Tuesday 2^nd September In Flight

We have left on this Inspiring Vacations tour, which we booked nearly two years ago because it seemed like a good deal. It has been very cold at home, and here, it will be warm. And it should be an interesting and relaxing trip; we have very little organisation to do.

The last few days felt a bit like “marking time”; we were all ready, and just waiting for departure day to come. But come it has, and we're on an overnight flight to Kuala Lumpur before a connecting flight to Kota Kinabulu.

We tried to sleep well last night, in preparation for tonight, but it didn't happen; it was not dreadful sleep, but not perfect either. We began the day normally; Alison went off to gym, I went to coffee and Spanish chat.

I got home first, cleaned the house and got ready to go down to Melbourne; Alison got back later, when it was almost all done. This was out of our usual routine, and the result was that, at 3pm, she realised she'd left various things on her bedside table. Things she'd prefer to have with her. So I got in the car and did a three hour return trip to Castlemaine, and all is well. It was fortunate that there was time to do it.

Back in Lothian St., a shower, clean clothes, dinner, and off to the station. We got to the airport three hours before our 11.30pm departure. For the usual airport queues and waiting; not as bad as last time, but....

(Alison surprised me, just before going through security, with a little bottle of cognac! We asked, but they wouldn't allow it; so we shared it, in the queue. In our stomachs it was allowed.)

And now we're in the air. Row 40, where the four seat central section narrows to three seats. A good spot, and especially so as fortune has shone upon us; the middle seat between us is empty, despite it being quite a full plane. A snack, and then we try to sleep.

Wednesday 3^rd September Kota Kinabalu

We had plenty of space to sleep, but.. it was sleeping on a plane. We both managed a bit. We landed in Kuala Lumpur before 6am (8am, Melbourne time), went out into the huge airport, and wondered where to go. We needed Gate B5, which we found was in another terminal, to which we had to take the airport train. At the next terminal, we eventually went to an information desk, and were directed to two ATM's. I tried the first, which wanted to charge me ~$A 5.00 for the withdrawal; cancelled it, and went to the next one. This one had very worn buttons on the keypad, and didn't charge me anything; obviously people know which one to use!

So, with 500 ringgits (~$A170) in out wallets, we found a cafe, and had a coffee. This led to us both feeling more human. Then it was through immigration (very easy, as I'd done an online arrival card before we left), and along past more shops to Gate 5. A little more waiting and onto the plane for the 2 hour 40 minute flight to Kota Kinabulu. This smaller plane has a 3-3 configuration, and we our luck was in again; we'd booked window and aisle seats, and the one between us is empty.

The sun had come up, and we could see out the window now; but not much, thanks to quite dense cloud cover.

Getting through Kota Kinabalu airport was very straightforward, and we took a taxi (fixed price, 30RMB, ~$A12.00) to the Grandis Hotel. Our room wasn't yet ready (it was 11.30am), so we left our bags and went for a walk. An Asian city, with lots of construction work being done around the hotel and along the seafront, where it appears they have reclaimed land. So it was a pleasant walk though town, but along the seafront – not. We did manage to buy a SIM card, so we now have good internet access.

We bought an icecream, and returned to our room. Ate some snack food, because we don't really need lunch after the aeroplane food. Rearranged our bags, read; stayed awake, though we're both a bit zonked. Then another walk, back for a swim in the rooftop pool, a shower.

A meeting with our guide, Mark Justin (a native of Sabah, despite his anglicised name) and the other 14 in the group; some of them went for a walk, but we went and had some dinner and are now going to bed.

Thursday 4^th September Manukan Island

We both slept solidly for 10+ hours and woke feeling much more human; it was after 7am when we got up, put on yesterday's clothes, and went for a walk in the other direction from the hotel, along the seafront. It was not quite straightforward; there's a lot of construction happening here as well, and a large convention centre built on reclaimed land. We did manage to walk around it, though it was obviously not a walking path, and we needed to cross a barrier when we got to the far end. But, beyond that, there was “normal” seafront, with a strip of grass between sea and road, and easy walking; and fishermen, as well.

But we'd come far enough; we turned and walked back beside the road, a much more direct route.

We went straight to breakfast; a good buffet breakfast, and we ate well. A shower, pack, a little walk through the next-door shopping mall, and it was time to leave. We left our main bags at the hotel, climbed into a bus, and were driven to the ferry terminal for the 20-minute boat trip to Manukan Island, part of a National Park.

