World Tour 2000 - 2002
Have arrived in Borneo 26 hours later when you add in the time difference and following the journey we have the following three travellers tips..
1) Don't drink two large Cafe Latte's 2 hours before an overnight flight.
2) Always start each and every flight, no matter how short, with a Gin and Tonic.
3) It is a good idea to leave more than 1 hour 20 minutes from arriving at Kuala Lumpar airport to try and catch a domestic connection, unless you are Linford Cristie and Geoff Capes rolled into one.
We had pre-booked our first three nights in the Tanjung Aru Resort on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu and have spent the first day asleep catching up from caffeine assisted jet lag. Managed to get into town in the evening to cruise the local markets and find some nice Malaysian food. after three days in Kota Kinabalu (or KK as we travellers call it) it was time to head out of town. KK only has two sites to go and see and it is easy to get in one and a little harder to get in the other. Those good old Brits flattened the town twice during the war so there are no historical buildings here. The first time they flattened it was to stop the invading Japenese troops from using the town as a base, and the second time was to bomb the Japs out of the base they set up anyway !!!
So on the 8th October we headed on out to the Kinabalu National Park, so named after a lump of granite in the park called Mount Kinabalu who's summit stands at 13,455ft. The plan is to climb up it. The Lonely Planet guide describes this mountain as "one of the easiest mountains in the world to climb" and we think who ever wrote that is either stupid or did not climb it. The climb took us two days after one day staying at the base to get used to the altitude. You start off at 1900m above sea level and the first days walk is 6km long to an overnight hut at 3300m above sea level. What we endured here was what could be the worlds longest staircase, we later found out there are over 2500 steps and this was to be the easy bit. We tried to sleep overnight in the hut but we were either too hot or kept awake by an Indian guy snoring in the corner. On the second day you are woken at 3am to do the ascent to the summit, yep I said 3am. This part of the climb was a lot harder, with ropes to assist you climbing up the exposed granite rock. Now I would have liked to be able to report that the view at the top at dawn was spectacular, because by all written accounts it can move you to tears. Alas on the day we climbed to the summit the mountain was shrouded in a rain cloud. If you have ever wondered what it is like to be inside a rain cloud well we can tell you - it's wet. We spent a total of about 3 minutes at the summit in 12m visibility with rain precipitation whizing past us in the 40mph wind. So we decended a little out of the wind for a well earned tot of cognac that Gary just happened to find in his pocket (thanks a million Rav). We decended back to the over night hut making it back for 9am. On the way down you get to see why they make you climb it in the dark, that way you cannot see how steep the climb is or how far it is to fall down if you slip. We had breakfast at the hut before we had to walk back down the worlds longest staircase. Now I would like to pay tribute here to Ilse and Nico who accompanied us in the climb and at times their humour prevented the inevitable sense of humour failures. Our diary entry for 10th October simply says "Mount Kinabalu 4101.2metres - CONQUERED"
We slept that night at the Park HQ and woke on the 11th without full use of our legs, and we were also greeted with the sight of a mountain free from clouds and perfectly clear. We departed with a new friend Alex to Poring Hot Springs. Here they have channelled a volcanic spring into private tubs that are big enough to hold two, and we poured a piping hot one to soak our weary limbs. After relaxing for a few hours we decided to undertake a "Canopy Walkway'. Basically this is a series of aluminium ladders suspended flat from steel cables with nylon rope. Each ladder has a plank of wood strapped to it to walk on, there is also fishing net to stop you falling off the sides. Oh did we say it was 120ft off the ground? Sharon nipped along it like somebody who was born to walk along an 8inch surface and Gary soiled his underwear....
After overnighting at Poring, we then headed out on the 12th to one of the places which we had been looking forward to before we arrived here - Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Centre. We ended up staying here three days because the area is very relaxing and each afternoon we paid our 10 ringgit to go into the centre and watch the feeding. At the centre they take orphaned and injured orang-utans and teach them how to live wild again. Most animals make it back to the wild but some live semi wild returning to the feeding sessions when they cannot be bothered to find their own food. Over the three days we saw 7 orang-utans two of which had babies with them. It was absolutely spell binding to watch them in the forest and watch the youngsters play, they are so human like. Whilst staying at Sepilok we also did a small 2km trek through the forest. Whilst staying at Sepilok we again bumped into Nico and Ilse who we had walked the mountain with and after a day Alex from Poring caught up with us.
Using Sepilok as a base, we dumped some of our gear and on the 15th headed out to Turtle Island National Park. At last a beach.....and a lazy afternoon sunbathing and snorkelling. At 5:30pm you have to vacate the beach as from 5:30pm until 7am the beach belongs to the Turtles. We had dinner and sat around playing cards with Alex and Victoria, then at 8:30pm a ranger came and said the magic words "you wanna go see a turtle?"
A Green turtle had hauled herself up onto the beach and dug her nest, we watched her lay 85 eggs which were immediately collected by a ranger completely unknown by the turtle. After laying her eggs she begun to cover her nest and we left her to finish off and return to the sea. We then accompanied the ranger to a protected hatchery where he reburied the eggs in a nest identical to the one the mother turtle had made, in seven weeks they would hatch. Then we got to hold a baby turtle that was less than one hour old. They are exactly like the wind up toys you get for the bath, their flippers going ten to the dozen, and they are strong little buggers too. After going oooh and ahhhh for about five minutes it was time to release the hatchlings into the sea.We went to the beach and stood and watched as 45 of the little things were released onto the beach and they went hell for leather for the sea and swam away - awesome.
