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Published: August 9th 2013
Borneo We left Gili T and had a night in Lombok before we flew to KL and from there to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo. We found a hostel and booked our trip to Mount Kinabalu; we had a few days wait so we explored and visited the cinema a few times.
The climb was the worst thing I've ever done but I'm not going to detail it all here as I don't want to bore you all with it. Basically we walked for 6km uphill and it was relentless! After a night of absolutely no sleep and a banging headache we started the summit climb at 2.30 am and eventually made it to Lowes Peak 4,095m above sea level; my sister recommended this trip for us and said it was the best trek she had ever done (how are we related?!) and also that the views at the top were stunning. I might have better things to say about the climb if we had seen any views but the weather was awful and even if we had waited for sunrise at the top and risked frostbite I doubt we would see anything through the clouds. We then headed back
to Laban Rata to pick up our stuff and head back down the 6kms to the bottom and that's when it got really bad for me; I know now it was altitude sickness but at the time I was totally freaking out. My legs got really weak and I could barely take my own weight on them, let alone go down a step, the guide got me a walking stick to help me down and stuck with me the whole 6 km back down leaving Cec to run off down alone. Every step was a struggle and as if that wasn't bad enough I was constantly being overtaken by 60 year old Asian biddies hopping past me like goats. It was hands down the hardest thing I've ever done and it's only because I'm so stubborn that I didn't give up although it didn't stop me crying like a baby haha.
So after the worst day of my travels we finally got back to our hostel just to realise our room was up a flight of stairs, I could have cried. We spent 3 days recovering, only venturing out for food, I hurt everywhere and it was only on
day 3 that I managed to walk down the stairs like a non-crippled person. All in all it was a waste of money for us and I will never climb a mountain again.
When we had recovered enough from the climb we decided to move to our next stop, Sepilok with the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. We stayed at Uncle Tan's guesthouse and from there went to see feeding time at the centre in the morning which was amazing! We saw like 7 orangutans all having a munch and showing off the aerobatics everywhere. We booked onto a trip to the Kinabatagan river for that same afternoon and headed to their jungle camp for 1 night and 2 river safaris. We had a night safari and a early morning one but weren't that lucky with the wildlife; loads of sleeping birds on the night trip although the last 10 minutes of our morning cruise we saw a big male orangutan which was so cool. We did meet some nice people that trip though, a few we ran into in another town a few days later.
Next stop was Sandakan with the intention to go visit Turtle Island but that
Orangutan
Just hanging outturned out to be too expensive for us so we headed to the English Tea House & Restaurant for tea and scones! It was a lovely place with a croquet lawn and the scones came with jam and clotted cream - bloody scrumptious!
After Sandakan we headed to Semporna to dive Sipidan which is one of the best dive sites in Asia; you need a permit to dive there and there are only 120 a day so booking in advance is a smart move and we are not smart but we are lucky! We tried every dive shop we could find to get a permit but the earliest we found was like 2 weeks later but in the last place we tried they got a cancellation as we were there and there were 2 permits available the next day yay! We had to go by different names as the permits are named so I became Megan Davies from Australia for the day.
Sipidan is by far the best diving I have ever done; we had 3 dives and they were all awesome! Reef sharks and turtles a plenty along with all the other cool underwater thingys and on
MACHETES
I look like a dweeb but check out my knife! our first dive there was a mahusive school of barracudas, I've only ever seen one lurking around so this was insane I was in awe.
I found Marmite!!! We went to a supermarket to snack up and were stood by the tobacco counter bit waiting for Cec, someone pointed out the chocolate kept behind glass when something caught my eye - Marmite! Not sure why chocolate and Marmite require glass protection but who cares life is good again 😊
Semporna is a bit of a dull place that peple only use as a base for diving but we had to hang around there for 4 days as we had contacted a volunteer place and they couldn't take us until then so we had a few days of nothing but it wasn't too bad at least we had wifi in our hostel and we didn't have to actually talk to each other phewf!
Mescot Volunteering We volunteered at Mescot/Kopel (I still don't know what its called) for 2 weeks and it was such an amazing experience. They are a community run organisation doing conservation projects on the forest around the Kinabatangan River to combat the deforestation from
Boat fun
Me, Katie, Bas and Fikri the Palm Oil industry. It also does work in the community to improve the villages and is a tourist spot where people come to stay in their jungle camps and see wildlife and all that jazz.
We didn't have that much information about it when we rocked up so had no idea it was a Muslim village and were pretty embarrassed when we reached the office after walking through the village in our short shorts and vests to find out we were dressed inappropriately. We stayed in homestays while we were there which was really cool as we got to know how they live properly and didn't feel like tourists the whole time. The people were all so nice to us and welcoming and the food was awesome even if we did have to eat with our hands which I'm sure were not properly clean despite the lush showers - a bucket of rain water and a tub to chuck it over ourselves. We went to a culture show the first night wearing traditional dress and saw their dancing and took part (badly) It was Ramadan while we were there I have no idea how they can do it
Driving the boat
That's Am the genius in that heat or get by on so little sleep - they were up from 3am every day. We also went to some feasts which are to celebrate the death of a family member and they were really interesting to see.
