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Published: October 6th 2005
Jason just after a snokeling session
This is where we both got badly burnt. J suffering more than me as he's not used to it. The big highlight of our trip is a weeks tour of Sabah which is the northern part of Borneo. So I'm this is quite a long blog as it we saw and did quite a bit.
We joined a tour company which first off took us to Kota Kinabalu (KK) the main town/city of Sabah.
The first leg of the tour involved a day on 'Sapi Island'. This is a small tropical island just out from KK. This was a great day as we both snorkeled for most of it and saw some pretty cool stuff that we've only ever seen in aquariums before, such as puffer fish, parrot fish, clown fish, and lots of other really cool fish i don't know the names of. However we did pay a price for this because as true Brits we managed to get pretty bad sunburn, which kind of put a downer on the trip for a few days as it was hard to walk/move/do anything. The downside of Sapi island is the thieving macaque monkeys that live on it. Twice we were terrorised by some monkey going through peoples bags for food.
The next 2 days we went into the Kinabalu national
Us and the view from our hotel room
Our hotel was perched on a hillside near the foot of mount Kinabalu. At night the bats hunt right outside which was really great to watch! park which had some stunning scenery. Here we went and bathed in the hot spings at a place called 'Poring' which was nice. The day after we visited mount Kinabalu park/gardens. This is at the foot of the main mountain and is known for some pretty unique plants such as giant pitcher plants and the famous Rafflesia ( the biggest flower in the world) unfortunately there wasn't one in bloom when were there so i just got the T-shirt.
After this we flew to Sandakan which was the best part of the trip. We got a boat to one of the turtle islands 'Selingan Island'. This was really cool as we got to see a green turtle laying eggs and then you get to see and hold! a hatchling baby turtle before they're put onto a beach where they flip flop themselves into the sea. Pretty amazing to watch!!!! We got some photos but your not meant to use a flash as it scare/blinds the turtles. However thanks to a couple of idiots who didnt turn them off we couldnt get piccies of us holding the turtles.
We also did some more snorkeling before this (with tons of suncream
and t-shirts on) and we found Nemo and his dad! swimming in and out of an anemone thing. We've decided to get a plastic case for the camera so we can get underwater piccies.
We got to visit the Sepilok Orangutan rehabilitation centre which rear up baby orangutans and release them into the jungle. We got to watch a feeding time where loads of them turned up. It was pretty great to watch despite the heat ans their real posers giving us some good piccies.
The last part of the tour involved taking a 2hr cruise to a Jungle lodge on the Kinabantangan river. This was a lovely place and they took us out on boats to see mainly monkeys, macaques and the famous proboscis monkey (the one with the big nose). These were everywhere. The lodge also had a 'no sarong, no dinner' policy. Yes even Jason wore one! See the pic below. Some of you may have already heard about what happened after dinner, we heard some noises in the tree above as we were walking back, so we shone our torches up there and then it seemed to rain but only on Jason and it
Selingan Island
This was one of the Turtle islands of the coast of Sabah. It also has these big resident monitor lizards which just roam around. was a bit warm. He then determined it wasn't rain but monkey p*ss and ran into the room for a quick shower. Apparently according to locals its good luck to be peed on by monkeys!?!? Try telling Jason that.
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