Always Trippin’

Who doesn’t want to see a massive flower that smells like carrion? Our one day in Kota Kinabalu saw me and Tim from the Netherlands attempting to hustle our way to Tambunan to catch a glimpse of the elusive (although large) Rafflesia. I kicked off the day by making a flurry of what must have been annoying wake-up calls to wrong numbers, tourist information centers, people who were on leave and eventually the Tambunan HQ to see if there were actually any flowers flowering (the blooms only last a few days). Even then, we weren’t entirely sure what they were saying.

“Good morning, are there any flowers flowering?”
(Insert awkward pause) “Yes”.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes”.
“Great! How do we best get there from KK?”
“Yes”.

Anyway, Tim and I eventually found ourselves sitting in the back of a 13-ringgit taxi waiting for it to fill up and whisk us away to these magical flowers. And wait we did. After 45 minutes of bum-numbing motionless sitting squished in the back of the van, we eventually got the required number of passengers to justify beginning the 1.5 hour drive along a narrow, windy mountain road that eventually culminated in the two of us being dumped off in the drizzle at the Rafflesia information center. Apparently, viewing said blossoms involved a RM50 guide cost so we bummed around and looked at the exhibits in hopes that some other random souls would turn up and ease the monetary issues of two broke backpackers. Just as we had given up hope and were about to cave in and embark with just the two of us, three other people showed up and joined our group.

We drove a few minutes further down the road that we had come on, clambered up a muddy hillock, along a river and maneuvered through a barbed wire fence to come face-to-face with the famed flower, although it wasn’t actually the massively massive variety and it didn’t smell, which was disappointing, but did allow me to stick my head next to it without barfing my insubstantial breakfast all over the place. We snapped the obligatory photos and headed back after dropping multiple hints to the other people that we needed a ride back to KK (but it turned out they weren’t heading back anyway).

And so we stood/sat at the bus stop (which was quite clearly marked “bus stop”), where everyone had assured us that buses to KK ran every half hour. Well, the “bus” part was sure right, but the “stop” part, not so much – every vehicle coming from Tambunan was full. Sitting around in the rain inspired us to devise backup plans to get ourselves back to KK, which looked something like this:

Plan A: Catch a bus to KK (Plan A was failing miserably)
Plan B: Hitchhike to KK
Plan C: Catch a bus the other way to Tambunan and then get a non-full bus to KK
Plan D: Hitchhike to Tambunan and get a bus from there to KK

And so on until…
Plan Y: Feign heart attack in the street and get an ambulance to drive us to KK
Plan Z: Pay the equivalent of our first-born child to get a taxi to KK.

Anyway, after thumbing at multiple vehicles for a good half-hour, a red Proton finally flashed its lights at us and pulled over. We ran over (with slight disbelief on my part, and to the cheers of a group of grass-cutters who had been entertained by my attempts at flagging down a vehicle) and got in to embark on a slightly manic ride back to the city as I chatted with the driver about cheery topics such as how 42 people had died at a bend that we’d just traversed. We made it back safe and sound (and for free) and in good time to catch our epic 13-hour bus ride to Semporna that night.