Travel writing by Chloe Pang

My family and I went on yet another road trip. Along with us were another friend and his family, who came to visit us all the way from Kuala Lumpur. Since they had never been to Kundasang before, my mother thought it would be a good idea to take them there during their visit here.

The car ride from Sandakan to Kundasang took four long hours. While the scenery outside the car window was mostly boring, the seemingly endless row of trees were occasionally broken by the presence of houses from the villages we passed by, such as Sukau and Telupid.

We stopped by Moonlight Restaurant in Ranau for lunch. You can easily find this roadside restaurant on the left on your way towards Ranau from Sandakan. They serve Chinese food like Pan Mee, Claypot Rice and Char Siew Mee, which is the food I always order whenever I am there. We stop there often for lunch whenever we head to Kundasang or Kota Kinabalu. Their food is not bad and the price is reasonable so it wouldn’t go wrong to stop by for lunch should you find yourself in that area.

Since we were in Ranau, one of us proposed to go paragliding at Ranau Bluesky Paragliding Adventure, which was just 15 minutes from the restaurant. When it was finally my turn to take off with the gliding parachute, I was terrified. I felt that the parachute could fall apart and drop me anytime. But once I was midair, things became exhilarating and fascinating. Even though the weather was quite cloudy, I could still catch a bird’s eye view of Ranau. The landscape felt like a painting seen from above: tons of green colour, and a long grayish line snaking around the hills that reminded me that we still have a bit more to go before reaching our next destination, which is Kundasang.

The whole paragliding activity lasted half an hour and cost RM150 per head. It is also possible to rent a Go-pro camera from them for another RM30, and they would provide you with the cables to transfer the video into your phone once you reach the ground.

It was already past 6pm by the time we finally reached Gathering Village, our accommodation in Kundasang, a famous tourist spot in Sabah. It is a two-storey house with two bedrooms, two bathrooms and one extra bed at the corner of the roof. The bed was quite cozy to sleep on.

During the night, I managed to spend some time stargazing since the sky was clear. Sandakan, the town where I am from, has too much light pollution, so being able to see this many stars so clearly in the sky was something that I can only do when I am in places like Kundasang.

I went to sleep that night feeling excited, because I knew we would be hiking and exploring Kundasang in the following day – which I would write about in the next part of this travelogue, so please stay tuned!