Teachers Conference & some fun in Malaysia

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Malaysia 2015
Day 1 EARCOS teachers conference
Spring break arrived early for me, yay!! I registered for an international teacher's conference (EARCOS) in the beautiful, sunny, warm, blue sky friendly Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia! The first part of this blog is short and most of it is simply a summary of the conference.

I flew to Malaysia on a Tuesday night from Mumbai. The flight was long and through Singapore, however Singapore Air is one of the best airlines in Asia with a lot of leg and seat space, great snacks and food and an awesome selection of movies, so I snuggled in my seat iPod and earplugs in place, kobo reader on my hands and enjoyed some music reading and movies. After an overnight flight mid morning of Wednesday,
I arrived in sunny, warm, tropical, beautiful and friendly Kota Kinabalu (KK) on the island of Borneo. Malaysia. Borneo is one of the biggest islands in South East Asia and its divided into Sabah (Malaysia), Sarawak (Indonesia) and the very small country of Brunei. KK is in Sabah. It was my second time in Malaysia and in Sabah so I was familiar a little with language (Bahasa Malay), culture, currency and with the city itself. I needed money so went to the ATM and realized my US card did not have a chip so it did not work and my Indian card did not either and the 1000 Indian rupees bills were not accepted and only had a few 500 rupees bills, Oh crap oh no! Luckily the few 500 Indian rupees bills gave me enough Ringgits to share a van with some other teachers to my hotel and checked in. I stayed at Asiana Hotel across from big and fancy Sutera Harbour Resort ( EARCOS conference location) so I went walking to register for the conference and then took a cab to downtown to try and get money. When that was settled and I had enough money for hotel, food and pocket money I walked around KK city center enjoying the warmth and cool air of the sunsetting, watching locals at the market, tourist take tons of selfies and souvenir shopping for a bit. It was pretty easy to get around and I started to remember streets, shops, pubs and bars from my first time there in 2010. I ate a quick Malay dinner and coffee and headed back to hotel.

Day 2 -3-4-
EARCOS conference
I met a few of my China friends and coworkers at the lobby of the hotel to get a cab to the conference hotel and we chatted and catch up along the way to the conference. The rest of the days went pretty smooth and most of it was the same. Attending awesome workshops and keynotes, chatting with old friends and making new friends and international school connections. Amazing how international schools are so many, but such a small world in the end! Thursday night there was a social gathering with a Malay drum band and music and food. I hang out with china friends and met a few teachers from my new school in South Korea. It was cool.

In my attempt to stay fit and active I workout every day in the hotel with my Nike Training Club app and on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning I went for a run. Saturday night there was a closure party and it was fun! I talked to so many people, and danced and had a great time until like 2 AM.

Sandakan, the Orang-Utans & the river-jungle cruise
Day 5-6

I woke up Sunday morning at 5:30 AM to catch an early flight to Sandakan on the Eastern side of Borneo. This is the place where the orang-utans are. I shared a taxi with my China gal friend Casady and her daughter and went to the airport. Flight was very smooth and short. I got to Sandakan mid morning noonish, caught a prepaid taxi to Uncle Tan's where I would stay and go see the Orang -Utans and the river jungle trek safari. At uncle Tan's I paid for the trip and ate lunch (included) and met fellow travellers (a few teachers from the U.S. And Mexico living in China) and headed out to the Oran-Utan reserve area. There were two US guys, two girls from Holland and a few US and Mexican travellers in a group.

The Orang Utan reserved area was nice and even though they were not in the wild, it was designed so that you did not feel you were in a zoo. Actually, I got to see two female Orang-Utans like 2-3 meters away and I walked with them to the feeding area (until a rude obnoxious Chinese woman tried to get very close to take a selfie and made the Orang-Utans fall and run away. We stayed there for about 1.5-2 hours and then went to see the sun bear and headed back to Uncle Tan's guesthouse to start the jungle river Safari.

