Precious Living

Mr. Tay of Weston Wetlands finally arrived at 1pm even though we had agreed to meet at midday. We were glad he came late though, it gave us a chance to relax and hang out at the common area of Borneo Backpackers. More importantly, it gave Nic a chance to discover more of this place and improve his opinion. I do believe that the quality computer, beautiful environment and friendly counter staff eventually won his heart.

Mr. Tay turns out to be a really warm and friendly foodist which is utterly compatible with us. He bought us lunch at an excellent hawker about fifteen minutes drive from the city centre. It is so popular that by the time we got there at about 1:30pm, most of its food were fully sold out. Still, everything that Mr Tay ordered were utterly delicious and we ate like gluttons!

Arriving At Weston

After lunch, Mr. Tay drove us two hours in his Japan imported 4WD to Weston which is on the east of Sabah near Labuan island. Even though it was a long journey, we were enthralled throughout with Mr. Tay’s fascinating stories of growing up Sabahan.

Weston turned out to be an incredibly small town with only one small school about half the size of my house called Sekolah Kebangsaan Che Hwa. This is where Mr. Tay was educated before he got a scholarship to study architecture in London! Shows that it’s not the size of the school that matters.

Perhaps Weston is just as famous for its swampy wetlands as its historic 100-year-old jetty that was heavily used by Japanese and British troops during the Second World War.

Here’s a photo of me by my bags at the jetty.

From here, it is only a 2 minute boat ride to our lodge which is actually Mr. Tay’s ancestral home. We had 23 acres of undisturbed wetlands all to ourselves.

It’s Tea Time!

Upon arriving, we discovered that the “resort” staff had prepared hot coffee with local fruits and kuih. The dining area is cool and breezy, and faces a panoramic view of the skyline, the mangrove treeline, and the river waterline. It took my breath away.

Unfortunately, I was too busy absorbing all of it to snap a photo for you to see.

The Atapchi Lesson

The fruit above is actually from the Atapchi tree. Bet you never knew where the atapchi in your ABC came from. Here’s how it looks on the inside…

See the atapchi in the middle? I give up on winking. This is how it looks before you chop it off and split it open.

I should have swung the thing like it’s a World of Warcraft weapon but I didn’t think of it at the moment. During a boat cruise later, we discovered how an Atapchi looks like when it’s still happily attached to its tree.

There you go, that’s the Atapchi lesson.

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