So we eventually arrived in Kota Kinabalu, and booked ourselves into a budget hotel (RM40 - ~8 quid) in the city centre. A bit of a dark and dingy place, it came complete with free ginormous cockroach! Once it had felt the great weight of a size 6 trainer come crashing through it's rotten skull, we went out to explore the delights of KK. Escaping the humidty for a while and to get some tourist info we jumped into the Hyatt Regency for a beer and, while we were there, casually enquired as to the room rate. Well, turns out it was RM165 (~ 30 quid) and it was all very nice, so we booked in there for the next 2 nights! "And did we want breakfast?" the nice lady asked. "What does that involve?" we replied. "RM 1", the very nice lady said. "20p!" we both exclaimed! "That'll do nicely!" So. with apologies to our backpacker chums around the world, we currently doing 4 star Bed & Breakfast!!!
Spent the rest of the time looking around the city. There's not a lot to see really - quite a few markets selling varying degrees of rubbish, and a clock tower that, well, tells the time! It also smells of rotting rubbish, and it is not safe to walk the streets - not because of any crime problems, but because there are bloody great holes in the pavement that drop down into the drainage ditches below! Nice.
However, we have just sorted ourselves a decent itinerary for the rest of Sabah though, so will leave for Sandakan tomorrow, catch up with some Turtles, hang out with some Orangutangs, have a 2 day wildlife expedition down a river, and climb a great big mountain (Tracey's idea!!)
We've just returned from a bit of a Borneo safari out in the eastern region of Sabah. Our first port of call was Selingan Island, otherwise known as Turtle Island. Here they have a conservation programme for the Green and Hawksbill Turtles, and we spent one night observing the Rangers at work. It basically involved us hanging around for nightfall when the turtles drag themselves up the beach and lay their eggs. Surely enough, at 8.30am, the cry of 'Turtle Time' was heard (just as Tracey had popped to the loo!) and we all marched down to the beach to watch the first female. Now, Ladies, you may think that having to stick your legs in stirrups is undignified, but you try giving birth with 20 tourists watching!! She laid 87 ping pong sized eggs in all, which were immediately taken from her and rehoused in the more secure hatchery, safe from predators and poachers. We then got to see the ikkle baby hatchlings that had broken free from previous nests, and then had a chance to hold them. Now, a one hour baby Green Turtle could easily be mistaken for a wind-up bath toy - you hold it by the shell and just watch its flippers go billy-o!
It was then on to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre to watch the morning feed of these semi-wild primates who share 96% of human genes, and yet still appear considerably more intelligent than your average Romford boy! We witnessed the usual monkey-based antics, 'You've Been Framed' style animal "hilarity", and Johnny Morris would have had a field day (Gawd bless 'im). Then spent a couple of days messing around on the river - the Kinabatangan River is the longest is Sabah, and home to the unique Proboscis Monkey, who do not share 96% of human genes, but with their big noses and even bigger pot bellies do pose a striking resemblance to somebody (?!). Also saw loads of macaques, snakes and crocodiles. The strangest sighting of all though was when the peace and calm of the Borneo jungle was shattered by some Carribean style music and a chuffing ice-cream van arrived!!!
From here, we paid a visit to the Gomantong Caves, home of thousands and thousands of fruitbats and swiftlets, the latter of which build the kind of nests the Chinese like to bung in hot water and call soup! Now the thing about fruitbats and swiftlets living in caves is that they poo quite a bit, and their collective motions build up on the cave floor to form a lovely smelly carpet of crap. Now the thing about smelly carpets of crap is they attract other visitors, such as thousands and thousands of cockroaches and dung beetles, so the entuire floor seems to be continually moving. Nice. So you have a big cave, that stinks of poo, is full or roaches, that tourists walk through! The phrase "being shat on from a great height" never seemed so apt before! However, as the birds nest can fetch up to US$500 per kilo, the cave has to be guarded 24 hours a day, so you have to feel sorry for the 3 blokes who actually have to live in there! Candidate for worst job ibn the world? After Vanessa Feltz's personal dresser obviously! And so on to Mount Kinabalu park - home of the highest mountain in South East Asia. At 2229 metres high (4095 metres above sea level) it is also one of the mpost accessible, with paths and trails all the way to the summit, and navigatable without the need of specialist mountaineering gear. So we thought we'd give it a go! The first phase is a 6km hike to your overnight lodgings in a big hut at 3272 meters above sea level. Now a 6km hike doesn't sound far , but of course, it being a mountain, the 6km is all up! It took us 6 hours to trudge up there, arriving just before 2pm and in time for lunch. The hut has a decent little cafe and it must have been one of the nicest chicken curries I've ever had, with a great view of the cloud base below us! As it was an early start the next day, everybody went to bed early, and we were tucked up and lights out at 8.30pm, all limbs aching and crying for mercy. Which is not what they got when the alarm went off at 3am (!) and we attempted the final ascent to the summit - a further 2.5km up. Unfortunately the wind was really howling, but we pushed on up for another kilometre before the mountain beat us, the altitude beat us, the wind nearly blew us off, and it was time to return to the hut and admit our folly! We were not alone, as many more non-conquerers were forced to turn back, and only about 10% of climbers making it to the summit. The world below us still looked pretty impressive from 1km short of the top, so we didn't feel too bad. After a couple of hours rest, we then made the 6km hike back down, which took (just!) 4 hours and completely finished off our legs. All our leg muscles now are so stiff, we are walking around like we've just wet ourselves!
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