Feeling much better after a big sleep last night (except for my calves and quads, which are verrry tender). Lauren and I went to bed pretty much straight after dinner, around 9:30, and slept right through until 6:30. I didn't even wake up once, which is unheard of for the trip so far. We got up and made a coffee and just relaxed in the room for a while before having a shower and getting ready to go out to the tea plantation. Today is a day of optional activities around the Poring Hot Springs complex, which gives us a chance to rest our legs if we want to.
Our 'optional activity' for this morning, which all of us except the Austrians chose to do (fairly standard for the trip so far), was to visit the 'Sabah tea' plantation. Sabah tea is the local choice for tea basically everywhere so far, we haven't seen many other brands, so it was cool to see where it was grown and processed. We arrived a bit later than planned after a transport mixup, so we went straight to breakfast, where we got some tea pancakes, tea tarik (locally prepared tea with condensed milk that is shaken so it had froth on top) and mee goreng. We ordered tea waffles as well but were told we could have those after our factory tour as they'd run out of batter and had to prepare more. The restaurant area was set on the edge of the hill, so you had a beautiful view across the tea plantation, surrounding hills, and theoretically Mt Kinabalu, which was hiding behind the clouds today (as usual). After we'd eaten we were taken across to the factory and given a tour through the tea making factory. I didn't know very much about the tea process, so this was actually very interesting. The smells changed so much in the process, each room had a very strong but different smell. At the end, we were taken into a tea room, where the guide showed us the quality of the tea by demonstrating a 'colour test'. This was really interesting, and I think we'll all be testing our tea when we get home! When a teaspoon of tea was dropped into a glass of cold water, the good quality tea sank to the bottom and immediately coloured the water. The cheap tea floated on top and only the colouring (apparently lots of tea makers artificially colour their tea) wafted down into the water. After this demonstration, we headed back across towards the restaurant, where we had our waffles and did a tea tasting of a variety of different flavoured teas - all black tea, but with pandan, ginger, geranium (yuck!), lemongrass, and other flavours. The pandan flavour (kind of like vanilla) was by far the favourite, and once we'd eaten, we went into the shop and most of us got some tea to take home. After we were all finished, we hopped back in the minibus to head back to the hot springs. It's funny, this was my most expensive day yet with all the tea plantation stuff and buying tea, and even then it all cost about 120 ringgit, which is about $40! My budget is stretching a lot further than I thought it would, although we do have a few days coming up where we have to buy our own meals and pay for optional activities.
On the way back, we took a short cut along a very bumpy road (unbelievable potholes!) bordered by rice paddies and other farms. We stopped in someone's rice field and were told by Jeffry about the rice making process and the harvest festival that is held just outside of Kota Kinabalu in May.
After this stop, we also pulled over at a sign for Rafflesia flowers, also known as the world's biggest, stinkiest flower. After a very informative walk along a path that had torch ginger flowers, pineapples, mangosteens, other interesting flowers, various traditional instruments and weapons, and another big strange-looking flower, we arrived at the Rafflesia 'grove'. There were 3 plants flowering, well protected by tarps and fences around them. They take years to grow and then only flower for 5-6 days, so we were very lucky to see 3. The first one (on day 3 of flowering) was the biggest and best looking, and the other 2 were on 'day 5', meaning they were looking a bit shrivelled and sad. They were really strange and fascinating plants- they look more like a fungus than a flower, and apparently they're quite contentious in botanical circles as they don't consistently fit into one category. Once we'd had a good look, we walked back to the minivan (with many 'ouches' and sound effects, especially on the downhills) and drove back to the hot springs.
