Kota Kinabalu, Semporna archipelago, Kinabangtan river and Sandakan

Hello. Last time we spoke I was in Mulu (Sarawak State), or at least had been to Mulu and was in KK (Sabah State). KK was an interesting place, a bit edgy but I liked it. Not sure I liked the old men taking photos of me on the beach but hey when you look this good.... yeah right.

Siamil island - macro heaven

Flew then down to Tawau (over the largest palm oil plantation I have ever seen, so very very sad) and on to Semporna for one night before heading out to the "number one dive spot in Asia" - the Semporna archipelago -  Mabul, Sipadan and Siamil. Semporna is a bit of scabby hole, even though lots of westerners have to stop off there to overnight for Mabul walking around feels like you're the only white female they have ever seen. A bit odd really. Got a boat out to Mabul island the next day and began diving. 4 days and 15 dives later it was my time to leave. Not sure what I made about it. As with all diving, it depends where and when you dive and each one is different to the last and the next. One day it can be awesome and the next pants. Well, there is no doubt the macro diving at Mabul and Siamil is really cracking - pygmy seahorses, pipe fish, orangutan crabs, ghost shrimp, snake eels, morays, leaf scorpion fish, stone fish, devil scorpion fish, flying gurnards, nudi brancs, frog fish, juvenile bat fish, juvenile harlequin sweetlips, flouders, eagle rays, blue spotted rays, mandarin fish, sea snakes and the list goes on. I need to get an underwater housing for my camera to show you how awesome it is. Sipadan (the number one spot) is an immense site with walls going down a mile. It attracts huge numbers of hawksbill turtles, green turtles, white tip and grey reef sharks, baracuda, rays - all the big stuff, but I wasn't overwhelmed with its awesomeness. Don't get me wrong, it was good but I've had just as good dives in the Philippines. Plus, and this is a big downer, the rubbish in this part of the sea is unbelievable. Plastic is everywhere, and this has a major effect on the wildlife - I saw a dead turtle with a plastic bag hanging out of it's mouth. So all the conservation efforts across the world for these turtles makes little difference when people (including us) are throwing plastic in to the sea. It's just so sad. It's a good reason to not take that plastic people!

Probiscus Monkey - little willy!

Kinbatangan

Long tailed Macaque

So feeling quite sad I left Semporna, having got very drunk the night before with some randoms I had met and sang some lovely karaoke in the seediest bar yet including Careless Whisper by Wham, and headed on the bus north to the Kinbatangan River. In this part of Borneo it's almost impossible to travel and see things  independently, so I had booked a 3day/2 night tour at a lodge near a place called Bilit on the river itself. Had to get up at 5:30 each day to do a river cruise and then trek all day, cruise again and then trek at night. All very tiring might I add but saw some amazing stuff, including wild orangutans which can't be beat (no photos though!). I think Mr Probiscus was my favourite though... he came down right to the river to feed and sat watching us for ages. Lovely. Although a close second was MicroFrog - only 10mm long! and then maybe the sleeping Kingfishers, or the Hornbills... too many to choose from! Unfortunately, as with the diving, seeing all these animals is tinged a bit with sadness. The palm oil plantations in this part of Borneo are so extensive (like hundreds and hundreds of miles) the poor animals have no where to go. It is shocking quite how bad it is here and I can't see it getting any better even though I wish it could.

 

 Today (25th November) I left Kinabatangan and got a bus to Sandakan, a city on the east coast of Borneo. It got flattened during WWII by the Japanese and was the site of the Sandakan Death Marches where at over 2000 British and Australian troops died in a horrendous march from Sandakan to Ranau. Very sad and quite brutal really. Only here for half a day really, I didn't have time to get to the site of the POW camp but maybe that's a good thing. I did go for a walk though and happened across this place - how civil darling! Apart from that, this place is quite quiet, a bit seedy but I actually quite like it. I'm staying in a hotel! would you believe it!? for ten of your English pounds, it has an amazing bathroom. The littlest things.

Not sure where I am headed next in Sabah but so far it's been up and down purely because it is so apparent that humans are impacting on the wildlife here so much, it's almost hopeless. It's not just the Malaysians either, we all eat palm oil and use plastic, I just wish there was an alternative.

It's taken me three hours to write this and I have had to endure the most miserable music ever.... urgh, get me out of here!



 

Mulu National Park - Caves and Bats

On 12th November I arrived in Mulu after a quick flight from Kuching on the beast below. Very exciting flight, and a hairy landing in the middle of nowhere! Now you may not have heard of Mulu but think BBC documentary, David Attenborough lying in a massive pile of bat shit, and lots of bats, snakes snatching bats from the air and so on.

