Blogs from Sabah, Malaysia, Asia - page 9

Terimakasih Borneo! You were such a great introduction to Southern Asia for me. Over the years, I had heard so much about Malaysia, many travelers raved about its beaches and friendly people. But that never quite sparked my radar. And then a few planes fell out of the sky, and I was like, meh. So it was only after I read an article about rehabilitated orangutans at a sanctuary in Sepilok that I really wanted to visit. I did my standard Googling to see exactly where the hell Borneo was, I practiced how to say good morning, hello, thank you and goodbye in Malay, and most importantly, I watched comedian Bill Bailey do a UK travel program on proboscis monkeys and laughed myself silly for a rather long time. With that, I frantically dusted off my ... read more

Back to Kota Kinabalu on 27 March 2016 After being in Weston and Beaufort, we returned to Kota Kinabalu. There was a very impressive mosque on the outskirts of KK, so we stopped the have a look at it. Our guide AJ is a Muslim and he spoke about the annual Ramadan which he participated in. This means that if he is taking a group of tourists up Mt Kinabalu, he does not break his 29 or 30 day fast. He talked about the strength mentally to maintain the fast. After booking into our hotel, we had an easy day, doing some shopping. When we got back to our hotel, a few of our travel companions had settled in with a few cold beers. We joined them for a couple before 4 of us, with our ... read more

Palm oil. I never gave it much of a thought before. Sure, it’s in just about everything we consume from Tim Tam biscuits to motor oil, yet not once did I ever think about its environmental impact on parts of the world like Borneo. This country is beautiful and charming. I spent over a week in the capital, Kota Kinabalu, enjoying the endless open air markets, sampling food at the local eateries (who knew Malay food was so fragrant and flavorful), touring historical museums and cultural exhibits, and taking jetty boats out to islands that dot the coastline. The local people are friendly and warm, and so, Malaysia was fast becoming my all-time favourite destination. Then I joined a group of fabulous Aussies for a scheduled tour that saw us travel around the Sabah region. We ... read more

Sandakan 15 March 2016 After breakfast at 7.00am, we depart Turtle Island in the same speedboat we arrived in and return to the mainland. It was a day for seeing some of the special features of Sandakan. We were driven around by a big tourist bus even though there were only 12 of us. First we visit the Central Market which consisted of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as fresh and dried fish and red meat. We then walked over to the Sheridan on the recommendation from 2 fellow travellers, that the cappuccinos were excellent there. We have been a little ‘staved’ of good quality coffee over the past few days. The downstairs cafe didn’t disappoint us. The coffee was excellent. The Sheridan is on the water over-looking the sea which had both pleasure and ... read more

Turtle (Seligan) Island After leaving at about 9.30am from Sandakan Harbour it took a 400hp boat an hour to get us to Turtle Island. On the way we saw Pilipino pirates with black hoods on and 4 of the masked men with big guns, holding up this other smaller boat. I didn’t get my camera out fast enough to take a shot. We learned that there is now police on Turtle Island because there had been a kidnapping several months previously and lots of poachers. We settled into our basic accommodation and then 10 of us sat around telling travel stories etc. It was great.....not to mention the occasional joke. They were a good mob. After lunch we hired fins, goggles and snorkel and went for a swim in the sea where they had netted off ... read more