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Published: December 3rd 2008
Getting to Borneo has been quite the task...
About a week ago we purchased three tickets on Air Asia for the rest of our Asia travels: A flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo, a return flight from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur and then a flight the same day from Kuala Lumpur to Bali, Indonesia. We had those three flights, so we have our itinerary set for the rest of Asia.
We woke up early in the morning at Eddie's house in KL to catch our 10:20 flight to Borneo. We were at the train station by 7:15am to catch the 20 minute train to KL Sentral to catch the 1 hr bus to the airport. This should put us at the airport by 8:45am at the earliest and 9:15am at the latest right? Well, the trains near Eddie's house come every 20 minutes and they were so crowded two passed us without us being able to squeeze even one of us and our luggage on the train. So at that point Eddie opted to just drive us to KL Sentral to get the bus. With traffic it took us 45 minutes to get to the
bus station- we arrived at 9am. We still had 1 hr and 20 minutes till our flight left... this was going to be pushing it! We boarded a bus that appeared to be leaving right away, but we sat for 15 minutes waiting for the FULL bus to head off to the airport. By the time we arrived at the LCCT airport in Kuala Lumpur it was 10:25am- we were 5 minutes late. Oh well, Air Asia always delays their flights so we should be ok and if not there is a flight at 10:30am, 11:00am and so on. However, our flight had left on time and we had missed it. The next flight with availability was at 12:45 (pretty good), but... Air Asia (after being jostled around to three different people, with no answers) said they could do nothing for us and we would have to purchase a new ticket at over twice the cost of the original one. I have never flown an airline with such poor customer service. They literally just stared at us and shook their head no over and over again. They wouldn't consider us just paying a difference in the price or flying stand
by or anything of that nature. We were literally just screwed! So after having no idea what to do we found a Coffee Bean in the airport and sat there for four hours trying to figure it out. We could pay the money and fly anyways that way we don't loose our return flight, we could date change our Bali flight and head straight to Indonesia (but that was going to cost us too) we could forgo our return flight, stay in peninsular Malaysia and head down to Singapore or we could do one of the other crazy options we considered.
We eventually decided to head back into KL and wait a day and sort it out. We ended up just going on the internet, getting a still expensive ticket and deciding to fly out to Borneo in another two days. We would just cut out some activities we wanted to do there to save some cash. So here we were, another two nights in KL. We called Eddie and he just laughed, what else can you do at that point? He met us at KLCC so we could go see a movie to cheer us up and called
it the "Wendy's curse." Let me explain- this whole trip we have been fantasizing about food from home: CPK, Endless Chili’s chips and salsa, Sour Candy, Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Root Beer floats and Wendy's Frosties. Well... we have managed to accomplish ALL of those things in KL except for the Wendy's frosties. So, Eddie's theory is that since everything went wrong for us, it was the "Wendy's curse" saying we couldn't leave KL until we have had a frosty. The curse was still upon us when we entered the movies and the screen broke down 10 minutes into the film and the next morning when all we wanted to do was sleep and there was construction on our roof where they were literally tossing steel beams around and having them crash down above us. We needed to get to Wendy's fast! So we did and hoped that the curse would be broken!
We didn't want to take any chances missing our 7:15am flight to Sandakan in Borneo, so Eddie picked us up at 2am that morning. We attempted to sleep at 9pm that night, but really didn't get any significant sleep. Still, Eddie insisted on the 2am wake up
call so we could go eat with him one last time. We had beef noodles and garlic cheese naan at 2:30am and chatted for a bit before Eddie dropped us off around 4am at the bus station. We arrived at the airport by 5:30am and actually checked in on time! But... we were not going to have a smooth morning like expected. Air Asia has a 15KG (7.5lbs) limit on bags. We had done everything we could to get our bags down. I was carrying all my shoes in my carry on and stuffed as much stuff as that thing could hold. Still, when we arrived we were 9 KG's over at 15RM/Kg- in other words we paid about $45 in excess bag fees between the three of us. Plus, they were so nitpicky, counting the 0.1 Kg's we were over and adding them to the next person's and then rounding UP! Once again, I was pissed at Air Asia, but there was nothing I could do. I sucked it up, paid the money and then got on my crowded flight with no leg room (what do I expect flying a budget airline!?).
