Day 11: Kota Kinabalu

Matt's classy breakfast

Toady we had a day to explore the city of Kota Kinabalu.  It isn't the most beautiful of cities, and it is hot, hot, hot but the more you explore it, the more you find.

We had a lazy start to the day, we had yoghurts and then headed off in search of some 'proper' breakfast.  We read that the shopping mall next door to us, Centre Point has a basement food court with items for breakfast so we headed over.  Some of the eateries were open, but most were selling fried rice with a whole load of toppings most of which we didn't recognise and certainly couldn't stomach that early in the morning.

Whale (fish) rider?

We ended up in a Bornean rip off of KFC, 'Borenos' and had fried chicken with rice (me), fried chicken with cheesy sauce on top and rice with gravy (Matt - I tried it, it was revolting) and chicken burger with mash potato for Tom.  Not your average breakfast - but really all we could find before 10am when everything else opens up.

We then went for a wander up the coastline.  First stop was the Handicraft markets which were outside and full of loads and loads of stalls, all selling the same items.  The problem was the passage ways were very very narrow, and the items stacked up high, meaning you couldn't really see what was being sold.  Also if someone had stopped at a stall ahead of you, you couldn't get past them and would have to wind your way around them through other stalls. We saw a couple of things we liked:  Tom took a liking to a turtle, but we made him wait just in case he saw something else he liked, his holiday money is gradually running low.  Oh, I forgot to add, it was steaming hot in the markets, there was no air conditioning and no fans, the sweat was running down our backs again - lovely.

One of the many local fishing boats

Next we came to Central Markets - once again, no air conditioning, but this time there were fans and high ceilings which helps.  These were pretty much local markets for local people, so selling fruit, veggies, meat and other stuff in bags which we couldn't recognise.  There was then a separate room off which we walked through - it was the non-halal area - so pork in various forms.  This is normal, in fact we have discovered, and now think of as normal that beer and pork goods are always to be found in a separate room / fenced off area away from everything else so that they don't taint all the other goods in the shop.  With over 65% of the population being Muslim it is important.  Most restaurants are halal, the ones that aren't tend to be Chinese.

Pulau Gaya from KK waterfront

We then found ourselves back on a nice bit of promenade so continued to walk along that amongst fish statues to Suria the shopping mall at the end of the prom.  It is very picturesque: clear turquoise sea, fishing boats constantly coming in and out and cute islands in the bay covered in trees.  What's not to like?  We know you aren't supposed to walk around here, we are (as always) the exception to the rule and anyway, you find out the layout of a place much better if you walk it, but really you would expect an obvious pavement to an obvious entrance of a big mall from the promenade wouldn't you?  Oh no, we had to go past the service entrance and all the bins and cross the road and then enter through a side entrance.  Oh hum.  Anyway, we entered and found ourselves in glorious air conditioning, fantastic.  It took us quite a while to cool down, but we got there in the end.  We found a great shop selling Borneo souvenirs, including Tom's turtle at a much cheaper price than in the handicraft market! We pledged to go back on our way out as there were a few things Matt and I liked too.

Do people really do this?!

We had a good look round - mainly to try to get cool again, and found a huge Daiso - yay.  We got excited and somehow managed to buy half a basket of bits and pieces, it was much better than the one we found in KL.  By now we were flagging so headed to the food court for some lunch.  This time Tom went for fried chicken and chips, Matt went for Takoyaki and I went for veggie donburi all washed down with fancy fruit juices.  On the way out we went to the toilet.  Not a great event, but it confirmed a strange habit I wasn't sure about.  In lots of toilets in Malaysia there are notices saying no squatting with pictures of people standing on the toilet squatting.  I thought this must be an exaggeration, surely no-one would do that?   Well today I went to the toilet and had to wait ages. When I finally got a cubicle, the floor was very wet (they wash their bums with a water hose here which I still don't understand how to do without getting all your clothes soaked?).  So not a problem the floor was wet, but then when I looked at the seat of the toilet I noticed wet footprints.  I thought, maybe it is the patter of the seat, so touched them with my hand, they wiped away.  OMG, the person before me really did stand on the toilet seat and squat!  Great!  I didn't want to sit in their footprints, so then I had to squat over the toilet seat (feet on the floor) to use it as there was no toilet paper.  A funny Asian quirk I guess?

We then went to Jesselton Point, which is a ferry terminal for those staying in hotels on the surrounding islands. Next on the planner was to walk up the hill to Signal Hill Observatory Tower.  It took us a while to find it, but we got there in the end and had a well deserved ice cream.  We then got a taxi back to our apartment, we had walked a long way in the heat.  First on the agenda was a dip in the pool, we got ready, Tom went to get his snorkel, but couldn't find it!  We spent 30 minutes stripping the apartment upside down trying to find it, but it was nowhere to be found.  All we can think of is that he left it down by the pool yesterday and forgot to bring it back amongst the chaos of us trying to work out how to get back to our apartment.  We asked at reception and the security guards who went to find it for us, but no luck.  They found a pair of googles but no mask and snorkel, so we have assume that someone walked off with them.  Such a shame as they were quite expensive, and Tom loved them - he was really upset but knew it was his fault and there was no resolution, he hasn't enough money to buy anymore and he needs to learn a lesson on looking after his property.  I was hoping he would be able to snorkel in the sea at the resort hotel we are going to, but I guess that won't happen now!

