Advertisement
Published: March 14th 2006
greetings everyone
its been an amazing couple of days since our last entry. so much shit, bloody awesome shit, has happened that i really don't know where to begin. from the start is usually a good place. firstly, i must say thanks to those who have sent us a little cheereo, and for those who didn't know, its possible to reply via the travelblog, which means that you don't have to send emails to our respective accounts.
the following day, after our last entry we, ventured out by boat to a nearby island. talk about white sand and clear blue waters!! we spent the whole day just lazing about, swimming, snorkelling, sunbacking, eating, swimmimg, snorkeling, eating, drinking, sunbaking, and so on. i'm pretty sure you get the picture. the island itself was pretty small, it would take roughly an hour to circumnavigate around the place. ali and i went for a venture through the jungle, and i do mean jungle, and we found a few secluded beaches, little coves surrounded by jungle. talk about robinson crusoe stuff!!.
the sun here gets quite hot and our skins get burnt easily, se we are extremely conscious of applying sunscream.
dave and ali
life is tough on the road!however, this day ali didn't apply any to the back of her legs, and with the numerous hours of snorkeling, the sun did some pretty damage to her buns and upper legs. the next few days were spent applying several tea bags to those affected areas.
the folowing day we packed up and left for sandakan, the whole day was spent on a bus. ali's toosh got a bit of a work out, which she didn't like, but i found it a little amusing. we arrived late at night, we finally found some accommodation after trying several full house hotles. ali dented her pride a little, by taking a small tumble on the streets whilst carrying her backpack, in front of several locals. they had a good laugh at her expense. by now she wasn't a happy camper!!
after dropping our gear of we ventured into the unknown dark of sandakan, to find food and beer, we've got our priorities worked out, when we came across a liitle boy who approached us and said welcome to sandakan, have a nice stay. a little 4/5 year old boy, said that, we were blown away. we've felt like celebrities around
here, people are just so bloody friendly. we're walking down the street, and every third /fourth car is tooting there car horns and waving. people on the streets are saying hello, and waving with big smiles, wanting to have a chat. its awesome.
anyway, the morning, it was a bloody early morning, we again headed of by boat to turtle island. this island is used by giant green, leatherback, hawkesbill turtles to lay their eggs. and every night up to ten turtles come up shore to do some egg laying. to be honest, it wasn't worth venturing out to this island. sure it was great to hang around for several hours knowing full well that we could hear turtles doing their business on the beach, but we were'nt allowed to see anything unless otherwise told by the park ranger. (which was like a kind of torture for me! and i am sure you all know what my patience is like! i have none, especially when it comes to seeing an animal i have never seen!! (ali) ). we only got to see the rear end of a giant green turtle dropping a few hundred eggs into the sand. however
on turtle island
hows the serenity? it was fun to handle some baby tutrtles only a few hours old. and for their tiny frame and stature, they were bloody strong critters.
i must say that the best thing about coming to this isalnd was the food. for lunch we had some tasty crab, and ai and i both managed to finish of our meals plus the leftovers from the other tables. yum!! and for dinner it was a monster of a seafood smorgasboard. once again, very yum.
after a very late night amd early morning we arrived back in sandakan, caught a cab staright to our next B&B, which was only a few km's away from the orang utan sanctuary. our hostess with the mostest, annie, turned out to be an absolute doll, we had so much fun chatting to her, and eating her home cooking. totally delicatable!! after a quick tea and coffee, a chat, and change into fresh clothes, annie droves us to sanctuary.
this place was amazing, not only being set in the jungle (just about every cool place in this country is), the orang utans were down right cute as buggery. the park has two feeding times and
we witnessed both. the first was a little to crowded, with many stuck up tourist in your face, pushing and shoving, trying to get the best possible picture of these magnificent creatures, then after 5 minutes i wasn't quite sure which were the animals, the bloddy human tourist or the orang utans. after the feeding we decided to head off and come back later.
we ended up going for a hike through the dense jungle, and to be honest, it was up there with one of the hardest bush walks that i have ever done. i've done a fair few but this short 3km return walk was a nightmare, purely cos within the first 5 mins, we were both utterly saturated with sweat, and i do mean saturated. so badly that could wring our clothes of the sweat and fill a long neck beer bottle!!!
after our walk, we headed back to the feeding platform, we were the the only ones there, and we slowly saw all the orang utans come swinging in. it was so much fun watching these guys come swinging in. there was some young adults and young ones, who were just playing around, looking
our lunch!
munchin on some crab! for cuddles, mimicking ali's gestures, and basically putting on a show for us that we'll never forget. these guys, who have a gene pool that is 96% exactly the same as humans, are truely wonderful species that have fostered many myths, legends, and beliefs, by having many expressions and such a high intelligence which are just mesmerizing.
