Mulu Park restaurant - noodles and veggies. You can't really go wrong with this classic.
Another day, another Laksa. Definitely the best one.
Looks like a lime, tastes like an orange. Who needs that kind of confusion in life?!
Sate, satay - however you spell it, it's always delish.
Lemon chicken - too sour, too sweet, too bad.
Nasi katok = rice with fried chicken. An obvious winner, especially with a spicy sauce.
Arrack Kok Pun. Only 8% but when mixed with coke, it tasted like rum and did a rather good job of acting like it!
Gills on grills.
Left: Very sour green papaya salad. Lovely! Right: Fish salad that tasted like pickled herring. Lovely?
4 jumbo prawns and a huge tuna steak. Freshly caught, freshly cooked, and for a very fresh price of just £4!
Seafood and noodles - wet. Dave ate this for my birthday lunch.
Chicken and noodles - dry. My birthday lunch. I washed it down with a lovely ginger tea made from leaves picked in the plantation we were gazing over. Delightful!
Mee Goreng = fried noodles. A very broad name for a very varied dish. More hits than misses though.
Noodle curry with chicken and tofu. Quite hot, and very tasty. And I can't get enough of those tiny calamansi limes!
After our
epic drive across Borneo we arrived in Sandakan and found a hotel called The Mayfair. After we settled in I asked the owner if there was a cinema near by, because we wanted to see The Avengers. His answer was brilliant; "No, but there's one in your room!" and boy, was he right! The room itself was clean and basic; double bed, air-con, bathroom with a decent shower. The winning feature though, was the TV. We had a big flat screen and the owner had a collection of literally thousands of DVDs for us to borrow, free of charge! We didn't get to see the Avengers, but with so much choice we didn't really mind!
Our new hitch-hiker friends, Alexandria and Stuart, stayed in the same place and after we'd freshened up we went out for a little birthday dinner on the waterfront. It was a delicious delight.
The next day the four of us decided to take the car to Kinabatangan River, which was two hours or so away, and once there we hired a boat to take us on a cruise to see some jungle life. The bad thing about the way we did it was that our boatman didn't really know much about what we were looking at and hardly spoke English, whereas if we had gone with one of the expensive tour options, we would have been given much more information. Luckily though, there were some official tour boats just ahead of us so we followed them and got to see some brilliant things! At one point we stopped the boat right under a snake that was sleeping in a tree, and a bit later we saw a big monitor lizard on a branch. Unfortunately we couldn't get any good snaps of them as they were so well camouflaged, but below are a few of our favourite monkey photos...
We saw lots more of those big nosed proboscis monkeys like the ones in Brunei, but this time we were much closer and got some great pics!
We saw so many monkeys of various kinds.
This cute little fellow was very curious and got really close so he could have a better look at us.
A different type of monkey!
A father, mother and child picking fleas off each other's backs.
We also saw a kingfisher and a few other birds we couldn't identify. Apparently there are elephants in the forest, but sadly we weren't lucky enough to spot any. After the two hour tour we set off back to Sandakan and actually saw one of the best animals yet! I spotted a big horn-bill sitting on a telephone wire which was fantastic because Dave and I both really wanted to see one. Again, we didn't get a picture but these birds are so beautiful and bizarre, we've included a photo from another website.
Taken from http://www.cringel.com/node/463
The next day we went to the Sepilok Orang-utan Sanctuary, as the previous day hadn't quite satisfied our primate watching urges. This place is brilliant. It's a bit tricky to get to without doing a tour or having your own transport, but it is possible to get a bus. They're not very reliable though so we managed to get a group together and hire a private van. The sanctuary is a part of the rainforest where the orang-utans come to get food, medical care and where illegally captured ones can be brought to be rehabilitated. They are fed twice a day and the entrance fee covers you for both sessions. As we walked along the short board walk to the feeding deck we actually spotted a couple in the trees - it was amazing! We ended us seeing about ten in total, all of different sizes and with noticeably different personalities. What really struck us though, were their eyes. They look so human and it was really fascinating to watch them munch on fruit, just a few meters from where we were standing. Malaysians call these beautiful animals orang-utans too, which apparently translates as "man of the forest" - a truly fitting name.
It's amazing how long their arms are!
They even stand like people.
What a big grin!