Downtown KK from Signal Hill Observatory

We got back to the apartment, had showers, put the laundry on and had some downtime before heading out for sunset and tea.  The sunset didn't really happen today unfortunately so we walked south down the boardwalk to another huge shopping mall.  Once again, I know the culture here is to drive everywhere, but if you are going to build a huge shopping mall at the end of a boardwalk prom, surely you would put some sort of pedestrian crossing across the 6 lanes of busy road so you can access it?!  Apparently not!  There was a road tunnel to the mall for cars, so we walked down that and suffered the heat and fumes being spat out by the cars, but really!!!!!!!

We found a very cute shop in there called Kaison and somehow came out with a measuring elephant?!!!!  Then tea in a Malay restaurant (fried rice for me and Tom, and roti and chicken curry for Matt).  Then a walk back a different way (we still had to negotiate a huge, busy road with no pedestrian crossing) to take a very tired Tom home to bed (think we may have slightly overdone it today!)

Day 10: Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu

Sleeping with bears

Today we reluctantly said goodbye to Sandakan.  We really enjoyed our stay there, great apartment, lovely smiley people and great wildlife.  What more can you need for a holiday.  Wish we had stayed longer.

Oh well, one of Jocelyn's staff came by to take us to the Express bus terminal - funny thing about express coaches in Malaysia - the terminals seem to be in the middle of industrial estates way out of the city centre.  Not sure how that is convenient for anyone other than teksi drivers?!

Anyway we got our Tung Ma Express Coach to Kota Kinabalu with no trouble.  It wasn't brand new, but comfortable enough, we were at the front which meant we had the best view and Matt was sat next to a Primary School teacher who had good English so they were nattering away for a while.  He showed interest in Tom's diary and actually read it from cover to cover and then said that his standard of writing is better than his students (I'm sure he was being nice).  Malaysians use the Roman alphabet, so he can directly compare how the letters etc are formed, Tom's writing isn't the best though, a little bit on the messy side...

Waiting for the off

Tom and I settled down to watch the Palm Oil plantations whizz past.  We stopped a way out of Sandakan where a whole load of women came on board to sell us nuts, crisps and dried fruit and then 2.5 hours in we stopped for a lunch break.  We had brought nibbles with us, so we just had an ice-cream as it was quite hot (nicely air conditioned on the coach though).

We were treated to entertainment on the coach, two videos were put on for our enjoyment.  The first, called Kong: Skull Island, was a little on the ridiculous side (even though it stared John Goodman and Samuel L Jackson, who both should have known better), the second called Logan was a Wolverine film and massively violent and full of the F word, and it had English subtitles on it.  Not great with an 8 year old on the front row.  He had his iPad on and I was happy for him to use it as much as he wanted.  This he did until he got snoozy and instantly fell asleep on me.  A good way for him to spend the journey as he hasn't been going to sleep until quite late this holiday and must be behind.

Being on the front row we got to see the driving of the Malaysians on the road.  Now, Matt quite happily drove around Sandakan with no incidents, the Malaysians are pretty law abiding and chilled when it comes to driving.  They also drive on the same side as us which makes it easy for us.  He said that he felt more at ease driving here than in Spain or Italy for example.  However, there is only one road to Kota Kinabalu from Sandakan and it is only a small road, which is full of palm oil tankers going slowly, meaning the coach has to overtake them - not always at the most sensible places!  There were a few hairy moments believe me.  However, the driver did his job and got us to KK in one piece.  The first half of the trip was quite dull, but the second half of the trip was spent going up, up, up twisty roads to the Mt Kinabalu Reserve, at one point we were at 5,000 ft and still the mountain rose up above us.  We then drove through the clouds down to KK.  It rained on us at this point and when I say rain, I mean poured, the coach almost became a boat as the road disappeared under storm water.

The Labuk River

As I said we arrived into KK with no incident.  We then had to get a taxi to our Air B&B apartment as the coach terminal was so far out from the town centre.  The taxi driver was so efficient that he drove off with the door still open and without Matt!  The crowd and us had to stop him - he laughed.  Matt was unimpressed, so then he said sorry!  We got to the apartment block and were greeted at once by Mark our host who took us to our apartment.  It is the biggest to date, but much older and tireder than the others.  Oh well, I think we have been spoilt until now, so can't really complain, especially as we are off to a posh hotel after here.  Tom wanted to go to the pool, so we all headed down for a refresh and snorkel.  We then headed back to the apartment to find that we couldn't get back through the door to the apartment block.  The key didn't work and there was no-where to scan the access card!  We tried other doors, all the same.  We asked some girls in an office, once again they couldn't help.  Hum, how do we get out of the pool?  We saw a security guard but he was busy talking in a walkie talkie.  We asked a teenager, who tried to help us by asking the security guard but got abuse from him for interrupting - oops!  Finally we found a way out and then walked all the way around the apartment block again to get in.  It seemed very wrong, but at least we got back to our flat.  How strange!

All too much

We had quick showers and then headed out to the mall opposite us for tea. We were expecting a busy, thriving mall as the adverts on the outside displayed Sports Direct, Starbucks, Nando's, Pla-Rail (someone was very excited), Hard Rock Cafe etc etc.  When we got in, it was like K village, empty!  the Pla-Rail shop is closing down, there was no Starbucks, no Sports Direct, Nando's had about 2 customers and Hard Rock Cafe was too expensive!  Humm, every other unit was closed.  How disappointing. However, it did have a Japanese restaurant which we decided to patronise, and were very glad we did as it was amazing, the best Japanese food we have had this trip.  We all cheered up.