We arrived in Sandakan a little
after 11am and caught a taxi straight to Sepilock (25k's outside of Sandakan). This is the small area famed for their Orang utan Sanctuary where they save abandoned Orang utans and help rehabilitate them back into the wild. We arrived at our jungle B&B and were planning on staying two nights to give us the afternoon to sleep and the next day to see the Orang utans, but they B&B notified me they only had our reservation for one night and that tomorrow they were full. We had no choice, but to head to the sanctuary before the 3pm feeding and get it done today so we could leave tomorrow.
We headed up to the sanctuary in time to see the movie and get to the 3pm feeding. The sanctuary is on the edge of a huge wildlife refuge, so the orang utans live there with other animals and are fairly wild, unlike in a zoo. Two times a day the workers come out into the refuge to feed them, but you never know how many will show up. This feeding is supplementary to their normal diet in the rainforest, so if food is plenty out there, there is
no need for them to show up at the feedings. We were not sure how lucky we would get today, especially since our Borneo luck has not been any good. Luckily, before we even reached the feeding platform, we were able to spot a mommy orang utan and her child swinging through the trees. Maybe this was going to be our lucky day? Even before the feeding started there were tons of Macaques (another type of monkey) at the platform and about five orang utans. As the feeding began about 9-10 orang utans were there at any given point. They would swing on the ropes towards the feeding platform, get their food and eat it so similarly to a human, it was amazing! There is also a hierarchy of monkeys in the park as well. The Macaques do not eat unless an orang utan says ok and if they get too close the orang utan will slap them away. It was quite hilarious to watch. I had never really seen wild orang utans so it was a pretty cool experience and one of the most seen tourist attractions in Borneo. We definitely wished there had been more though. You pretty
much watch the feeding for a half hour and then leave the park. There are certain hiking trails through the park, but you're not really going to see the animals. The feeding is your best bet. I guess for being one of the major tourists attraction here we just expected there to be some more interaction or more of show. It sounds so touristy and it is. I know that for the benefit of the animals this is about the most interaction we are going to get. I just can't believe people travel such a long way to see this. I'm not sure it's quite worth it.
That night, we had the daunting task of trying to figure out what the heck we were going to do with the rest of our time in Borneo. We had plans to go to Sipidan Island so the boys could dive and to climb Mt. Kinabalu (the highest peak in SE Asia), but Borneo was proving to be A LOT of money. Hostels are twice the price as peninsular Malaysia and all the activities cost way too much money. To climb the mountain it was going to cost us almost one week's
budget and as much as we wanted to do it, it just wasn't worth it for a 2 D/1 N adventure. We decided to head to Sandakan (the city we flew in to) in order to clear our heads and hopefully find a tour agency that could get us a deal on some tours. It's really difficult to travel to the more remote areas of Sabah (Borneo) without a tour group, but we were finding everything way over our budget.
Sandakan did not have much to offer. The city was the site of a World War II Japanese airfield, built by the forced labor of thousands of imprisoned Australian soldiers. In 1945 the surviving Australian prisoners were sent on the Sandakan Death Marches; only 6 of them survived the war. Although, the deep history, there is not much to show for any of it. The town is on a harbor, but everything closes down super early and the streets are fairly dirty. The people are super nice though. I guess they don't see a lot of westerners because we are constantly getting stares and people are saying "hello" to us everywhere we go. We have not felt this much
"love" since China! Our hotel in Sandakan did have AC and a DVD player with a large selection of movies so we spent most of our time chilling out and relaxing and watching movies.
We decided to head back to Sepilok to go to Uncle Tan's Jungle Adventure for two nights and three days. It was the best option for us both budget wise and because Uncle Tan's is quite famous for its great adventures. They are located in the lower Kinabatangan valley, which is famous for its great wildlife so we had high hopes. Although the wildlife didn't prove to be as good as we hoped we still had a great time. We caught the local bus back to Sepilok from Sandakan and arrived at Uncle Tan's in time for lunch. After lunch we set off for the wildlife campsite. We had about a two hour bus ride and then we hopped on a small boat for our 45 minute boat downstream to the camp. The entire time we were searching for wildlife and actually found some Proboscis monkeys and hornbills. It was an amazing boat ride. The water was so still and it was so quite except
for the sounds of the wildlife. I had one of those "Ok take this in, you are traveling through the rainforest in Borneo" moments. I haven't had one of those in a while since traveling has become such an everyday thing so it was nice to actually take in the whole travel thing again.
