Welcome to the junger

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Semporna is a smelly dirty town on the east coast of Borneo with absolutely nothing to offer. In fact many embassies advise against traveling to the region, probably because it's so smelly.
So why did we come?.. We came on the recommendation of an expat yank we met in the Philippines who told us of an island 40mins east of here that has some very good diving.
As he had been living, traveling and diving Asia for some years we took his word for it and came.
We spent a few days diving/snorkeling the aforementioned island, Sipidan and some other islands closeby, and the marine life was indeed great.
We saw loads of cool marine life including: Green sea turtles, White tip sharks, grey reef sharks, and sea snakes.
The tourist kidnapping of 2001, was a cause of concern for some of us, but the Malaysian warship anchored offshore, coupled with the army base on the island made is all feel at ease.
The locals didn't seem to appreciate me walking topless through their town.. something about islamic law.. so after a few days in the area, we decided to move on and catch some wildlife above ground, so we took a bus to a bridge on the Kinabatangan river - the 2nd longest river in Borneo - and got a boat for 1hr leaving us in the middle of the jungle, where we stayed for a few days.
We went on some jungle treks, boat trips and night treks, where we saw some nice wildlife: Proboscis & Macaque Monkeys, Crocodiles, Scorpions, Wild boars (and one tame), and Monitor lizards.
There's also some Orangutans, Asian elephants Pythons and Sumatran rhinoceros, here but sadly we didn't get to see any.
Our home was a very basic cabin consisting of a mattresses on the ground & mosquito net.
The shower was a bucket for pouring muddy river water over yourself.
Hardly the lavish lifestyle we're used to, but we put up with it for a few days, as did a 76 year old lady from the US in our group, who didn't seem too bothered.
Our sleep was regularly interrupted by something digging through our luggage or munching on something under our cabin.
Our local guide, who had trouble pronouncing the word 'jungle', was alot better at wildlife spotting than English pronunciation, and was able to spot a rare frog on the river bank using a spotlight form 50m.
Mealtimes were fun, as the monkeys gathered around the dining area in the trees and roof, waiting for an opportunity to grab something when nobody was looking, which they were quite successful at.
After a few days trekking we headed to Kota Kinabalu on the west coast Borneo, a transport hub for Air Asia - a new low cost carrier in Asia. Here it should be easy to get a cheap flight to somewhere.

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Some more photos here

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