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.

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