We flew into Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo on 12th Feb from the Philippines. After some yummy Malaysian Laksa and a good sleep we were ready to start exploring a new country the next day. Kota Kinabalu (KK) isn’t packed with a massive amount to do, it’s more a base for day trips but we paid a visit to the KK city mosque. It’s a very impressive building and I insisted we went in, which I regretted when I had to don a head to toe burqa and there wasn’t really that much to see inside. The highlight of the day was a visit to a seafront restaurant where we picked out live crabs from a huge aquarium of very bizarre looking sea creatures and had them cooked fresh with ginger and spring onion mmm...
That night we took a 9 hour bus to Semporna which dropped us off at ‘Uncle Chang’s’ hut, with whom we’d booked 3 days of snorkelling and diving. We grabbed some breakfast and waited for the speedboat to take us out to Mabul, a nearby island where we were staying. Our little cabin was one of about 20 built on stilts into beautiful bright blue sea. You could see nothing but a few locals in wooden boats, for miles- it was truly paradise. Jonny went off snorkelling straight away, whilst I relaxed on the floating deck, and came back with stories of sea turtles. That night was Valentines night and we were serenaded by truly horrible Malaysian karaoke until our ears bled. The next day Jonny went on his booked diving day and I went snorkelling- only my second time ever. The sea was beautifully clear and I saw hundreds of different types of fish, including a sea snake, which I very wimpishly tried to swim away from as fast as possible, but saw no sea turtles yet. That afternoon we bought three live crabs from a local man in a carved out wooden boat for about £2 and the ladies in the hostel boiled them for our lunch. It was the best crab we’d ever eaten, amazing! Jonny and I went snorkelling together later that day and I saw what I’d been hoping for- two sea turtles. They are the most majestic creatures and it was magical to see them just gliding underwater- it made my day and a few after that too. On our final day, Jonny went diving at Sipadan, a small remote island which is a UNESCO heritage site, protected and said to be one of the best places in the world to dive. I am told the dives were incredible with sights of turtles, sharks and barracuda- it certainly lived up to its reputation. Meanwhile, I did some more solo snorkelling and saw yet more turtles, so we were both very, very happy.
We were sad to leave this little floating paradise but had to move on. After one night back on the mainland in Semporna, we travelled to Sandakan on the East coast. Having read a lack-lustre review of this city in our Lonely Planet, we weren’t expecting much but we spent a surprisingly great day wondering around and doing the heritage trail. We visited Agnes Keith’s house, who I embarrassingly knew nothing about. She was a famous American writer who lived in Malaysia with her husband for a long time and when it was taken by the Japanese, she was imprisoned in a POW camp. The house was really interesting and next to a traditional English Tea House. We relaxed with a nice pot of tea, some banoffee pie and a round of croquet on a perfectly kempt lawn- very fun and very surreal in Borneo. The only down point of Sandakan was the HUGE rat I saw scurrying around our hostel that evening!
The next day, we took the bus to Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre. It is a joint project with a UK charity- they take in orphaned or illegally captured wild orang-utans and rehabilitate them for release back into the wild. We watched the feeding time for some of the newer animals which was fantastic. We saw two mothers carrying their babies and one adolescent male. It was great to see them up close and watch their behaviour but it did feel a little zoo like and we were keen to try and get a rare glimpse of them in the wild. We’d heard this was sometimes possible when you took a river cruise in nearby Sucau- so that was our next destination. We paid for a package which included three river cruises; an evening, night and early morning one. We were incredibly lucky on the first cruise to see three wild orang-utans- one mother with her child and an adolescent. It was completely different seeing them in the wild, peering through the trees. Not only that but we saw a rhinoceros horn bill, a huge tropical bird with a big bill and what looks like another upside down bill on top of it, a tree snake, many proboscis monkeys (they have massive funny noses), macaques and a woodpecker. At night we saw three types of kingfisher and a civet cat including an incredible view of the stars and finally, in the early morning we saw many more macaques and more horn bill birds. We were very satisfied with our wildlife spotting and made our way back to KK again.
We spent the next day on a small island just off the coast of KK, called Sapi, where we relaxed on the beach but unfortunately couldn’t really swim due to the millions of jellyfish eggs and hatchlings in the sea. I say we relaxed...Jonny relaxed whilst I laid in trepidation of what I knew was facing me the next day....Mount Kinabalu!
I am not sure where to start with describing our two days with the highest peak in South East Asia. For me the word ‘hell’ could just about sum it up but I will elaborate! We started our ascent with our guide, Rosalia (who incidentally started climbing the mountain as a child and therefore feels no altitude affects or seemingly any pain!) at around 10am. The mountain path is a series of unrelenting steep steps, rocks, boulders and sometimes near sheer mountain face. I couldn’t understand why we were seeing other people smiling as they were making their way up. It was the toughest thing I’d ever had to do (until the way down!) and I cried three times and exhaustedly told Jonny that I ‘hated (fill in the missing expletive) mountains’ many times! I would love to say that, after 5 hours of continuous climbing when we reached the lodge at 3273 metres, I was happy, satisfied and proud of my achievement thus far. I wasn’t. I was feeling so sick and had such a bad headache from the altitude I had to go straight to bed. I already knew at this point that the extra climb the next day to the summit wasn’t for me! I stayed in my nice warm cosy bed whilst Jonny got up at 2am and made, what I hear was a gruelling climb up to the 4092 metre summit. He was ill-equipped with less warm clothes than he needed and ill-prepared for the rope you had to climb up the sheer cliff face with freezing hands to eventually make it to the top. I sat feeling very proud of him, in the lodge watching the sun rise with a nice cup of tea and waited for all the braver climbers to return.
Everybody kept saying ‘the way down’s the hardest’ and I kept thinking ‘nah, that can’t be right. Nothing can be harder that climbing up this thing’. I was very, very wrong. It took us 3.5 hours to climb down and after not very long into the descent my legs felt like jelly and that they were going to fold the wrong way unable to support me anymore. It was painful but I couldn’t complain as Jonny and his new found Dutch summit buddy soldiered on. We joyously made it to the bottom and were picked up (literally from the floor) and driven back to KK where we stumbled into a massage place! So now it’s the morning after and our legs are still very sore. It must be quite funny watching us trying to go up and down the hostel stairs! We spent our remaining few hours in Borneo walking (very slowly) around a wetland bird sanctuary which was very nice and relaxing. But now we have to get going as we have a plane to catch to Jakarta!
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