Dense cloud before Mt. Kinabalu was really regrettable for me as a climber. I was gazing in the direction of Mt. Kinabalu for some time. That might be why N chan's father took me to the gate to the mountain despite sudden torrential rain. We reached the starting point of climbing Mt. Kinabalu in the 2nd picture after a 20 minutes' drive. Due to the heavy rain, I didn't go out of the car, but the scene was carved in my mind. I'd like to stand here some years later with my perfect climbing gear. Let's climb Mt. Kinabalu, my buddies!
Coming back to Kota Kinabalu(KK), I went out for a walk around our hotel alone. I found a questionable Japanese restaurant near the hotel on the way. I'll upload its picture. If you are a Japanese, you'll find it's not run by Japanese.
I stood at the seaside of KK, called Jesselton Point. Before me, the sea of KK was calm. In this season of 72 years ago, the principal fleets of the Japanese Imperial Navy, including that Battleships Yamato and Musashi, left Brunei Bay, about 100km westward from there, for the Battle of Leyte Gulf. They fought the US and Australian Navies near the Philippines and lost lots of vessels and soldiers. I hate wars, but you must know the accurate historical facts about the war and its victims to avoid another war. While thinking such a thing, I was wandering arond the seashore. Lots of various sizes of boats were moored at Jesselton Point. A glance at the port showed that this place was the Mecca of marine sports.
The name of the island off the coast of KK is Gaya Island, along the coast of which there stood lots of houses on the surface of the sea. It just looked like a kind of shantytown. I asked N chan's father about them. People who lived there were from the Philippines and he looked like he didn't want to refer to them. I gave up asking about them. According to my travel guidebook, gorgeous resorts were built at the opposite side of the island but there's no connecting road between the resorts and the, what I say, shantytown. It would be an isolated area from KK, though it was close at hand. I'm going to show you pictures of resorts and houses on the sea shot from the sky on the way to Japan in the last day's entries.
(Vocabulary)
Battle of Leyte Gulf
Gaya Island ガヤ島 コタキナバルの真向かいにある島
マレーシア旅行記： コタキナバルの山と海 ７０年前の様子に思いを馳せる
僕があまりにも見えないキナバル山方向を眺めていたからか、Ｎちゃんパパが気の毒がって登山口まで案内してくれた。車で２０分くらいで写真の場所に到着。２枚目の写真はキナバル山へのスタート地点。何年か先、この場所へ登山のフル装備で立っていたい。どなたか一緒にどうですか？どのような山なのか、興味のある方は調べてみてください。
さて、コタキナバルへ戻り、夕食までの間、しばし休憩。僕は一人で街を歩く。英語が通じる街は気が楽だ。見て歩きたいところがたくさんあるのに時間が十分ではないのが残念。ホテル近くで目に付いた店の写真をｕｐする。日本料理店とあるが、日本人なら一目で日本人の経営では無いことがわかる。（笑）
海岸に出てみた。コタキナバルの海だ。この海から７２年前のこの時期に、少し西寄りにあるブルネイ湾から大和や武蔵を含む日本帝国海軍艦艇がフィリピン、レイテ島に向かったことを思い出した。戦争は嫌だ。だが先人たちの努力、犠牲を正しく知るべきだ。そんなことを思いながら港を散策した。この場所はJesselton Pointと呼ばれる。この言葉については後ほど書くつもり。イギリス統治時代の名残だ。繋がれているボートを眺めるだけでここがマリンスポーツのメッカであることがわかる。
沖に見える島には水上生活者の家が並んでいる。コタキナバル出身のNちゃんのお父さんに聞くと、フィリピンから来た人で勝手に住んでいるらしい。どのような人たちなのか、興味はあったが、それ以上の質問はやめた。島の反対側にはゴージャスなホテルが有るが、互いを繋ぐ道路はなく、孤立した村落のようだった。帰国時に飛行機からホテルとこの一群の水上家屋が見えたので撮影した。後日upする。
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