We then went on the search for a convince store to buy some breakfast, although we found some convenience stores, we didn't find anything for breakfast, so we bought some drinks and came back to the flat.  We will explore in the morning, much easier in the day light.

Day 9: Sun Bears

Our stunning hire car

We all slept in today - why not, we deserved it after yesterday!  We decided to have an easy morning, so had breakfast and then headed to the pool with Ali as we hadn't been in it for 2 days, much to Tom's disgust!  We had it to ourselves and spent a pleasant hour in it, Tom with snorkel (don't think he will ever contemplate swimming without it now) and us in goggles, trying to be good and doing some lengths.  We got out, back to the flat and packed ready for tomorrow, the downside of multi-centre holidays: the constant messy suitcases (we don't unpack properly - what's the point?!)

Once we had done most of it, we got the car and headed back to Sepilok.  We had noticed that the Orang-utan place had a restaurant attached to it, so we wanted to patronise it, mainly for the sake of the orang-utans.  It was a really good restaurant actually, food was fresh and tasty.  Tom had a prawn omelette, Matt a beef curry and me a veggie noodle soup.

The Sepilok Giant - the tallest tree in the area

Once finished we headed to the Sun Bear Sanctuary which is mainly for maltreated bears - ones that have been captured for pets or even worse for bile production.  This is a little slice of heaven for them, they live in a fence area of rain forest (a large area of course) and are looked after and fed until they are ready to return to the wild.  Guess who we bumped into...Elod from yesterday.  He seemed happy to see us.

We were expecting to see one or two, but there were loads.  A walkway above the forest floor took us around a couple of the enclosures from which we could spot them and loads of long and short tailed macaques - well there was a lot of free food around for them to steal - which they did!  You know yesterday when we saw macaques we were amazed, today we were almost blasé about it all, however, saying that we did stop to watch them for quite a while and Matt got some more fantastic photographs.

We stayed at the sanctuary a good 2.5 hours, watching the bears.  Most of them were up in trees, but one pair came down to eat some food right in front of us which was very kind of them.  Sun Bears are the smallest of all the bears and called so because they have a golden mark on their chest - every one is different - so like a finger print.  They are very cute and look very cuddly, we could have watched them all day, even though the sweat was dripping off us whilst doing so.

We finally broke away from them and headed in to have an ice-cream and watch a video about them.  Tom bought a toy sun bear with his holiday money (this is where the orang-utan place fails because they didn't have any soft toy orang-utans for sale.  I'm sure if they did, we would have another one by now!)

Sun bear cub

We then headed up the road a little to the Rain Forest Discovery Centre to go on some walkways above the canopy to see what we could see.  We didn't get there until after 3.30 so were hoping to see the same sort of wildlife we saw on the river yesterday, but it wasn't too be, not sure if it was because it wasn't there or because we couldn't see it without a guide to spot it for us.  Tom did see a Giant Tree Squirrel and I came across a tiny snake, but apart from that we didn't see anything.  We heard plenty though - mainly insects but I'm sure some of the noise was coming from birds and primates too.  We walked all the walkways and climbed all the towers and went to see the biggest tree in the area, and all the time it was hot, hot, hot and ridiculously humid.  We were hoping for a rain storm to cool us down, but it didn't happen today, it just remained hot and humid.  Yuck.

Bear in a tree

At 5pm we gave up, we didn't think we would be able to find anything, maybe the lack of rain and wind and coolness meant the animals weren't out.  We drove back to Sandakan via Giant Supermarket to get some snacks for the coach ride tomorrow as we aren't sure if we will stop en-route during the journey (I did ask when we booked tickets, but the ticketing lady didn't understand me).  It can take up to 7 hours, so I figured we needed supplies just in case.  Oh and this time the non-halal section was open so we managed to get some beer for the evening - yahooo.  Not that we need a drink to enjoy ourselves, but we are on holiday and a drink before bed after spending the day sweating is a nice treat.  Must say thought that we are loving the culture of soft drink mocktails and freshly pressed juices here, they are all delicious and sooooooooo cheap, we are practically living on them and loving them.  Wish they were available like this in the UK.  Not sure a mocktail bar would work in Ingleton though!

Short tailed macaque

We got back, had much needed showers, put on clean clothes and then headed to the local shops for tea.  This time we thought we would go back to Mel's Fresco Bites as the food there was good.  Tom and Matt ordered fried rice and I ordered something Malay (Google translated it as wet fried chicken?!) Whilst we were waiting we had some freshly bbq'd chicken wings for a starter - they were delicious too.   Then we waited and waited and waited and waited for our mains.  They didn't come.  Everyone in the cafe got served their food including those who arrived after us and still it didn't come.  Then we noticed that the waiter who served us had disappeared!  I made it very obvious with my body language that something was wrong and the girls started to go through slips whilst pointing to us.  In the end they came over and asked if we were waiting for something!  Ah ha!  We had to re-order.  Tom's came first, then Matt's and then finally mine.  (It was noodles with chicken in a gravy).  It was all very tasty, just a shame we had to wait so long, especially as we had promised ourselves one last mocktail at Cafe Classico to say goodbye to our friends.  Tom decided he had drunk enough, but I had a calamansi mojito (really yummy) and Matt a Classico Breeze (watermelon thingy).  We said goodbye and headed back to the apartment to put Tom to bed - it was past 9pm.

