Borneo

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Borneo

We flew to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Borneo where we met Charlotte (Neil’s wee sis) and her friend, Anna. They’re currently partaking in their elective as part of their medical degree.

When we met we were embarrassingly white by comparison to these bronzed babes but rather than let it get us down we headed to the food markets and filled our faces with chicken kebabs and rice with the best soy sauce god ever created! We then had a few cocktails before retiring to bed.

Incidentally, Lotte and Anna had decided to treat themselves to a stay in the Meridian, a 5 star hotel, oh life’s tough girls!!! Anyhoo, it meant we could use the hotel pool the next day, sweet! Before heading out on a bit of bender which of course ended up in a Karaoke bar, the Singapore Sling knocked me senseless. Great night.

Next day we headed to Mt Kinabalu to begin our two day ascent of the badboy. Day one was fairly tough but not too bad and everyone managed fine. Day two we had to get up at 2am, get some grub and begin the summit climb. Unfortunately Lotte had a bit of chest infection so she made the decision not to proceed to the top. Good decision as it was pretty tough. However, the worst of all was all the downhill, my legs have not ached like that ever after a walk. We were all walking like John Wayne for 4 days. But well worth it, the sunrise that welcomed us when we reached the top at 5.30am was beautiful.

After returning to KK we treated ourselves to an hour and a half long massage (well deserved), only 10 squiddlies each!

The next day we said our cheerios to the girls (who are now off to Oz incidentally) and made our way to Sepilok to see the Orang-utans. The Orang-utans that are rehabilitated there have either been kept illegally in cages by locals or have been orphaned for some reason or another and then they have been rescued and brought to Sepilok. The aim of the sanctuary is to reintroduce them into the wild. In order to do so the sanctuary has a number of feeding platforms throughout the Borneo jungle and there is one platform at the outskirts of the jungle where visitors can watch the apes feed. The apes are totally free and don’t have to come to the platform to feed but the majority still do as it’s easy food and I think they feel safer staying close. Anyhoo, it’s lucky to see 2 or 3 apes but amazingly we saw 6. When feeding time arrived the trees started moving as though King Kong was approaching and then the big ginger apes plonked themselves on the platform and got stuck into the grub. One actually came over to the platform we were standing on, was awesome.

Thereafter, Neil and I booked ourselves into a 3 day 2 night jungle trip with Uncle Tan! We headed into the jungle with a group of about 14 people and were introduced to our sleeping area, a mattress on a floor in an open wood hut overlooking a swamp!!! The heat would have killed you but in order to avoid bugs I wrapped up to the max sweating my beans off but still managing to get bitten by mozzies!
We went on 3 river cruises at varying times of the day where we saw wild Orang-utans, long tail monkies, pig tail monkies, monitor lizards, pythons (our guides hauled a 4metre long one out of the bushes to show us!!!). We also did a few bush treks (including a midnight one) and saw disgusting big bugs and various birds etc. The sound at night was horrific, things were flying into our hut, scurrying around on the ground, bugs were sqwauking everywhere, things were gurgling in the swamp, everything considered I was glad to get out of there however I’m glad I did it. But I still HATE bugs!

That pretty much concludes our Borneo leg of the trip. See you guys in Thailand! xx

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