1st Borneo Bird Festival

Visit 1st Borneo Bird Festival photo album Photos courtesy : Jollence Lee, Facebook

Results of the 24th Sabah Dragon Boat Race 2009

Photo courtesy : Datuk Masidi Manjun

Here's the results for the 24th Sabah Dragon Boat Race jointly organised by Sabah Tourism Board, Sabah Chinese Cultural Association (SCCA)and Seri Travel Sdn Bhd on 21th June 2009 at Likas Bay:

Category	Champion	Runner UP	2nd Runner Up
Sabah Head of State Trophy	Pertubuhan Peladang Kawasan Tuaran	Terayung	Rasa Ria AS
Sabah Chief Minister Trophy	Pasukan Selipok Laut Sadakan	Shan-shui B	Persatuan Pengayuh Peranak Gayang A
Sabah Dragon Trophy Mix & International	Nexus Resort A	Maju Oriental B	Mengkabong Mix Team
SCCA President Trophy Men	Sadakan Fishing Tong Kang Assn	Persekutuan Persatuan Persatuan Cina Tawau	Persatuan Teo Chew Tawau
SCCA President Trophy Mix	Sadakan Fishing Tong Kang Assn	Peak Dragon	KK Foo Chow
Kinabalu Dragon Trophy (u-20)	Shan-Shui Junior	Inai Kiara	Persatuan Pengayuh Peranak Gayang
Men's Open Team Trophy 200m	Pasukan Sepilok Laut Sandakan	Shan-Shui B	Nexus Resort B
Mix Team Open Trophy 200m	Nengkabong Mix Team	Maju Oriental C	Maju Oriental D
Charity Race	Nexus Resort C	Darau Village	Persatuan Pengayuh Peranak Gayang Tuaran

Dignitaries present included Deputy Chief Minister cum Minister of Youth & Sports Datuk Peter Pang En Yin, Minister of Tourism,Cultural & Environment Datuk Masidi Manjun,KK Mayor Datuk Illyas Ibrahim and Assistant Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Liew Vui Keong.

Sabahans shun Mt Kinabalu nowadays

Ever since the management of Mt Kinabalu is privatised few years back,the fees to be spent on climbing to the summit has being rising steadily. Now it is beyond the reach of ordinary locals,especially the students who formed the bulk of local climbers in the past. This sad situation was disclosed by none other than the Minister of Tourism of Sabah himself.Then again the state government is bound by contract and nothing much can be done. So fellow Sabahans forget about climbing Mt Kinabalu at least once a year like before,thanks to the "wise" state government! The state government is wise or not,I am not so sure,but they are definitely smart to let the private management company to hold the controlling card in approving the mount climbing permit. Why it is smart,let me explain. The Tourism Minister said the high price is due to the tour operators bundling every thing into a single package.From the surface it seems to make sense, but the real truth is the state government has allowed the private management company to manipulate the permit application such that nobody will get the permit unless they go through "the company". The National Park Warden will not approve the permit if the applicant does not meet any of the following requirement:

1. proof of booking for accommodation for the night halfway up the mountain
2. two experience mountain guides
3. must begin the climb early in the morning
4. properly prepared for the climb

Very reasonable and not difficult to comply, right? Wrong, item #1 is the secret.The accommodation (rest house at Laban Rata,pic at left)is run by the company in question. When the company is entrusted to run this rest house,they convert it into a luxurious setting,hence justifying them to charge a high price.

Under other Chief Ministers before the current one, the rest house mentioned above had very simple furniture, with dormitory type of beds,climbers sometimes have to sleep in sleeping bags.But the fees were very affordable so almost all climbers rushed to book and stayed in here. When it was fully booked then the late comers had to stay in zinc huts further up the slope(about 5 minutes climb)as shown here. The situation is the other way round now, people rush for the huts,when all the huts are taken,then only they will book into the rest house.
The Tourism Minister announced that the abandoned construction project for a new rest house will be revived,so that more rooms will be available when it is completed. (The project was stopped because the contractor used bomb to clear some boulder for the foundation works.This practice was widely criticised for it may damage the slope structure of Mt Kinabalu,may even cause Mt Kinabalu to lose its status as a world Heritage site.) But I doubt the strategy will ever work if the state government privatises the new rest house also. We will be back to square one again.

New 7 Wonders

All Malaysians in general,Sabahans in particular, please go to the following url to vote for Sipadan Island. Of course,how can we leave out visitors, especially scuba diving enthusiasts, from other parts of the world? Please all vote our unique Sipadan Island into the "New 7 Wonders" by going to their website now: Vote The New 7 Wonders

4WD Safari

It's off-road adventures season again.The 4WD Safari will begin soon.I will post the details as soon as I get them.

