Maliau Basin

Of all the park in Malaysia, the gem is Maliau Basin in Sabah.This is the best conservation effort in Malaysia deserving the merit as a UN world heritage site. Situated between Keningau and Tawau, this basin is unique in its features, home rare species of plant and wildlife.

The journey from Tawau by 4 wheel drive took me 8 hours to reach Christie Camp. It was alreasy dark when we reached the road leading to Christie Camp. Along the gravel road we could see dears and wild bulls gasing along the track. When we slept at the Christie Camp that night , a bear raided our camp and took along a bag containing food.

The next day we started trekking to Camel Trophy Camp. The first part of the trek was tough as we have to tackle the slope that was the enscarpment of the basin. For 3 hours it was all way up before we reached the plateau. Once on the rim of the plateau we trekked for another 3 hour to reach the Camel Trophy Camp where we spent the night in the comfort of wooden hostel build by Camel international team.

The whole of the following day was spent trekking to the Maliau Fall. The trail was well maintened especially the Jalan Babi, a stretch of trail famous for its new species, where the vegetation is temperate stunted trees with green mosses and algae.The vegation varies ranging from stunted trees to tropical forest with dark canapy that harbours animals like baboon, barking deer and birds. After about six hours of trekking we reached the majestic looking Maliau Fall with its thanderous water falling into deep abyss, creating mist of vapour that hang on the fringe of the troplical forest.

That night after about 12 hours of walkm we spent the night at Ginseng Camp, and due to the camp was often looted by a family of bear, we stook extra precaution to secure our food. The guide was sick that night, shaking with Malaria, and despite swallowing some aspirin, he could recover the next day. Later a helicopter was despatched to take him to Tawau General Hospital. We resumed with one guide who took us the next 6 hours back to Christie Camp.

The experience at Maliau was special because the terrain , the vegetation and the wild life was different from other national park. Even the guide was different because they were very knowledgeable about the forest and make effort to explain Maliau to the trekkers.The camp site was clean and the trek was well cared. To me Maliau was the best managed park in Malaysia ande be the benchmark for all parks.