Beautiful Borneo

Borneo
 

We left HK and took a 3 hour flight straight to Kota Kinabalu in Malaysian Borneo where we settled into our hotel. The next day we had a think about what we wanted to do there. We don’t tend to plan too far in advance as quite often plans change when a better idea/excursion comes up, or the opposite happens and we don’t like somewhere, plus we are going to so many different places, it would be too much to plan too far in advance. We had organised to go to Sepilok on the other side of Borneo to do a 2 night camping trip in the jungle, but apart from that we were fairly flexible. 

On our first full day in Borneo, we walked around the city of Kota Kinabalu, had some lunch by the harbourfront and sorted out a tour for the following day to a couple of the islands off the coast. Baby D had his hair cut and we headed back to the hotel so that I could do some work. 

Sapi

Early the next morning we headed down to Jesselton Point where the boats to the islands leave from. We had booked to go to the island of Sapi to do some snorkelling, and then later to Manukan to relax on the beach in the afternoon. We had hired a lifejacket, a mask and a snorkel and after faffing around trying to find where to pick them up because our place was closed, we were off in a speedboat. The boat ride took around 20 minutes to get to Sapi and we were soon merrily snorkelling round the island. We spent a couple of hours there and the snorkelling was fantastic. We were then picked up and transferred over to Manukan, about 15 minutes’ away where we snorkelled a bit more and lazed around on the beach for a couple of hours. 

Snorkelling in Sapi

The day after, we woke up early and went down to Padang Merdeka, which is the main square to take a bus to other parts of Borneo. We were heading to Kinabalu Park, famous for the 4095m mountain, Mt Kinabalu. We found a mini-van to take us, along with 7 or 8 other people. We got the last 2 seats on the bus and we left as soon as our bags were put onboard. The bus cost us 25 Ringgit, about £5 and the journey was approx. 2 hours. The bus only goes once it’s full, and some of the other passengers had been waiting about an hour to leave so we were lucky to go straight away.

A lot of people go to the Park to climb the mountain, but you have to go on an organised tour which is fairly expensive (200 Ringgit) and you need to be there before 10am to join the tour. We found out that the first bus goes before 7am so it is definitely possible to get there before 10 to start the trek on the same day – depending on how full the buses are of course. We decided to walk round the park on our own as we knew there were several trails you could take. Once we’d arrived, we found our hotel which was about 1.5km from the Park’s entrance and once we arrived at the Park we asked for some advice on the best trails. We set off on what we were told was the most popular trail. After about 500m the path was blocked and there was a sign saying that the trail was closed. So we turned back along the path towards a spot where the path split and where it was possible to take a different trail. After another 500m mostly uphill, this path was also blocked, by some fallen trees this time, so back we went again. 

Trail in Kinabalu Park

The route through the park were beautiful; we were in the jungle, tramping through mud, avoiding big puddles and spotting plants and wildlife, not that we saw many animals apart from butterflies and other insects. As well as falling over and spraining my ankle, it was frustrating to have to keep turning back when the trails were closed and we could hear the road from most of the trails. We got onto our final trail which was about 3km long and the most difficult one we’d experienced as we were trekking through a cloud and it was fairly steep.

Another trail in Kinabalu Park

Just when we thought we were lost, we found the road and assumed we were almost at the end of the last trail. Until we saw a sign saying that the rest of it was closed. By this stage there was no way we were going back on ourselves so we walked round the sign and carried on the hike. 5 minutes later we could see the road; about 5metres below us with no access to it. We realised then why the trail was closed, it just stopped suddenly and there was a drop down to the road with several trees and bushes in the way. I thought it was impassable and we would have to traipse 3km back in the other direction through the cloud on a sprained ankle, but Baby D aka Indiana Jones managed to shimmy down a tree and I followed him, both of us landing on the road just as a police car drove past. 

Back at the hotel we met a couple of girls from the Philippines and they told me that they were heading to Kota Kinabalu on the following day and had planned to go to Sapi, the small island where we’d gone snorkelling the day before. They asked us if we had done the zipline to Gaya, another island nearby. We obviously hadn’t because it was the first we’d heard of it and how gutted were we! So if anyone reading this ever goes to Borneo, check it out! I hear the zipline is nearly 300m long.

The next day we were back to Kota Kinabalu and once we arrived in the centre we went straight to the airport from Padang Merdeka, which cost us just 5 Ringgit each (£1 each). We had a flight to Sandakan, on the east side of the island where stayed one night in the town before heading to Sepilok as we were doing a 3 day, 2 night jungle adventure and our tour company’s ‘ops base’ was there. 