A little cheeky monkey came to join their meal.
STRANGE SPIDER!
This one is the same age as James! And just as beautiful!
Generally the town of Sandakan is a bit naff, with little to do. However it is definitely worth visiting, as it makes a great base to visit these fantastic places from. Plus, if you stay at The Mayfair, you'll have plenty of entertainment to fill the hours between your adventures!
Costs (per person)
Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan Hitch-hiking = Free!
Mayfair Hotel per Double AC Room = 45 RM (£9, $13.50)
Boat hire in Kinabatangan River = 120 RM (£24, $36)
Private Van to Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary = 10 RM (£2, $3)
Taxi Back from Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary = 40 RM (£8, $12)
The best way to leave Brunei is by ferry. A land crossing results in several boarder crossings, due to the bizarre shape of Brunei (look at it on a map!) and I just do not have the room in my passport for that many stamps.
We had a stop-over in Labuan, which is a tax haven – alcohol was hella cheap! Anyway we eventually made it to Kota Kinabalu (KK) city, which was a stepping stone on our way to nearby Kota Kinabalu National Park. KK city is pretty much only famous for its frequently spectacular sunsets.
We awoke earlier than we wanted due to a city-wide power-cut (the first one ever apparently) which turned off our air-con and meant we didn’t sleep as well as we should’ve done. We went to the bus station at 7.30am to catch a bus at 8 so we would make it to the park in time for a guided walk. Of course we forgot that we were in South East Asia and the bus leaving at 8 would actually wait until 9 before setting off. The bus was also broken and crawled at 10mph the entire way so it took over an hour longer than it should have anyway – the joys of public transport in SE Asia.
We were staying outside the park rather than inside because of the evil monopolising company called Sutera. They have dorm rooms in the park and half way up the mountain – a night in this dorm costs £100. It’s a massive shame because the mountain is one of the most accessible, (besides the £200 cost) and bio-diverse places on the planet. It is possible to climb it one day but it’s a real rush and the highlight of climbing it is getting up there for sunrise, which you don’t get on the one day excursion. There is in fact a yearly race in which people go up to the peak and back down the mountain in unbelievable times.
21km up and down at altitude! Crazy!
Our mountain lodge advertised itself as being 2km away from the park but in truth it was more like 3km, and a hilly 3km at that! So by the time we made it to the park, after the troubled night of sleep and the irritating bus ride, we weren’t in the best of moods and I think this greatly affected our enjoyment of the park. We did a trail but didn’t see much wildlife or any interesting plants – maybe we were just rainforested out after Mulu! Either way, our KK National Park experience wasn’t one to write home about (even though we are.)
Saw this dead bat on the walk to the park...
Oooooo spooky mist...
One interesting thing about where we stayed was the location of the dorm rooms. To get from our room to the main building (where the only 2 bathrooms were) we had to go outside, up a couple of stairs, across a veranda, and through some patio doors. This wasn’t an issue during daylight, but at night...well, you know what happens at night on Borneo. The place was inundated with moths, big pincer-beetle things and numerous other creepies that meant neither of us drank a thing after 7pm, for fear of needing a wee in the night.
We finally used our blimmin' mosquito nets!
We thought this was fake... We were wrong.
The sunset view from the mountain lodge.
The following day I awoke bright and early...and 24! It was set to be a bit of a non-event as the day had been set aside for travelling to Sandakan (which I didn’t mind) but I was very happy to get beans on toast for breakfast. What really made the day for me, was what Dave accomplished while I was brushing my teeth. He got talking to a couple who were also heading to Sandakan that morning and I don’t know if he has some secret charm reserved only for birthdays, but he managed to talk them into giving us a lift in their rented car! This meant that not only did we avoid another potential 10pmh bus, but our wallets got a rest, and we got to spend the 5 hour journey in an air-conditioned car with two lovely new friends. Brilliant.
Alexandria (from Austria) did a great job of driving, even during several patches of mental rain, and Stuart (from Ireland) kept us entertained with stories of their previous holidays.
The drive was great – we passed acre after acre of palm tree plantations, drove through some mental rain and stopped for lunch at a tea plantation. We sat looking over the tea fields and mountains and I felt really lucky to be having another great hitchhiking experience and a much better birthday than I expected.
