Borneo Blog

China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Industry Corporation has been invited to conduct a feasibility study on an ambitious plan to build statewide railway lines in Sabah, the Malaysian state on the northern part of Borneo Island.

If the name of the company does not ring a bell to you, this piece of information might: South China Locomotive is one of the companies involved in the construction of the world’s highest railway project, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway,

[A train chugging through Tibet terrain on the world's highest railway track. Imagine similar train on Borneo railway lines with Mount Kinabalu in the background.]

(more…)

Here’s a picture of one of the most mysterious plants on Borneo Island. It’s called The Nephentes, known locally as periuk kera or the bowl of the monkeys.

KUDAT (Sabah): “Country Roads”, a song by the late John Denver comes to mind as the car makes a tight swerve along the left curve of a double two-way hillside road up Kampung Kelawat in Kota Belud on the way to Kudat from the state capital.

Going downhill soon after, the road narrowed to a single two-way lane and when it reaches the valley, a whole new landscape suddenly opens up as the road approaches freshly planted paddy fields.

[Hundreds of white egrets hover around a tractor as a padi field in Pandasan, Kota Belud is being prepared for the next planting season]

“Country roads take me home…,” sings Denver in the song but this country road of Sabah will not be taking people to West Virginia, Blue Ridge mountains or Shenandoah river as the song suggests.

(more…)