We leave Sandakan tomorrow morning, shame as we have really loved it here, we are in such a great location, fabulous apartment, lovely people all around us.  Think we would have happily stayed a week if we could!  Oh hum, a long coach journey to KK tomorrow.

Day 8: Cave and River

Giant millipede

Wow what a very long, very exciting day we've had.  The best day so far!

So, this was a day trip that I booked from the UK.  To go to Gomantong Cave (which David Attenborough has been to) and Kinabatangan River from which we had a boat trip to try to see some animals.

Huge moth

It all started at 9.00 when we were picked up from our apartment complex dead on time (a good sign).  We then went to Sepilok to drop someone up before going to a supermarket to pick up some face masks (apparently the smell at Gomantong Cave is really bad) and then a 2.5 hour drive to the Cave.  It wasn't the most thrilling of drives, the road was lined with Palm Oil plantations, so it is the same vegetation you see mile after mile after mile.  However, as soon as you turn off the road, you are deposited straight into rain forest.  This we did and suddenly the bus came to a halt - our guide Elod, very excited, as he had spotted some gibbons.  We all shot out of the van (there were 7 of us) me in a state of undress (I was wearing zip off trousers and was just putting the legs on, I had one leg on and one leg off!)  They weren't close enough to photograph, but we saw them - 5 of them larking in the trees, wow they really do fly through the air, a delight to see them swinging and falling through the trees.  Our guide was really excited because he said that was the first time he had ever seen a gibbon.

Horseshoe bats inside the cave

Once they had gone we carried on to the cave. There was a boardwalk down to it and we walked slowly down, hoping to see some wildlife, but other than some orang-utan nests (orang-utans build a new nest every day to sleep in - as they don't have a tail they need a nest to be safe at night) and some rather wonderful centipedes and millipedes, we didn't see anything. We could pretty much smell the cave before we saw it, our guide was right, it did smell strongly of ammonia.  Tom was glad of his mask.  

Red leaf monkey

So the cave was ENORMOUS, it was the white cave.  This is the place where the birds' nests for birds nest soup are harvested (4 times a year).  The nests are made by the spit of Swiftlets - small birds who live in the cave and are harvested by men using quite primitive equipment in the dark - rather them than me, they get paid about £4,000 a month to do it (the ones up the ladder - £1,000 for those at the bottom of the ladder) .  The cave is also the haunt of the Horseshoe Bat, and there were 1,000s of them.  All of their droppings were on the floor, making the stench.  Elod said that if we were to walk on the floor, we would be up to over our knees in bat droppings!  Some of the bats were awake and circling around above us.  Mainly though the cave was home to lots of horrible creepy crawlies: billions of cockroaches who were keen to feast on any bat or bird who dropped to the floor, spiders and a long legged centipede which would slowly paralyse you if it were to be bitten by it. Nice!

We had a good look around, Elod, spotting things as we went - he had a powerful torch and green laser light to help us see things.  We came out and he found us a lime tree, pulled some leaves off and let us sniff them to get rid of the stench of the cave.  We then all washed our boots - as they were covered in bat droppings.  We then walked back to the bus.  This time, the trees by the boardwalk were teaming with monkeys.  First we found a group of red leaf monkeys.  They were brilliant, near enough to photo (just) and a big group.  They were fascinating to watch.  As we were watching them we heard some drips come through the leaves, yep, one of them was doing a wee and it landed on our guide Elod, who was very very unhappy about it - unfortunately for him it was really funny and we fell about laughing.

Young proboscis monkey

As we carried on we left the red leaf monkeys behind and came across a group of short tailed macaques.  Once again there were loads of them and they were running through the trees, jumping here and there.  Wow, we came out of the forest very very happy, our guide said that he could hear something big and was sure that there was an orang-utan around, but it didn't come near enough to us to see (the jungle is so so dense that any animal less than a metre away is impossible to spot!)

Black hornbill - amazing looking creatures

We got back to the bus and headed towards the lodge for lunch.  We didn't know what to expect.  We got off the bus and were deposited by the river where a boat came along.  Oh, we were getting a boat to the lodge.  It was a long speed boat and a fun way to arrive for lunch.  The lodge was lovely, all made from wood and open to the air and elements.  We took our footwear off and headed into the seating area where we were treated to a buffet lunch: rice, tandoori chicken, fish flavoured with coconut and wrapped in leaves, Japanese cucumbers (still not sure what this was) and some sort of pak choi which is the 'green vegetable' of choice around here, finished off with pineapple and watermelon.  All very tasty.  We then had some down time which was very welcome as it had been a very hot morning at the cave.

River Kinabatangan

Also at the lodge was a large group of Brits also travelling with children (an Explore/Exodus group - I saw the baggage!).  Tom made friends with some of the boys and played volley football.  Get this - as he was getting to know them they were asking each other where they were from, the boy, Lewis was from Nottingham, but he knew the Yorkshire Dales because he had been camping in a place called Meadow Falls!  A coincidence or to be expected when we travel because we always find something in common with the people we meet!  Anyway, Tom played for about an hour and came back to us dripping in sweat and very red in the face.  We dipped his head in cold water and got him an ice lolly to try to cool him down.  At 3.30 we had a briefing about the 10 primates we might spot on the river cruise and at 4.00 we headed off on our speed boats, looking for them.  The cruise takes place in the late afternoon because that is when the animals come out and get ready for bed.

