POW MEMORIAL RANAU

POWs - RANAU

We went to the Ranau Memorial for the Australian, New Zealand and British POWS who perished in the camps and on the “death march” between Sandakan and Ranau.  99.7% of the Aussie POWs died - only 7 survived. We’re walking about 5 hours of the trek tomorrow, but we will have hiking boots, full stomachs, sun screen, insect repellent, sun glasses, and we won’t have scabies, lice, malaria or malnutrition. 

There were also some amazing paintings depicting the hardship of the POWs.

When Singapore fell to the Japanese, all the Australians, NZ, British and Indian soldiers were captured and put in Changi prison. 

The Japanese wanted to build a system to transport supplies easily through Asia, for example, they wanted a railway to Burma and an airfield in Borneo. I’ve been the Kanchanaburi near the River Kwai and saw Hellfire pass where the Aussies were sent from Changi to work 24 hours a day in terrible condition to built the Thai Burma railway. 

We saw a video today, and it talked about how Australians know about that railway and the Kokoda trail, but not many know about the atrocities in North Borneo - at Sandakan. The POWs sent to North Borneo from Changi went to build a runway at Sandakan. It didn’t happen in the end, because both the Australians and the local Sabahans sabotaged a lot of the construction. 

The Japanese were very very cruel to the POWS. They tortured them horribly, and didn’t given them enough food & water, shelter or clothing. These are basic needs. The Japanese army were inhumane. They were especially cruel when they knew they were losing the war and would have to surrender soon. The instruction from the top Japanese generals was for the POWs to die - and most did, over 2000. 

The Australian memorial garden is beautiful, and the museum has lots of framed photos and messages from families of the POWs. 

There was one item that was special I thought. A big rectangular glass box with 2428 origami paper cranes and a message saying it was donated by the Ho Nishigori family, Tokyo 2011. I know what paper cranes mean in Asia:)

Mum’s reading a book by one of the Sandakan camp survivors, Billy Young and she’s been telling me bits about it. I signed the Visitors book.   

KINABALU PARK

KINABALU PARK

Our first stop, well after a can of milo and Mum’s thick black coffee with the locals, was Kinabalu Park.

UNESCO declared it as a World Heritage site in 2000. I was at 2 other World Heritage sites in April: Angkor Wat temples and Luang Prabang. 

It’s one of the few places in the world where you can walk 10 km and pass through tropical lowland rainforest, montane temperate forest and alpine meadow ecocsystems. This is why there are more than 5000 plant species in the park because there are different ecosystems and huge altitude range and climate from hot humid to freezing alpine. 

We didn’t see 5000 species of plants, although we saw a LOT. The usual epiphytes, lianas and ferns, but I did learn about some of their different types. We saw the world’s tiniest orchid and one worth USD10,000 because it’s so rare. 



The signs around the park were different colours symbolising which plants were endemic (native to the place), common, or medicinal. 

Mum & I wondered how people found out which flowers or berries or leaves were medicinal or edible and I guess it was trial and error. So, some people might not have done too well with the errors! We saw a kerosene tree - if you squeeze the seed it will keep a fire alight. 

Don the guide kept telling us the long species names of plants, like Nepenthes X. Kinabaluensis and Nepenthes Villosa, for different types of Pitcher plants. How are we meant to remember these? (BTW - I copied these from a book). AND he kept telling us numbers, like how many different types of rattan vines there are, or how many types of orchids there are. What is the point of telling us that when we don’t know how many there are in the world. He should have used percentages, like more than 50% or about 20% etc. 

USD10,000 orchid

The Pitcher plant is amazing though. I’ve seen it on Animal Planet & Nat Geo but I didn’t realise how huge some of them are.  


Spencer St John worked for the British Crown in the mid 19 century, and in in 1858 he wrote that he found a gigantic pitcher plant which held 4 liters of water and one that contained a dead rat. Pitcher plants are carnivorous - obviously with dead rat decomposing in it.

MT KINABALU

MOUNT KINABALU

We drove up and up through the Crocker Ranges for about an hour with our ears popping. We passed terraced mountain sides with temperate (not tropical and not too cold) vegetables & fruit, and also patches of logging. 

I saw Mt Kinabalu in the distance not long after we left KK. (BTW, thanks Susie for telling me KK is also known as Api-Api), it was big then but by the time we got to its foothills it was enormous. 

It’s almost 5000m above sea level and is the biggest mountain in SE Asia, and it looked like it was trying to keep up with the fashion because it had different layers of cloud wrapping it, you know..... the layer look! The traditional belief is that Mt Kinabalu is where the souls of their ancestors dwell. 

Sabah is known as “the land below the winds” because it is below the latitude where there are cyclones and monsoons. I worked out that is is about 7 degrees north of the equator which is usually hot, but today Mum and I were wearing our jumpers because we are at an altitude of 1500 meters.

MASS TOURISM, SNORKELING & CASTAWAY!

Forgot to add this before: from the plane landing in KK

When we got to the island where we were supposed to snorkel and have a picnic lunch, we were horrified that the tranquility of the rainforest was not transferred to the island. “MASS TOURISM” Mum said in disgust, and it took her 13 minutes to “speak” to the guide to change the plan! I could see Don on his mobile, not looking too happy. But when he told Mum we could catch a boat to another island - at least Mum was happy!

Whilst Mum was “speaking” to Don I was doodling in the sand using natural media - dead twigs and dead coral. The signs saying “Don’t step on the coral” were misleading, there wasn’t any coral, just fluro orange marshmellows floating off the beach. I’m using a metaphor here, there seemed to be hundreds of life-jacketed people floating with snorkels!