Sabah International Fishing Tournament entry form

The Sabah Anglers Association will be holding an international ranking fishing tournament 10-12 April 2009,20 nautical miles off Pulau Mengelum. Entry fees : RM150.00/pax (before 1st April), RM180.00/pax (after 1st April). Those who are interested may download the official entry form :here Note: It may take several minutes to download with its full graphics and all,worse still, you may have to click refresh a few times before you have it, good lucks! Also the recently slow Streamyx speed is not helping things one bit. BTW,anyone suffers the same problem also,or it's just me? Further info: Zachary Mobijohn Honorary Secretary Sabah Anglers Association Tel: 6-088-232121 Fax: 6-088-265540 Mobile: 6-013-8504007 mailto:sabahanglers@gmail.com

Happy Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year to all my Chinese friends!

Borneo International Marathon 2008

I had posted an article on this event in another blog Sabah,but I think visitors to this blog might also be interested too.Here is the link: Sabah.

Bird watching to lure tourists

Students from more than 20 overseas and local institutes of higher leanrning together with members from the public took part in replanting mangrove trees in Sabah Wetland Conservation Society (fomerly known as KK City Birds Sanctuary),witnessed by the minister of Tourism,Cultures and Environment of Sabah,Datuk Masidi Manjun and Tengku Zainal Adlin,Chairman of Malaysia WWF. Datuk Masidi praised the participants for contributing a concious effort towards conserving the mangrove trees in Sabah.

These trees not only provide a sanctuary for birds,they also offer excellent protection against natural disasters like tidal waves (tsunami) by forming a natural barrier for the sea shores. He said the large area of sea fronts grown with mangrove trees(about 1/3 of the nation's mangrove trees are found in Sabah)helps to prevent soil erosion every year. Datuk Masidi suggested that Sabah should capitalise on the large number of birds of diferent species to lure foreign visitors.This will greatly enhance the tourism industry.

Read also previous posts - Click here

Happy harvest festival

Wishing all my KDM friends:

2008 Sabah Dragon Boat Race

The 23rd Sabah Dragon Boat Race will be held at Likas Bay,Kota Kinabalu on 15 June 2008. The event is jointly organised by the Sabah Tourism Board and the Chinese Cultural Association of Sabah. Datuk Chau Tet On,chairman of the organising committee,reminded managers of participating teams to submit their completed entry forms at the following places:(1) Sabah Tourism Board's office, (2) Sri Travel Agency at Sinsuran,before end of May.This is to facilitate the committee to draw up time table for pratices. Datuk Chau,who is also the chairman for CCAS, disclosed that Shen Tzen City from Canton Province in China will be sending a team organised by the Bao An district.China is sending a team for the first time,making it the historic precedent which will serve to encourage the interactions between Shen Tzen and Sabah,to enhance tourism and to promote Chinese cultures. Datuk Chau also hoped that with the strong support from the state government through sponsoring and gazetting this Chinese cultural event as an official annual event for the state,the Chinese community will show more support and participate keenly,thus not letting it to be dominated by bumiputra teams as it did in past years. It is learned that the 2 local major Chinese political parties,MCA and SAPP,are definately sending their teams,so are the Foo Chow Association and Sze Yup Association. To add more excitements,other dialect clans like Hakka Association,Hokkien Association,Hua Pei Association,Hainan Association,United Chinese Clans Association and The Federation Of Chinese Associations are in the midst of organising their teams for the event.Datuk Chau added that beside sending a jointly organised team,outstation societies are also allowed to send their own teams through individual affiliates.Blank entry forms can be obtained at the 2 places mentioned above too. Please be informed that the event will be completed within the same day,that is on 15 June itself due to lack of fund as there is no allocations. There will be 6 categories:

1. TYT Governor cup
2. Chief Minister Cup
3. Chinese Cultural of Sabah Cup (Men)
4. Chinese Cultural of Sabah Cup (Mixed)
5. Dragon Cup
6. Tourism Cup

Students may participate through: (1)School teams - with prior approval from the Education Department,(2)Non School teams - with prior approvals from parents and Head Masters. Similar articles
Sabah Dragon Boat Competition

2008 Sabah International Fishing Tournament

The 2008 Sabah International Fishing Tournament will be held at Mengalum Island and the waters within its 20 nautical miles radius on April 11-13.The tournament,which is jointly organised by Sabah Anglers Association and the Sutera Harbour Marina & Country club,will be flagged off at the resort's Marina Club at 9:00AM on April 11.All participants are requested to register before April 10, and subsequently to attend a briefing the same evening in order to familarize themselves with the newly amended rules and regulations. The Association's President,Datuk Wilfred Lingam,announced that a team event will be introduced in addition to the existing individuals event.Each team will comprise 3 persons,entry fees will be RM180.00 each person.Closing date is at 6:00PM on April 10. Below are some of the prizes up for grap:

