When we were last in Kota Kinabalu, we did a very pleasant train-ride to Beaufort. Having found out the line actually went all the way to Tenom, but it wasn't possible to cover the whole distance as a day trip, we decided to add it to our "when we come back" list. Almost five years later, "when we come back" is now!

We checked it all out on the railway website beforehand. We checked the time of the Monday train; we checked there'd still be a service on a public holiday (which this Monday was). We organized some accommodation in Tenom.

All good. Except that when we got to Tanjung Aru station on Monday morning, we were told the train to Tenom was not running because there had been a landslide...

Uh? What? Why did it not say this on the website? Well, when you have the information, you can see that it kind of does. Above the main timetable and the supplementary notes, there are some times for sectors. Which all makes sense when you know the route is disrupted, but doesn't convey anything very meaningful to a person who DOESN'T know that...

What is really needed is a big red sign at the TOP of the website that says: THROUGH TRAVEL FROM KK TO TENOM NOT POSSIBLE.

It seems from the news reports that the landslide happened in January... Plenty of time, you'd think, to organize an informative bit of interface.

So that was very disappointing.

But we've lived in Borneo too long to not have a backup plan. Just in case, Nigel had looked up times for the buses, so as soon as the blow had fallen, we dialled up a Grab, whizzed over to the bus station (very close to the flat we left this morning, ironically), and bought a ticket on the bus to Tenom.

It's always tedious, in our view, to have to swap a train for a bus. But the route was pretty spectacular. You climb ear-poppingly up, with fine views out over wooded countryside. You make a couple of stops. And three hours later, you're there.





Actually, that earlier-than-anticipated arrival was a double-edged sword. The train would have taken much longer, and got us in at the end of the afternoon, whereas the bus had us arriving not far off mid-day. And trekking steeply uphill to the Fatt Choi Coffee Cabin was a bit of a slog in the full heat of the noon sun. Especially as I'd developed, literally overnight, some godawful lurgy.




What you notice, all along the way, however, are the butterflies. So many, and so many different varieties, all fluttering around like little jewels. And once you're up top, of course you get fabulous views over the hills that grow Tenom's most famous product: Coffee. These are moody hills, and every time you go out to see them, they look a little different.

This has been a nice place to spend three nights. There's a little cafe that does coffee (of course) and cake; and there are a couple of food stalls where you can buy noodle dishes or sate. The room is fairly basic (and a little more sound-proofing might not have gone amiss). But it's a reasonable size, and has amenities that more expensive places often lack. The staff come round every day to replenish your coffee supplies. In fact, we can't keep up with the pace it comes in at... It has rained every night, giving us wonderfully atmospheric misty mornings, but the days have been dry (let's hope this also holds for tomorrow when we have to catch the bus again). The morning birdsong is phenomenal, and kicks off at around 0445.











Yesterday we walked back into town. There's no getting away from the coffee:



But even without the coffee, it would be a pleasant little town:







It was at this point that we decided that today's destination would be Pangi, which is 11 km away from Tenom, and is currently the furthest you can get on the railway from this end. But that's going to be another post.

On the way back from the Pangi expedition, we had time to snap a couple of butterflies:




Which just leaves me with some noodles to talk about:




I'm now feeling much better. My cold -- or whatever it was -- only really marred the first day, which I pretty much slept through once we'd arrived.

And it has been nice here. Nice to have a change of pace, a different environment. Urbanite that I am, I always wonder about rural settings; I always arrive, and think, "Whoa, what have I done?" But it does you good to just listen to the birds and watch the butterflies every now and again.