Since it is the wet season, we are able to take small canals all the way into the camp and not have to hike. Driving the boat through these little canals with trees overhanging everywhere was quite a cool experience. We arrived at camp in time to get settled and have some afternoon tea before heading out on our night safari. About 9pm we boarded the small boat again and set off for about a two hour safari. We really didn't see much, just some more Proboscis monkeys and birds. We went back to camp a little disappointed, but still having fun. The staff and other people we were traveling with were great and we still had a great night. The next morning it was a 6am wake up for morning safari. Once again, we only saw some birds, which I guess is ok, but
I was not too into it. There were two other guys with us at camp who were avid bird watchers that were loving life, but for me I was waiting for something bigger and better than just a bird. We had an afternoon safari with our guide Leo, who nicknamed me the "Paris Hilton of the Jungle" since I set off for jungle trekking with my yoga pants tucked into a pair of high socks and rubber boots (all in trying to protect myself from leeches!). The afternoon safari was quite fun though and we needed those rubber boots since we were literally hiking through a foot of water at parts. We didn't see much on the afternoon hike either. We saw some cool bugs and Leo taught us about which jungle plants you could eat and which are poisonous. I felt very "Man vs. Wild" like I can now survive in the rainforest if necessary! Well, if the rainforest doesn't have leeches at least.
We arrived back at camp and had a few hours to chill out and chat with the other guests and relax. None of us had much luck spotting animals, when all of sudden the
Along the Kinabatangan
The water was so glassy the reflection was amazing!guides were yelling that there was a crocodile in camp. We all ran and sure enough, about 20 feet from camp in the water was a 6 foot croc just cruising around and looking for something to eat. Since there were tons of monkeys in the trees around camp we started hearing them do their distress call over and over again. We got in the boat for afternoon boat safari and found the croc in the water, but he immediately went underneath when our boats got close enough. Once again our boat safari proved to not turn out anything exciting besides some more monkeys. We had hoped to find some wild orang utans since some were spotted earlier, but no luck for us! We had better luck seeing the monkeys at the camp try to steal bread than we had seeing them outside of camp.
That night the head of the camp, Lan had bought a case of bottles of local Malay rice wine. He began the evening by passing them out to all of us. So by 8pm we had all joined under his bunk to sings songs around the campfire. I think all of us forgot that
we had a 9pm night jungle trek! Our group was a mess by the time we set off in our rubber boots. We nicknamed our new jungle trekking adventure "drunkle trekking" and brought some whiskey with us. One drink for every spider we saw. Well, what we didn't know is that Leo would find us the smallest spiders possible every few minutes so we gave up on that game! We were all loud and stumbling as we trekked through the jungle, but Leo did manage to find us some pretty cool animals. He found a giant tarantula in a tree and a huge scorpion he picked up and could put to sleep by blowing on it. The thing would be ready to sting him and he would blow on it and then it would lie down and play dead. I guess it is a protective mechanism to protect the animal from the wind. So if you encounter a scorpion, just blow on it and you'll be fine! By the end of the trek the mud was so thick we were falling over and being loud when Leo hushed all of us. Right there, about 10 feet in front of us
was a Leopard cat. We definitely did not deserve to see it since were loud and silly, but we got lucky and did. I think the other, more respectable group, was a bit jealous that we saw one and they did not. That night, we stayed up for a while just chatting and hanging out with all our new friends at camp. We ended up having a great time at Uncle Tan's and really enjoyed our few days there.
The next morning we decided to sleep and not head out on the morning safari, which proved to be a good choice since all they saw were some more birds. We left the jungle later that morning and had one more lucky spotting of a 7 foot crocodile outside the water and on the side of the river bank. We were ending on another lucky note. From there we headed to Kota Kinabalu, the biggest city on Sabah to spend our last few days in Borneo.
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Nins
non-member comment
say it aint so
tell me dec is not mustache month OMG hillarious great outfit btw!!