Spent the first weekend at the Perhentian Islands with Ally. We flew up to Pulau Kecil (pronounced Ke-chill, as in we ke-chilled on the island) and were dropped off by water taxi to our lovely, secluded beach hotel D'Lagoon (more like shacks surrounded by jungle on one side and beach on the other). It was gorgeous, perhaps my favourite place I've been to so far. It was the end of Hari Raya so the owner even gave us a free meal on the Sunday...food tastes amazing when it's free :)
Ally convinced me to try some diving so we went on a discovery dive. Lasted about an hour, 12 metres deep. Saw lots of little nemo's and plenty of other fish. It was fantastic. Also got to see a turtle when snorkelling!
Came home for a couple of days for uni. Caught up with friends, took Anne to all the crazy malls and then we were off again. This time to Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo.
Stayed in KK just one night, enough to go to the crazy night market with the philipino bbq and delicious mee goreng (added deliciousness because it only costs 1$AU)! We then moved on to Mount Kinabalu National Park to attempt the 4000 metre peak. It was pretty tough, up all the way (well, we were climbing a mountain) and our legs were sore for a couple of days afterwards. What was most disappointing was that we were only able to make it to the Laban Rata guest house (3200m). We woke up at 2am the second day and waited for the OK from the ranger to continue the climb and watch the sunrise (or the sunset come up as Tom would say). But strong winds and rain meant that this was impossible. So back to bed, only to wake up in a few hours and return to the bottom. We were quite upset but a visit to the Poring Hot Springs, back to KK and we were quite satisfied all the same. It's quite a beautiful walk. Ally climbed just a couple of days after us and the photos look amazing.
We then moved on to the East coast, Sandakan, where the Orang Utans live. Went to Sepilok to watch them feed and all. Very cute. I think I prefer them to monkeys. The rehabilitation centre was quite similar to the elephant one I visited previously although they have less contact with humans really. Decided to spend 3 days on Jungle camp...Uncle Tan's Wildlife Addventures!!!
Absolutely loved that. We had guides take us Jungle trekking and on river boat rides to see the wildlife. Managed to see wild orang utans, crocodiles, millipedes, monkeys, monkeys and more monkeys! And there was plenty of food (Alex was happy). Stayed in open huts with mosquitoe nets to protect us overnight. No showers so we were pretty smelly by the end of the trip! What was a little strange were the surrounding Palm Oil plantations. We took 2 hours by bus to get to the camp as well as a short boat trip and all the way we could only see palm oil plantations. They're not so pretty either. It's not very cool seeing an orang utan up in a tree, sleeping and then seeing/hearing a giant truck about 20 metres behind it.
Made our way back to KL and said our good byes. A pretty wonderful holiday over all.
Uni is coming to an end soon. Just a couple more weeks of classes and then exams. :( It's all gone by very quickly. They're even having a farewell dinner at uni tonight (a bit too soon I think but never mind).
Dad is arriving tomorrow. Visiting for the weekend. I have plenty planned to keep him busy, should be fun.
Love to all
Alex xoxo
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