Orchids Galore

Dec 25 - 27

After 'roughing' it in the woods, Laura decided to splurge for Christmas and reserve a night at the Hyatt in Kota Kinabalu (KK). After living pretty modestly for the past 3 months and always searching for the cheapest option, this was a shock to the system, but a nice one. Comfy beds instead of a wood floor and bed bug infested mattress, a hot shower and tub instead of a cold bucket of water, a sit down toilet instead of a hole in the floor and a scrumptious breakfast buffet instead of a piece of toast was just all too much for us. Casey was a bit reluctant at first about the splurge but in the end, it was enjoyed immensely by both. KK was also a decent small city with a proper bookstore and many small handicraft shops which was nice for the day that we passed through.


Our next stop was Tenom, a small inland town reached by train where we planned to visit an agricultural park. Unfortunately the train ride was later than we had expected and so what we had been told was a nice scenic ride was almost entirely in the dark. On the way back we would see the scenery and it was in fact quite nice as we meandered along the river and through the mountains. We arrived in Tenom in the evening and left early the next day towards the Agricultural Park which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We were the first visitors and we thought that maybe we would be tho only ones all day. Later there were many more people who visited the park but we had the place pretty much to ourselves in the early morning. It was a large place and we had hoped to learn a bit more about some the plants in the area, especially the rainforest species. This ended up not being the case as the park did not focus on these species very much (I guess we should have guessed this since it is an ag park).

However some of the exhibits were done quite well and the park was a nice place to wander amongst the gardens for a day. The park boasts one of the largest orchid gardens in the world or so they claim, and many of these beautiful flowers were in bloom. The native orchid gardens had many gorgeous specimens ranging from minuscule, cute blooms to much larger flowers such as the rare black and lady-slipper orchids. It was very well laid out and nicely landscaped; however, the standing water in some of the garden pools provided a nice mosquito breeding habitat and these annoying pests proved unbearable at times. Across the way was another impressive hybrid orchid garden where over a thousand different types were displayed. It seemed like all of them were in bloom during our visit and these big, bold colored flowers standing out against the blue backdrop of the sky provided for some great photos. We also wandered through the orchard with hundreds of fruit species and sampled many of them (many of which we had never heard of or seen before) including rambutans, mangosteens and passionfruit. Other gardens in the park displayed pitcher plants, hibiscus, gingers and even cactus. Overall it was very well done and a nice place to explore.
Although it was not exactly what we expected and our knowledge of rainforest plants is still basically non-existent, it was still a decent little side trip.