Blogs from Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 2

1. My friends and I made an arrangement to meet up in Kota Kinabalu before flying to Tawau (southernmost of Sabah). 2. It was close to mid-night when we arrived at Tawau Airport. We knew it would take another 2hrs of driving from airport to Semporna and we knew the risk of travelling at night especially in this area. Despite all the hesitation, we brave our self to hop on a minibus with local driver which I myself pretty comfortable that he would make our road trip a comfortable and safe ;) 3. Upon reaching Semporna, we quickly checked in at a small lodge located approx 20mins from Jetty. 4. The next day, our driver picked us at noon as our boat trip to Mabul would depart at 2pm. 5. The trip by boat took more ... read more

Eigentlich wollte ich ja nur nach Borneo kommen, um mir die Orang-Utans anzuschauen. Dass dann fast 4 Wochen draus wurden, hätte ich auch nicht gedacht… Gestartet bin ich schließlich in Sandakan, so ziemlich im Osten Borneos, wo sich die bekannteste der Aufzuchtsstationen für Orang-Utans befindet. Und ich war begeistert. Es gibt nur noch wenige auf Borneo und Sumatra und sie gehören zu den am meisten geschützten Tierarten. Sie sind wahre Kletterkünstler und bewegen sich sehr gelenkig. Die Männchen sehen sehr urig, fast schon etwas hässlich aus mit Ihren hängenden Lappen im Gesicht. Und die Weibchen sah ich häufig mit dem kleinen Nachwuchs, der sehr neugierig ist und alles noch lernen muss. Das war atemberaubend schön! Schließlich habe ich eine Kinabatagan River Cruise unternommen und in der Lodge, die sich mitten im Regenwald befindet, sogar eine Nacht ... read more

TAWAU BORNEO I stayed at City Garden Hotel in Tawau. I have been to Borneo three times, once in 2013 and again in 2014, but I never spent any time in Tawau. During the first trip I had some diver’s ear problems that caused me to miss my reservation to climb Mount Kota Kinabalu, but only temporarily. My hiking guide was a fourteen year old boy who could do the climb twice in one day. I am sure he was fed up with this slow old lady. I did a couple of other tours and then went to Semporna to dive at Sipadan, one of the top ten dive sites in the world. The second time I took a taxi straight to Semporna and dived with several dive shops so I could dive more than once ... read more

After an emotional departure from Sepilok, I set off for Kota Kinabalu (KK). KK is so different from Sandakan which was the nearest city to Sepilok. It’s much more westernised, cleaner and modern. I enjoyed KK the last time I visited and I was looking forward to the next few days. A couple of days relaxing and a couple of days trying to climb Mount Kinabalu. The day of the climb, I was collected from my hotel by Amazing Borneo Tours at 6:20am for the 2.5 hour journey to the start point for my climb. It was quite nice to get out of the city and see parts of Kota Kinabalu I hadn’t seen before. Quite soon in to the drive we were in to the hills with beautiful views over the city and Mount Kinabalu ... read more

I woke up this morning feeling terrible. I had a headache and something that I had eaten yesterday very much disagreed with my digestive system. This is the first time I've had any problems like that though, and I've been eating all sorts of stuff, so I guess that's not bad. After some plain bread I was starting to feel a bit better and before going to the zoo, as my plan for today was, I went to find some proper breakfast that wouldn't upset my stomach and I found myself in quite possibly the most hipsterish place in all of Kota Kinabalu: a juice bar selling 12 ringgit smoothie things with nuts and vegetables and the sort of things that gullible people thing you should eat regularly like chia seeds and wheatgrass and all that ... read more