Kiansom Waterfall and Babagon

Around mid-August, my friend Cheryl paid us a visit from her home in Puerto Galera, Philippines, and so I wanted to take the opportunity to show her the parts of Kota Kinablau that most tourists do not reach! Most people who come to KK tend to stick to the more established attractions, like the Waterfront (who wants to pay RM26 for a glass of beer on the Waterfront, when you can get 3 cans for RM10 in Foh Sang!??), a trip to TARP, the mountain and Sepilok. But ask any of them if they went to Kiansom or Babagon and I'll bet you get a blank look.

We picked Cheryl up from her temporary home at the Hotel Tourist in Jalan Pantai in town, had a quick roti in the indian restaurant up the road a bit, then headed along the seafront to Likas, to Inanam and onto Jalan Kiansom. We followed this road to its end whereupon there is a nice little car park. We were lucky and it was empty! Terry stayed with Dirty Gerty (the car), while Cheryl and I paid out entrance fee of RM1.50! No extra to pay here for being a tourist which gets my thumbs up. We were both happy to see that the surrounds were very tidy. No litter lying around which can sometimes adorn places like this. Once you go throught the turnstile, you follow the concrete paths to the different "tiers" of the fall, of which there are 5. Tiers 1 and 2 were a 15 minute walk and as neither of us had walking shoes on, we went straight to tier 3 which had a nice spot for taking photos. There hadn't been much rain so the water wasn't falling in torrents, but jsut enough to get some nice pics. We spent about half an hour there happily clicking away, and I look forward to going back after a period of rain to get some more snaps.

Next stop was Babagon. Terry loves to go here so he can drive across the river which he did with glee, whilst Cheryl and I paddled across and made friends with some local Kaduzan boys who were having a dip after school. Their politeness and friendliness both charmed and surprised us. Such manners I have not seen from children in the UK for a long while! They happily posed for some photos. After Terry had driven Gerty through a few times, we climbed back in and drove a wee bit further down the road, near Kg Madsiang to a nice spot we go to with the Hash now and then.

We spent another happy half an hour or so here before the rain made us have to put the cameras away. This was when we noticed out tummies rumble and so, headed into Donggongon for some pork and rice. Lovely.

The day didn't stop there thought as we took Cheryl to the Api Api hash later on in the afternoon which took us to the highest point around Taman Tanaki, but I didn't have my camera as it was more of an exercise for exercise than for photography!

The three of us had a really great day out and Cheryl went back to the Philippines with a whole new view of Kota Kinabalu - not just the ones int he guide books!