Mt Kinabalu

Sepilok is a town around 26km from Sandakan, where there is an orangutan rehabilitation centre and a sun bear centre. We were dropped off at Uncle Tan’s ops base which is actually a B&B and once we’d left our bags there, we jumped in their mini-van to go to the 2 animal sanctuaries. We spent a couple of hours in each, and both were amazing experiences. We saw about 6 orangutans playing in the nursery and at 10am we went across to the feeding platform where we saw one orangutan eating, and loads of baboons nicking the food. After we headed away from the feeding area along one of the walkways, we were greeted by the same orangutan that had been eating. He was about 3 feet in front of us and one of the rangers told us to wait until he was ahead of us, and then we followed him for about 100m. That was a really special experience because it’s quite unusual to get that close to them. 

Orangutan in the sanctuary

In fact there is a sign up that said it’s not always possible to see any there, although I think it’s really rare and bad luck not to see any. The numbers of orangutan in Borneo have been vastly depleted over the past 40 years, mainly due to the deforestation of the land to make way for palm trees, grown for their cheap palm oil which goes into virtually everything these days. It was sad to see the countryside being changed and the huge numbers of palm trees everywhere. The orangutan rehab centre helps sick or injured animals get back to health and they are released back into the wild. It also helps orphaned orangutans and looks after them until they are big enough to fend for themselves.

Just across the road was the sun bear centre where they look after sick and injured bears and we spotted several roaming around from the viewing deck. As we were leaving, we spotted a woman that I recognised from somewhere, and when I mentioned it to Baby D he immediately told me she looked like Dragons’ Den’s Sarah Willingham but he was sure it wasn’t actually her. When she walked past us with her family, Baby D asked her if she was who I thought she was, and she confirmed it. It was a bit random to see a dragon in the jungle but we chatted to her for about 20 minutes about our travels (she’d been travelling the world for a year with 4 kids in tow) and she was a lovely lady.

Sun bear in the sanctuary

We headed back to the orangutan centre to watch a video about the work done there, then we got picked up by our tour company and dropped back at ops base for lunch. Along with a fellow tourist, Matt from Australia, we waited a while for a family of 5 that was also booked on the tour. They never materialised, so just the 3 of us jumped in a mini-van to go to the camp along Kinabatangan River.

The journey took about an hour and a half, and we stopped beside the river and got on a small motor boat to go to the camp. The boat ride was over an hour, with a couple of stops along the way to spot wildlife in the jungle along the river. Our guide Otto pointed out several species of bird, including egrets, eagles and kingfishers, along with the jungle mafia – baboons and long tailed macaques. The real jewel in the crown though was the wild orangutan and her baby. I can’t describe how amazing it was to see that sight.

Our cabin at Uncle Tan's

When we got to camp we were greeted by the other staff, and there were about 10 guys working there, for 3 tourists. We found out that the river had flooded the camp the week before and that water levels were still very high. Our cabin was the first one we saw in a row of about 15, and only one of two that wasn’t surrounded by water. The cabin was very basic, which we had expected. There were no doors or windows and the beds were a couple of thin, dirty mattresses on the floor with a mosquito nest. Opposite the cabin was the restaurant and this was guarded by a friendly cat who we later discovered was a vicious killing machine.

Our bedroom

Once we had settled in, we were told about the activities we were going to do over the next few days. We had a couple of hours of free time before we went out on the first activity which was a night boat tour to spot wildlife. We were impressed with our guide Otto who was able to navigate the boat and spot animals, and we saw some sleeping proboscis monkeys and some owls. We joined the staff for a singalong while we had dinner and they shared their rice wine with us. 

The camp’s generator was usually switched on between 6pm and midnight but because of the high water levels, for security reasons they kept it on until 3.30am. That meant no sleep for me as my bed faced the restaurant and the lights were full blast all night. I finally dozed off and about 5 minutes later we had our 5.45am wake up call to go for the morning boat ride.

Kinabatangan River

We saw plenty of wildlife on that boat ride, including more of the jungle mafia, a variety of different birds and another couple of orangutans in the trees, again a fantastic sight.

In the afternoon, Otto took us for a jungle hike, pointing out different plants and their uses, including which ones were edible, especially if we ever got lost in the jungle. The hike wasn’t much fun at first because of the number of mosquitoes and the amount of mud and mini lakes we had to wade through, but once I stopped whining like a little girl, it was interesting.

After lunch, we were joined by 5 other tourists and we went out on another night tour with their guide. We missed out on the night jungle walk because of the weather, which I was secretly a bit glad about. Baby D stayed behind to get drunk on rice wine with the staff because that’s the point of a jungle tour obviously. 

