I heart Borneo (minus Mount Kinabalu!)

We flew into Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo on 12^th 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!

It's more fun in the Philippines!

That’s the tourism tagline here in the Philippines and we can confirm it’s pretty true! Our fun started before we even set off from the UK with a great trip down to London. We participated in one of the best and most surreal birthday events I have ever been to. Tim, my friend from London, had spectacularly co-ordinated a team based puzzle search/ world saving mission around the V&A museum. I cannot begin to do it justice by writing about it here but it was genius and a lot of fun, plus our team won! It was lovely to meet up with some old friends, Liz and Alex, do a quick trip to Harrods food hall and even squeeze in Chinese New Year fireworks in Trafalgar Square, before we flew off to Manila on Monday 30^th January.

We arrived in the capital of the Philippines pretty exhausted so found our hostel and had our first Dim Sum experience...mmmm. Predictably at 4am the next morning I was wide awake and for the next two days I was a jet lag zombie! We spent the first couple of days exploring Manila. It is a crazy and exciting city- the traffic and mental driving surpasses even Ghana, which is saying something. The roads are packed with Jeepneys which are shiny steel, open backed minibuses, decorated in bright colours, that people jump on and off into the moving traffic. The Philippines itself is a strange mix of Asian and American cultures, due to their history. They love anything American here and every street is dominated by fast food chains. They also emulate the American customer service tradition and refer to Jonny and I as ‘Mam-Sir’ all in one breath.

On our first day we ventured to an area called Intramurous. It is a small corner of Manila dating back to their Spanish colonial times. There are a few old Spanish buildings but the most enduring ‘leave-behind’ of the Spaniards has to be Catholicism. Large churches dominate every area in Manila and there are a couple of very impressive big churches in Intramurous. We learned about the national hero, Rizal, who was imprisoned and executed by the Spaniards as he was considered a revolutionary. As far as I can piece together, the Spaniards colonised the Philippines; the Americans then took it from them; the Filipinos and Americans had a war as they tried for their independence and lost; the Japanese took the Philippines during the Second World War and then America took it back; and finally America gave the Philippines its independence in 1946. After all that history we went to do what we do best: eat!

We have learned that Filipino food isn’t that great. Their main dish is roast pig on a spit with a barbeque sauce. It sounds nice but the meat is mostly fat and not that great. This is evident in Manila by there being relatively few Filipino restaurants compared to every other type of Asian food you can think of. Whilst in the capital we have gorged on Korean food, sushi, sashimi, Dim Sum and noodle soups each time for less than £5 each!

We have also been really lucky that I have a friend in Manila, Sarah who I met at the Home Office. She is now working in the embassy here and shares the most incredible apartment with her boyfriend Ash. We met up with them on Thursday and they took us for a few drinks in the local party/ladyboy area, P. Burgos Street. Sarah made the mistake of mentioning to Jonny that there was a nearby bar where you could watch midget boxing...the damage was done and within minutes we were making our way towards the bar called Ringside. It all went downhill when we found out you could referee a boxing match and before I could even try to protest Jonny was on his knees in the middle of the ring holding two boxing midgets apart! I say no more.

The next day we took a short internal flight to the island of Palawan. We stayed in the capital, Puerto Princessa which had a totally different, much more relaxed feeling than Manila. On the first day we went on a trip to an underground river. The lagoon around the cave we were to take a boat through was absolutely crystal clear. We were ushered into the boat and taken into the massive cave. We had to wear hardhats which, we were informed, were to protect our heads not from rocks but from bat poo and wee! Every other minute of a 45 minute tour the bats let rip and not one drop hit my hard hat but instead hit me on my legs, my arms- everywhere but the hat! The cave was pretty interesting; even if I couldn’t see Jesus’ face which the guide assured me was in the rock formations. That night we tried a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet, called KaLui. We had the most amazing feast of seafood dishes for under £13- I love how cheap it is here for good food.

The next day we took the day trip island hopping. We took a boat to the first island which again, had crystal clear sea and a white sand beach. For some reason, Western tourists haven’t really discovered the Philippines so you don’t see many. It is surprising as many of the islands in the country’s archipelago are paradises and it is very cheap to exist here. The contrast between us and the Asian tourists was quite humourous. Jonny and I couldn’t wait to don our swimmies and start snorkelling in the clear sea. Of the Korean, Japanese and Filipino tourists, very few of them would swim and if they did they remained fully clothed in the water. Like in many Asian countries it is highly valued here to have light skin and so everyone does what they can to avoid the sun on their skin including using many whitening products.

That day was my first time snorkelling and I loved it! After a few panicky minutes of thinking I was drowning, I spent the rest of the day in the water looking at the amazing fish. We saw thousands of starfish, puffer fish, parrot fish, angel fish and barracuda amongst many others. The day after I could not sit down due to the sun burn around my bum which made the natural hot springs we visited less than fun for me but I dangled my feet in J!

Four days ago we flew back to Manila and have been staying with Sarah and Ash since then. They have an apartment on the 36^th floor of a posh block in the city; the view is incredible and it’s helped us out loads to stay here. On Wednesday we took a trip to Taal volcano, around 2 hours away. We took a boat across the fresh water lake at the bottom of the volcano. After a hot, half hour hike we reached the top of the active volcano. The view was incredible with steaming rock and a large lake in the volcano crater. You can actually see the water bubbling and boiling in some areas. In classic Filipino tourism style, you can hit a golf ball into the crater. We declined the offer and made our way back down and back to Manila.

The next day we went out to Corregidor Island which has been very successfully transformed into a WW2 tourist attraction. The island was used by the Americans as a strategic position to fight the Japanese following Pearl Harbour. There remains bombed out barracks and military buildings along with artillery and a network of tunnels under the island. It was interesting to learn about the surrender of the island and the whole of the Philippines to the Japanese and the following retaking of the island by the Americans. We came back to Manila to have some final drinks with Sarah and Ash before they flew off to New Zealand, very kindly leaving the apartment to us until we fly on.

Yesterday we searched out a non-dodgy spa and massage place. We had to shop around to find a spa which did not insist that you were totally naked throughout the experience! For around a tenner each we both had a 45 minute foot massage and then an hour long full body massage. I say massage, it was a bit more like being beaten up! These tiny Filipino ladies have some seriously strong hands- I winced a couple of times as the lady kneeled on my back and dug into my shoulders but by the end of it I felt pretty well worked!

Today we’re going off to a Manila market and spending a quiet day to save some money before we fly off to Kota Kinabalu, Borneo tomorrow. A new country, new adventures!