Blogs from Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 5

From Sipidan it was back to the rig to get our gear ready for the transfer back to the mainland. We had one night in the town of Semporna to wait for an early bus to Sepilok. We took the advice of some other people from the rig and stayed at Lee's Guesthouse, very quickly and successfully negotiating the room price down from the listed RM70 to the generally paid RM50. There is no challenge in that kind of negotiating! We failed to find a laundry that could get our clothes washed and dried quickly (no mechanical drying aids!) but did manage to find ourselves a nice cafe with a balcony and breeze (mechanically aided!) So there we sat, luxuriating with hot chips and cold beers, trying to identify fish pics, and generally relaxing. Its strange, ... read more

A side note for those wondering about the blog title...as Sandakan is where we flew into, we just couldn’t resist a reference to the Clint Eastwood films from the ‘80’s featuring Clyde the Orang-utan...and yes it does show our age! So we were up and at ‘em at 5am so we could get another extortionate taxi to Kota Kinabalu airport...we decided on the 45 minute flight versus the 6 hour bus journey as it ended up being the same price. Well that and because we had heard the road was very winding so with Donna’s tendency to get travel sick we really didn’t particularly fancy that journey! On the approach to Sandakan we saw why the bus would be a bad idea - it was mostly mountains, although it seemed to us that a lot of ... read more

Empieza la mañana del 23 de julio en Jerantut, punto central de Malasia peninsular. Hoy será un día de viajero auténtico. Nuestro próximo destino es la isla de Borneo, cuyo norte pertenece a Malasia y alberga algunas de las mejores joyas de este país. Pero para eso, hay que llegar primero... Tenemos el vuelo desde Kuala Lumpur así que, después de que el colega del hotel nos lleve en su 4x4 a la estación de autobuses, cogemos un autocar que realiza el aburrido trayecto hasta la capital malaya. Esta vez no paramos en Puduraya, la estación central de KL, ¡por suerte! Lo dicho, nos ahorramos el caos y cogemos directamente el eficaz y rápido mono-rail dirección China Town. Tenemos hora y media escasa, así que decidimos comer en KL antes de coger la lanzadera al aeropuerto. ... read more

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Selam to everybody. We rented a car with driver from Semporna to Sepilok-300 Km( RM 260). We tried to make the way in six hours, but because of the two flat tires we were late . Fortunately we were able to catch the second feeding time 15.00 hours at the Orang Utans Reabilitation Center. The first feeding is at 11.00 AM. Out of this times it may be hard to observe the orang utans. Our driver Omar was polite enough , he waited us hours at the sanctuary. Then we drew to Sandakan 30Km. We spent the night at Hotel London (RM 65 B&B) and had seafood diner outside the town 10 Km away , Ocean King Seafood Restaurant . The next morning we travelled to Kota Kinabalu ( KK) by bus. ... read more