They have such a great sense of conservation over here! The platform where they do the feeding is on the edge of a huge national park, so they have free range of the natural jungle and if they are not quite ready to take complete care of themselves the feeding platforms are there fast food joint! they also have places they can sleep if they are not ready to build their own nests. It really felt like we were guests in their house!
I have to say the malay people are a very proud people, and they have realised that there is money in ecotourism, so they are trying so hard to keep this part of their country rich with wildlife!! The palm oil plantations take up thousands of kilometres of land, all cleared for their plam oil. This is where
sooooo cute!!
the babies we got to release! the problem comes in for the endagered species. And unfortunately they have alot!! It is so sad when you travel from one side of borneo to other and the whole trip, 7hrs, all you see is palm plantation. Granted there is alot of jungle left, but when you consider how much land these animals need to survive and travel through to breed and raise their young, it truly is devistating! However, the government has started giving up huge chunks of land that will never be touched. We hope it is not to late!!
having said our part, touching on the whole greenie aspect, better move on to the fun stuff! Annies husband owns and runs a Jungle camp on the kinabatangan river. This place is famous for its wildlife living by the river, species like probiscus monkeys (very cool looking monkey's with huge noses and the males with a constant erection! (theres a funny fact for you!) rinocerous hornbill birds, which are just huge! The river is also home to crocodiles, lots of freshwater prawns and the list goes on!
The part of the river that Robert owns is about one hours boat ride from the main
the orangutan sanctuary
big smiles all day long! river village, sukau, which is the only way you can get there! We were hoping to go to a camp called uncle tan's, but the river saw a huge monsoon this year, the highest the river has been in ten years!! so most of the camps were flooded. But Roberts was fine and we were lucky enough to get a cabin there for one night and got to do a river cruise at dusk, just me and dave and 4 guides!! It was breathtaking and we saw so much wildlife, and the river was in flower! They have an electric fence that runs around the perimetre to keep the elephants out!! unfortunately they had moved into the hills because of the flooding, but we will so be coming back, so we will see them then!
We had to leave the next day, we could of stayed a week more!! That day of travel was horrible! 1 hr on the mudiest bumpisest road anyone has ever seen! 1 1/2 hrs in a taxi and then another 2 hrs on a minibus, after waiting 3hrs to get enough people on it to leave for Semporna!! By the time we got to
the orangutan sanctuary
three little friends hangin out! our hostel we felt buggered in all sense of the word!! But this is where the diving is!! Like diving in a place where jacques cousteau (the world famous diver) said "i have seen places like sipidan..... 45 years ago - now we have found an untouched piece of art". And belive me, that is excactly what it is!! If there was an underwater heaven, this would be it!!
The next day we left, by boat,1hr, for sipidan. This is a tiny island surrounded by the most spectactualar reef, with the most crystal clear water you could ever imagine!!
We saw so many huge turtles we could not even begin to count them!! I even had one come so close i reached out my hand and slide it down the entire length of its shell!! pure magic!! Not to mention the thousands of tropical fish and reef sharks, I could try to tell you about how beautiful it was diving here, but unfortunately, it is only something dave and i can remember, it was the coolest and most amazing natural sight i/we have ever had the pleasure of experiencing!!!!!!!
We hung around Semporna the next day, doing
the orangutan sanctuary
this guy had his foot in his mouth the WHOLE time! laundry, and i had this weird flu thing and didnt have much energy, so we got our own room with a tv and just vedged all day!!! we managed to find some tomatoes, cheese and a loaf of bread and just munched on that all day!
We flew back to Kota Kinabalu today and we are going to climb the mountain in a couple of days!!
So, until the next time, goodbye, and stay safe!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 9; qc: 46; dbt: 0.051s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
yo
non-member comment
lucky you
Howdy, Great photo man, by looking into your blog, It making me feel like breaking the office window jumping out to go outside. You basterd!! Enjoy and keep on smiling♪