We were there before midday; our rooms not ready till 3pm. The beach was very crowded – it is a popular day-tripper destination. (The sea was quite crowded, to, with parasailing boats.) Many of the people were wearing life jackets; it is a requirement if you go snorkelling there, unless you sign a disclaimer at the lifeguards. This is what we did.

There is a well used track, 1.5km long, to Sunset Point at the end of the island. There is also a very underused and unmaintained (and un-signposted) ridgeline track there. We managed to find it, and off we went – through dense forest, over and under fallen trees, a remarkably long way up to the top of the ridge, and along it. It was a good walk, along a steeply sided ridge, made more interesting by our coming across a huge monitor lizard in the middle of the track! It would have been at least 1.8 metres long. And, it refused to move off the track; we had to clamber down off the track to pass it.

We got to the tip of the island at Sunset Point, where there are two unusual, very large, mangrove trees. It looked as if we could go back along the coast (beach and rocks) to where we started, so we did. Not a difficult walk, but sad to see the masses of washed-up rubbish along the way.

Then it was time to go to our room (a large upstairs room) where we sat on the balcony overlooking the beach and read for an hour. By then, most of the daytrippers had left, and the island was much quieter; we got our masks and flippers and went down to see the coral, and the fish, in the sea.

We were underwhelmed by this. Very shallow water, bleached-looking coral, a few fish; spiny sea urchins which were sometimes difficult to avoid because of the shallow water. We left the sea and moved to the swimming pool, which we had to ourselves, and was lovely. We stayed for ages.

Home, playtime, shower; and it was already 6.30pm! We walked out the pier to see the sunset, but there were a lot of storm clouds building up; we saw lots of fish and a couple of white reef sharks. Then to a good dinner in the restaurant here, made more interesting by very heavy rain, meaning some diners (including us) had to be moved further inside, and the staff were busy moving cushions etc. out of the rain.

And we walked back in the rain to our room. It's lovely hearing the rain on the roof.

Friday 5^th September Kota Kinabalu

By the morning, the rain had stopped. We walked out the jetty – nice and quiet, with no day trippers yet – and went over to breakfast. A good breakfast. We walked further along the beach to where you could sort of see Mt. Kinabalu outlined in clouds; and back to our room. I left Alison there, while I went back in for a swim. Someone told us, yesterday, that if you swam out further there was a “drop off” and the sea became much deeper. The tide was in, there was more clearance above the coral and the spiny sea urchins; it was quite a way out to the drop off, but at least I went there. While there was more coral, with a bit more more colour in it.... it was a bit ho hum. I returned, and we both went down to the swimming pool again, and had it all to ourselves – again!

Here, Alison noted a rash on my back; I knew nothing about it, but it got a trifle itchy after she told me. It was apparent ly caused by jellybugs in the sea; we went to the lifeguard, applied some vinegar, and it was no issue at all.

Back to our room, where we had a shower and packed; and at 10.45 were back at the pier for our boat back to Kota Kinabulu. Back to the hotel, where our room was ready. We went up, unpacked a bit, and found we'd left our lovely electrical adaptor plug plugged in back on the island! We went down and told Mark, the guide, who phoned them – and perhaps we'll get it back.

Then out for a walk around town again. Different today, because it started to rain again – and it's a public holiday, so some things are closed. Though not too many. We had an expensive but very nice coffee and wrap in a cafe at the Hyatt Hotel, checked out a restaurant for tonight, walked through some markets – one of which was on the waterfront – and came back home for a read and a rest.

Just before 5pm we walked, in the rain, down to the near ferry terminal, and tried to explain to a young worker there that we had come to pick up our lost property from the island. He told us to wait. We waited, a bit uncertain about things; but 15 minutes later, a boat came in and Farah (one of the staff from the island) got off, came over, and gave us our left behind electrical adaptor.

Happily, we walked home. We went out to dinner at Moginum Restobar (quite good), walked home via a street market, and got ready for an early start.

(And I finished my Book Club book in less than a week, which is a record!)

Saturday 6^th September Kota Kinabalu

Today, we had the alarm on for 6.45am; but we woke, and were up, before it. It was quite a noisy night, from traffic outside the hotel. Perhaps because it had been a public holiday? Or was it just normal? At any rate, we had a pleasant leisurely breakfast talking to Tori and Trevor, before getting on the bus at 8am for the 2-hour+ drive up to Kinabalu Park, in the foothills of Mt. Kinabalu.

