Where It Is, How to Get There
If you're feeling up to a hike to the third tallest mountain in Southeast Asia, Malaysia's Mount Kinabalu is open to all comers. Kinabalu Park is about fifty miles east of the city of Kota Kinabalu, and can be reached in two hours via bus ride from this city. If you're coming from Sandakan, a bus ride to Mount Kinabalu will take six hours.
Why Visit?
No specialized training is necessary to ascend Mount Kinabalu... but it's not to say that it's easy. How well you take to the climb depends on how well you adapt to the thinning air near the peak. The height of the mountain is estimated at 13,400 feet, and can be covered in four hours if you're in a hurry.
But why hurry? Mount Kinabalu has so much to offer: incredible botanical and biological biodiversity with over 600 species of ferns (the entire continent of Africa has "only" 500), 326 species of birds, and 100 mammalian species. The gigantic Rafflesia plant calls the slopes of Kinabalu home, as does the only great ape of Southeast Asia, the orangutan.
The park's biodiversity earned it World Heritage Site status from UNESCO.
