Helen realises she is not cut out for the jungle

---

After much persuading on Steves part, I agreed that it would be fun to take a boat down the Kinabatangan river into the heart of Borneo rainforest. We were put up in a jungle lodge which turned out to be a really nice room and did two boat safari's, one at sunset and the other at sunrise.
My fears of tarantulas were laughed away by our guide who said that they dont live there. Put at ease I actually started to enjoy myself.
The rainforest is home to the proboscis monkey and Sabah is the only place in the world that you can see them in the wild. It is also home to long tailed macaques, crocodiles, snakes, gibbons, leopards and elephants but the last three are very elusive.
We got to see a crocodile in the river loads of macaques and the proboscis monkeys who have become my favourite animal ever. The uglyness of their big noses and fat bellys only makes them more cute and we had loads of fun watching them. In the morning we were alone on a stretch of river and were surounded on both sides by them. They started off quite lazily lying around but got quite narky when the macaques were bothering them and started fighting. The way they jump from tree to tree is amazing as they look quite cumbersome but can move really fast, some of them launched an attack against the smaller macaques and started running really fast across the ground.
Across the other side of the river we saw one of the monkeys launch himself from a tree, about thirty feet high and crash into the water in a belly flop and swim to the other side. Graceful it definately was not. The others then followed. Quite brave as there are crocodiles in the water. Our guide said that he had never seen them do it before or even heard of them doing it. Brilliant to watch.
In the evening we were fed a feast of various dishes and then offered a night walk in to the jungle. Feeling brave and spurred on by the thought of being able to see leopard cats (cats that look like leopards but small), I decided to face my fears.
The guide offered us leech socks but said we would be okay if we just tuck our socks in and wear boots. We trudged off into the darkness with one guide in front and one behind. Having just made it a few metres into the jungle the heavens opened and we had to turn back. I for one was not upset by this as the jungle is a really scary place in the dark.
Getting back to the room we checked each other over for various bugs and leeches and being satistied started to get ready for bed. Taking off my shoes however I found a leech on my sock and turned into the biggest girl you have ever heard. Steve came to my rescue with a bottle of mosquito spray! and we conquered the horrible squelchy sucky thing. Steve was not so lucky. A small one had managed to get through his sock and was busy eating away at his leg. Being braver than me and not having a lighter on us he just pulled it off with lots of blood following. Add to this bed bugs and I was not happy. I very much wanted to get back to civilisation.
The morning came though and our boat trip was amazing so did make up for it. Our next stop was back through Sandakan where we found an amazing guest house that is really cheap and has a big screen tv in every room with dvds you can borrow. This came in very handy as there is nothing to do in Sandakan. that being said the people in the town are very friendly. Not many tourists stay there as its just really a gateway to the jungle so we were a bit of a novelty. Everyone who walked past us said hello and helped us out if we looked lost. Nice town.
It will be a shame to leave Malaysia as it has been one of my favourite places so far. The food being the biggest highlight of course.

---