Long Post and Long Journeys

Back to the heat and bustle in Kuala Lumpur last week- we got a bus from the Cameron Highlands to the Malaysian capital, and booked a flight to Borneo. We stayed in Chinatown for two days, sucking in the culture and perusing the markets. I know now why the Malays are always sharply dressed in designer labels- they are flogged on the market for a pittance. Got myself some nice 'Ray Bans' for two quid, and Will showed off his haggling skills and got some shorts for four quid. Might even get a head start on the Christmas shopping at this rate.

After our second night at the Reggae guest house we were staying in, we took a flight to Kota Kinabalu in Borneo. We flew with Air Asia, so the flight was pretty Ryanair standard, but it was only a few hours so it was bearable. Anyway, got a taxi into the city, which lays on the coast in the north east of Borneo. It is an area famed for its lush greenery and wildlife, as well as the notoriously hard to climb Mount Kinabalu. It is the second highest mountain in south east asia- and as me and W puff mounting some of the pavements out here, we decided against climbing it.

We arrived to KK on the day of the harvest festival, so in the evening the streets were alive with music, drums, and throngs of people cheering. After a night in the city (a sleepless night I might add, the Malaysians know how to party... and stay up til 2am singing karaoke), we took a ferry to the tiny island of Mamutik.

The island is practically uninhabited, and has a tiny beach that runs down one side where there are plenty of fish. I had this wonderful, Robinson Crusoe-esque idea in my head that we could camp, and that we would meet people around a fire and have a lovely time, so I convinced Will to rent a tent. We set off down the beach, armed with our rucksacks and a tent to pitch up next to the two other tents that sat in the middle of the bay. Now, as we emptied the tent, I realised that we had no groundsheet, no tent pegs, no roll mats, and no waterproof cover. 'It's fine, we can Ray Mears it!" we told eachother, still excited about the prospect of camping.

Let me just say, camping on a tropical desert island isn't all it's cracked up to be. The people in the other tents were asleep by 7pm (sad gits, hippy types, you know). The sun went down, and we had no means to make a fire (There is the threat of fines and 3 years imprisonment for setting fire to the vegitation on the island). And then Will found a great hole in the floor, and convinced it was a tarantula, proceeded to shine a torch down it and jab it, until it became clear it was a huge crab. The insects, hard ground, and morning heat made it almost impossible to sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time.

The next morning we woke up at 6am, groggy and insistent that we were leaving. We got chatting to a guy in the next tent called Ben, who was in Will's words, a bit of a posh twat. He honestly thought he was a bit like Ray Mears, carrying around little bags of coffee and catching fish with his crude little home made fishing line. We got a bit caught up in it all, and Will hastily made his own fishing rod (plastic bottle with line wrapped round, hook on the end, weighted with a lump of coral)to catch our lunch with. After three hours, they had surprisingly caught four little fish, enough to have with a bit of rice. We left them, and went off to arrange an afternoon dive. For around 20 quid, (we haggled a bit) we did a 45 minute dive around a pyramid reef, teeming with marine life. We saw puffer fish, lion fish, box fish, and hundreds of other varieties. It was great to finally utilise our Padi knowledge, and just swim without having to do any skills underwater. It was a perfect afternoon.

However, it wasn't long before a monsoon reared its head, and any thoughts of making fire were quashed with each crack of thunder. Fearing the worst, with puddles rapidly building up in the tent, we moved over underneath the shelter, and pitched up on the concrete. We caught a glimpse of a monitor lizard after the rain stopped, and tried to tempt it out with the mornings catch. It timidly poked its head out, reached with its claw for a fish, then retreated back into a drain to eat. After a while, we got bored of waiting for it to come out, and left it.

Had another horrible nights sleep, covered in sand and damp from the rain. I woke up looking like I had some sort of fourteenth century plague- sandflies and mosquitos ravaged me in the tent, and I now have around fifty bites covering me from shoulder to ankle on my left side. People are looking in restaurants, and I am covering up as I seriously think it might be putting people off their dinner.

After our few nights 'roughing it', we headed back to the mainland and onto a bus to Sandakan, home to lush Bornean jungles and the infamous Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary. Now, me and W have been rating each town referring to the concentration of 7/11 corner shops, a great place to pick up a cheap lunch and bottle of water. The more 7/11s, the better the place. Sandakan has no 7/11s, in fact it doesn't seem to have a lot of anything. A few supermarkets, lots of dreary seaside flats drenched in washing, and lots of men sat on pavements smoking. Will hummed the first few bars of Ghosttown as we looked around for a place to stay. Luckily, we struck gold with a chinese guesthouse that had air con, televisions, and an alarming collection of knock off dvd's. If you have watched the League of Gentlemen on DVD, you may remember an unsightly character called Pop, a greek landlord that is far too overfamiliar with his tenants. Well we have dubbed the owner of May Fair Guest House Pop, as he pops in our room and cleans up, sits outside having his dinner, and last night came over and went 'You two, you take five dvd hmm? Choose five dvd and watch!".

After a night in the comfort of Pop's, we took a bus to Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary, which is deseving of it's own blog entry, to come a bit later...