalu, the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia. This photo was taken at a small market near Bundu Tuhan. The view of the mountain from that point is magnificent.

As we continued with our journey towards Kundasang town, we passed by the Kinabalu National Park, which is where you really should be going if you intend to climb the mountain. We went straight to the Desa Dairy Farm, which is reputedly the largest dairy farm on the island of Borneo.

Here is a photo of the farm with the majestic Mount Kinabalu standing proudly in the background. Sorry, I didn’t snap that many pictures of the cows.

It was a very windy day at the dairy farm. Wait. I think it’s always windy there. Even the pine trees had this strange curve to the trunk, I suspect is caused by the continuous force exerted by the winds throughout the growth of the tree. The winds were chilly but it had a nice scent to it.

On the second day, we spent most of our time exploring Kota Kinabalu (abbreviated as ‘KK’), Sabah’s capital city.

My visit to Korea was full of surprises (sprained knee included). I have included photos of my trip there in the gallery section of my blog, so you can have a look there. To cut a long short, I will first write about my visit to the de-militarized zone (DMZ). (By the way, the pictures you see here are not in chronological order. You can check out more photos under my photo gallery. You can access it via the navigation bar above.)

Panmunjom, the village near the DMZ, is located some 56 kilometers from Seoul.

The Cold War had always intrigued me. In fact, knowing full well of the potential danger that lies ahead of me, curiosity got the better of me, and after much thinking, I decided that it was somehow worth the risk, to embark on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to see the last frontier of the cold war.

Unifying a divided country. It takes two hands to clap

Just how risky you may ask? It depends. Firstly, the two Koreas are still at war, technically. Secondly, you may be asked to sign an indemnity form, to indemnify the United Nations Armistice Committee and the US Army against anything tragic that might happen (touch wood) to you, if you decide to visit Panmunjom and the United Nations Joint Security Area (JSA).

Mount Dora Station. The last station in South Korea, connecting to North Korea.

A visit to the DMZ is not complete without a tour guide, as a guide can be quite informative. What about going alone? Nope, getting about on your own is just not possible, due to the inherent danger that lurks ahead. Mines are scattered all over the place in the millions. Barbed wire fences, machine gun turrets. Anti-tank explosives. Well, you get the idea.

Prayers for a peaceful reunification of the two Koreas.

Sounds serious enough to deter you from ever visiting the place? It shouldn’t. A visit to the DMZ is basically divided into two parts, depending on the tour you are following. The first part is the ‘normal’ tour, which takes you to several places of interest near the DMZ (more on that later). The second part, is the one you should prepare for in advance. The second part involves a visit right into the heart of the DMZ. Yes, right into the no-man’s-land, the 4 kilometer wide buffer zone that separates the two Koreas. People were killed there before, so do behave yourself! The tour bus will stop at one of the checkpoints and an American GI will do a security check on everyone in the bus before you are allowed to disembark the bus and head for Camp Bonifas. The place is, at least from first impressions, quite tourist friendly, and you can’t be faulted for thinking that the place is a tad bit too touristy to be a war zone, but the JSA authorities have done much to make you feel right at home over there. Nonetheless, the element of danger still lurks, and the threat of an invasion from the north is very real. You have been warned.

The JSA Visitor Center, Camp Bonifas.

If you do intend to actually get into the JSA, it is paramount that you prepare your passport. Be informed that citizens from Malaysia and Singapore, among other countries, will need to submit scan-outs of their passports at least one week in advance to the Panmunjom Tour Office at the Lotte Hotel near the Korea Tourism Organization office. The background check is necessary as this is a high-risk zone and I suppose you can’t have someone with malicious intent going there to start an second Korean War. Jokes aside.

The Joint Security Area.

 The JSA area (as seen above) is the real deal. That white building you see up ahead from where the blue conference buildings stand is the Panmungak, the North Korean JSA office. You you observe carefully, there is this pesky North Korean officer scrutinizing us through his binoculars. Makes us look like museum exhibits or wild animals in cages. Sheesh…

Photography in the JSA is limited to certain areas as they can’t afford to have photos of the site leak to the North Koreans which can prove to be strategically advantageous to them.

I could go on writing  but I think I’ll stop here. I’ll leave the rest for you to discover on your own.

Want to go to Pyongyang?

Having been jungle trekking in the past and scaling some of the not-so-tall hills and mountains of Sarawak, I had been thirsting for a similar adventure so I asked myself, “Why not go to Bako?”

We had been planning this trip for a long time, way too long, and before we knew it, all the hostels and lodging were all snapped up for the weekend, so we went for a day trip instead.

For those who don’t know much about Bako National Park, the national park is the oldest in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak and is located some 29 to 30 kilometers from Kuching (see picture below), the capital of Sarawak. My pals gathered at my place on early Saturday morning at around 6.30am before meeting up at Thompson Corner for a hearty breakfast of kolo mee to keep our energy levels high for the trip ahead. I had been gaining some weight for some time (extra 15 kilos the last time I checked, may be higher now) so this is the perfect moment to get in shape.

Bako National Park is one of the nearest national parks to Kuching, and getting there by car or bus should be a no-brainer. The second phase of the journey however requires visitors to travel by boat.

It is possible to charter a motorboat at the national park terminal at Kampung Bako and it costs RM 47.00 per boat per way, for 5 persons.

The boat trip was quite scenic as we were greeted by views of the kampungs and fishing boats of the fishing village along the way for the first 5 minutes of the boat journey, followed by several stretches of mangrove swamps.

The boat trip was a lot shorter than I had initially thought. As we were nearing the park’s jetty, we spotted some of Bako’s top attractions; walls of sandstone and limestone, crafted by wind and water over thousands of years.

This is of course, not without getting a spectacular view of Mount Santubong, which is said to resemble the profile of Rajah Brooke lying down. The photo below was taken from Teluk Assam, near the jetty. Legend has it that there was once a princess named Santubong, who was cursed and turned into a mountain.

It is not difficult to get around the park as most areas are accessible via trails which are properly maintained. The elevated plank walk shown below allows visitors to have a good view of the mangrove swamps.

*To be continued in Part 2