Bilit Adventure Lodge

At 3.30 as the briefing began suddenly there was a wind!  Literally one minute it was still and very very hot and humid and then it was windy!  At 4.00 the rain came.  So we all put our raincoats on and went barefoot into the boats to go speeding down the river.  Tom and I had the best seats at the front of the boat.  At first we didn't see anything except for an Egret, and were beginning to wonder if we would see anything, but then we headed down a tributary.  The first thing we saw were some rope bridges across the river - these have been put up by the government to help the non swimming primates to cross the river (orang-utans can't swim, macaques can) and then Elod stopped the boat, he had found a tree full of Proboscis monkeys.  Wow!  They were a bachelor group and most of them small, but there were loads of them, the trees were literally dripping in monkeys.   We sat there watching them for ages, it really is mesmerising watching them going through their day to day antics. 

Long tailed macaque

Next we found a tree full of long tailed macaques.  Once again there were loads of them.  One of the males was low down by the river and we managed to get really really close to him.  So close that if he wanted he could have jumped into the boat.  (We were told that macaques are quite vicious and to not look them in the eye).  Luckily he stayed there and was very still meaning we could get really good photos of him.  We eventually tore ourselves away from that bunch and found a tree with some silver leaf monkeys in it.  As soon as they heard the boat they ran away, but still we saw them.  The rest of the trip was spent spotting more and more monkeys.  Mostly long tailed macaques.  Tom was completely enthralled by being in a speed boat and seeing all the wildlife, he even asked questions of Elod completely unprompted and good questions too. 

As dusk descended we saw more birds, mainly hornbills - those weird birds with the huge horny tusk on the top of their beak.  There were loads of them, and they are so elegant when in the sky. 

After what felt like 10 minutes in the boat, our 2 hours were up and we turned around and went back towards the lodge.  One more stop to see a mangrove snake curled up in a tree - how anyone spotted that is beyond me.  We then went under the rope bridges and found to our delight that there were lots of long tailed macaques using them to get from one side to the other.  We stopped to watch, but it was getting darker and darker so we had to break and go back to the lodge. 

Macaques crossing the river

Then a short loo break and back across the river to our bus and back to our apartment in Sandakan, which took a good 2.5 hours.  Tom unsurprisingly fell asleep on my shoulder, even though the road was very bumpy.  We got home at 8.45pm.  We were hungry!  Matt drove over to Cafe Classico to get some take away burgers and chips, whilst I got Tom showered and changed and started unpacking the wet dirty clothes from the day.  Matt wasn't long, the owner wouldn't let him pay for our tea as we are now his friends.  Wow!  A fantastic end to a great day.  Think we will need to take it easy tomorrow.

A round of up of animals we saw yesterday:

+ Gibbons

+ Short Tailed Macaques

+ Red Leaf Monkeys

+ Horseshoe Bats

+ Pigmy Squirrel

+ Black Nest Swiftlets

+ Long Tailed Macaques

+ Proboscis Monkeys

+ Silver Leaf Monkey

+ Hornbills: Black, Oriental & Wrinkle

+ Egrets

+ Kingfisher

+ Purple Heron

+ Mangrove Snake

+ Water Monitor Lizard

+ Millipedes

+ Centipedes

+ Cockroaches

+ Sun Skin Lizard

+ Huge Butterflies

Day 7: Buses and Orang-utans

Today dawned hot and humid (what else could it be, but of course we are British and have to check every morning just in case it has cooled down!)

Ozzie comes home!

We sat down to breakfast - bread and jam from the 7-11 we picked up yesterday.  Matt put a piece of bread on Tom's plate who immediately exclaimed ANTS!  The pack of bread was crawling with ants, so that went in the bin.  Unfortunately we didn't have anything else in for breakfast.  As McDonalds was only across the road, we decided to go against our principles and have breakfast there.  We were surprised to find sausage McMuffins, but they there were so we each had one and some rather good orange juice.

Now, our first job in the morning was to go to the Express Bus Terminal and book a coach from Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu on Saturday, just to be sure of a passage!  We located the Express Bus Terminal on Google maps and headed on our way - me navigating using Matt's maps app on his phone and believe it or not, it worked well, no arguing (Matt has resigned himself to directions: 'my way' and 'your way' instead of left and right now and it makes for a more pleasant experience - as otherwise I am always stressed about giving out the right directions)  However, Google maps didn't do us good as it delivered us to a depot of dead buses - in fact I would call it a bus graveyard.  We thought it couldn't be right as we had seen the coaches and they looked lovely.  We did see some behind the depot so we walked up, but it wasn't the right buses and their was no ticket counter etc.  Humm, now what to do?

Fine set of gnashers

We decided to head into Sandakan and see if we could a bus station where they might be able to help.  We found the bus station but it was very busy and there was no where to park.  It didn't look like the sort of place where someone would be able to speak English to help either, it looked pretty poor and run down.  We headed on and found a shopping mall.  We decided to park in there and see if we could find some info.  Luckily the lady in the information booth was very helpful and directed us back out of the city.  We found it - yahoooooo!  Lots of nice looking coaches, and two ticket counters, you travel with the company that do the trips on that day.  So we are booked on.  Phew.