Because we didn’t get great pictures on the previous night cruise, I didn’t bother taking a camera. What a wally. This different guide, Em, went right up to the shore and drove the boat right through the trees. We got up close and personal with a kingfisher and a photo would have come out brilliantly. If I’d had a camera. We saw tiny frogs floating past on logs and several owls too. Back at camp we rejoined the rest of the staff and a drunk Baby D for our nightly singalong and rice wine. I had moved my bed to darker part of the cabin and I slept much better apart from Baby D’s drunken snores.

Footy

We were up at 6am for our last cruise, spying more birds, proboscis monkeys and the usual suspects; the jungle mafia. The new tourists still hadn’t seen a wild orangutan so I hoped they did after we left. After breakfast, the boys had a game of football to sweat off the previous night’s rice wine against the staff (who had 3 subs) and after the girls finally stopped the clock once the tourists were in the lead, we got ready to go back to reality.

Back in Sandakan, Baby D bad I had just enough energy to go the launderette and grab some food, then it was an early night for us before our 9+ hour journey down to Lombok in Indonesia – country number 10.

#kotakinabalu #borneo #mountkinabalu #orangutan #sepilok #uncletans #sunbear #sandakan #kinabatangan #kinabatanganriver #sapi #gaya #manukan 

Bonkers in Honkers

Hong Kong

This was my 4^th visit to HK, Baby D’s 1st and he was super-excited. He felt like he already knew it well and he recognised a few streets because he’s been there via the Playstation apparently.

Central

We stayed in ‘Central’ on Hong Kong Island, fairly close to SoHo and the famous party area of Lan Kwai Fong. We were actually about a half hour walk from the nearest MTR (underground) and it was downhill, so it was a bit of a pain trying to get back to the hotel – uphill – especially in the HK heat. Luckily the hotel had a free shuttle bus to the MTR every hour. We were also fairly close to the mid-level escalators which forms a path of escalators and moving walkways that cross vertically through this area for around 800 metres, making it easier to travel up this steep part of HK. 

On our first day, we had some time to go to HK’s History Museum where we learned about its geography, culture and development. Hong Kong is a series of islands, 261 in fact, outside of the Kowloon peninsula, and hundreds of millions of years’ ago, the land sat on an active volcanic range. The volcanoes erupted continuously until one day they stopped and the larva cooled to form the HK hills and valleys. After the ice-age, when the water levels rose, HK became an archipelago as it is today. 

As well as the topography of HK, we learned about the opium wars when Britain had nothing much to export to China, apart from opium, and the chain of events that led to the military action once this stopped. We learned about HK culture and the formal songs, dances and theatre there.

Chicken Feet Dim Sum

The next day we were met by a friend through work who took us for dim sum. Even though I had been to HK before, I had never had dim sum there so this was a treat. Turned out that good dim sum is quite hard to find nowadays, as so many people that make traditional dim sum have emigrated to the UK, US and elsewhere. We were taken to a beautiful restaurant which specialised in catering for wedding parties. We ate chicken feet, shrimp wrapped in sweet coconut pastry, carrot and taro in deep-fried rice noodles, abalone, jelly with red flower petals, pork and shrimp dumplings – a feast! 

Cheung Chau

The weather in HK was hot and muggy, and it was forecast to rain for the whole time we were there. Our friends wanted us to see Cheung Chau, an outlying island about 45 minutes from the city and we decided to chance it in spite of the weather forecast. There are no vehicles on this island, aside from boats and bicycles, and even the fire brigade uses bikes. The first thing we saw when we arrived was a lovely square, with several cafes, B&Bs, and local stalls. 

Cheung Chau market

Further along we found the beach and after stopping for a beer and some calamari we took a junk boat over to the north of the island where our friends had told us was a cave (Cheung Po Tsai) used by pirates in years’ gone by to stash their treasure which was still accessible if we wanted to crawl through it, which of course we did. It was quite a challenge because it was pitch black, the tunnel was very narrow, and you could hear the waves crashing on the rocks outside.

Cheung Chau beach

When we left the cave, we scrambled over some rocks and walked round the island back to near the ferry port where our friends bought half the contents of the ocean for dinner. On the way we spied a huge snake which looked a couple of metres long, a short way in front of us which slithered off into the bushes. We were taken to a local restaurant where we met an old schoolfriend of our friend. ‘Brother 5’ was one of our friends’ best mates from school and he had lived on the island all his life. He was called Brother 5 because he was the 5^th brother in his family. The owners of the restaurant were happy to cook us our seafood and we had the restaurant to ourselves. We had garoupa, abalone, elephant clams, crab, and shrimp, and it was delicious. 

