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Published: October 19th 2008
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After leaving Phi Phi we were “On the road again”. We left Krabi, Thailand to cross the border into Malaysia. Our minibus took us all the way to Penang and dropped us off between Little India and Chinatown. We gorged ourselves on Indian food almost immediately and loved it. Luke (our visa run friend) stalked us a little later on that evening and we ended up drinking with new friends until sometime the next morning when he caught the bus back to Thailand.
Something that caught us off guard was the Muslim holiday of Hari Raya, to celebrate the passing of Ramadan. We were warned that places would be busy, but had no idea how busy. We had to wait hours for buses that were full, search for rooms in lodges that were full and pay 30% more for everything because it was a holiday. Quite a surprise and a shock for us, due to our lack of knowledge of the most popular religion in the world.
We had decided to take off for Borneo soon after arriving to try and beat the monsoons. We caught a flight to KK (Kota Kinabalu) and arrived to a place with high
rise buildings, shopping malls, fast food joints, etc... Not at all what we thought the wilds of Borneo would be like. We stayed a couple of days to sort out how we would make our way from there. A bus ride took us to Mt. Kinabalu (which we opted not to climb), then on to Poring Hot Springs and finally to Sepilok. We stayed 5 minutes from the Orang utan Rehabilitation Center and stopped in a couple of times to see the “man of the jungle”. This was absolutely incredible. We were only about 15 meters away from the feeding station and got to see these animals just enjoy life. The park takes in these orangs when they have been orphaned or rescued from elsewhere and re-introduces them into the wild, which can take 6-8 years.
After a couple of well spent days here we went into the jungle for 3days/2nights. We went on evening boat rides where we saw Proboscis monkeys, Long tail and Pig tail Macaque monkeys, Silver Languar monkeys, bearded pigs, crocodiles, and tons of different birds. We also went on night treks into the jungle which was really fun. The birds sleep at night at
Feeding Time
Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center - these guys have an awesome job! about head level, so you walk right up and look at them. Tons of bugs everywhere, leeches, and massive scorpions. For some still unknown reason I let the guide talk me into holding a scorpion, knowing the nearest hospital was 1.5 hours away by boat then car. We also did a morning jungle trek which was really informative, you can touch this, don’t ever touch this, by the way where you are standing is poisonous bush, and my personal favorite “leech removal”. It’s not if you are going to get leeches on you, its how many leeches you are going to get on you. We went on morning boat rides that started at 6 am and saw lots more birds. The day started around 5am and ended around 9pm.
We caught our next bus while waiting on the roadside and had to sit in the aisles because there were no seats left. About two hours into the four hour ride, a kid lost his lunch down Ruthie’s back providing some entertainment for those around her. We stayed in Semporna for a couple of days waiting for our dive trip. We stayed on a “dive platform”, a converted oil rig
set up for diving. It was actually quite nice, with staterooms, a lot of really good food, wonderful views, and unlimited diving right underneath your feet. I was fortunate to dive Mabul Island, Kapalai Island, and Sipadan. I cannot even begin to describe Sipadan, a 600 meter wall drop-off. Turtles, white tip reef sharks, thousands of barracuda, bumphead parrotfish, pigmy seahorses, many different kinds of nudi branches, several different kinds of triggerfish, giant morays, rock fish, crocodile fish and jaw dropping coral gardens. The marine police only allow 120 divers per day in and I got to make 5 dives there. Since we were on the rig we could dive as much as we wanted, anytime we wanted, including night dives which were just awesome. I don’t know how many times I said “I’ve never seen that before”. If you can only make one dive in your life, DIVE SIPADAN!!!!!!!
Back to Semporna for the bus ride to Kota Kinabau for an overnight, then a ferry to Brunei.
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