Hanging around

We popped back to the flat, picked up some bits and pieces (including Ozzie our orang-utan who has come with us all this way to see his homeland again - yes, we know, we are soft and a bit mad!) and then went to our local shops and cafes for lunch.  We ended up in Mel's Fresco Bites cafe and ordered spaghetti carbonara for the boy and a local dish for us - not sure what to expect but it was fried fish, rice and some vegetables.   All very nice.  We then headed off to Sepilok and the orang-utan sanctuary, with me directing Matt all the way, once again without a wrong turn!

We got there dead on 2pm which is when it opens.  We were greeted by an English lady who chatted about the orang-utans we were about to see and introduced a film by an English camera man about the sanctuary and the work they do.  We then went on the boardwalks to see if we could see any.  We didn't have to go far, before we even got to the boardwalk, a small orang-utan walked across the path in front of the ticket office!  Wow, we didn't get a photo though - he moved too quickly.

Swinging

We walked along the boardwalks and within a minute we saw our first orang-utan in the woods, hanging about, then another and another.  They were walking on the boardwalks - the guards having to keep an eye on them and us!  Wow, such close encounters.  It was amazing and they are such human like creatures, loads of expression in their faces, and of course the most amazing limbs and climbing abilities (apparently it is not good for them to be on the floor as they can pick up bacteria which is harmful to them).  We carried on to the feeding station and waited and waited and waited and waited in the sweltering heat - wow was it hot and humid, everyone was wilting.  No orang-utans came.  We only had 2 hours in the reserve, after 30 minutes of waiting we gave up and went to the outdoor nursery instead.  There we observed from a building 'stage 2' orang-utans playing outside whilst being informed about them by another English lady. (The place is funded via a British Charity so there are quite a few British staff & volunteers).  All very very cute.

After half an hour and about 200 photos, we headed back via the feeding platform, still no joy there and on back to the ticket counter.  Just as we were about to emerge, a leaf dropped onto the boardwalk, and another - hum....we looked up and suddenly Tom whispered 'there's one over there' and pointed.  He was right, there was an orang-utan in the trees quite near to us, so we stopped and watched.  He got nearer and nearer and nearer.  On to the boardwalk he came, we gave him as much room as we could, but he saw Matt's camera and he wanted it.  Unfortunately there were no members of staff near us at the time.  He got hold of Matt's camera and pulled and pulled at it - well you know Matt, he was not going to give up his camera willingly, especially as it had the new lens on it which he had only bought last week.

Lunch time

Anyway, over to Matt for the rest of the story...

Yes, when he realised I wasn't about to hand over £2000 of camera plus lens without a struggle, he decided to climb me and try for my hat and/or glasses instead. I'm sure I could see a glint in his eye as he mugged me. Tom burst into tears as he thought I was going to get hurt (I thought so too - they've got serious teeth). I ended up limping back towards the walkway entrance with him still attached to me (not easy), and after a bit, a couple of visitors summoned a guard with a big stick, who chased him off. However, he apparently just legged it back up the walkway and picked on someone else instead. I later found out he's an 11 year old male called Kalabatu, who's known as a bit of a character. Still, he didn't hurt me at all, but he was incredibly strong. I'm sure he could have done some serious damage if he'd felt like it. We were told at the start that an adult orang-utan has 4 times the strength of an adult human, and I don't doubt it. My heart was pounding and my hands shaking for quite a while after the incident, but the only "damage" was a good smear of orang-utan snot on the front of my new lens. Could have been much worse, and will be a good anecdote in the future.
Anyway, here's a video clip that Nik managed to get before Tom started crying: https://youtu.be/hEsmcQC45Tc

Words fail me.

Once Matt had recovered, we got back in the car and headed back to Sandakan via Giant Supermarket to pick up some breakfasts, drinks and snacks.  We wanted to pick up some beers as well, especially with what had happened to Matt today, but the alcohol area was closed off for maintenance - there was no one in there doing any maintenance, the beer was tantalisingly close, but not to be had - bummer!  As we were ready to leave, a huge rainstorm descended upon us meaning we had to wait quite some time to be able to get back to the car.  We still can't get over warm rain, it's fun, but still to get totally drenched is a pain.  Eventually it died down enough that we only got wet, not drenched!

Our great ape

We came home for showers, but on trying to get into Tom's room, we discovered it was locked.  Asian door handles have a knob on the back, if you depress them and then close the door, they are locked from the outside.  Guess what Tom, the eternal fiddler, did to his door!  Yep, you guessed it, we searched the flat no keys anywhere, so I had to message our host and explain what had happened, she wasn't best pleased.  Then of course Tom started crying, because he thought Archie (his toy sloth) was locked in there alone, and then he was crying because we were cross with him.  Not a great end to the day!  Luckily our host's father in law lives next door and has a jar of keys.  He came with them all and tried them one by one, the door opened, all was well!  Phew!!!!!

We headed out for tea: back to Cafe Classico - Tom and I had a burger each with some great fries whilst Matt had Roti Chennai which was recommended him by the owner who came over to speak to us.  We all had a silly cocktail as well, and the bill - it came to £6 in total.  Wow!  We are paying local prices here as we are in a local suburb, no other white faces to be seen here, we are quite the celebrities.

