Tambunan Village - A Place with Tranquility & Nature

I received mail about Air Asia promotion for Ticket to Kota Kinabalu at zero fare. Since There was three days continuous leave for Eid, booked Round trip ticket for 125SGD by booking 2 months in advance. The Day came and flew on last Saturday late night to KK. Kick started the travel morning around 7AM from KKIA towards Tambunan. Cab Driver agreed for drop at TVRC (Tambunan Village Resort Centre) for 170 RM with stopping at Rafflesia Information Centre for a short visit. Tambunan Village is roughtly about 80km from Airport.

It was a fine Sunday morning, there were mists all around on the way up to the village and there were nice chilling scenic view where I asked the cab driver to stop for few snaps. I noticed quite a number of Mushroom plantation projects at every village on the way as well. Roads were well established with nice bridges at sharp curves and clean roads through out.

There was another surprise waiting for me. Upon reaching Rafflesia information centre found out the fact that they are closed on Sundays & Public Holidays. So, I thought that my dream of finding the Rafflesia was bit shattered because as per the plan I was not intending to passing this route back.

I called the resort owner and enquired about the operating hours of Rafflesia Information Centre and confirmed the same that it is closed on Public Holiday & Sundays. With bit of disappointment left that place to move to the next destination of Mahua Water Falls near Tambunan Village. I was more worried about the weather since it is always raining during afternoon at this Rainy season in Sabah and luckily nature did favour by bringing out Sun during most of the day time.

Reached Tambunan around 9AM and checked quite quickly in a bamboo long house room. The atmosphere was kind of soothing and made me like home back at my childhood kampong life. It was a typical village (Kampong) filled with tranquility and am not sure how to express the feeling I got in there. There were rivers all around mountains. Quite nice collections of flower garden at most of the houses. Birds like sparrow & few dove families were happily flying around the rice paddy fields. And such a lovely atmosphere made me decided to stay there for two nights instead of just one night.

From the village once can easily get the naked eye view of sleeping beauty Kota Kinabalu Mount Peak from anywhere in the Village. In the village there were attractions like Mat Salleh, it was about a war memorial place for a person who lived there to fight for their land freedom.

In the town centre they had a warrior statue with a big stone laid at the centre and I was told that their souls were locked in there that keeps protecting the villagers even today. There was a Sunday market where freshly grown vegetables and it was a typical village market that you can see just like where I used to buy vegetable for one week need at my home town too.

After a quick breakfast session on the riverbed kampong style restaurant inside the resort region had made arrangement with resort for a trip to my next destination of Mahua Water Falls. Road condition was very good that even a normal car could get to there without any problem still they charged me quite a big sum for nothing. Thank god I bargained from 150RM to 80RM. But the water falls is just about 15Kms from Tambunan and normal car can easily get there with a newly laid nice road not like you need a 4WD to get there. If you want to get there, beware of this fact. 50 RM is I suppose the reasonable fare.

I will write next about Mahua Water Falls…