We stopped on the way at a tourist / handicrafts town, then got to the park and set off on a (guided) walk on the Silau-Silau trail. Most of us, anyway; Ian & Helen didn't come, and a couple of the ladies decided to wait in the bus instead. Alison was up with Mark the guide, I was at the rear; but caught up when everyone was looking at a Pinhead Orchid flower, the world's smallest orchid. We spent a while trying to photograph it (in macro), then quickly went on to find the rest of the group.

We failed to find them. We ended up looking along the Bukit Tupai trail, and then went along the Mempening trail (because we passed a signpost saying it went to the Silau-Silau trail). The signposts were less than perfect; we really had little idea, and ended walking a long way down a very muddy track before we found another signpost to Silau-Silau trail (and visitors' centre). Hooray! But another 100m along the track forked, with no signpost at all. We chose what we thought was the better option, and it was; we came to another fork, Botanic Gardens one way, visitors' centre the other. We split up, Alison to the Botanic Gardens, where we knew the group was going. She found them, and so did I after visiting the visitor centre and not finding them there.

So we had a much better walk, unintentionally, than we might have done.

Then a visit to the Geopark Information Centre, and on to a restaurant where we all had a (very slow and intermittent) late lunch, before driving back to the hotel. Another 2+ hours. Too much time in the bus today.

It was 5pm when we got back. We went out to have a coffee but couldn't find anywhere to have one, so made one in our room. Then went out to a Greek restaurant for dinner, with a frozen yoghurt afterwards. Now we have to pack up; we are leaving at 6.30am tomorrow to catch a plane to Sandakan.

Sunday 7^th September Sandakan

The alarm woke me at 5.30am; the morning was straightforward. Breakfast, leave; to the airport for our Air Asia flight to Sandakan. After the usual waiting around we took off at 9.50 am for the 45 minute flight. My luck was in; while I sat not next to Alison, I had a window seat on the side of the plane with good views over Kota Kinabalu, and then Mt. Kinabalu as we flew past.

We came down to Sandakan. A different part of Borneo; flat land with lots of rivers and lots of palm plantations. Into the next bus for a ½ hour drive to Sepilok, where we visited the Sun Bear rehabilitation centre (seeing some orangutans in the trees overhead on the way in), then had lunch at a restaurant there, then visited the orangutan conservation centre.

At 2pm we were waiting for the doors to the ticket office to open, and there was a Spanish family there at the head of the queue, so I was able to chat a little.

We spent nearly three hours here, first looking at the orangutans in the nursery, then out into the main area for 3pm feeding time. They were very interesting to watch – so acrobatic!

Then a drive for another ½ hour or more to the Sabah Hotel, where we have a large (disabled) room. It's a nice place with swimming pool and water slide. We went for a swim. So did almost everyone else in the group.

The hotel is not so close to shops and restaurants, so we (and everyone else) ended up eating here. We had a good meal which was not hideously expensive, as is sometimes the case in hotels like this.

The good side of being further from shops is that it is much quieter than the Kota Kinabalu hotel.

Now, we're both feeling quite tired. Fortunately tomorrow is not an early start again.

Monday 8^th September Selingan Island

We really were both a bit stuffed last night; we fell into bed at 9.30pm! And slept soundly, with much less road noise than the hotel in Kota Kinabalu. We surfaced at around 7am, and before breakfast went for a walk into town. Well, a walk down the road outside the hotel, which is in a forested area; we planned to walk for 20 minutes and see what we found, but we found the centre of town in less than 15 minutes. So the hotel is not in a very isolated spot, after all.

Breakfast, pack, back into the bus; drive into town, a stop at a supermarket (we bought wine and chips) and down to the ferry terminal for the one hour high-speed trip to Selingan Island.

This is commonly called “Turtle Island”, because it is a major nesting site for green turtles. Just how major we found when we arrived: 29 turtles came ashore last night, and 22 laid eggs! The was more evidence of this as we came ashore, to see lots of large monitor lizards wandering around; their major food source is turtle eggs.

We moved into our room (here, they are all very basic; twin beds, small room, cold shower in a compact bathroom) and went over to lunch. A very reasonable lunch. After lunch, down to the beach for a swim; better coral than at Manukan Island, no spiny sea urchins, some clams, lots of fish. We swam till we were tired of it, chatted on our verandah, then went for a walking circumnavigation of the island. Missing out the rocky area at one end (slippery and perhaps dangerous) it took us all of 20 minutes. Back home for the rest of the afternoon, doing very little.

