Day 6: KL to Sandakan

Cafe Classico - our new favourite bar

So, we were up mega early today, 6.20am to be precise!  Ouch.  For once, both me and Matt managed to go to sleep shortly after lights out, but we both work up too early - neither of us can shake this jet lag off completely.  Tom on the other hand fell asleep and stayed asleep for the whole night and wasn't too pleased at being woken up that early!

We walked across to KLCC, got the LRT to KL Sentral and then discovered that if you are flying Malaysian Airways, you can check your baggage in at KL Sentral, fantastic.  We did so, think it took all of 2 minutes to check the luggage in.  We were worried about some cases being heavier than others, so redistributed all the weight last night, they didn't even bother weighing them properly!  Arghhhhh!  Oh hum.  We then boarded the KLIA Ekspres with no luggage to the airport, and then walked past all the queues at check in, straight to security, which took all of about 4 minutes and we were through.  Wow!  How did that happen?  Of course, with our British heads on, we had allowed loads and loads of time to get through check in and security so we were there too early!  And, of course, this being an Asian airport, all the food outlets are the other side of security so we ended up having a Krispy Kreme donut for breakfast (that was literally all there was).  I had to hunt down a vending machine for a cold drink.

Big kid

Our flight left directly on time, and was uneventful, we were served chicken curry for lunch and arrived in Sandakan early (it is a 2hr 40min flight).  We then got a teksi to a McDonalds where we arranged to meet with Jocelyn, our host.  She was quite late, but arrived and took us to the apartment block.  We are a bit of a way outside of the city centre, but we are in a decent apartment complex with a huge swimming pool - what more do you need?  She has arranged a rental car for us to get about in as well which is great as public transport here doesn't look as good as in KL for obvious reasons.

Deep blue sea

We headed straight out to find the nearest convenience store to get some provisions, oh my word, the sun was searing.  Luckily it wasn't that far a walk, but wow, it was far enough!  We got ourselves sorted with cold drinks, laundry detergent, shampoo and a loaf of bread for breakfast.  On the way we walked past a very cool bar: union jacks painted on oil drums and made into seating, guitars on the wall, etc.  It all seemed very funky, so we decided to head in on the way home.  We were right, it is a funky bar, but being in Malaysia it isn't an alcoholic bar, but it was selling some mocktails, so we indulged ourselves (they are only £1 a go so why not?!)  Tom had a mango sparkle, I had a lime mojito and Matt an Asian Passion.  They were all great!

We headed back in the scorching heat to the appartment and went straight to the pool.  We asked Jocelyn if we could take our inflatable with us, she said yes, as long as the pool wasn't too busy, fantastic, because it was empty (in KL there was a sign up saying no inflatables!) so we took him down and blew him up.  We figure that not many people do this, because suddenly Ali was having his photo taken by random people, including the guard!  In fact it got back to Jocelyn in record time that we had him in the pool as she said people had been telling her about us - with smiles!  We had a good hour's fun.  Tom is very attached to his new snorkel and refused to remove it even when on top of Ali and no need for breathing under water!

Sushi lollipops - a new experience

We went up to the apartment (we are on the 7th floor) for showers and a little down time before heading out for tea.  Now we are very much living in the suburbs here, where 'local' people live, so no tourist restaurants, few menus in English (although Malay is written in roman letters, if you don't know what a dish is, being able to read it isn't a huge amount of help unless you have access to wi-fi and can google it!).  We headed back to where the cool bar was, but unfortunately timed it exactly wrong as the heavens opened on us just as we left the apartment block.  There was no cover at all (this is a place for cars not for pedestrians) so we had to run, run, run.  We got soaked, but it is warm rain, so not as miserable as if the same were to happen in the UK.  We did a circuit of the block, but as I said, it is quite hard to fathom it all out.  We ended up in a sushi restaurant as Tom really really wanted to go there, and how can you refuse him, especially when Japanese is one of our favourites anyway!  We had a mixture of sushi, and other bits: karaage, edamame, garlic rice, some sushi lollipops?, tofu and gyoza.  It all went down really well.  We then headed to the cool bar we found earlier today for our pre-bedtime mocktails: mango sparkle for Tom, Bora Bora Brew for me (still not sure?) and a calamansi mojito for Matt - all very good again.  By the time we finished the rain had ended - yahoo.

We walked home and Tom went to bed straight away - he still has tired eyes.  Tomorrow, we will hopefully be visiting the orang-utans...