	Team Event
Position	Prize
1	RM10,000.00
2	RM3,000.00
3	RM2,000.00
4	RM1,000.00
5	RM 800.00
	Individual Event
Position	Category	Prize	Qualify Wt
1	Marlin	RM1,000.00	100kg
1	Sailfish	RM1,000.00	50kg
1	Tuna	RM500.00	50kg
1	Trevally	RM500.00	50kg
1	Wahoo	RM500.00	10kg
1	Mackerels	RM500.00	10kg
1	Cobia	RM500.00	10kg
1	King-Fish	RM500.00	10kg
1	Barracuba	RM250.00	10kg
1	Jewfish	RM250.00	10kg
1	Grouper	RM250.00	10kg
1	Snapper	RM250.00	10kg

The theme of this year's event is: SAVE OUR SEAS !
Minister of Tourism,Datuk Masidi Manjun, will give away the prizes to winners at 10:00AM on April 13. 2009 update

Mahua Waterfalls

Category: Hill Resorts

The Mahua waterfalls is located 26 km from Tambunan,an important town to the Kadazan-Dusun community.It breeds many outstanding mommunity leaders and is the home to their current Huguan Siou (Paramount Leader) Datuk Joseph Pairin Kitingan.

Tambunan is 1 hour and a half drive on an uphill road,which is winding but properly sealed and graded.It is a pass in the huge Crocker Range which is the watershed of the island with east coast on one side,and west coast on the other.Here you will discover this is a wide stretch of flat land amongst the surrounding hills,thus forming the "rice bowl" of Sabah.It is also the only gateway between the east coast and the west coast long before any access road was constructed. On the way you will pass by several small resorts which cater for small groups of visitors who want to relax in the cool mountain breeze and fresh air for the weekends. Notably is the Gunung Emas Resort which started as a refreshment stop-over for taxi and truck drivers and served meat of wild animals like foxes,squirrels,snakes,deers and wild boars during weekends.As its popularity grew,it increased the number of rooms and introduced the tree-top huts.

Near Tambunan is situated the Tambunan Rafflesia Garden which boasts of the largest number of naturally grown wild rafflesia buds.

When you leave Tambunan town and head in the direction of Ranau,you will reach a village,Patau after 15 minutes.Further down the road is the waterfalls.

Since the Mahua waterfalls is surrounded by tall rainforest trees the air is cool, temperature can be as low as 15 degree Celsius at night.Mahua falls’ breath-taking scenery is reminiscent of the famous Niagara Falls, which continuously sprays mist as the water crashes into the pool below. The environment, beautiful and serene, is definitely captivating.

The authority,according to Datuk Pairin, is going to have the access road surface properly sealed and scheduled to be completed by July.The fascilities at the site like changing rooms,toilet,hostel and canteen will be upgraded to attract more foreign visitors.There were 5022 visitors to the waterfalls last year,from countries including Canada,USA,Australia,Germany,France,UK,Norway and Brunei.

Datuk Pairin, who is the elected representative for Tambunan constituency, said the government will build more fascilities to lure more visitors to come here and have longer stay which in turns will enhance the local folks' income through sales of their agricultural products , handicrafts and traditional food.

Chinese New Year Influx

Datuk Masidi Manjun,the Sabah Minister of Tourism,Cultures and Environment has disclosed that visitors from China,Hong Kong and Taiwan has continued to increase tremendously.The increase last year was 34.4% over the previous year. Over 5000 visitors from this sector are expected to arrive during the Chinese New Year season alone.They will arrive in 22 chartered flights.Therefore there is a lingering fear that there might be a shortage of hotel rooms during that period considering there are also visitors from other parts of the world.

Sabah domestic flights to be handled by MAS again

For years MAS had been complaining that domestic flights within East Malaysia (Sarawak & Sabah) are causing her to suffer a huge loss. Then she manages to pass the burden of running these operations to the privately owned Air Asia which has stunning records of reaping huge profits in recent years. Air Asia runs the E. Malaysia operations through her subsidiary,Federal Air Express (FAX). But Air Asia has bitten off a piece more than she can chew this time.She does not have enough aircrafts to support the operations, if any aircraft experiences a technical problem, all the subsequent schedules will be upset because she does not have back up aircrafts for such incidences. Therefore delays and cancellations are the norm of the day. FAX has no choice but to call it quit. MAS has to take it back, just to fullfill her obligation (as a national carrier) to service the rakyat. The operations in E. Malaysia will be handled through MAS Wings, a newly formed subsidiary of MAS. Best of lucks,MAS, hope your wings woun't be clipped this time.