The park is set up quite well and they have amazingly knowledgeable guides, who know everything about the park. The caves are so impressive, it's beyond words and the wildlife is immense and over whelming. Look it up on wikipedia, it explains a lot. I learnt quite a lot but won't bore you but the reason they are so big is because of the composition of the limestone and the extremely abundant rainfall that occurs in Mulu. A combination which leads to some of the biggest caves in the world and stalagmites and -tites that would impress any geologist :) Don't look up though, I managed to get a drip of water in the eye (from 150 metres above) - it's so acid i thought my eye was going to melt. I'm sure I've lost a layer of my cornea or something equally as bad.



First night after visiting the Deer Cave which is unbelievable, you sit and wait for the bats to come out (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't). I got very lucky. They come out in batches of about, oh half a million, so as to confuse the massive eagles that sit and wait for them to leave. Along with the eagles, there are also the snakes hanging in the entrance to the cave ready to eat them. So no wonder they are frightened.

 I visited all the caves in the park that I could, and have so many photos. Anyway, all a bit boring but if you are ever in Borneo it should be on the top of your list.

Along with the walking caves, I thought it would cool to go adventure caving, with a vague feeling that something happened to me in a cave somewhere else in the world that I didn't like but couldn't remember so brushed it under the mat. All very cool, lots of sweaty climbing, mud, water, more mud, bats, swiftlets (do you know they use high frequency sonar to traverse through the caves - very clever little birdies), blind crabs, crickets and even some of those bat eating snakes (Racer Snakes - hence the name of the cave is "Racer"). And oh yes, spiders. Now I remember. Not quite as big as Thailand though, so that was nice.

When I wasn't caving with the living dead, I was lounging, and watching the insects. Some really beautiful ones (incredible butterflies), I am a bit of a convert. Went on a night walk and saw some awesome frogs, stick insects (more like branch insects) and a spider that used a leaf as camouflage, ugly but cool. Worryingly, something ate my banana, that was in my closed bag..... little devil.

Attempted to leave Mulu on 15th November but flight got cancelled because of rain.....hmm. This turned out to be quite disastrous because even though they put me in a "luxury" resort that night, I spent the entire next day travelling on 3, get it, 3 flights to Kota Kinabalu. I originally booked 1 flight direct to KK. How did 1 turn to 3? It was the most illogical experience I have come across in quite a while. To top it off, the plane was the same plane for the entire journey, they wouldn't let me check my large bag into the hold, and at each stop I had to get off with my bag, go through immigration and get back on the plane. RETARDED. Suffice to say I lost the rag on the third flight when the stewardess told me I couldn't have my big bag on the plane! On the plus side I got a free lift from the airport to my hostel by some guy who had come all the way from Mulu with me (his name was Gladstone - why is it asians always choose such interesting western names?). So now I'm in KK until the 18th. Had some wonderful food tonight (Philippino BBQ no less) and can't wait to get to bed already.

JB to Kuching, the Gingers, Gunung Santubong and Bako National Park

Well so I set off from Tioman on 6th November and headed by numerous modes of transport to Johor Bahru, where I was due to catch my plane to Borneo. It was very tiring, setting of at 6am and not arriving in Kuching until midnight! However, I saved so much money and then, this is KEY, i helped an old lady of the plane and she got her son to give me free lift all the way to my hostel in the town centre. How nice was that.... yes yes, part of me thought it was trick but the woman was very religious, so I assumed admitting I was an atheist was my worst crime. The hostel is great - Singgahsana Lodge, would recommend it to everyone.

Woohoo though, it seems like a stop well worth making on my way. Food is great and I had such a great day on my first day. Saw this and thought of Katie.....











Then I headed over to Semenggoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre - where they look after the wild men of Borneo. They are nutured back to health and then released into the safe national park. They come by for feedings twice a day and you're allowed to stand silently from afar and watch. You're lucky if any come at all in this season as there is so much fruit in the trees but I was lucky by God..... a brilliant day.

On my second day I had heard rumours of a great mountain trek quite close to Kuching called Gunung Santubong (910m), only 3.4km with a few ropes and ladders to help you on your way, so I decided I would give it a go. The guide suggested it was 5 hours each way, of course I scoffed at that convinced I could do it in less - it's not even the size on Snowdon, bah! 10am I set off as that was the earliest bus to the national park, and I knew I had to be back there by 5pm as that was the time of the last bus. Very excited to get my legs working again, I set off with vigour. 5 minutes later I was gasping... joke. No after about 2 hour of ups and downs, and thinking I was being hunted by something - turns out it was those damn monkeys crashing around (Silver leaf monkeys no less), very very cute when I did manage to spot one in the undergrowth - I made it to the final checkpoint (5 hours my arse). Points to note, not only had I not considered that some of the trek would be stupidly steep, but I had also underestimated the effect of the humidity (only 80%) on my ability to climb. Feck me. After this, things got a insanely sweaty, hairy and absolutely exhausting - good job I had brought 3 litres of water with me but even that wasn't enough. It was the three bananas and couple of biscuits that really held me together, oh yes! It was just so steep with continuing climbing on ladders and ropes, over roots, and rocks, hanging on to roots for grip - a bit like Tarzan. So after all that I didn't even make it to the top. Having been trained thoroughly to watch the clock, I had a time limit and knew going down would take much longer than it should do, so after a total of 4 hours I had to turn back even though I was probably only  half an hour from the summit. ARSE. Good job I did though, as I arrived just in time for the bus, with only seconds to spare, and a storm arrived which from the bottom looked pretty hairy on the summit. So in the evening I ate my weight in beef satay and rice, went to bed at 8pm and work up the next day feeling like an elephant had sat on me all night.

