21st August 2006 - KK and Horse Riding

7:30am - I am feeling a little better than yesterday but am trying to organize a trip for tomorrow to one of the Orangutan sanctuaries and to go horse riding. It’s my last day tomorrow so I have to do something!

8.24pm – Well that was a fun day! The Langkah tour guide kindly offered me a lift into KK airport so I could change a traveler’s cheque. He then invited me to have lunch with himself, his wife & young child. I felt it was a very kind offer & told him as much, but by this time I was feeling very under the weather!

Instead I briefly walked around Wisma Merdeka, a shopping mall with some good shops aimed at selling local crafts such as drums, masks, batik materials etc it was a very brief outing & I was soon walking back to the bus stop to catch a bas mini back to Langkah with a cute Orangutan toy and a batik sarong. Fortunately the driver was a woman this time & her driving was much smoother. :)

When I returned back to the hotel I felt like I had to organize something for that night since I had less than 36 hours left in the country. I had heard about a nearby horse riding school which took people out on rides through the country side or along the beach & so decided to settle for a late afternoon ride along the beach as this seemed tame enough. I organized this with the help of the hotel’s reception & also organized a trip to the Shangri Lah Rasa Ria’s Orangutan Sanctuary the next day.



The ride was so nice! The tide was out so the beach was littered with rocks and a little rubbish, but this provided us, myself and Dale a Queensland expat who has been in Sabah for 37 years, with a smooth path for 2kms along the beach and then 1km or so out to a nearby island.

The lovely riding school horse, the scenery & the cooler temperature all resulted in me feeling very relaxed and even a little better.

When we returned to the school Dale invited me in for a cup of tea with herself and a woman who is looking after the place while Dale heads back to Australia for six months. Sitting down with a cup of tea with these two was VERY nice. They were both very down to earth, probably what you call ‘Salt of the earth’, and we had a good talk and laugh about everything and nothing for about an hour before it was time for me to head back to Langkah.

Sabah seems to draw people such as these two to it. This attitude seems fairly common amongst the locals as well. Sabah may be an Islamic state, but there’s none of the intolerance & suspicion of outsiders that westerners think goes hand in hand with the faith. Still, obviously the visitor needs to respect the beliefs and values of the locals, much as a visitor visiting another’s home.

Selamat malam!