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...

Day 5: Sunway Lagoon

Tiger Tom

Wow, what a day.  We are all exhausted and sun-weary but happy.  Today we went to Sunway Lagoon.  I had read about it in LP, and on a blog for families visiting Malaysia and it sounded right down Tom's street, he loved the water park we went to in Tenerife which Matt never got to, so I thought it would be a fun family day out.  The information on the website was very scarce, we we weren't really that sure what to expect.  I thought there would be a few water rides, a dry ride or two and a beach.  Oh was I wrong, very very wrong!

Cheeky monkeys

Just as well, we didn't balk at the price of entry - it was £70 for the 3 of us (with a big discount voucher I found on-line), which is quite an investment for a day out, but I figured it was worth a go for some fun.  In the end we came out thinking what great value the ticket was.

So, it was a beach, a lagoon, a wave pool, lots of water rides: lumpy bumpy rides, twisty rides, up and down rides, super fast rides, dark rides, boat rides and more.  That was just the watery bit.  There was also a huge suspension bridge, a huge zip wire and bungee (if you wanted to pay extra), a full on zoo including lions, tigers, panthers etc (but no orang-utans!), an amusement park with roller coaster, pirate boat swing and Ghostbusters/zombie experience and more.  We couldn't quite believe what we found, and the day 10-6 went very very quickly.

On the water slides

We did spend the most of last night trying to work out how to get there - it is quite a distance away.  The website didn't give us much information, and then when typing it into the KL travel destination website, the info it gave us wasn't that helpful (no timetables etc).  We decided that the same station and bus line kept coming up, so we would try that way, but when we got to the bus stop we were told that the bus we needed didn't exist anymore!  Oh joy!  We went back to the station and found a very helpful lady who told us to get back on the train, to much further down the line and then there is a dedicated bus to take us to the Lagoon.  She was right, the journey couldn't have been any easier.  Why the Lagoon or the KL travel website don't tell you about it is beyond me!

Anyhow, we arrived and followed the signs and headed down, down, down into the lagoon (built in an old mine).  We got changed and headed straight to the beach for a dip in the lagoon, very nice it was too.  Then off to the water rides.  Now one thing about the water rides, is that a lot of them take place on a blow up boat for 2.  This was also the case in Tenerife, not a problem for us as there were only two of us anyway, but the staff allowed people to go on by themselves, not the case here and as we already know you must obey the rules in Malaysia, or you get whistled at (there were a lot of whistles today - but no truncheons that I could see).  This meant that it was either me and Tom or Matt and Tom on the ride, with who was left over waiting.  Not ideal, but it didn't ruin the day by any means.

LONG suspension bridge

I must say I did feel very female and very exposed today.  There were huge bunches of Indian men hanging around (not sure where their partners were?) and of course, with a huge Muslim population, most of the women who were there were completely wrapped up!  In fact, we have never seen such an array of swimming costumes ever.  They went from the full floppy Muslim dress with headscarf in swimming suit material, to just doing it all fully dressed in your normal everyday clothes, to skimpy bikinis (white people only) and everything and I mean everything in-between.  I was very much the minority, being white and in a swimsuit, however, I did have a dress to cover up between rides, and to be honest I didn't notice anyone leering at me at all.  One thing we have noticed here is that everyone seems to be friendly and get on with each other despite some obvious differences.  I'm sure there must be tensions from time to time, but nothing we have seen.  In fact when I went on a very very fast ride where you are stood up in a see through capsule and at some point the floor gives way and you fall feet first down a chute before landing on your back and finishing the ride, the biggest surge of adrenaline I have experienced in a long long time (Matt and Tom decided against doing it!), two Arab blokes before me actually checked on me to make sure I was OK at the end of the ride.  We had been making faces at each other because a big bunch of Indian men caused delays before us - by having huge debates about who would go first etc etc.

Weeeeeeeeee!

After spending some time at the first splash park, we headed to another, and found a full on zoo between the tow.  None of the animals were doing anything, but then I'm not that surprised considering it was very very hot.  We saw sun bears, white lions, white tiger, black panther, lots of snakes, rabbits, a cassowary (which I got very excited about!), giant tortoises, ponies, more rabbits, meerkats and a lot more.  In fact we spent way more time there than we expected.  So much so that we were hungry so went to find something for lunch.  We ended up with okonomiyaki chicken with rice and pop, which was enough to put us on and then we explored the other splash park which was ace, with loads more rides, including the fast one I described, 4 twisty boat rides, a backwards and forwards boat slide that was ace and didn't have much of a queue so we did it twice, and a huge kids area themed around Sponge Bob Square Pants, which at first looked quite mild, but with some exploring was actually fabulous, as good for adults as for kids.  Think we spent the best part of an hour there.  They had a huge big bucket of water that filled up and then splashed upon us every 5 minutes or so which was great fun as well as loads of twisty rides.  A fab place.

Next stop was a walk along a huge long suspension bridge to an amusement park, a ride on a big wheel, Matt had a ride on a roller coaster (Tom couldn't go as he wasn't tall enough) and then we queued up for a Ghostbusters experience.  It was billed as being quite scary and they weren't wrong.  There were live actors in the experience jumping out at you as you went along.  It was very dark so you couldn't see anything, lots of big noises going off, scary movies around us etc etc.  I was worried that it was too much for Tom, but he kept at it got through without any hysterics, but I think he was puzzled as to why we took him there.  Another boy about the same age as him, cried instantly and had to leave, so well done Tom!

