Borneo!

So, after stocking up on some very cheap XXL clothes (that's my size in Vietnam...) in Saigon Square, (am quite bored of the same clothes after six weeks), Emma and I made are way to Sabah, Borneo. Emma assured us confidently of the timings and we arrived at the airport at 10.28 for our flight at 12. Or, as it turned out, actually at 11. Second amusing airport story, we made it from arrival to sitting on the plane of an international flight in sixteen minutes. I took all my luggage, minus scissors, but including liquids, aerosols etc. on to the cabin itself, and people were CHARMING as we barged through the queues. A lot to be said for Ho Chi Minh airport and Malaysia airlines...

On arriving in Sabah, after enjoying the Harrods shop with tea at KL airport, we went straight to our hotel in Poring Hot Springs with a very talkative taxi driver who gave us a potted history of Borneo, which was very useful! Our first day was spent walking around Kinabalu Park, very jungly, very mosquito-y and very cloudy! Unfortunately the only views we got of Mt Kinabalu were brief and through cloud, but it was good to do some walking and we felt we deserved the hot springs afterwards, floating dead skin and all. It was also amazing how much we were staying in the middle of the jungle, it's really quite noisy.

After Kinabalu Park, we went on to Sandakan. This is where Agnes Keith, and American lady who married a Brit, lived from the thirties to the fifties and wrote three books, most famously 'Three Came Home'. Emma is reading the first and I, unfortunately, cannot get them on my Kindle so am yet to read them. Her house was a really interesting museum, with some quite amusing quotes from her books and stunning views. Importantly, there was also a croquet set and an incredible Western cafe with real tea. A big hit with us.



From Sandakan, we went on to Sepilok, famous for its orangutans. It is a rehabilitation centre, so the orangutans mostly live freely but get fed by humans. We stood about 15m away and watched their feeding , both orangutans and macaques. It was actually really good, they warn you you may not see many, it is not a zoo, so that makes it all the better when you actually see lots, even Mummy and baby. They're also just quite funny to watch because they're so human like. They do this pose a lot: (not my photo, I have a LOT not very well zoomed in photos...)

We also just happened to look up and see some rhinocerous hornbills. This was almost more exciting, as it was unexpected. In the afternoon we went to the rainforest discovery centre and wandered along the canopy walkway hanging out with giant tree squirrels (very close and confident!) and some pittas, which are extremely colourful birds. It was probably more fun to spot a bright yellow or red bird by chance than to spot orangutans with lots of other people when they come at the same time every day...

(not my photo, obviously I have lots of photos of blank sky and trees...)



Finally, we went to Semporna which is dive central in Sabah. In particular, Sipidan is meant to have incredible diving and, after finding out we couldn't go here (partly because we hadn't booked it when we thought we had, partly because we are not experienced divers) and after Emma got over this, we ended up going to Mabul and staying there. Neither of us are qualified, Emma has dived before but I never have, so we did discovery dives, where someone accompanies you and you only go to twelve metres. This was quite far enough for me; firstly my ears were very slow at 'equalizing', which is painful, and secondly, it's very daunting being underwater! I spent the whole time wishing I could talk to someone though, as we saw some incredible things. In two dives we saw six turtles (hawksbill and green), which were beautiful when they swam and big when they didn't, coral, all the cast of 'Finding Nemo' minus Bruce and the seagulls, (Nemo, Dory, Scarface, squid, bright blue starfish etc.) an ugly cuttle fish and an ugly but very rare flamboyant cuttlefish. This last one has a very cool underwater dive symbol. Our instructor has only seen three in two years and I think was slightly miffed I saw one on my first dive during a discovery dive. All round it's going to be very difficult for any other diving to live up to this! Taking photos involved hiring a very expensive camera, so I've added some photos for you to get the drift..

 

 

Third not-yet-amusing airport story: We flew are separate ways from KK (Kota Kinabalu), and had to get a short flight from near Semporna back to KK. We arrived and were warned that our flight may be delayed as the airport at KK is not open... The two girls we had joined up with and I went and sat around in the grottiest airport I have ever been on, but Emma managed by sitting right next to the Air Asia man, to get us on an earlier flight so that by the time the airport opened we left more or less at the time we would have done. However, she undid this good work by forgetting her passport on said plane when we arrived and not realising until the hotel... Fortunately, after a stressful wait (for her) at the aiport when the plane went to and from where we'd come from and came back at 2.15am, her passport did return, but we slightly felt sick of airport-related stress by the end of the holiday. To reward ourselves, we spent the final day in KK in a very swish Meridian hotel buffet (quite cheap but very good, Emma tells me this is what one does in Asia...) eating all we possibly good, before enjoying the bars of KK. Emma headed back to Saigon and I travelled on to Brunei...