Flights are for sleeping

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Hi Guys,

This is my first entry for the little adventure Lara and I are undertaking. We are currently in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia with 2 nights left before we fly to Macau.

Our last 5 days have been a whirlwind, flying through Singapore then onto Malaysia and flying to Sandakan on the east coast of Borneo. We flew Air Asia to Sandakan, which for those of you who have used them are very cheap and as far as I knew reliable. They don't reserve seats though, so in the rush to sit down I bolted for the exit row. All the Malaysians on the flight found this amusing which I thought was strange. The only thing I could think of was that there must be a decent chance of actually having to open the emergency exit in Asia.

I should know better though as our boat driver taking us into the jungle was in strict compliance with the Malaysian code of naval navigation ensuring he had a lit cigarette in his hand at all times while sitting on the fuel tank driving the boat.

We spent three days in the Jungle along the Kinabantangan River in east Sabah. This is a flood plain which as it turns out was surprise surprise flooded. Apart from being the muddiest place I have ever seen with the most mosquitos it was awesome. Our accomodation resembeled a chicken shed ,complete with chicken wire to keep the monkeys out. Some Dutch girls on our tour found out the hard way that it paid to keep the door shut after losing a few pairs of knickers to a pair of long tail macaques.

I am not going to do a wildlife count, but I am going to list a couple of highlights, including 6 wild Orangutan's, of which 3 actually built nests and slept in the trees around our camp. We also saw a dominant male which apparently only happens 2-3 times a year. Then there was the gibbon which are apparently never seen and 12 Storm Storks which are one of the worlds rarest birds. To put out Orangutan count in perspective, a scientific study of the area was done over the period of a month a couple of years ago and they only counted 5 Orangutans, while we saw six in one day.

After our jungle adventure we travelled to Mt Kinabalu for the night, at a whopping A$25 we got a room with the most awesome view ever overlooking the mountain and surrounding national park.

It seems that every flat area in Malaysia is taken up with palm oil plantations. So if you want to know what Malaysia looks like and you haven't been just think of Bonds nursery on steroids. Fortunately the oil palms don't grow in the mountains so a decent chunk of the country is still rainforest. The poor old Orangutans live in the lower areas though which is why they are at risk of extinction.

Tomorrow we are off to a swanky island resort then out of here. I will update again soon.

Bye for now

Christian and Lara

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Comments

[Sagar]

Hi mate, good to see you're enjoying your new adventures. Have fun. Cheers.