(Of Aki Nabalu)
It was almost a week since we arrived in KK. Most of the time I was down with some illness. Nasty cough irritated me all day long. The last two days of the weekend saw me a bit better to pick up my ass and sit at the back of the car. After one stop, I was down again. Hate myself when I couldn’t function properly.
My daughter rents an upper floor of a two-storey house. In a normal day it would be a home stay with rooms going for rm100 a day..a typical wooden house with squeaky floors and leaking plumbing. But the place is conveniently located next to the clinic where my daughter works. So it’s okay then.
Kundasang is a small town along the ridge of Akinabalu. I still wonder how someone had ended up here some time ago. Even nowadays it was a long winding drive to reach here, at the foot of this great mountain. What was like when we (the tourists) were not here. I could not even pin point this place on the map. Only mountain climbers made their ways here before a start of the climb. But now the tourists come in bus loads from God knows where. At the foot of this mountain,life lingers at the trails of difficult terrains. The people work the fields early in the morning. They grow mainly vegetables that went out by trucks every morning to their destinations. That’s one special thing about Kundasang and the nearby villages— they produce amazing vegetables. The weather helps a lot I guess, plenty of sunshine in the morning and cool throughout the day. Rain was frequent but not so much as to damage the plants. The highland weather makes the crops healthier, juicier and delicious. I have started to appreciate the beauty of life on the edge of high mountain.
I struggled to climatize myself as a highlander but felt lucky to be introduced to the life far extraordinary than my own. Every morning I waited for the sunshine to peek over the mountain ridges and shower myself with the warmth that dazzles throughout. The moments were magical as the peaks of Akinabalu revealed itself. These rituals take place for a short duration of time and not everyday. Usually early until mid morning and when the clouds started to gather the curtains will go down and hide the mighty mountain for the rest of the day. So if you come for a day trip feel very lucky to get the views of the mountain .
Not everyone is a climber. I stopped when my knees gave up. So every time I see a mountain the frustration kept pounding inside. The sense of incompleteness trails me until I leave this place.
After two Fridays, we were ready to leave Kundasang. It has started to rain as I waited the queue to move after the prayers. Driving here with the roads either climbing over a cliff or down steep into a valley was very challenging. The rain makes it worse. Imagine you stuck on a hill in a traffic jam with thunderstorm raging above. One of the everyday situations in Kundasang. It was hard but life seems to go on and people endured the hardship as if it was meant to be.
Akinabalu is one of the world tourist attractions but the roads leading to it is like the remnants from the post WWII. I just don’t understand. They were bad, dangerous and needed some major repairs.
As we descended the winding road to KK, the views of the forest and the mountains portrayed a sad goodbye. They will be here to protect the land and I will leave this wonderful haven thinking life will be better off somewhere else. How silly I was ?
At 12:45 pm we were off to Kucing. Bye bye Sabah.