Next day Sharon, Gary, Alex and Victoria all departed from Sepilok to Jungle Camp. Now this place is hard to describe, it is a collection of wooden huts one hours boat ride up the Kinabatangan River deep in the jungle. The camp has no electricity, no running water, you shower by filling a bucket with rain water and pouring it over yourself. I will leave out describing the toilets. Now the jungle here is not part of a park, there are no fences, it is still virgin untamed rain forest just the way it has been for ages. On the boat ride to the camp we saw a herd of wild elephants feeding by the waters edge and this was to start three days of amazing wildlife watching. Our days were spent with morning walks in the jungle, swims in the langoon, lazing around in hammocks, playing cards, teasing the local monitor lizards and sunset boat rides on the river. I would also comment on the food, three square meals a day cooked to perfection by William the Greater, sometimes he even caught the fish he served up at the table, and each meal also always contained jungle fern a plant found in the jungle. Real Tarzan stuff this. During our stay here we saw, wild boar, Probiscus Monkeys, Maroon Langur, Silvered Langur, Pygmy Squirrels, Bornean Horseshoe bats, cave millipedes, kingfishers, eagles, egrets, snake birds, Short and Long Tailed Macuques, one huge Easturine Crocodile and the day before we left a wild male dominant orang-utan. This was the icing on the cake of a fantastic stay in the jungle.
The stay in the jungle does bring us to some more travellers tips;
4) Don't use aerosol mossie sprays, they do not stay on for five minutes and the bastards still get you.
5) When sleeping in a mossie net, always check the net before hand to see if any of the bastards have got in.
6) If you are taking any malaria tablets, take them after breakfast as they can keep you awake at night.
These two tips are brought to you after personal experience and about 30 bites (well on Gary only) and a few sleepless nights at the start of the trip.
So after leaving our relaxing haven of the Jungle Camp we went back to Sepilok for a shower, aaahhh that was nice, we also picked up the stuff we left there. It was time here to say goodbye to Alex and Victoria, Alex is heading down to Semporna to do some diving and Victoria is heading for Kuching before returning to NZ.
We were supposed to be leaving Sabah on the 19th but both of us felt that to leave now without visiting the state of Sarawak which makes up the other half of East Malaysia would not be doing Borneo justice. It's also pissing it down with rain in Peninsular Malaysia as the rains have come early so instead we spent the 19th re-arranging the next two weeks travel. On the 21st October we travelled back to KK where we started out from, to wait for our flight out to Miri in Sarawak on the 23rd.
Billy Connolly once said "that if the world needed an enema they would insert it in Brisbane", well we think he said that because he has never been to Miri. This place is basically a dump and we had to come here to book accomodation in the Mulu National park. Once this was sorted out we enjoyed being serenaded to sleep by the Kareoke bar under the hotel, "Girls just wanna have fun" and "Hey Mickey" has now taken on a whole new meaning in our lives.
On the 24th flew up to Mulu in a tiny twin engined plane, the journey was pretty fantastic due to the view of untouched jungle spreading below us for miles and miles. We have come to Mulu to visit the caves which is something Borneo is famous for. Here they claim to have the biggest caves in the world and going on the four we visited they may just be right. The show caves we visited were called Deer, Langs, Clearwater and Wind. Of the four the Wind cave was our favorite because it had the most impressive formations inside, but in terms of size the Deer cave topped them all. The entrance to this cave is so large you could build St Paul Cathedral in the entrance and still have room to spare. At the entrance of the cave live thousands of swiftlets whose nests make up birds nest soup, and further in the cave in the roof live over 3 million bats. As you walk in the cave you are over powered by the smell of amonia from all the bat shite on the floor, but at dusk these three million bats have to leave the cave to go out hunting over the forest. This was an incredible site and one we returned to see on more than one occasion. The bats leave the cave and circle high within the entrance in a doughnut shape, then one plucky individual makes a dash for it and about 10,000 of his mates follow. They fly out in a spiral formation to evade the Bat Hawks which dive bomb them from above plucking off their own dinner. After three days at Mulu we were all caved out and spent any remaining time just chilling out and playing cards with Aaron (who we had met earlier at Sepilok) and Laura.
On the 27th we departed from Mulu in that little plane again and this time caught a flight straight out of Miri to Kuching - Cat City, named after a fruit not a feline, but this hasn't stopped the locals putting up stupid cat statues everywhere. They even have a cat museum here, not sure what's in it though as we gave it a miss. Kuching is actually a very pleasant city and we got some major nice food here and spent a few days exploring the city and it's few historical attractions (which all turned out to be closed for refurbishment). We hung around in Kuching for a few days trying to get a group together for a particular Long House visit which had been recommended by another traveller but we were not able to, so we gave in and went on an organised tour on the 31st.
After a four hour drive and one hour boat ride up the Lamanak River we arrived at the Long House, after quickly settling into our lodgings we then toured the Long House with our guide Helmi. Now if you are wondering what a Long House is, it is exactly what it says on the tin, it is a house and it's very long. A common verander runs the length of the house and on one side of the verander are the houses in which the families live. Traditionally a long house is measured by the number of doors it has, i.e. houses, and our one had 27 doors. Over 300 people lived in the Long House. The Iban people like most tribes in Borneo were originally headhunters, often going off to kill members of other enemy tribes, and keeping their skulls as trophies in the rafters of the Long House. The good old Brits outlawed this ages ago, but the tribes all started up again in WWII, and our Long House was decorated with the skulls of seven Japenese soldiers killed by the family members. We met Sureng, an 86 year old, covered in tattoo's and he was the last living headhunter in the Long House. In the evening after the welcome dance we shared a few bottles of rice wine and a sip of cognac with this old man.