The owner is so kind to let me user her computer and internet connection.

Dinner was wonderful as expected. We had a great steamed fish with ginger, tofu, and a vegetable similar to spinach except with more firm stems. She sauted it in garlic. It was so yummy.

We also got to try some wonderful tropical fruit – snakeskin fruit and fresh jackfruit. The snake skin was very good. It is large about the size of a plum but in a tear drop shape. We also have some mangosteen but haven’t tried them yet.

But after the drive and with the cooler weather, both George and I were very sleepy after dinner and we had to say good night early. We fell asleep right away to the sounds of the wind in the trees. We do want to stay up a bit more tonight to be able to see the fireflies.

This morning it was very clear and beautiful. We could see Mt. Kinabalu. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect morning. We had a good breakfast of eggs and fresh baked bread. They make their own bread here because it is so much better than what is in the stores. They even make sour dough. We also had muesli and fresh yogurt. They have mostly western visitors at this homestay and the husband is Austrian. He is away at work currently but his wife Lily is the perfect hostest.

We headed up to Meslau (spelling is wrong). We should have done a bit more research to know at what times the guided tours of the Nepenthes Gardens were held. We missed the morning one. We decided to head up the main trail which we also planned on doing and come back to do the garden trail later with a guide.

The trail is relentless. It starts climbing right away. Lots of stairs. I didn’t get in good enough shape I’m sad to say. But we hadn’t gone a 1/2 KM and George spotted a nepenthes. We are also seeing small tiny orchids and tropical rhododendrons along the way. We also had gorgeous view of the mountain in clearning but you could see a few clouds starting to gather at the top. I was exhausted so I decided to stay at a hut and George went on for a while more. He found several other nepenthes. I did get a little anxious waiting for him (he was gone about 30 minutes) but nothing happened. 🙂

The way back down was much faster but still difficult for me. Some of the stairs are quite large. It took us about 2 hours to go 1Km up and 1 hour to go back down. George could tell that I was pretty tired so we went to talk to the ‘ranger’ about the Nepenthes trail. By now it was cloudy and windy. He said it was as difficult as what I had just done and he suggested that we come back in the morning. So we will. We are rearranging a few plans and should be able to do it instead. IWe plan to go at 9am tomorrow. If we don’t see everything we will just come back.

Lily is working on dinner now. She has baked some more fresh bread and we are going to be having pesto pasta. The pesto is home made and I think so is the pasta. We will be good and hungry.