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Sabah
We spent one more night in our hotel in Kota Kinabalu with en suite mall while Will recovered the use of his legs. We decided to save his legs further by trading in our 7hr bus journey the next day, for a 40 minute flight (and a Starbucks) to Sandakan. It is a great feeling to arrive at your destination knowing that you would still have 4 hours to go via bus. It also meant that we had an afternoon to explore the town which we did slowly, as Will’s legs still refused to travel downhill at any kind of pace.
We went to Agnes Newton Keith’s house and were the only ones in there. Agnes Keith was an American writer who journeyed to Borneo with her husband (the British government’s conservator of forests) in 1934. The house, although rebuilt and renovated, is still true to the original and gives an insight into colonial life and imprisonment by the Japanese during WW2. Afterwards we had a delightful afternoon tea – with pie! And what a pie it was, with Will developing a man crush on the chef.
We stayed in the NAK hotel in the centre of Sandakan which
also had a very nice roof top bar in which we spent many hours on the internet planning.
Wildlife Adventure
The next day we started our 3N / 4D tour by heading out to Seligan Island, a conservation project to protect sea turtles. The afternoon was spent at our leisure on the beautiful tiny island, mostly outside of our dingy room. The excitement occurs in the evening when after dinner we wait for the first sighting of a nesting turtle. We were lucky because our mother-to-be arrived early at around 8pm. Although there was quite a few tourists around this one turtle, the team were good at letting everybody take their turn to see her. You are only allowed to see the first turtle nesting as to not disturb too many of them. Afterwards we followed the rangers to an artificial nesting site where the eggs were buried. Lastly, we got to see hatchlings released into the sea to make their bid for adulthood. It was an amazing experience and was a privilege to watch.
The next day we headed into the Kinabatangan jungle via the Gomantong Cave, this is a huge cave where swiftlet nests are collected
Agnes Keith House
No photos inside so this is the closest you are going to get. en-mass for Asian consumption – these nests are created from bird saliva and made into soup, clearly an acquired taste! The cave really made your skin crawl as there were thousands of cockroaches, tons of bird poo, bats and centipedes that could kill you – not a great sight for Tory who was not very well at all! A note on the guys who work there to harvest the nests, they not only have to climb to the top of rickety ladders but also sleep in the cave to protect the nests from thieves – next time we have a bad day at work we are going to think about these guys.
On the way out Tory’s sharp eyes spotted our first wild orangutan, complete with pot belly, watching us from the trees! We then headed to the Rainforest Billet Lodge where we spent 2 nights. The place itself was actually flooded due to the earlier than expected monsoon season and we had to get the boat right up to the door! The place was lovely and included breakfast, lunch and dinner and our own hammock! That first afternoon Tory spent in bed while Will, the great white hunter, went
out for his first river cruise with camera in hand. We spotted another Orangutan, a monitor lizard sunning himself and a few hornbills.
The next day with Tory in tow we arose early for our 6am cruise, the hiking had to be cut out due to the flooded river banks, which neither of us were too distraught about! On our journey we spotted 2 Orangutans, one big male eating dates and a small female which Tory spotted hidden in a tree peeping out at us, some sea eagles and some more hornbills.
The rest of the day was spent lazily around the Lodge until our 3pm cruise which ventured further down the river in hope to see more wildlife. And we did! We were lucky enough to catch a troop of Proboscis monkey’s leaping from branch to branch near the waters edge. These guys are lovely and we instantly fell in love with them. Even at dinner time we were never far from wildlife, we always had to bat away a cicada or two and Will was lucky enough to be pounced on by a gecko.
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