By now it was heading for 5pm, so we went back to the first splash area and had a go on our favourite rides,  and then Tom requested some time in the wave pool, where he spent most of his time under water.

By 5.30 we were starving and tired.  It was time to go, so we got changed into our dry clothes and headed out in search of tea, which we found at Morganfield's, a western style restaurant (so not one we would naturally search out, but it was the only one we could find that was open and not selling mega spicy food!).  The food was actually really good, Matt had some pork ribs, I had a massive piece of chicken that I couldn't finish and Tom had meatballs.  All went down very well.

We then got the bus and train back home, where Tom went straight to bed (he didn't get to sleep until around midnight last night!) and we packed ready for our flight to Sandakan tomorrow morning.  Can't wait for bed, am hoping we can get to sleep before 2am tonight - please...

Day 4: Central Market

Starting off delicately

We all had trouble getting to sleep last night.  It took Tom till 10pm and us till after about 2.30am.  Matt then fell into a deep sleep and woke up at 8.30 with a very sore neck (maybe he slept too deeply) whilst I slept in 30 minute intervals until about 7.30 when I fell into a deep sleep and then had to be woken by Matt at 10 - when I was completely disorientated!

Needless to say, we didn't get out of the flat until almost 12.  Not a problem, we didn't have much on today.  We had decided to go to Central Market, so we hopped on the LRT and followed the crowd.  We haven't seen a huge amount of touristy stuff here to date, but today changed all that, we walked past stall after stall of heavily laden stalls selling everything from T-shirts, to 'hippy' clothes, batiks, bags, lanterns, wooden goods, silver, plastic tat, and everything in-between.  It's the sort of place you can spend all day and come away with a new wardrobe full of things and gifts galore.  We, however, aren't in full power shopping mode, as we have two internal flights to do yet on budget flights which don't have a huge luggage allowance (unlike on the way home where we can have 2 check-in pieces each, totalling 46Kg per person - which is probably more than my whole wardrobe at home!  So today was about remembering what is available ready to use up any spare RM when we get back from Borneo.  However, Tom found himself a groovy pair of sunglasses for only 6RM.

Working hard...

We had lunch (chicken, mushroom and rice for me and lemon chicken and rice for Matt - with Tom eating off our plates) surprisingly it was luke warm, but tasty enough.  I ordered some green apple juice and was given a glass of green water with thick green foam on top.  Lets say it didn't look appetising, but I took a gulp and it was surprisingly refreshing and tasted exactly like green apples.

After lunch, we had a look around the shops in the upper level and found Tom a very groovy blue batik shirt.  We have been wondering what size he is as children's sizes seem too small and adults too large.  Turns out he is an XXL child!  Unfortunately there aren't a lot of XXL on offer, but the server found him a lovely shirt (just as well as the only other one in the store was bright pink!)

Tom then decided he wanted to paint a batik - we had found a little workshop where they charged RM15 to have a go.  He chose a cat, and got stuck in straight away.  It was quite an intricate job as there were so many bits to paint, so Matt decided to take a walk.  He was gone quite a long time - we were almost finished when he returned.

Finished!

He had a story to tell, he had found a fish spa - you know, those places where you dip your feet in water and fish swim up and eat all the dry skin off you.    They were only charging 10RM for 15 minutes which seemed a right bargain considering we saw them in Tenerife for 25 Euros.  Matt took over whilst I got myself to the fish spa for a go, it is a really weird sensation as a ball of fish attach themselves to your feet and start nibbling away.  It feels like they are scratching you a little, but apparently they have no teeth.  Anyway, I have two blisters on my feet from wearing my flip flops for too long the other day, they were nicely scabbed over, but the fish obviously like scabs and pulled them off, then they started to tug quite viciously at my skin, so much so that I took my foot out of the water and then watched a trickle of blood run down my foot!  Oops!

In the fish tank

At this point Tom and Matt turned up, Tom having finished his masterpiece.  He wanted a go too, and even though he saw the fish and we told him it scratched and he saw my foot he wanted a go, so we paid for him, he sat down, put his feet in and smiled.  He didn't mind at all!  Sometimes I can't fathom the boy out!  But he made us proud, especially as there was a women opposite us who could only bare to put her foot in for about 5 seconds a go!

We all left with happy feet.  We then walked down through China Town and past some stadiums to a monorail station to give the boy a ride.  Bit of a mistake, it was searingly hot and the monorail was full.  We couldn't get on the first one and then had to literally barge our way onto the second one (they ran at 15 minute intervals).  Of course it emptied out at the next station - so it would have made sense to walk the short distance to the next station to get on it easily!  Oh hum!  You live and learn.  We were then a little sneaky and stayed on the monorail to the end station and then got it back again to our nearest stop.

Boys in their holiday shirts

We got home, had a blissful dip in the pool, showers and then headed to Madame Kwan's for tea - Malaysian fare today: Chicken and Mushroom Mee for me (noodles with lumps of chicken and mushrooms) and Beef Satay for Matt whilst Tom had spag bol off the kiddies menu and ate it super quick (we think he may be over the worst).

Then, back to the apartment and attempts to go to sleep at a useful time...

Oh, the answer to Tom's joke...are you ready for it...

Koala Lumpur!!!!!!