it got dark all of a sudden!

On my third day I lay on my bed and didn't move (purely as a precaution to over doing myself of course, nothing to do with the severe muscular pain coursing through my body) apart from going to post office, park office and bank, oh and for some Laksa. For light entertainment that evening I went on wildlife tour in the wetlands close to Kuching - but a storm came in and meant it got cancelled so I went home, having done nothing all day. Good.








On the fourth and fifth day and onwards I headed over to Bako National Park (still unable to walk really). The only way to get to the park is by boat and as such is very dependent on the tides (they change by like 5m so many people get stranded and have to walk with mud up to this knees).






Had heard rotten things about the park accommodation and it was awful but bearable especially with so much wildlife in the near vicinity. This was a place to go hiking through primary rain forest, truly very beautiful but I was so fecked off by the roots by the end of the two days, I almost wept every time I went out. The wildlife was amazing though and if you just stopped and looked in the bushes you would always see something! Probiscus monkeys (do you know they are aroused 100% of the time, and you can see it as well, although I didn't capture it in this photo!), hermit crabs, trillions of ants (my question: do ants sleep?), pitcher plants, frogs, monitor lizards, flying foxes the list goes on - i won't bore you with thousands of pictures.

for Katie

Long tailed macaque monkeys also live in this national park - these are the ones I have seen so many times in cages in the UK. Thinking I would love to see them in the wild, they are the cheekiest little bastards you never wish to come across. Truly I felt like a frightened pensioner trapped in my home by a gang of youths hanging around on the streets. I was too scared to take out my camera in front of them in case they nicked it (so no photos)..... they would sit in the middle of the path (the majority are young and about 50 cm high when sat down) and not move, stare you down (like they do) and as you walked around them they would run at you legs in a mock chase and then run off laughing when you turned and stomped at them. I mean really.

So that was that, swan in the sea and then realised there had been warnings about salt water crocs (oops), and then headed off back to Kuching and on to Mulu National Park up in the middle of Borneo for the caves and the bats! Bring it on David Attenborough!

Pulau Tioman

So the last few days I have been on Tioman in the South China sea. I thought it would be a bit like the Thai islands, like Ko Tao and Krabi - it's been on the backpacking map for longer than both. However, when I got here, bearing in mind it is low season as well, the place is a paradise. I worked it out and it's about 16 hours away from London, but it's amazing. As I said before the blog never comes across as fun when I am having a great time but I can't help that can i!

Yesterday I went diving which was ok. The vis wasn't great but lots of turts and rays, groupers, file fish etc etc and I spotted an ugly scorpion fish, a real big bugger. So diving was good but not exceptional, I am here on the off season though. Apart from the diving though, the weather was great and I sunbathed and watched the long tailed macques stroll along the beach - there being only myself and their gang around. At dusk the fruit bats fly out down and the beach, it's all well pretty perfect. Easy living people, easy living. The two concerns I have at the moment, are (1) my aircon. Tell me if this doesn't sound dangerous, it drips water continually and crackles - not the "snap, crackle, pop" type, the "I'm going to set your room on fire" type. So I've switched it off and therefore means I sweat at night more than I did in RUSSIA. Do you remember that? feck. AND (2) the mosquitoes are like horses, galloping from afar to suck the last traces of my blood.

Today I woke up to a cracker of a thunder storm, tried to take a photo on the beach but then thought I might get killed doing so, so ran inside. Decided I was not going to spend the day lazing so I headed off into the jungle to trek to the other side of the island. There is a reason they call it the "rain forest". I don't think I've ever been as wet. No leeches though. Beautiful too but think i wrecked my camera in the humidity - oops! Speaking off which if it does survive I got a USB cable but I am sat at a computer now with no USB slots, can you imagine? You'd think I was on a remote island or something equally as rubbish for telecommunications. So I will update with photos as soon as I can.

So it's a hard life really. Sorry. It's beer o'clock though, and therefore I can no longer chat. Off tomorrow or Saturday to Johor Bahru and then on to Borneo, which I am quite excited about. Yippee!