Alison took our op shop flippers, masks, and noodle and gave them to the lifeguards. Luggage home now, will be easier.

Then the evening started. On the walk over, Alison found a newly-hatched turtle next to the path, with no way to get to the sea; she took it up and handed it to a ranger. Then: 5.45pm a walk down to the beach for sunset viewing; a look at the temporary information centre (in a tent – the real one is being renovated); into the dining room for some videos, then dinner.

Then – wait around for the call that a turtle had come ashore to lay its eggs. After listeniing to Jen, beside me, say that thanks to the tide it was likely to be 50 minutes later than last night's 9pm. Just after hearing this, at 8.30pm, the “Turtle!” call went out. Down to the beach!

So we saw a large green turtle laying 92 eggs; the ranger collected them and transplanted them into the turtle nursery. Then it was down to the beach to to see a basket-full of hatchlings being released into the sea.

By 9.30pm the evening's excitement was over and we returned to our little room.

Tuesday 9^th September Bilit Rainforest Lodge

It was up at 6am, a cold shower, pack up; breakfast at 6.30am, on the boat back to the mainland at 7am. We went by the Sabah Hotel to pick up our bags, and continued on. There was a lot of driving today. It was before 9am when we drove out of Sandakan; after a stop at a service station for fuel, and for all the passengers to get a drink, icecream, and use the toilet, on we went again to our first stop at Gomantong Cave.

This is a huge, spacious, limestone cave which is home to bats, black swiflets and white swiftlets – and cockroaches and long-limbed centipedes as well. The nests of the swiftlets are what Bird's Nest Soup is made from – it's a delicacy in some places, and the nests (made with the bird's saliva) fetch high prices.

On the walk to the cave we saw a huge wild orangutan, and a smaller one on the way back. At the cave, collection of birds' nests was in full swing; ropes everywhere (coming through holes in the roof of the cave), ladders held up by ropes; lots of noise of workers calling one another.

It was another ½ hour on to stop at the Kinabatangan River, where we got into boat to go to Bilit Rainforest Lodge, 5 minutes away on the other side of the river. Good to have the bus trip over. We had lunch in their open-air dining room, then got the keys to our rooms.

Our room is a huge step up on last night; a self contained cabin, on two levels, with three beds in the bedroom; king, double, and single. We opted for the double. We had nearly an hour before our river wildlife-spotting trip; I felt a bit stuffed, and it was much hotter here than where we've been. We read for a while, and I rested as well.

The river trip was fine; 2 boats, each with eight people. (Though there were ~20 other boats on the river as well – it's a popular place!) We saw Proboscis monkeys, macaques, various birds, and – in the far distance – some pygmy elephants. The monkeys and macaques were quite entertaining with their jumping between trees.

We had ½ hour free before dinner to sit on our balcony with chips and a glass of wine. Very pleasant. Then over for dinner, and everyone retired to their rooms soon after. I suspect everyone's a bit worn out tonight – and it's a 6.30am start again, tomorrow.

Wednesday 10^th September Bilit Rainforest Lodge

This was a good place to sleep. But as we're now getting accustomed to getting up for early activities, we were awake at 6am and off in the boats at 6.30am, for another 1½ hours. It was quite nice floating on the river in the early morning, but I'm not a birdwatcher! We saw a number of birds (hornbills, bee eaters, kingfishers, grey heron), some baby crocodiles, and more monkeys jumping in the trees. Alison's comment was that it's a bit like fishing – a lot of sitting around looking at the water and the trees.

Back for breakfast, then a hot shower (so nice!), playtime, sudoku, a coffee on our verandah..... and it was 10.30am, time for Mark to take us on out village walk. This was interesting thanks to his commentary; the village of Bilit is a little Malaysian village. One of the more unusual things was traps for attracting swiftlets, so they would nest there (and not in the cave) and their nests could be easily harvested!

It was very hot in the village. We returned for lunch, then siesta time in the heat of the afternoon.

Then, the 4pm boat trip on the river. For me, it was much more enjoyable than yesterday; because I was less tired, or because I'd decided it was just a relaxing cruise on the river? Off we set, saw a large crocodile (?1.5 metres or so – not so big by Australian standards, but still big) with its attendant boat jam. Then on we went, till there was a massage; we did a quicj U-turn and headed back pronto. It turned out it was to see a pygmy elephant, right at the river's edge; another boat jam, of course, but with good views of the bull elephant. Then we meandered; another group of proboscis monkeys; and back home with an hour free before dinner.

