Singapore and Malaysia

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We arrived in Singapore on 19th January and checked into the cheapest hotel we had managed to find - which was still not very cheap at all - the Grand Mercure Roxy located about 20 mins from the city centre. We soon realised that Singapore was not a backpackers' destination as it is not that much cheaper than London. We spent 2 days exploring the place and looking for some decent Chinese food and on the 21st, Jim's mum Brenda arrived in the city. We didn't leave her much time to rest and acclimatise to the hot weather as we had booked a bus to Malacca, a pretty town on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, for that same afternoon. We spent two nights there, sightseeing and walking through the narrow street of the picture postcard Chinatown, and Brenda enjoyed the local shopping malls (partly because they were air-conditionned, I reckon!). From there we went back to Singapore and spent a few days in the city before our flight to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo. Arriving in Kota Kinabalu we got on a bus to Sandakan and got there in the evening. The next day we visited the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre of Sepilok, which is one of the main attractions in the area. The orang utans were really cool. It was great to see them in their natural habitat, climbing up trees and going from one tree to another using their long arms and making it look so easy. We left our fury ginger friends and, the next day, we joined a one-day tour to the Sungai Kinabatangan river. The first stop was to a cave where birds' nests are collected. This was possibly the most disgusting place we have been to! A cave covered in bird droppings and crawling with cockroaches and other creepies! The men who work there definitely deserve all the money they get to do this dangerous and disgusting job. They showed us the precious nests they had collected recently, the most expensive ones being the ones made of virtually pure spit and the cheaper ones being the black ones i.e. the ones made of a mixture of spit and muck... hmmmm, lovely! Thankfully, bird's nest was not on the menu for lunch. In the afternoon, after having lunch in a bamboo hut by the river, we got onto a long tail boat and cruised along the narrow bit of the river in the hope of spotting some proboscis monkeys ("singes nasiques" en francais). And we got lucky: we saw them at two different places! Appearently they live in groups and spend most of their time in the trees along the river. They look like old men with their big bellies and oversized noses sitting in the trees watching life go by, their legs and long fluffy tails dangling down. Such great creatures! We also saw some macaque monkeys which are very common in Asia, as well as some deadly snakes sleeping on tree branches and som hornbills flying over the trees. We got very close to the snakes - too close for Brenda's taste who was worried one of them was going to fall on her head! - and it was quite amazing to see how well camouflaged they are in the jungle. What a great trip that was!
We then took a flight from Sandakan back to Kota Kinabalu (as Brenda didn't fancy going back on the bus) and spent one night there before flying back to Singapore. Back in Singapore we got a taste of the Chinese New Year celebrations with a great performance of traditional lion dances. That was the end of Brenda's 10 days' holiday and she left feeling as if she wanted to travel more in the future.

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