We rode in a van for like 2 hours to the river bank to take a small boat ( peñero in Venezuela, barka in Philippines) to the jungle. Our boat was the "Orang-Utans" and we were the singles and the fun group! The others were couples and were the "Gibbons," we sailed through the river enjoying the view, sightseeing and spotting wild animals and occasionally joking around with our guides and splashing water to the other boat. The sky was kind of gray and any time it would start to rain. When it did we quickly put cameras and phones away and put on our raincoats ( ponchos or plastic garbage bags!) it was really cold and windy and e all got super soaked. We spotted a few gibbons, proboscis monkeys, hornbills (birds), small macaques, kingfishers ( birds) and a few dragonflies and butterflies fluttering around our boat. We reached the jungle camp at around 4:30-5:00 ish. It was aristocracy camp, that's the part of the adventure! To get from the boat to the camp we had to go up some port and Starks very steep and unstable . There was a small shack with a table and board in the middle for tour guide meetings and event planning, a dirt soccer field, a dining area with kitchen( walls, roof, fans and benches), a smaller root area for coffee and a few tables a da the bathroom was a smal wood room. It was all built on top of a mangrove and wet area so it was rised and we walked to our bungalows through a wood bridge. The bungalows had a small terrace and then the 3-4 mattresses with mosquito nets. The showers and toilets were straight ahead passing a few more bungalows. It was totally jungle experience. I wish we had slept in hammocks!

We chilled, dried our wet backpacks and clothes and changed and had dinner. At night time around 8:00PM we had a night safari and went back on the boat. This time it was t rainy and the sky we super clear stars were beautiful and we spotted a few owls, eagles, a baby crocodile and a few monkeys, gibbons and proboscis monkeys. We returned to the camp and went to bed early as we had another early morning safari.
We woke up had breakfast and I left everything ready to leave after the safari.
The morning safari was more or less the same as the one we did the day before only difference was that the weather was beautiful!!!

At 11:00 AM I said my goodbyes and hopped on the boat and headed back to Sandakan to catch my flight back to KK.

I arrived at KK airport and bought some snacks for the ride to Mt Kinabalu park and for the trek the next days.my snacks were a mixed of chocolate ( dairy milk), snickers, nuts, almonds and cashews, some sugary gummies and some oatmeal raisin cookies. All of these had a purpose maintain my energy high during the 6 km trek up to Mt. Kinabalu. I booked a private car and headed through highways, small town streets and up a very windy road to Jungle Jack's backpackers hostel at he bottom of Mt Kinabalu park headquarters.
I arrived and Jungle jack was sleeping, however I was received by a group of backpackers from Germany, Rance, Croatia, Canada, USA, Australia. Poland, The Netherlands. And me Venezuela.
I had to work on essays for credits towards my teaching certificate so I spent most of the evening working on that and after dinner , which was on JungleJack. He took us to some local Chinese Malay restaurant and we all ate there and shared some beers over chats and life traveling stories, we went back to hostel and prepared some some
Lunch bags for the next day trek, drank tea ( it was chilly Or I should probably say cold about 5C. We chatted until midnight and we called it a night.
trek Mt. Kinabalu

Woke up at around 6AM, went to the kitchen and had bananas and oatmeal porridge for breakfast and tea with the others as we all prepared our lunch and food for the trek. Good consisted on a pile of PB&JB sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, nuts and chocolates, oranges, bananas and water.
We were ready at around 7:30, I went on the first group with the USA girl who was in the army and was totally annoyingly arrogant, an Australian, Polish. German and Croatian guys and a French super friendly gal. Our guide was a female Malay, she was ok but he other guide (. Read below) was better.
We got to the start of the trek, paid entrance fee and registered and I rented a hiking pole ( Singapore Air lost mine and later on the last day it appeared) and we began the climb.
The first kilometre was semi inclined with the last meters steep stairs and we reached a short rest area where the squirrels were waiting to be fed our first crumbs of food. We started climbing at around 2000 meters of altitude. The vegetation was tropical with tall trees and big leaves. Wild flowers and it was clearly a little moist in the air. As we reached he second kilo-meter about 2500 meters it for a bit steeper, the view from The bottom of Mt Kinabalu was beautiful it was clear and blue sky with stint bit of fog that gave some misty feeling. It was beautiful. At km 3 it was about 3000 and steeper by the time we reached kilo-meter 4 the weather became cooler, windy and foggy and the vegetation changed into a temperate forest, small bushes and pine trees and other needle leaf trees. At that kilometer I stop again for some food ( I actually stop at every (500meters) to catch my breath rest and eat either nuts or a bit of a sandwich or a banana and sip water. I started back up at and by kilometer 5 the vegetation was totally different it was a desert tundra, with rocky surfaces, dusty dirt trail, small cactuaes and the climate was cooler and dry. At this point, I started to feel sick ( we were above 3500meters) I had a headache,, muscle pains, my legs were wobbly and I started to lose my breath. Mild signs of altitude sickness. I reached the top kilometer 6 at about 4:00 PM it took me about 5.5 hours and I just collapsed and passed out on my bunk bed. One of the guys from our trek group Kjan don the Netherlands very young and Travling with his gf both very fit and avid mountaineers, came to my rescue and gave me some energy power drink made me drink tons of water or the and eat something. We all ate dinner. And headed to bed as it was an early morning next day to trek upto the summit.
At 2 AM the alarm went on, but I fr sick with nausea a, headaches and dizziness so I stayed and sadly
Did not see
The summit. I woke up at 7 AM and went up a bit higher and took some photos, later I saw he rest of the group and we ate breakfast and I started my way down with Kjan, Hannah, The French girl and our second guide Frank, who was right behind me and very attentive to how I felt. The imbed down was like 3.5 hours and it was steep and slippery but not that bad although knees and thighs at this point were joking me and everyone else. We reached down at past 1 o clock, and waited for JJ cousin to pick us up to take us to the hostel. We showered, drank tea lay down and chilled it was really really painful to walk up or down stairs. I called r a night fairly early and had a very good sleep.