Seafood feast

Dragon Boat racing

On the way up the mid-level escalator one afternoon, I noticed an advert for the Dragon boat carnival, which was down at the harbour, near Central ferry piers. We found out a bit more about this from the hotel, and were given a wedge of vouchers for free beer. The Dragon boat races are an ancient Chinese tradition and every year competitors come to HK to take part in the racing. We strolled down to the harbour to watch some of them, while having some food and free beer and watching the live music. We also headed across the water on the ferry to Tsim Sha Tsui, the best place to watch HK’s light show which is on every evening. We missed the English version and the one we saw was dubbed in Mandarin, but it didn’t make much difference. The lights on the huge skyscrapers flash on and off to music, almost as if they are dancing and the show lasted about 15 minutes.

Dragon Boat Carnival

We wanted to head up to the Peak, which is the highest point in HK and has a tram going up there. I have been before but Baby D really wanted to do it and I told him not to wait for me if the weather was good and I was at work, and to just go. So off he went one day but was soon back at the hotel to rethink his plans because the tram was closed for maintenance until the day after we left HK! We had also thought about going over to Lantau Island on the cable car to see the big Buddha, but guess what? The cable car was closed for refurbishment too!

HK from the boat

On Sunday we found a decent looking place for bottomless brunch with an buffet of salads, prawns, oysters and cheese. The choice was a bit limited though in comparison to other brunches we’d been to, but this was just the starter – we had a main and dessert to come too. The drinks took a while to come out and when you have the table for a set amount of time you want to make the most of it. Great cocktails though. We should have booked a brunch in advance, it seemed that the best ones book up pretty quickly, and we wished we’d gone to Watermark in Central which overlooked the harbour and had some good reviews.

That evening we went across the water to Sham Shui Po to look round the market and the shops. This area isn’t really touristy, it is more known by the locals as the place to get cheap electronic goods and I bought a watch for about 30% less than I would have got it for in the UK.

HK by night

Work all day for me the next day, so Baby D amused himself and went out exploring. In the evening we were invited to join our HK friends for tea in their apartment before meeting some other friends and colleagues for dinner. It was lovely to see a real HK home and we met our friend at Olympic MTR near his home, which is really central location. In fact you don’t need to exit the MTR to get to his apartment, we just had to go through some adjoining walkways and in a couple of lifts and we were there. They had prepared some traditional Chinese tea and a snack of ‘drunken chicken’, chicken wings marinated in wine. It was a lovely experience and after chatting for a couple of hours we headed to the restaurant where we feasted on an abundance of dishes from Beijing including smoked duck, more drunken chicken, fish, lamb in pockets of flakey bread and red bean paste souffle. 

The next afternoon we were off to Borneo, so we had a few hours to kill. Baby D took a bus up to the Peak while I went to the shops to replace some of my smelly traveller clothes.

#hk #hongkong #central #cheungchau #dimsum #dragonboatcarnival #shamshuipo #cheungpotsai #tsimshatsui #hklightshow

Malaysia part 2, revenge of the turtle

Kuala Terengganu

KT street art

The day we left Langkawi was glorious sunshine (of course it was) but we had booked to fly across to the east coast of mainland Malaysia, to a place called Kuala Terengganu (KT). A lovely seaside town in itself, it’s also the gateway to the island of Redang. We had planned to go to either Tioman island or the Perhentian islands but after checking  the weather reports we decided against them and to go to sunnier Redang.

KT street art

After settling in to our hotel we wandered down to nearby Chinatown for some food. It was probably the quietest Chinatown we’ve ever been to – most shops and restaurants were closed. 

Chinatown, KT

After coming across some great street art of which Chinatown was full, much of it hidden away down side roads and alleyways, we found a busy restaurant and had some food. After that, we went in search of Turtle Alley which is an alley way dedicated to turtles and the promotion of their conservation. 

Turtle Alley

We walked down to the local beach, Batu Burok which is about 3km from the centre. When we got there, we realised that it wasn’t the place for sunbathing in bikinis and shorts, Malaysia being predominantly a Muslim country. After a little while we headed back. The sandy beach is about a kilometre long and there are small food stalls along the coastal road. The beach seemed to be very much for locals to enjoy and have a picnic without semi-naked westerners grilling themselves.

Batu Burok

Crystal Mosque, KT

The main attraction in KT is the Crystal Mosque, or Masjid Kristal so we headed over there and had a tour of the mosque with a guide who told us a great deal about the religion of Islam which was interesting to us non-believers, but we were more interested in the building. It was opened in 2008 and was constructed from glass, crystal and steel. It is a beautiful building with 4 minarets.

