Heading south from Semporna we travelled to the uninspiring city of Tawau, close to the Indonesian border. We had planned to cross over into Indonesia from here in a few days time but after hearing of very recent ethnic conflict, closed airports and ports we thought it best to re-evaluate plans a little. But I'm getting ahead of myself, before all this we made fruitless attempts to visit a cocoa plantation, the draw of seeing a chocolate tree up close was under...

Where has the jungle gone? I imagine I'm not alone when I thought that Borneo would be bursting with jungle and all the wildlife that it offers. So leaving cheap flights behind for a little while we took a long distance bus out of KK towards eastern Sabah which we both thought would be abundant with dense forest. Travelling cross country has so far given us a wide range of experiences, from getting stuck in the bush in Tanzania to seeing real village life throug...

Kota Kinabalu sounds rather exotic, unfortunately it's not. As a gateway to the rest of Sabah and all that it offers KK is essentially a bit of a hole. Maybe that's a little unfair as it certainly hasn't stopped us having a good few days. Our main aim in travelling to Sabah has been to dive in Sipidan, supposedly another on the top 10 dive destinations. Throughout this trip we've generally taken things as they come, deciding roughly where we want to go but with n...