It had been a longer morning than expected, and by the time we got back it was around 2:30. We were all starving, but couldn't be bothered waiting for service in a restaurant (Malay service is not the swiftest), so we collected all our hike snack leftovers, got a few more at the shops outside the springs complex, and had a sort of picnic in the communal area of the 'hostel'. Some weird-snack highlights were coconut pieces with chilli sauce, some sort of dried bean, biscuits that resembled chocolate cheerios, 'green pea' snacks that tasted like cheezels, and banana chips of course! The shops aren't very westernised here, and the snacks are all definitely Asian-oriented. After our snacks, we hurried around to the hot springs so we could visit the butterfly garden before it closed at 4. There was a beautiful open flower garden, and also a closed netted-in area with quite a few butterflies. We saw some gorgeous colourful ones with black and yellow, and black and blue, and also some mottled grey/black ones. After a wander through the garden, we followed the signs through a few hundred metres of jungle to a little waterfall. I hadn't worn my bathers, but a few of the others went for a swim under the waterfall alongside a whole bunch of locals. We were planning to walk up to a bat cave, but it started pouring with rain as we were checking out the waterfall. We hung around under a shelter for a little while, and then got out the umbrellas and headed back to the hot springs.
I gave the hot springs a miss, and headed to the restaurant to see if the wifi would work. It didn't, so I headed back to the restaurant we were at last night and spent some time on the wifi. Luckily this meant I could finally upload this! Unfortunately the quality of wifi (i.e not good) meant I had to delete the photos that were attached - hopefully I can upload some when we're in Sandakan on Saturday. I had a lemon tea and got a bottle of water while I was on the wifi, which cost a grand total of 4 ringgit (about $1.30).
After wifi, I came back and sorted out my bag for our trip to Kinabatangan River tomorrow. It was very peaceful in the hostel with everyone doing their own thing for a little while, although it was noisy with the rain coming down on the tin roof and the sound of the river in the background. At 7 we headed to dinner at the same restaurant again. This time I had beef rendang (again), which was a little bit different to the one at Kinabalu NP, spicier and with a slightly 'heavier' sauce. Still really yummy though. We had a chat about what to expect for the trip tomorrow, which includes our afternoon and evening safaris. When asked whether to wear long sleeves for our night walk safari tomorrow, Jeffry joked that we should wear a sleeping bag. So definitely packing the heavy duty bug spray in the day pack! After dinner we just headed back to the hostel for bed, as we're getting up early to do a yoga session in the morning to ease our poor tired legs!
Poring Hot Springs
Thursday, April 06, 2017
Ranau, Sabah, Malaysia
Other Entries
-
1Kota Kinabalu
Apr 015 days priorKota Kinabalu, Malaysiaphoto_camera1videocam 0comment 0 -
2Katasan village
Apr 024 days priorTuaran, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
3Kinabalu National Park HQ
Apr 033 days priorKundasang, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
4Mt Kinabalu
Apr 042 days priorKundasang, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
5Mt Kinabalu to Poring Hot Springs
Apr 051 day priorRanau, Malaysiaphoto_camera2videocam 0comment 0 -
6Poring Hot Springs
Apr 06Ranau, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 1 -
7Kinabatangan river
Apr 071 day laterBilit, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
8Gomantang caves and Sandakan
Apr 082 days laterSandakan, Malaysiaphoto_camera1videocam 0comment 3 -
9Turtle islands marine park
Apr 093 days laterTurtle Islands National Park, Malaysiaphoto_camera1videocam 0comment 0 -
10Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre
Apr 104 days laterSepilok, Malaysiaphoto_camera1videocam 0comment 0 -
11Back to Kota Kinabalu
Apr 115 days laterKota Kinabalu, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
12Kota Kinabalu
Apr 126 days laterKota Kinabalu, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
13Mari Mari Cultural Village
Apr 137 days laterKota Kinabalu, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
14Last day in KK
Apr 148 days laterKota Kinabalu, Malaysiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0 -
15Home!
Apr 159 days laterMentone, Australiaphoto_camera0videocam 0comment 0
Comments

2025-02-06
Comment code: Ask author if the code is blank
Robyn
2017-04-07
Kelly, the trip sounds fantastic. Keep posting. Xxx