Monkeying around and back in civilisation!

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After cleverly choosing to leave Semporna on Hari Raya, the holiday equivalent of Christmas Day, we managed to get out to Sepilok after lots of negotiating with rickety minivans and arrived hot, sweaty and tired in the lush jungle surroundings of Sepilok, staying at the little hostel lodge where we were the only guests! Was like our own private jungle retreat (complete with mosquitos and red ants), which was cool.

Spent an evening relaxing, enjoying the jungle sounds and getting eaten alive by mosquitos then the next day went to the Sepilok Orang Utan sanctuary to see the adorable animals. Unfortunately, the main part of the sanctuary had blown down in strong winds a few days before, so most of the viewing areas and jungle walks were closed, so we could only see the baby orang utans feeding and swinging around, but they were SOOO cute! They rehabilitaion centre rescues them from danger in the wild as orphans and trains them to swing and climb and find their own food in the trees. Was really cool to see them as I love monkeys - so adorable!

From Sepilok, we took a long 7 hour bus ride to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, and we're so excited to be in a city again! It's not a very big place, but is on the edge of the jungle and by the sea, has lots of restaurants and shopping so I'm happy!

Mel and I had a shameful craving for cheese and wine, so spent a (relative) small fortune on pizza and a bottle of really nice red wine - expensive, but worth every penny!

Leaving tomorrow for the jungle again to start our 2 day climb of Mount Kinabalu - we've met a lot of travellers who came down the moutain a few days ago and their legs are still in agony, so will see you in a shaky exhausted state in a few days.....

(pics to follow - having a few issues uploading!)

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