Events completed

Three of the major tourists pulling sports events had successfully completed.They are namely:

1. Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon
2. Sabah Tea Plantations Cycling Championship
3. Kinabalu 4-Wheel Drive Challenge

The response from participants were very good, better than previous year. However, some of the top ranked participants of the Climbathon were absent this year due to the fact that the event was held in August and not in October as in past years. It was also scheduled as the 5th leg of the High Latitude Run 7-series circuit and not as the last leg as in previous years.Apart from that the numbers of participants from overseas had increased, and successfully held. Hope we will have a good year again next year!

Mt Kinabalu International Climbathon To Be Held On August

The 21st Mt Kinabalu International Climbathon will be held earlier than usual, in the middle of August this year.This event was usually held in October every year in the past. The Mt Kinabalu International Climbathon is one of the 7-Series Buff- Skyrunner World Series Federation For Sports At Altitude circuit, and is chosen as the last leg of the series in previous years. However, Spain is chosen as the last leg for the series and Malaysia the 5th this year. This is the reason why The Mt Kinabalu Climbathon has to be held on August 25th & 26th instead of October 6th & 7th as planned. It was learned that the participation of the event has already capped at 150 as of yesterday, including participants from 16 nations.The highlight of this year will be the return of the Gurkha Regiment of Nepal who dominated the event for 6 straight years from 1988 to 1993.However, there is no response from both the reigning champions in the male category (Ricardo Mejia of Mexico)and female category (Anna Pichtrova of Czech Republic) so far. But the organizers are confident that they will come out to defend their tittles soon. There are officially 148 participants, including male and female, registered as of yesterday:

	Country		Participants
	Brunei		1
	Columbia		1
	Germany		1
	England		9
	HongKong		1
	Italy		1
	Japan		6
	Malaysia		93
	Mexico		1
	Nepal		6
	Philipines		5
	Singapore		13
	Spain		1
	Sweden		1
	Thailand		1
	USA		4

KK Adventure Park

Category : Adventures The KK Adventure Park is 35 minutes drive from KK city center, at 26.5 km New Papar Road. It is ideal for family outings,corporate events, school groups, birthday parties and various social clubs.

The facilties in the park enable visitors to carry out the following activities:

• Quad Bikes - Go for a wild ride on a quad bike (bike with 4-wheels!) on the challenging track of the park. Safety helmet and helmet liner, jump suit, gloves and shoes are provided.
• Beach Buggies - Cruise along the beach with a companion beside you, make sure you try it.
• Bungee Trampolines - 2 in 1 bungee jump and trampolines jump. Only one in Sabah.
• High Rope Challenges - 7 platforms secured to the trunks of tall palm trees, 25-feet above the groung, all connected with ropes. Try to travel from each of them through the high ropes.
• Kayaks - Paddle your way along the shore line,enter the Kawang River and head upstrem. Cruise through pristine mangrove and spot beautiful wild life.
• Flying Fox - Climb to the 40-foot tower in the park. Descent at a unblievable speed with the pulleyed cables.
• Wall Climbing - There are 3 wall faces towering at 30-foot above ground offer challenges to beginners and experienced climbers.
• Low Rope Course - Though not at high altitudes, these obstacles are equally fun and exciting.
• Giant Chess - Show your skills with these giant chess.
• Ken's Hiden Treasure - Join your kids for a fun-filled treasure hunt.
• Ken's 10 hole minature golf course - Practice your putting strokes here, while members of your family are having fun nearby.

Contact:

Tel: 088-750959

Fax: 088755959

Extremely rare Borneo rhino caught on video

Take a closer look at the rare Borneo rhino seldom seen by human. The total number of this rhino on the whole of Borneo island is estimated between 20 - 50 by researchers. The video recorder is planted by researchers at paths believed to be used by these animals. After months of patient waiting their efforts finally yield the video shown here. Rare Borneo rhino seen on film

Borneo Safari 16th 2006 International Off Road Challenge

Site Category : Adventures/Sports Tourism, Cultural and Environment Assistant Minister Datuk Karim Bujang flagged off the event in front of the Sabah Tourism Board (STB) office in Jalan Gaya on 29 October 2006. Chairman of STB, Tengku Datuk Zainal Adlin and Chairman of the Kota Kinabalu Four Wheel Drive Club (KKFWDC), Mr James Wong were also present at the flagging off. There are 75 vehicles altogether participating in the event, but only 14 vehicles are actually competing in the special Stages (SS) and other events. The rest are only support teams and observers/journalists. The 8-day event will pass throught the following places: Tuaran,Telupid,Deramakot Reserve, Tongod,Kg. Sinua and Trusmadi. The convoy will swing back after reaching Ranau and head back to KK passing through Tambunan. The number of vehicles is much lesser than those of the previous years because the organisers have to limit the number this time as the convoy will be passing through the Deramakot Reserve, steps are being taken to reduce the possible damages to the environment. Limiting the number of participating vehicles being one of them. The huge number of comments to this post are advertisement which are not relevant to this aricle.Read them only when you have nothing better to do.