Bulan 10 Di Sandakan

Hullo Bloggie~~ long time no see! Hohoh. Been away to Sandakan for 5 days, and there was no internet connection at my dad’s new place(temporary). So, I had to live a 5 days’ life of no internet. But, it wasn’t that bad after all. Besides, I was busy helping my mom clean up the house. The house was so damn big(for me that is), that it took us 2 days(starting from Tuesday) to finish cleaning. The house wasn’t that helplessly dirty but the condition of it was so da very kesian, u know. Just imagine, rows of the floor tiles downstairs and upstairs were popping out, like long triangular hills. I accidentally stepped on top of one of them that my weight cracked it flat back to the ground. Oops. Haha. Oh, and another thing, the house looked more of a jailhouse than a house. There were grills everywhere! At the windows and doors, and the best part is, there were grills at the threshold of the staircase upstairs. They weren’t like those nice pretty grills as you always see – they were bulky black grills with overly done patterns on them. I should’ve taken a picture as proof. One thing good about the house is that you can see the sea from the balcony. It's not so breathtaking though as it is not so high up the hill enough to overlook the vast sea, only a portion of it.

After awhile I understand why the house has so many grills. According to my friend’s dad and uncle, the area where the house is at is a black area, there are many squatter houses there. Yes, I noticed that too and it was kinda scary. There’s a high school nearby, I remember walking to that school to wait for a friend to pick me up by the road side, and there were two groups of school boys a short distance from me infront. All of them looked like punks and were doing the thug-walk with cigarette in one hand. I was behind them and I was like, “shiet, of all the time, why must it be now”. I was a bit nervous, but then I looked at them and they were only some skinny small fries compared to me. I think I’m more tagap than them. LOL. But I was still outnumbered. Dammit. Haha. Anyways, nothing happened to me, in fact they didn’t even looked twice at me. At one point I even thought I wasn’t attractive enough.. hmm. HAHA buduh.

The friend which was to pick me up at the road side was none other than my old time National Service friend at Kem Millennium two years back, Nur Mima Thalhata! Full name lagi. Met up with her and her cousin, and she was still the same ol’ Mima a.k.a Ayu. Gosh, I missed her. Some girl she is, with her own little world and very friendly character. Ironically, she’s much much more slimmer now than when we were in camp last time. Haha. We went to makan and took some pictures at the photo booth. We were so sakai that it took us about an hour, 30 mins more than the given time, for us to finish. Hahaha. It was our first time okay. She belanja me the whole day and I appreciated it very much. Mwah2 Mima ku sayang.

So that was already Thursday.

Moving on to Friday.

We made a move for our journey back home at noon. Stopped at a dusun buah salak in Beluran to buy some buah salak a.k.a bogung for people back home. That was my first time going to a dusun buah salak. I don’t know what they call buah salak in English, but I prefer to call it bogung. Haha. The type of bogung sold there is the honey type. It’s SO sweet and fleshy and they sell it for only RM1.50 per kilo! Normally, they sell them for RM5 to RM6 per kilo outside. But since we went straight to the dusun itself, it was much more cheaper. Triple-fold cheaper. My parents bought a whopping 10 kilos of bogung in the end. Haha. After that, the journey continued. Firstly, the journey from Sandakan to KK is basically like this:

Sandakan --> Telupid --> Ranau --> KK

Between each gap is approximately a 2 hours’ drive. So 2 X 3 = 6 hours of journey, without too many stops.

That was just some additional information I wanted to add. Hehe. Beluran is just along the way to Telupid, so in Telupid, closing to Ranau, my dad made another stop. He wanted to bring me to the Tagal Sungai Moroli, Kg Luanti(Ranau). The river was so clean and there were a lot of freshwater fish there(only one type though). Apparently the fishes are naturally there inhabiting the river and the owner of the river strives to keep it like that. "Tagal" in Kadazandusun means no fishing, so no fishing is allowed there, or else kena sogit(fined) 1 karabau for 1 fish. Haha. The fishes are bunch of friendly creatures. I just fed them simply by putting my fist with the food clasped in my palm on the water surface and all the fishes would start coming out of the water and sucking my fingers everywhere! Good thing they didn’t have any teeth. Phew~

It was already dark when we reached pekan Ranau. I think it was almost 7pm. Had light dinner there and continued heading home. The mist was quite thick along the Crocker Range especially after Kg Kiau. A bit difficult to see the road ahead but my dad is already so familiar with that road that I didn’t have to worry about the mist. Finally we reached home at around 9pm, exactly as my dad had approximated earlier on.

Pretty tired but it’s all good. And one more thing, Sandakan wasn’t as what I had expected it to be. It is a very much advanced town and surprisingly, there’s a lot of Chinese there too. And I also just knew that Sandakan is also known as “Little Hongkong”. No wonder there’s so many Chinese. Duh~ oh and also, Sandakan is a fresh seafood haven for those who LOVE seafood. They sell seafood there dirt cheap, it's unbelievable and plus, they're mostly freshly out of the water! Well, the sea is not that far from reach. You can see it from anywhere, which is very nice.

So there you go. Long summary for my 5 days in Sandakan. Sorry to torture you with only words and no pictures for this entry. Will post up the pictures once I got it.

Edited: this is the only photo I have of the condition of the floors at my dad's place.