My one and only email

  Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Wednesday, January 16, 2008

I copied this email from my Hotmail Inbox recently. It had been sitting there for a year and a half waiting for a permanent home. I thought TravelPod.com might be a good place to keep it...

Hi All,
This is going to be my one and only email from Sabah, Borneo. This is actually our last day here, flying back to Singapore tonight, and home on Saturday.   It's been an exhausting 2 and a bit weeks. We landed in Singapore on the first day of our holidays, and spent 2.5 days amusing ourselves, but getting edgy 'cos we really wanted to get to Borneo. Singapore is too crowded and too shopping-mad for me. We did find some good Indian food places and met up with one of Cameron's family friends for a local-stype dinner experience.  

We flew into Kota Kinabalu (KK - capital of Sabah) during the night, and found ourselves some accommodation. The next morning we madly organised the schedule for our trip, the mountain booking, snorkeling trips etc. It is high-season in Malaysia at the moment so we had to pre-book things. We were actually really lucky to get a spot on the mountain.  

That afternoon we jumped on a bus and travelled 8 hours south-east to Sepilok, famous for the Orangutan Orphanage. We arrived at night (again) and it was pouring down rain. A nice passer-by gave us a lift in his car to the hotel. Next morning we visited the Orangutans, but it wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. Even though the animals are released back to the forest and are "wild", there are so many people on the viewing platform watching them eat the food put out for them, it felt like a zoo.  


That afternoon we travelled down a river into the jungle to a jungle-camp called Uncle Tans. (It has a website if your interested). Here we stayed for 3 days looking for wild animals. Very cool place. Totally isolated except by boat. Amazingly I didn't get one Mozzie bite. We didn't see a wild Orangutan, but saw wild cats, frogs, lots of birds and insects, a wild boar, and heaps of interesting plants.  


After the jungle camp we made our way further south to Semporna, off which are some famous islands, Sipidan the most famous. We went snorkeling all day here, and saw heaps of cool fish and turtles! They swam right up to have a look at us. We stayed overnight in a backpackers hut on a nearby island Mabul. It was about as big as Suncorp stadium. The villagers were either fisherman, or worked on the nearby resorts. There were heaps of children too, very freindly. I went and visited the primary school out of curiousity. One side of the island are people who have no Malay citizenship, so those kids don't go to school.  

There is also a really gross litter problem, there is no garbage service, so the locals throw everything into the seas. Not a sustainable practice. I would love to go back there and do some environmental education! Oh yeah, we also snorkelled around Mabul, and found Nemo!   

After Mabul we headed back up north to Kinabalu Park, where the mountain was waiting for us. Mt Kinabalu is the biggest mountain in South East Asia. I can't remember exactly how high, but something like 4500m. We arrived off the bus, again, in the pitch black. We actually slept in front of the restaurant until morning, when the chef woke us up! Spent all day wandering around the lower trails, warming up for our climb.

Next morning we were off at 8am to the climb start. We joined another Australian girl, Nerida, so we had 3 sharing a mountain guide. It took us 4.5 hours to get to the overnight huts. Basically it was 6km of stairways, but muddy and uneven. I was really puffing for the last hour. Collapsed for a couple of hours recovering. Ate 2-minute noodles for dinner, and tried to get to sleep. Had a crap sleep. I don't sleep well at altitude. I know that from Kili.

Next morning we were up at 2am, ready to try and make the summit by dawn. It was really hard, the slope was so steep, and for the last 2 hours up you had to pull yourself by ropes. Actually quite scary. I felt very nauseus from the altitude, but didn't throw up. I saw several victims of the mountain though, going back down. Cameron was really helpful, and plodded along beside me, holding my hand when I felt too giddy. We finally made it to the summit at about 6am. The peak was literally a small area of jagged rocks. I thought I would fall off into the abyss over the edge. Couldn't really celebrate too much as there were lots of other climbers there too. It would have been better to go up later when it wasn't so busy. It was freezing too at the top, so couldn't stay long comfortably.  

On the way back down I saw a Japanese lady take a nasty fall, and crack her head on a rock. We helped her friends patch her up, and she was rushed down by her guide. For the rest of the down-hill trip I was scared I would do the same thing. We arrived back at the hut around 8:30am. Easier on the breathing going downhill.  We had a milo each, and then set off for the bottom. It was an agonising walk back down 6km of "stairs". Ouch. But I got to see the famous Pitcher plants!

That afternoon we got a lift to the Poring Hot Springs and soaked there for 2 days. There was also a scary froest tree-top walk. Didn't help my legs much, and I still feel like a cripple.  

We are back in KK now, spent yesterday at a nearby island Manukan, reading and snorkelling and eating cheap bananas. Today we are doing some souvenier shopping, and then fly back to Singapore. Its been a fast trip, and we would like to come back again and do Sabah, Borneo more in depth. Cameron and I have really enjoyed eachothers company too, and are busy planning our next trips away!  

Love you all, and if you got this far through my babble, well done!
Jill xxx

P.S.  We spent a day at the Singapore Zoo, one of my favourite places to re-visit again and again.