Travels with George and Marta

Wow! What can I say. I did not think I would be able to see the Rafflessia plant – the largest plant in the world. I remember long ago seeing a segment of “Secret Life of Plants” with David Attenborough standing next to a Rafflessia. Never did I dream that one day I would be able to do almost the same thing.

We started the day by having to say good bye to Lily our wonderful host at the Magic Mountain B&B. She made us feel so welcome and we left feeling like we had a good new friend. We headed out to Poring about 40 minutes away. We dropped down to more of the lower forest and it became hot.

We were nearing Poring when we saw the sign – Rafflessia in Bloom. We drove a bit further to make certain it was the one that the couple had told us about. It was – we turned around and went back. It was just a short distance away from the road. It had been in bloom for 4 days and was still in wonderful shape. They last about 7 days before they start to turn brown/black on the edges and really stink. They are pollanized by flies which were swirling around it. It is marroon and beign in color – similar to meat and smells about the same althought this one wasn’t too bad.

They charged us 15RM (about 5 US) which is pretty expensive but since it only blooms for a short while – it is a good source of extra income. They do keep it fenced off so we couldn’t get right up to it but close enough.

We snapped our pictures and that was it. We headed up to Poring with is one other tourist area of Mt. Kinabalu. It has several hot springs. We decided that we didn’t want to go in them so we headed for the orchid house. It had some cool orchids in bloom including the rare Rothchild’s lady slipper. We also went through the tropical forest walk which was kinda depressing. It was kinda a zoo with several empty cages. The few that had animals were raptors – eagles – that would have been better free. We did get to see some local deer.

It was time to return to KK. The drive was about 3 hours. Along the way it rained – a downpour. Perfect place actually for it to rain – while we were on the road. By time we got to KK it was sunny. Luck continued with us and we got a parking place next to the hotel and called for the rental car to be picked up.

We had an early evening since we had a 7am flight. We found a 24 hour street cafe that served several Malay dishes. George had sambal shrimp – good but messy and I had fried broad rice noodles with seafood. Yumm…

We are walking on cloud 9 tonight. This morning we were able do a guided tour to see the Rajah Nepenthes – the largest pitcher plant.

We started our day with another hardy breakfast. Today I was able to try the homemade bacon Peter, the owner, makes. It was so good. George, Mr. Vegetarian, had to settle for a couple of fried eggs. And wonderful home made bread. (sorry no pictures).

Last night I woke up around 4am and I thought I heard it raining. I tried not to panic. I really was not looking forward to hiking in the rain. Plus I doubt if they would do a guided tour in the rain. But when we got up, it was not raining. The clouds were high up so it was not going to be too bad of a day. Not as spectacular as the day before but still a very good day to be plant hunting.

We drove 10 minutes up to the Masilau Nature Center. Today there was a large group of tourists preparing for a summit climb. They were all in the road taking pictures. We had to honk to get them to move their buses.

When we got to the nature center, the woman said that the nepenthes trail was at 11:30 not 9am. We asked if the ranger could make an exception especially since he said we could come back at 9am. She asked him and he agreed. Yeah! There were no other people around. Very few people come to this area except with guides.

The trail would take about 2hours. The ranger was extremely knowledgeable. He told us that Masilau means yellow. The soil on the hillside where the nepenthes grow is yellow and very poor in nutrients. This is why they have developed as carniverous plants to get nitrogen from the insects they capture since they can not get this from the soil. The soil is also serpentine which means it is high in nickel. We are familiar with this type of soil from Washington State.

Along the way, he pointed out many interesting plants such as ginger, rattan, palms. The trail goes down on the west slope of the river. There is a locked gate at supension bridge to keep people from accessing the plant area. Once on the other side, it was much less lush, the soil was yellow and there were fewer trees. Perfect for these plants. First we found Nepenthes burbidgeae which I think is very beautiful with red stripes on chartruse pitchers. Also along the hillside were rhododendrons and bamboo orchids.

The trail climbed steeply. There had been a washout so the stairs were quite open without railing. It was a little scary. But shortly afterwords, we found what we had come to Borneo for – the Rajah. The pitchers were 15-18 inches and held 2-3 liters of liquid. Sometimes mice will fall in and drown but mostly it was small insects such as ants. I got a chance to hold one – it was like holding a baby.

We continued climbing seeing many plants. We also saw a paphilopedium orchid (lady slipper) that we did not think we would be able to see. We felt so honored to see it.

We climbed almost to the top of the east slope – maybe 300 meters up. We had a lovely view of the dipterocarp forest along the slopes of the mountain. The clouds were opening and closing with views of the Mountain. Our guide told us that sometimes painters would come up to paint the views. It was a cloud forest as seen in films at about 6,000Ft. The weather was mild and fortunately not rainy. In fact since it was so open and exposed – it was very good that we had done it today instead of yesterday when the sun would have beated down on us. I would not have been a happy camper.

We returned and thanked our wonderful guide. We came back to the Inn and Lily made us some great Mee gorang (fried noodles) for lunch and some bananna fritters. She splits a bananna open like a hand and then puts it in the batter before frying. We also had some more fruit.

After lunch, we headed to the main Mt. Kinabalu headquarters about 20 minutes away. Much much more crowded. Tour buses and many foreign tourists. We were in time to go to the Botanical Garden where we saw many interesting plants and a few orchids in bloom. While in the garden we met an English couple and talked a bit about our travels. They had been to Poring and said that they were able to see Rafflesia – our other holy grail for this trip. We are heading there tomorrow. It is the largest flower in the world and we were not certain if one would be blooming so it looks like luck continues to be on our side.

We will head back to KK after Poring tomorrow. The following day we will head to Danum Valley so I will probably be off line for a while.

Thanks everyone for your comments and interest in our wild and crazy plant hunting.

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.