So we finished our wine and chips on our verandah. Then went over to dinner, came home, read for a while.... and went to bed a little later than has been usual.

Thursday 11^th September Sandakan

It was a pleasant morning; no alarm, no rush; breakfast at 7am and leave at 8am. The brief boat ride to the other side of the river, and onto the bus. We were first on, and Alison got us into the front seats; this made the 2+hour trip to Sandakan much nicer.

We drove for km after km through palm oil plantations. There is so much of it here! And finally got to the outskirts of Sandakan, to the Sandakan Death March Memorial – on the site of the old POW camp, now lovely gardens which are maintained by the Australian government. I found it quite moving. We read the info in the information centre before walking around the gardens.

Next was a big Buddhist temple, set on a site high above the town. (there are no monks here, though; they need to import some from Thailand or peninsular Malaysia when they need some.)

More sights. A lot more city driving, past schools just as congested (if not more) than at home with parent picking up and dropping off children in their cars, and we went to the Church of St. Michael and All Angels – one of the oldest buildings standing in Sandakan. I wasn't really all that interested. On to the English Tea House, set on a hill above town; here, at nearly 2pm, we had a rather formal lunch which wasn't very good. It finished with scones and “clotted cream”, which was in fact a substance none of us could identify. On to the Agnes Keith House, a reconstructed house where an American writer lived before, during, and after WW2. It was a nice house, but I failed to whip up any interest in her or the house.

And – finally – we returned to the Sabah Hotel, and checked into our rooms again. This time a normal sized room, but with a better outlook over the swimming pool. Rain was threatening, so we went for a walk down to the Banyan Bridge behind the swimming pool, past the “closed” sign at the end, and across to abandoned and overgrown tennis and squash courts, which presumably belong to the hotel.

Back in our room, I did our on-line check-in for tomorrow and the threatened thunderstorm came. Later, when the rain had stopped, we walked down to the harbourfront and (on Mark the guide's recommendation) had a good dinner at “Bistro 88”; which was doing a roaring trade, while other nearby eateries were nearly empty. A walk home in the dark (though the street lighting is fine).

Friday 12^th September Sandakan Airport

For a long travel day, today went very well. Despite trying to sleep in, we were both awake at 6am; we tried to sleep for longer; and it was relaxing; but.... we didn't sleep more. So we had a quick cuddle and got up, and started packing our bags – which were in a state of disarray. We sorted them out, but somewhere along the line my flight socks seem to have disappeared. A minor issue.

(In the middle of the next night, trying to sleep on the plane, I remembered I'd packed them inside our mugs.)

We went down for a swim before breakfast, and found Ian & Helen in the pool. (They'd already had breakfast). They felt the same way as we do about the group; no problems, everyone well-behaved and polite, but it never really melded.

(They had seen Mark at breakfast, and given him a tip; but we never saw him again, so he never received the tip we were going to give him. The end of this tour has been rather more vague than others we've been on; usually there's been a farewell dinner, but not this time).

After a shower, we had as leisurely a breakfast as we could manage. By now it was after 9am, and some items were running out as most people had eaten. Back to our room, check out, leave our bags, and walk down into town.

We walked a little further than previously, through the market (busy, but half the building was closed off), then into Habourside Mall. Five floors of shops, and we looked in many of them – spending a lot of time (but not much money) in the EcoShop, which in fact was a 2.80MYR (=$1AUD) shop, which had very long queues.

We thought about having a drink in a cafe, but found nothing suitable; we walked home to the Sabah Hotel via the heritage stairs, which passed yesterday's English Tea House. And spent the afternoon in or beside the pool, till 3.30pm when we each had a shower, got all our bags back, and took a Grab (local Uber) to the airport.

This trip has been OK, but it has not been as good as our previous two Inspiring Vacations trips. Less interesting places to see, some quite long bus trips, and the group which never really melded. Especially in Sandakan, more than half our group never walked down to or around the town, and saw only the parts of Sandakan the bus took them to – which were very limited.

We did see the “big five” - elephant, orangutan, proboscis monkey, crocodile, and rhinoceros hornbill – but... this was at the cost often of rapid boat trips stirring up the river. The food has been reasonable, but I'm rather over rice and noodles; and looking for some different fruit from melon, papaya, and watermelon. And some decent breakfast food.

We've had less walking time than I would have liked.