Malaysia - the final chapter... and Singapore

Well I'm finally getting a turn at writing the blog-Gareth has been hogging it up until now (note from Gareth - this is untrue - Melissa not interested in blog up til now) so I've put my foot down and got artistic license to write this one.

Gareth left off in Sandakan just after we'd spent three days in the jungle. During the night in Sandakan I woke with a fever pain in all my muscles, clutching stomach pains and diahorrea. Made it back to KK on a flight with lot's of help from Gaz and after seeing the Doc 2 days in when the antibiotics were failing to cure me I began to feel better. In KK we booked into Akinbalu Youth hostel-the room was a bit plain but there was a nice lounge where you could meet other travellers and watch DVD's. I spent a lot of time in the hostel from Friday until Monday when I felt well enough to go out and about.

However it was a public holiday and there was not a lot to do in KK. We settled on a water park which was somewhat dated. It did not seem to have been decorated or repaired in decades with chipped paint, broken stairs and wooden boards that feel through when Gareth stood on them! Oh yes and the slides wobbled like crazy when people went down them-not sure our insurance covered us at this place... we did however have a good time and met some friendly local lads called Wan, Boy and Wan-you couldn't make it up if you tried! However we were 45 minutes in when lightning struck we had to evacuate the pool. The rain got progressively heavier so we called it a day.

The next day we hired a car (after deciding all the organized tours were far too pricey)-another 660cc Malaysian number so we could drive to Ranau and visit the Poring hot springs in Kinabalu National Park-we'd opted out of climbing the mountain as it sounded like far too much hard work! What we hadn't taken into consideration is that to get to Ranau involved mainly driving up steep mountains (from sea level to over 2000 ft on single lane road) -not so easy in a 660cc car that chugged it' s way there mainly in 2nd gear.

Anyway we made it to Ranau and hunted for accommodation opting for the cheapest in town 35RM for a night-it turned out to be for good reason the room was bug invested and when we attempted to go out for tea at 8pm we found we had been locked into the hotel!

We headed to the Sabah Tea Gardens which boasted a wide range of activities including mountain biking amongst the tea bushes and blowpiping. When we got there the place was deserted bar 5 staff sat around a table who told us all activities had finished and the best we could hope for was a cup of tea! DON'T GO TO SABAH TEA

We hit the bright lights of Ranau - it was completely dead - like Delaval minus the fish and chip shop. We started to head back to then hotel to see if we'd now been locked out. On the way back we saw flashing lights and followed them. We ended up in a Karaoke bar where they were keen for both of us to sing and dance and we had a good time. However 2 beers in I began to notice the girls working there swarmed around business men when they came in. I whispered to Gareth that maybe the place was more than just a karaoke bar and we escaped back to the hotel!

The next morning we got up very sharp and headed to the National Park where we enjoyed a walk to a waterfall then headed up the canopy walkway. It was a pretty scary high walkway above the trees. We were intercepted halfway along the walk by a park official (pushing Japanese tourists out of the way) who had counted our two cameras and realised we had only paid a park fee for one of them. Very Petty...
After the walkway we headed to the butterfly garden then the Poring hot springs where volcanically heated water comes up from the ground superheated. We had a good soak.

We headed back to KK for our last night in Sabah and enjoyed pizza and beers with Uncle Des and David.

In Summary Malaysia/ Borneo:

Good points

• Friendly people
  
• good wildlife
  
• reasonably cheap
  Bad points:
  
• Having to pay for toilets
  
• government tax and service charges when you buy food and drink
• camera charges (e.g at the National Park).
  

Next stop - Singapore
Well done Tiger airways on a good flight.
We stopped at the Prince of Wales hostel in Little India where 3 night in the dorms was the bargain price of 15 sd per night. The hostel was nice but we did end up next to a snorer, a sleep talker and a bunch of lads who liked to come in at 3.45am every morning and talk loudly.

Whilst in Singapore we saw some nice temples and mosques had a lovely meal in the Arabic quarter and a free Indian meal in China town and spent a day at the zoo and a day at the beach on Sentosa Island. Singapore zoo was amazing the animals all had big enclosures and moats were often used to keep the animals in but so you felt very close to them - there were no cages! The white tigers and baboons were especially amazing.

Following our trip to the zoo we donned our glad rags in the dorm and headed out to blag our way into Raffles hotel where my grandad stayed during the war. The hotel was very swanky- we made our way to the garden terrace and ordered 2 Singapore Slings. We nearly keeled over when we got the bill- 50 sd-the most expensive drink I've ever had!

The next day was spent chilling on the beach at Sentosa island. This turned out to we where the Singapore expats headed at the weekend to quaff champagne and truffles. Tanjung beach was lovely and we had a go on the luge before heading back on the cable car.

So to summarise Sinagpore-nice and clean but very expensive!
Off to Vietnam next so hopefully we can re coup some of the money we spent during our brief stay in Singapore!

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