A Battle Of Wits With Our Closest Relatives In Kota Kinabalu

By Daniel Resnik on May 26, 2015 in Other

Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, and with a population of 600,000 is quite unlike most manic, busy and chaotic Asian cities. The lack of horn blowing and pollution is noticeable and the feeling walking around town is positively laconic.

During World War, Allied forces leveled the city to liberate North Borneo from Japanese occupation, leaving it with little in the way of architectural history, apart from the only two buildings to survive the onslaught: the Atkinson Clock Tower, built in 1905 and still standing proudly today in the middle of town, and the Sabah Tourism office.

You can still pay your respects to the brave Australian and British Prisoners of War who died during the infamous Sandakan death marches to Ranau during World War Il with a visit to the Kundasang War Memorial.

A short 40-minute drive from Kota Kinabalu will take you to the Shangri-La’s Rasa Ria Resort, where I stayed on my recent Sabah excursion. The resort is set on 162 hectares of lush rainforest with access to one of Sabah’s best beaches, Pantai Dalit.

A variety of beautifully appointed accommodations are available with all rooms either having beach, rainforest or garden views.

The five restaurants on site are a culinary delight and I took a particular fondness to both the Indian and Japanese Teppanyaki restaurants.
If you want to relax and unwind, the spa (located in the golf club) features a selection of treatments that showcase the diverse Sabah culture using natural botanical and herbal products renowned for their therapeutic properties. The 60-minute oil massage I had was pure bliss.

The resort is also home to a 26-hectare nature reserve, which boasts a huge variety of exotic plants and animals including birds, reptiles and mammals. Here, guests and visitors can walk the nature trails to see the various species of wildlife that roam the area under the care of the resort.

The piece de resistance of the nature reserve, and the real reason I travelled to Borneo, is a rehabilitation/education centre for young orangutans. Rescued orangutans generally stay here for a few years and are then moved to another larger facility before they are then ready to be released back into the wild.

The reasons young orangutans end up here vary, but generally it’s because their mothers have been killed by poachers or they’ve been displaced by human encroachment or logging. Some are also rescued from people who keep them as pets.

During my stay there were only two orangutans at the centre (four had just been moved on to their second stage of rehabilitation). I was incredibly privileged to partake in a private visit for an hour with two rangers after a public viewing. Feeding times are 10am and 2pm, which is when the public is allowed in to observe the orangutans being fed from a viewing platform.

And observe I did. It was one of the greatest animal experiences I’ve had. I was mesmerised watching the two male teenagers wrestle, roll, run, jump, swing and, believe it or not, blow raspberries at me.

One of the orangutans took a shine to my camera and there was a battle of wits to keep it away from him. Genetically, orangutans and chimps are our closest animal relatives and the short time I spent with them made me see why. If there is a cuter, funnier and more mischievous animal on the planet then I’m yet to see it.

After my orangutan encounter I proceeded back to the resort’s Dalit Bay Golf & Country Club to play a round of golf. A prettier course would be hard to find. The only complaints would be from the local monitor lizards that had to run for their lives to escape my wayward drives.
I didn’t know much about Kota Kinabalu before arriving but after just seven days I’ve fallen in love with Sabah; the warmth of its people, its beautiful wilderness and, more than anything else, those raspberry-blowing orangutans.

FACT BOX

Where to stay
Rasa Ria Shangri-la Resort:
www.shangri-la.com

How to get there:
Malaysian Airlines
www.malaysianairlines.com
The Travel Café Bondi
www.whitestartravel.com.au
(02) 9130 1345

Other activities in Sabah:
www.sabahtourism.com