On the third day of our stay in Kota Kinabalu (KK), we decided we wanted to go see the "Harvest Festival" for ourselves and find some delicious food along the way.
So we asked for directions in our hostel, made sure to have the locals pinpoint the place on the map that we were supposed to go to. So we felt pretty confident that we would make our way there, except we were wrong. So wrong.You see, one of the girls that so kindly tried to help us said we should go to Penampang, and Penampang happens to be the name of a fairly big province; so she takes the cellphone I double check where she's pointing to and drop the pin. Pretty straightforward right? I knew very little of the area, so when I saw the pin was right on the name "Penampang" in Google Maps I thought nothing of it, the area looked mountainous, so we asked if the town was a mountain village and they said it was. I got all excited because we were going to visit a town in the middle of the mountains holding a traditional festival, couldn't really get any better for a photography enthusiast. Once everything is ready to go, we head on simply following directions on the downloaded map of the area, I was navigating and I have to say it was like I was doing everything wrong that day. After many missed turns and a stop on the side of the road, I managed to get us back on course. About fifteen minutes later a torrential rain downpoured on us and it forced us to take shelter, we were lucky to find a bus stop with a roof to wait out the rain.
After a while, the weather seemed to be clearing up again and we were on our way. As we were going up the mountain we saw amazing landscapes, and it felt as if though we were cruising the clouds. But we kept going up and up, and so far no sight of a festival of any kind, it was more like we saw house parties in the scattered residences we encountered along the way. We kept following the path that was suggested by the maps and two hours into our journey, we are so high up that the road became foggy in plain day, we were starting to get chilly. And it really isn't the place to be damp after being in the rain. We were low on fuel, would definitely have not made it down on what we had and still, we were in the middle of nowhere but the map said we were exactly over we dropped the pin! Starting to panic a bit, we kept going a little further in hopes we would find the town, but instead, we found a little shop and restaurant.
We got off to double check the map, and see if I could ask someone that would indicate the closest gas station, and it turns out there wasn't, we were literally nowhere near any town. Thankfully, the owners of the shop sold us some gas and pointed us in the right direction of the festival. It turns out we climbed an extra mountain and the festival was happening about 15 minutes away from where we were staying. How did we miss it?
At the end of the day, we did make it to the Harvest Festival but were too tired to stay for long. Here are a few pictures from it:
It was a very stressful but beautiful day and had we not gotten lost, we would've never seen the sights that will forever be embedded in my mind when I think of Penampang, Sabah.
Lessons:
1. Never go up a mountain on a scooter with two people on a half tank of gas, even if you think you'll find a gas station along the way.
2. Ask for directions as many times as are needed.
3. Enjoy the way, as much as the destination.