The journey started with taking a chartered taxi from Putatan all the way to Tenom. The taxi fare was RM350 for the whole taxi and Tenom is about 3 hours ride from Kota Kinabalu. Some part of the road is actually along the Crocker Range, hence the view was awesome with hills and mountains and winding roads.
The long winding road
We made one stop at the rest area. Had a toilet break and one round of coffee before continue our journey to Tenom.
Soon after, we reached Tenom. I was a bit excited because although I've been to Sabah many times before, this was my first time coming to this part of the state.
First, we headed to Yit Foh Kopi factory. By the time we arrived at the factory, it was quite late and the factory was already closed. However the shop was still open so we managed to grab some to bring back home. They sell quite a variety of coffee so we were a bit 'rambang mata'. I bought two packets of Tenom coffee and later regret not buying more because the taste is quite different from the normal supermarket brand.
Variety of coffee ... and cheap too
From Yit Foh Kopi, we made our way to Hotel Tenom where we stayed there for 1 night. It is a budget hotel and quite near to Tenom train station
The next day, we woke up early because our next agenda is to board the train from Tenom to Beaufort. This was actually one of the highlights in our trip. The train departs at 7:08am so we checked out around 6:15 am and went for breakfast at the nearby restaurant before proceed to Tenom train station to buy the train tickets.
The ticket price is so cheap, only RM2.75 per person. The journey to Beaufort is about 3 hours. There are only 2 train trips per day for Tenom - Beaufort route therefore you need to plan your travel time carefully. The schedule for this train can be found on Keretapi Sabah's website.
http://railway.sabah.gov.my/index.php/info-jkns/perkhidmatanoperasi-keretapi/jadual-perkhidmatan-keretapi/jadual-tenom-tg-aru_isnin-sabtu/
This is actually a classic and old train. There is no air-cond, no fan, the seat is a hard-seated type just like buses in the old days and you can sit anywhere you like. But the view along this journey is something you don't get to see every day. It becomes awesomely beautiful when the train travels along Padas river.
This is Padas river
We were greeted with lush green of the mountains and the 'teh-tarik' color of Padas river. The train made many stops along the way for passengers pick-up /drop-off.
Can you spot the car wreckage?
On this part of Sabah, I could see that the local are still rely on this train service to commute between places.
Approaching one of the stops
This is practically out of nowhere but the train stopped anyway to pick up passengers
We had to change train at Saliwangan station. I wasn't sure whether it was due to train problem or it was just a normal train change but since everyone just got off the train and proceed to the next train on the platform, so we just follow the crowd. The next train we took was a bit older than the previous one and also a bit crowded.
We reached Beaufort around 10am and that was the end of our train trip in Sabah.
I obviously could never get enough of the scenery along this train route and I would recommend this train trip to anyone out there. Instead of going to those much visited places in Kota Kinabalu, why not heading down to Tenom and get the chance to experience this much less travelled place :)
*This entry is written in conjuction with Blogger Contest #TravelokaMY #MYTravelAdventure by Traveloka. You can find more info about this contest here at https://blog.traveloka.com/en/blogger-contest/. The due date is until the end of today so plenty more time to get creative and write your own local travel story. Feel free to visit Traveloka at https://www.traveloka.com/en-my for your flight and hotel bookings. They have some discounts for first time users and I'm about to make my first booking for my next local trip. Let's cuti-cuti Malaysia everyone!
