Luckily, it seems those two days we spent in Singapore have helped with the jet lag.  We are no longer waking up in the middle of the night and are able to get through the day with minimal yawning!

We started the day with an expansive breakfast buffet at the Shanghai-La hotel. Kris was treated to a ‘stretched tea’ made with Sabah Rainforest tea. The waiter poured sugared milk tea from one carafe to another with much pomp and circumstance (and a little dancing as well).

After breakfast, we met Raynar (Ray), our guide for the next few days and with our driver, Mr Bahn, we left Kota Kinabalu. 

Masjid Bandaraya is called the Floating Mosque, as it seems to be suspended on the water of the man-made Likas Bay lagoon.

The drive to the Hill Lodge in Kinabalu National Park took us about 3 hours.  We passed many very typical small villages with their dirt sidewalks, requisite stray dogs and tin-roofed stalls selling a variety of fruits, veggies and milk tea. In between were stretches of palms, banana trees and small forests choked with morning glory vines.

We stopped at a view point but the afternoon clouds had come in and the mountain was hiding.

There was a market set up at the viewpoint so we bought some local peanuts for the road.

Mount Kinabalu is sacred to the local people and said to be the home to several mountain spirits. Most people who stop over at the national park are planning to climb the mountain. The challenging hike up the tallest mountain in Malaysia takes about 16-18 hours over two days.  The hike is equivalent to about 600 flights of stairs and the highest elevation is 4095m (13,435 feet). 

We, on the other hand, spent some time with our guide Ray looking for colourful birds in the jungle canopy.

The rainforest around Mount Kinabalu is full of hundreds of different types of orchids.

And various other interesting plants and flowers.

We had a nice dinner with Ray talking about Sabah, Borneo and Malaysia. He belongs to the Dusan tribe, one of the early people in Sabah. It’s always interesting to hear the locals talk about how their country is run, how local knowledge is being lost and how they are working to change it for the better. We have heard this from many of our guides and we certainly feel it at home. Just goes to show all humans are pretty equal.

We woke up bright and early for a 630am trail hike.

We have a long drive to Deramakot this afternoon, so it was nice to get a leg stretch before sitting in the car!