Rob and Anna's travel adventure

Normally, by staying in a smaller, less touristy town, one could expect a warmer, more authentic treatment. However, this was NOT the case with the Ranau town (we chose to stay there as a base for Mt. Kinabalu exploration). I must admit that after several days being there locals eventually warmed up, but over all the town of Ranau seemed cold, stagnating, and well, to put it bluntly, ignorant. As always, the best treatment we received happened at a Muslim restaurant that we spotted on the main road, and which coincidentally was run again by a few guys from Kerala (India). No surprise there - warm welcome and great service - this is why we love India, we even look for it in Malaysia. We were able to hike a couple of trails for about 10km; lots of them were up and down (mostly up), no leeches though, which was great. And, after an intense tropical heat down at the coast, it was refreshing to be in the higher elevation. We did not intend to climb the mountain, and walking the trails was a lot more fulfilling - we have heard that there is a constant stream of traffic to the top (about 200 climbers per day), so why join the crowds, when we could have the whole forest below to ourselves? The forest was very nice (it is actually on the UNESCO World Heritage List), no wild life though. We were told by a local that about 30 years ago one could see a great variety of animals, but they all have been poached and exploited by now. We start to think that the best wild life exploration for Rob and I was in Costa Rica - where we saw a panther, black tyra, countless amount of monkeys, birds, lizards, etc. etc. Even in India last year, we were able to encounter wild elephants. This does not seem to be the case so far here, in Malaysia. One animal that we should be able to see though is Orangutan, and for that we will be heading out to the world famous Osipelok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, our next stop in Borneo.