Winter wonderland in Borneo???

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Shattered after our late flight we took a cab to the Switz Paradise hotel, and we dumped outside a shopping mall at 1am. After searching for our accommodation for half an hour, we eventually got there to discover that although they received our booking they had no room for us! After some heated discussions with the guy at reception and the manager over the phone, they found us a room, which they frantically cleaned before we could go in (god knows what it was like before). At least we got a discount and an upgrade though.

The next day we left in search of new digs and came across Sensi Backpackers Hostel, which a girl in Vietnam had recommended to us. It was a lovely place run by an extremely helpful and friendly family. After dropping our bags we headed off to explore. On virtually every street there were 2 or 3 shops which looked like bookies and were actually just for people playing the Malaysian Lottery! Mad to think how popular it is that they need so many outlets to satisfy the demand. We wanted to see what all the fuss was about so had a few goes ourselves. There are numerous ways to win and about 30 different draws per day!

We carried on wondering around and found an old clock tower so went and took a closer look. As we did we spotted a big white artificial tree in the distance, so went to investigate. It turned out to be a Christmas wonderland complete with penguins, fake snow, Santa and all his helpers and even air conditioning to make it feel chilly. Even though it was about 30 degrees outside. It was obviously meant for kids but it was only a quid each so we bought a Santa hat and went in.

The next day we got a shuttle bus to Mount Kinabalu the tallest peak in Borneo and our mountain side cabin, which provided us with spectacular 360 degree views of the picturesque scenery. By now though it had started to rain and was getting dark so we had a quiet evening and got an early start the next day.

After watching the sunrise from our balcony at 5.45 am, we took our backpacks to Kinabalu national park and dropped them there for the day as we went trekking and took in the views of the mountain and rain forest. We didn't see much wildlife apart from a little squirrel with a short tail, but there were lots of nice plants and flowers, including the carnivorous pitcher plants. The rain started again at around 3pm so we grabbed some food and tried to shelter from the rain until the bus to Sandakan arrived - when it did it turned out to be full and there wasn't another one for 5 hours. However typical Asia they let us get on anyway and we endured a 5 hour coach trip sitting in the aisle on the floor, soaking wet and watching some dodgy Malay copied films! Not exactly luxury but that's what travellings all about.

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