hani aziz: Kundasang ... 12th November 2012

It was a winding road up to Kundasang. Not as bad as the Tapah road leading up to Camerons but more like the Simpang Pulai. Stretches of winding roads and then straight for a while. The view from the road going uphill was mostly mountainous and covered with clouds. It was raining all the way to Kundasang.

Kundasang was cold. COLD. It was challenging my motion sickness but I managed to reach the first hotel that we stopped for accommodation in one piece. I was just relieved to stand on my two feet on solid ground. I refused to get in the car again. So, Noor and Akmal went to ask and as it was fated, they had the last 2 vacant rooms. I told him to take them up. It was almost 4:30pm. The name of the place was Nabalu Lodge. It had a cafe and restaurant. Prayers time was an hour earlier than the Peninsular. Thus the prayer times were as follow : Subuh : 4:44am. Zohor : 12:02pm. 'Asar : 3:21pm. Maghrib : 5:57pm and Isyak was at 7:10pm. That was our prayer times for the whole week. It took adjusting to as light of day came early. Soon, it was dark and we were of course hungry. It seemed that upon reaching KK we were hungry all the time. We checked out our rooms and everybody was in the boys room to lepak and rest. We ate the cookies that I brought along. One of them boiled water and made tea for me. I was having a headache. Noor went out with Akmal to investigate the area before it got dark. After maghrib prayers, we went to the cafe to have dinner. Akmal said that the town closed down by 6:00pm.

The view of the shrouded Mount Kinabalu from Nabalu Lodge

Ikram and I had sweet sour chicken, Syafiq ordered sweet sour fish and Akmal had the same. Noor refused dinner. Syafiq saw the cakes on display. As it was my birthday, I ordered the chocolate fresh cream cake and New York cheese cake. Dinner was on me. Only the 4 of us ate dinner. After dinner, we went for a walk towards the town. Everything closed early. It was so cold and chilly. I was hoping the walk would clear my head. Later, we went back to the boys room and had supper of cookies and hot tea/coffee. Syafiq saw the maggi cup and decided to have that for supper as it was complimentary. There was also a bottle of vanilla and chocolate cookies courtesy of the hotel. Well...such a generous welcome. I guess they knew that the cold would make everybody hungry and most of the town would be closed except for the respective hotels cafes and restaurants.

Syafiq and Akmal's dinner - sweet sour fish at Nabalu Cafe

Chocolate fresh cream cake - real fresh cream and not whipping cream

New York cheese cake which was really cheesy and yummy ... :-)

The next morning, breakfast was on the house. A simple buffet of fried mee, bread and the usual works, hot tea and coffee. We checked out of the hotel at about 10am. Our first stop was the Desa Dairy Farm to see the Freisian cows. It was very smelly and higher up. I decided to walk down the dairy farm as my head was not feeling itself ...:-{ The view of Mount Kinabalu was not very clear due to thick clouds and the rainy weather. It did not rain this morning. After that, we proceeded to the Kundasang War Memorial. It was worth the short climb up. It was a nostalgic memorial and to honour the death march of the Australian and British POWS during the Japanese occupation. It was a garden of sorts. It was a very nice place. Reminds of one if one wants to have a garden wedding. The view was breathtaking and on a clear day, one could see the peak of Mount Kinabalu on the background.