Mum & I talked about the dilemma of tourism, I mean how can people visit beautiful natural places without harming the environment. I know there’s an island on the east coast of Borneo called Cipaden which only lets 50 people a day on it - Jason (the better guide who is trying to get a scholarship to an Australian university to study tourism management) told us it’s the beginning of sustainable tourism. BUT, those tourists would probably have to pay huge amounts of money. We also talked about how lucky Australians are, living in a country with so much beauty. There was a Norwegian family with us, and they thought the beach was “lovely”. Mum & I just looked at each other, Balmoral is 5 minutes from home and it is SO much more beautiful (but it does get winter!).

My sand art! 

SO - we left, and unfortunately we found out that the other island doesn’t have live coral either! But, there was no one on the beach but us, so Mum and I, snorkel faced, swam around looking at dead coral, some fish, sea snakes and a boat mooring! Although it was disappointing not seeing the live coral, it was way better than swimming at the Spit Swim Club when the water is SO murky. The clear water was amazing. 

You might be wondering why I titled this blog “castaways”? Well the story goes like this. We were dropped on this island at 1:15, told to be back on the jetty at 3:00pm for a boat would pick us up. After our snorkel Mum and I were identifying all the clod types when it became clear that there were far more cumulous clouds turning different shades of grey (maybe even 50 shade of grey)! I was collecting dead coral, which i’m somehow going to smuggle into Australia (ps don’t tell customs!), and I saw Mum putting her hiking boots back on. I kept collecting dead coral, and I heard her say “you’re going to get wet”. I continued to collect dead coral when the blackened cumulonimbus cloud sparked a growl - thunder, rain, winds like a cyclone. I stopped collecting dead coral and ran! 

It was 2.30pm so Mum read her book (about an Aussie POW) and I made note for my blog. At 3pm we went to the jetty. Boats came in, boats went out. More boats came in, more boats went out. No boats were our boat! At 4pm, Mum said “they won’t leave us here”, and still more boats came in and still our boat didn’t come. By 4.45pm, the storm had gone and the sun was shining, when a boat sped towards us with a man waving and pleading apologies saying the storm caused the delay. Mum reckons we were forgotten. Anyway - we did get back to the harbour .. and Mum went and got a Malaysian SIM card for her phone. She said she doesn’t want to be left somewhere along the death march trek!

Some facts, which I didn’t find very interesting but Mum did. Petrol costs 1.60 Ringet/litre in KK,  that’s 53 cents/litre in Australia. A brand new Honda Accord costs 25,000 Ringet (that’s AUD8,333 !!!). Mum got a SIM card with 2GB of data AND plenty of calls for 33 Ringet (that’s AUD11!).

More uninteresting facts (but interesting for me): I had spagetti cabonara tonight and a scoop of chocolate icecream! (or about to now !)

RAINFOREST & MANGROVES

sea urchins

PART ONE: RAINFOREST & MANGROVES

Mum and I took a 20 min boat ride to Gaya Island and begun our first WHOLE day in Borneo. I thought the boat ride was going to be calm, going at a steady pace but I stood corrected. We flew over the waves (and YES I said flew) it was like turbulence all over again and sure enough Mum was NOT enjoying it! I must admit, the boat ride was as good as a roller coaster at a theme park!

As the boat moored to the jetty,  my eyes were immediately drawn to the water. You see, this was my first time EVER seeing crystal clear water. 

There were all types of vibrant and amazing species of fish in the water . . . and best of all blue STARFISH! I couldn’t wait to go snorkeling, but first, the 2km jungle trek. It was easy to see the different rainforest levels from the boat. The emergents were like prima donnas showing off, the canopy layers and the under story and we trudged through the forest floor. 

As we climbed the steep clayey path Mum pointed out that the roots were mainly on the surface of the forest floor. You all know I’ve done my research on rainforests so I knew they were on top because the soils beneath the floor is infertile so there’s no point for a tree to plunge its roots deep for nutrients and support. Instead the tree roots create a maze just beneath the surface to gobble up the rich humus layered soil. I’ve seen plant adaptions in the Cambodian jungle and I saw more today, like the spiky plants, and of course the climbing lianas searching for sunlight. 

Our guide, “Don”, explained the different types of wood located in the rain forest and how they are used. There is a type of fern has wood that’s used to make the walls of some houses, and when people didn’t have iron nails they used thin lianas, which they dried to use as a strong rope.

We also spied a chameleon which took a while to convince Mum that the twig 20 meters away was a lizard! She had to get her telephoto camera and click the tree and THEN she believed me! (I think she might need stronger glasses! .. or perhaps listen to me!). 

We then  approached the mangroves. I was given a small geography lesson by Mum. I now understand how important the mangroves are, especially as they are important breeding grounds to many species of fish. 

Mum explained that some people don’t realise how important they are and see the mangroves as a waste of space. Botony Bay had a perimeter of mangroves but they built Sydney International Airport there - and destroyed the mangrove ecosystem. The trees that grow in the mangroves have adapted to sea water, by developing a “filter” which clears the salt from the water (all trees need fresh water to live). 

Mangrove tree pods have an amazing adaptation - the pods are not evenly weighted, the end with the roots is heavier. So if the pod falls during high tide, it will slowly rotate and the heaviest part sinks into mud and plants itself there. Lesson in adaptions done. 

I also saw the consequence of people not considering the environment when the high tide dumps rubbish in the mangroves. I've got more to say about mass tourism in my next post! 

We left Gaya island to head for a picnic lunch and snorkeling ... but when we got there .. Mum refused to stay .. I'll tell you more in the next post - yep, mass tourism issue again.