Blogs from Sarawak, Malaysia, Asia - page 43

Our next journey was into the wilderness of Sarawak, another jungle-clad region of Borneo. A bus ride and three separate boat journeys took us to our destination, deep within the territory of the Iban people. Until as recently as the 1960's, the Iban were fierce headhunters. This wasn't a part time hobby for these people. They didn't just lop off the occasional head. They were dedicated to headhunting, and it was an integral part of their culture which was vital to their survival and prosperity. I will explain more shortly. The Iban live, and still do live, in community buildings called "Longhouses". As the name suggests, a longhouse is a very long house, in which the whole community lives together. Each family unit has it's own section, but everyone in the longhouse is related, and are ... read more

We woke up a little apprehensive as to what our diving resort would be like as we had actually picked the cheapest on the island, we had also convinced one of the couples (Irwin and Mariella) we met at the orang-utans to join us at the resort, as ever cost being the main selling point. They had just recently completed their dive master course in Thailand and we all managed to convince ourselves that no matter how much it cost we still got to dive the same dive sites as everyone else. The bus journey was a long 6 hrs with the scenery ever changing from palm trees to more palm trees (Borneo is basically 99.9% palm trees) until we arrived at our destination which turned out to be a little on the rough and used ... read more

Up early again and off to the airport where we found out that Gras bag was still over 15kg and were charged a fine! We arrived in Kota Kinabalu and found a nice hostel where we would be staying just one night before heading to Sandakan to see the orangutans. We didn't get any food on the plane so our next stop was finding somewhere to eat. Turned out we didnt have to go far as under our hostel was Pizza Hut, not very malyasian we know but we couldn't not go there after seeing a poster in the window saying you can get 2 small pizzas, 2 soups, 1 garlic bread and 2 drinks for a total of 2 pounds, bargain!!! We spent the afternoon mooching about the shops (buying me yet another pair ... read more

FUN DIVE The place I work has closed for a month during quite season on Koh Tao, so I decided to go on a diving holiday with my friends to Borneo to dive Sipadan and surrounding islands Sipalan, Kaplai and Mabul , it was the most amazing diving the variety of marine life was incredible I seen everything from Hammerhead shark( no photo not quick enough), eagle rays, loads of turtle’s to Pygmy seahorse’s ( smaller than a thumb nail and perfectly camouflaged) stone fish mandarin fish, had the time of my life here’s a small selection of the pictures STEVO’S THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK IF A TURTLE DOES’NT HAVE A SHELL IS IT NAKED OR HOMELESS ... read more

We got up about 8am for breakfast, there was bread, spreads, beans, tea and coffee. Fiona was complaining that it was margarine and not butter but then said she wouldn't eat white bread anyway! I got so cross, so just walked away, I just couldn't believe they were moaning already, we're living in the jungle and I think we're lucky to get what we have anyway. We went on our jungle trek at 10am, Angoon led us and Leo was at the back, it was pretty intense to start with, all up hill, we stopped every 20 mins or so for a rest, I can't say I enjoyed it but the views were fantastic, so definitely worth it and I'm really proud I did it. We drank water from a tree that Angoon cut down for ... read more