The rest of our time in KT was mainly spent wandering around looking for food or shops that were open. Trust us to go to this very conservative Muslim state at the beginning of Ramadan. They practise Sharia law and it is illegal for Muslims to open their restaurants before 3pm. One day we ended up in Chinatown having custard tarts for breakfast. That was goooood.

We ended up staying in KT for 3 nights, mainly because the islands off the east coast of Malaysia are so expensive. The city itself was really nice, but, for tourists wanting a good meal and a few drinks with a couple of days sunning on the beach, it is never going to be anything more than a stopover because of the strict Islamic culture.

KT street art

Redang

We got the first available ferry to Redang on our last day in KT. The ferry was huge and there were a couple of hundred passengers onboard. The trip took around 2 hours and we were met by a taxi-truck from the hotel. We jumped in the back and away we went. The ferry wasn’t cheap – it worked out to be something like £20 each return. The taxi in Redang was another £2 each. 

Our hotel was by far the cheapest on the island and we paid £33 a night, room only. It was also a good 15 minute walk from the public beach and our bungalow was the highest one, so plenty of steps to climb. The place was basic and it seemed as though the staff knew they were working in the cheap place so didn’t seem to care too much about customer service. We had breakfast there one morning and they didn’t even give us separate plates for our pancakes, they just dumped them onto one plate which we only noticed halfway through eating them. But hey, it was cheap (for Redang) so can’t complain too much.

On the first day we decided to go to the public beach and it was a nice enough walk on a road through the jungle. The beach was gorgeous and at first was completely deserted. There were a couple of small tour boats about 200m off the coast and we swam out to them and joined the tourists there who were swimming with turtles, although we didn’t have snorkelling gear and couldn’t see them properly.

Gorgeous beach in Redang

We found a couple of small local restaurants nearby to have lunch and then later, dinner. The food was simple but cheap and tasty. No beer though! We found out that the only place to buy alcohol was in the nearby 5* resort, so we went down there, limiting ourselves to ONE beer only. At £6 for a small can we ended up having NO beers only.

We had booked a trip for the next to go snorkelling from a speedboat and swim with small sharks and turtles. The trip was supposed to be from 9.30am to 1.30pm and we were to go to 4 different sites. We were with another couple, from Japan and we had an amazing time zipping around on the boat and snorkelling. We saw hundreds of different types of fish, every colour you can think of, beautiful coral reefs, and we spotted some small shy sharks. The best part of the trip was the turtles though. There were 5 or 6 of them swimming around us and they came right up to us so we could feed them bits of squid. Such an awesome experience. 

The boat dropped us off at 12pm and I only realised we were an hour and a half short once we’d got a few minutes’ walk away from the pier. We immediately went to the booking place to complain and were asked to come back later to see the manager. He had spoken to our boat crew who had told him that they needed to rest as it was Ramadan and they were fasting. Umm, sorry, I respect your religion and understand it’s probably difficult to work during Ramadan but that’s not really our problem. The manager agreed with us and refunded us some of the money. We paid around £30 for the two of us and we got back £12.  

That afternoon we couldn’t be bothered walking to the public beach so we waltzed down to the 5* resort and used their beach and loungers instead.

Redang beach

It was a pity Redang was so expensive (and that we couldn’t get a beer) because the boat trip, snorkelling and the beaches were fantastic. The beaches were probably the best I’ve ever seen and we would have stayed longer if we could have afforded it.

Kuala Lumpur

KL Tower

We’ve been to KL before 2 or 3 years’ back so we weren’t too bothered about missing it out on this trip, even though we really liked it. But, I had to go to Hong Kong for work and this was the cheapest and easiest way. I also managed to arrange a couple of meetings so it was time well-spent. We stayed in the Bukit Bintang district, handily round the corner from a strip of bars and restaurants. 

Bukit Bintang sesh

The three days we spent there were spent working, eating and drinking, meeting some new friends and catching up with some ‘old’ friends we’d met travelling. The weather wasn’t great so we were stuck in bars a lot of the time! In fact, in one bar where we’d met a friend for a late lunch, we watched in mild disbelief as two waiters from the same bar had a big punch up with each other. That was a bit weird. Apparently it was over cricket. India were playing Bangladesh. There were both Bangladeshi…

Kuala Lumpur

Bukit Bintang is a lively spot, within walking distance (max 2km) of big shopping malls, the KL Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers. We made it to the shops this time, but we’ve done the other main parts of KL and sometimes you need a break from sight-seeing, just to chill out, especially before a heavy 5 days in Hong Kong!

#malaysia #kualaterengganu #kualalumpur #bukitbintang #redang #crystalmosque