Our first 2 days were orientation (snooze) and then we finally got into the work which I really enjoyed! There were 4 volunteers, me, Cec, a dutch guy called Bas (anti-social - all about the wildlife) and a English girl called Katie (megalols) and our guide was a really nice guy called Fikri. Every day we headed out on a boat along the river to do our work; we did loads of different things like seed collecting where climbers go up the trees and chop it to shit and we forage around underneath finding seeds, transporting new trees for planting where we have to carry trays with 30 baby trees in down to the jetty; doesn't sound too bad except the crate handles felt like knifes cutting into your skin and planting new trees where we carry the trees miles into the jungle sweating like a pig and then dig a load of holes and plant them which
Injured
by a spade :) was alright aside from the mega blisters I got from the spade and managing to be the only person to spade myself in the leg - tard!
My favourite days were ones where our jobs involved machetes like trail maintenance where we walk the trails and cut branches and the like out the way and tree clearing where we clear the newly planted trees of vines and clear the grass around it. I only cut myself once the whole 2 weeks which is a pretty big achievement for me.
We all had a go at driving the boat along the river with Am supervising because he is all-knowing; Am worked for Mescot and could literally do everything, he climbed the trees, drove and fixed the boats, taught wildlife Bas about his own camera and spotted all the cool animals all while being deaf and communicating with his own made up sign language he was awesome!
Also we swam in the crocodile infested river which was fun and so needed after the constant sweating however had a bit of a issue afterwards when us 3 girls realised our tops were see-through and we couldn't go back to the
Night out in KK
Literally an awesome night village being all inappropriate - oops.
Our last day of work was very chilled we hung out at the Eco Camp all day and did a bit of cleaning up but aside from that we just sat around and dipped our feet in the lake for a bit of free fish spa. Fikri tried to teach us to climb a tree, he had shown me once before but I failed completely, this time I got up high coz I is wel 'ard.
Our last night we had a leaving party with speeches from everyone and just hung out with all our new buddies for the evening. I was sad to leave but we couldn't afford any more time and the new volunteer that had arrived a few days before was a prick so it was a good time to go.
We left our Mescot pals and headed back to KK on the bus, that night we had Pizza Hut for dinner; I mean the food in the village was great but I was so happy to see something other than rice! The next day we had Burger King and a burrito and its only now a few
weeks later that I've eaten Asian food again. Katie was heading to KK as well so Saturday night we headed out for a boozy night and had a great time, I stayed out til 10am so wasn't feeling the best the next day but I powered though and we went out for a farewell meal with Katie then had to say our goodbyes 😞
We had a few days waiting for our flight to the Philippines so just sat around and ate a lot as per usual.
Philippines Our last country before we head off to employment in Australia, 7+ months travelling is coming to an end - mental!
We've been here just over a week and haven't done a whole lot; we flew into Manila and had a few days there that consisted of getting lost in the huge malls and eating a shit tonne of western food (they have every kind of food you could imagine here). Its a weird country with a odd mix of Asian and western like the traffic is defs Asian all choatic and dangerous yet there are huge malls and all the chain shops and restaurants you'd see in
America - I was a bit overwhelmed by it at first.
From Manila we flew to Boracay expecting the backpacker scene and found a rainy beach chock-a-block with holidaying Asians. We aren't big into planning things on this trip so didn't think to check the weather when deciding where to go, 4 days of rain stuck in a beach town with maybe 1 hour on the beach in the sun. Not the best start to our beach holiday in the Philippines. Also the one time we got out in the sun on the beach after an hour I had a unfortunate urge for toilet time and honestly I've never been so close to shitting my pants in my entire life. We were beaching a long way from the hotel and I found that running wasn't a safe plan so I had to butt-clench walk the whole way - I got some strange looks. Luckily I made it and didn't go full Kempster and shit my pants (I mean you Jen and Dad)
Cebu was our next stop and we spent a day in the city which was again stuffing our faces in the huge malls then I had a nap while Cec went off shopping and I'm very grateful she knows me so well and didn't drag me with her. From Cebu city we bussed it to Moalboal to do some diving, we had a dive in the morning but it turned out to be a bit boring; just a lot of frog fish apparently and I still don't know what they are. We opted out of the second dive because as much as I love diving the novelty has worn off and I'm no longer amazed at breathing underwater on every dive so if there's not some cool stuff to see I'd rather save my money.
We head to Oslob next to swim with Whale Sharks which I am mega excited for and slightly scared because they are flippin' huge man!
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Jen
non-member comment
thanks for that sis
glad this blog isn't being read by everyone you know, who now knows about my 'incident'/s