Day 7-8-9
Last day in KK
Day 10

I arrived from Mt Kinabalu around mid afternoon. Jungle Jack drop me off at my hotel after inviting us for a great Malay lunch with some other travellers. I took a warm long shower and took a nap well deserved after strenuous trek up Mt Kinabalu and after being well - rested I headed out into the city for a walk, souvenirs and sightseeing. I walked all tej way to the ferry port or jetty as the Malay call it. Went to the lighthouse and walked for a bit in the city park, it was a nice walk, but uphill through stairs and my legs were killing me so I headed back to catch an early dinner and watch the sunset from he Boardwalk, I passed by the market and for the price of 20 Ringgits ( less than 2$) I got two very nice skirt/ dresses), I got some tea and coffee, a few souvenirs and post cards. I found a small cafe and sat there enjoying a cool fresh fruit juice while writing postcards. I called it a night fairly early cause of my early next day flight back to India.

Traveling. Tips:
All ATMs debit or credit cards need a chip to be able to function.

Asiana hotel good cheap place to stay for a night close to airport.

Jungle Jack awesome backpackers hostal at the bottom of Mt Kinabalu park ( find him on Facebook). Best and cheapest trek agent and hostel to do Mt Kinabalu. Great place to meet people. Jack is a crazy kind Chinese guy. The place as simply great vibes. The dorms are old shipment containers and the kitchen is open to cook and chill out with other travellers. He offers meals, beds, tours and even transportation and you can borrow used outdoor gear.

Flights inside Sabah are cheap. Buses are good but roads are a bit tricky to navigate and not a specific schedule.

Uncle Tan in Sandakan has good tours to see Orang-Utans and jungle cheap and trustworthy.

- the river Jungle Trek I did was 1 day 1 night it was great but it's better to stay 2 days.

- March- April is. A great one to go weather wise ( only rained one day and when we were on the boat on the Jungle trek got soaked haha).

-Mt. Kinabalu was amazing. No fog and no mist and a beautiful warm sunny blue sky day ( on March-April)
At night it gets cold below 0C

- I had altitude sickness by Jungle Jack's tour guide Frank young Malay guy was very helpful and helped e a lot! it's 4096 meters at the summit. I stayed at the hostel at 3800 meters.

- Malaysia is an easy country to travel. You can just show up and book everything there or online like I did.

- Malaysia is a Muslim country however there is tons of diversity ( catholic, Islamic etc) and you can get around easily even as a sine female I felt super safe!). Beer is sold freely in stores ms is cheap. Food is delicious and also cheap. Tons of coffee shops. KK has a small selection of bars but the ones by the boardwalk are cool places to hang out.

Sutera harbour resort is a fancy resort not too expensive like 70$-100$ room and I think has food and pool a
Included. You can spent a day there at the pool.

Budget airlines and airports
Air Asia
Malaysia Air
Kota Kinabalu
Sandakan
Tawau
Kuching ( Sarawak)
Brunei
Jakarta, Indonesia is very close

I absolutely ❤️ Malaysia!!!!

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