Ali arrived jetlagged, tired and looking fantastic in Singapore. She was only an hour late (the airline's fault not hers) and we spent the next 12 hours in a whistle-stop tour of the best bits of Singapore as I knew it thusfar. I was so happy to see her and I couldn't quite believe that she had flown halfway around the world to see me. Pretty impressive in my eyes.

We also discussed the fairly breakneck schedule which I had pruned considerably already and as the visit went on, we pruned and pruned again the things on the 'to-do' list because there simply wasn't enough time in the day or money in the bank to complete everything.

Our day in Singapore was fairly short; we had a wander around the markets of Chinatown and I was persuaded (not that I really needed it) to buy a waterproof case for my camera - something I had always wanted. We went back to Clarke Quay (the home of Clinic and all the other trendy bars) for a lovely Mongolian BBQ dinner before retiring to the hotel early to our TWIN room (grrr) and some well deserved sleep! Ali was travelled-out and I was exhausted from my late night so we literally collapsed into our beds and before I knew it, the familiar snores and sleeptalking started - ahhh fond memories! Sorry babes hehe!!!

We awoke super early the next morning for our taxi to the airport. I had researched timings and reckoned we could get to the airport for $6 on the MRT. Sadly our timings meant that we needed a cab and so I had booked one through the hotel. Big mistake! The normal rate for a meter taxi to the airport in Singapore is $15-20 but being a 4* hotel, we came through the entrance to see a lovely Mercedes waiting for us out front. It also happened to be my birthday so we just put it down as a bday treat when we had to pay $70 for the privilege! Oh well. We were flying to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and Ali had booked us into the 5* Shangri La Tanjong Aru (have a look at it online) in Kota Kinabalu for my bday evening.

The flight went off without a hitch apart from my breakfast fry up at the airport which turned out to be not only the most expensive breakfast I had eaten in 6 months but also consisted of strange white sausages! Hmmm. Indeed, they honestly looked like a fat Caucasian chef had lopped off part of his anatomy (fingers obviously) and fried them up and served them to us at a huge cost.

We arrived and jumped in a taxi to our resort feeling very self conscious as we, 2 weary backpackers, alighted from our Toyota in front of a Utopian paradise reception and were greeted by a little man playing Malaysian kettle drums, a concierge, a porter and a person who checked our bags to the porter. I was impressed at the entourage!

Sadly when we arrived at reception, the booking that Ali had so lovingly and painstakingly made, wasn't registered and they told us that we had booked another twin room (what is it with us and twins?) and that the sea view she wanted was unavailable but that they could 'upgrade' us to a sea-view king-size at no extra cost. Needless to say Ali went into full flow and I let her get on with it as she's far better at all that stuff. I was just impressed with the sheer size of the place.

We also found out that the extras that Ali had booked for the room weren't on the system and so feeling dejected - we retired to the pool in the hope that after a bite to eat and some sunshine, it would all be sorted out and the seaview kingsize with extra items (I still didn't know what at this point) would be ready.

Just prior to our 2pm allotted check in time, we heard a samba band playing and it must have been some sort of rain dance because at that moment, the heavens opened in true tropical style and we had to make a dash for it. Thankfully, we had already had our fill of food and strawberry daiquiris!

We headed to our room, eager in anticipation and when we got there, it really was a lovely room but it wasn't what we wanted. I decided that enough was enough and we headed back to seek out the Guest Services Manager for a little chat. The poor lady in the business centre took the majority of the initial flack but finally, the Guest Services Manager appeared and we explained our situation and that it was my birthday and to be honest, he couldn't have been any more accommodating. He upgraded us to an Executive Suite (with 2 rooms, 2 bathrooms, balcony etc) and apologised profusely. He also sent us a bottle of wine and a fruit basket to choose from (we think the wine was for someone else actually as Ali had ordered a fruit basket) and we took to our newfound luxury lifestyle like ducks to water! I think we had gone from a room costing £200 per night to one costing nearly £1000! Quite a jump up and we were very happy. I made myself busy snaffling all the free toiletries whilst Ali reclined on the balcony in one of our 3 sofas! In the evening we headed out for a lovely bday dinner in one of the hotels 5 restaurants (it was still raining!) only to return to our palace later on to find a huge chunk of bday cake waiting for us and a little letter of apology on behalf of the hotel. I was so touched (and also quite full/diabetically prone) as I tucked into the cake which was nearly as big as my head! I made a sterling effort but sadly couldn't finish it.

We spent the next 24 hours living like Kings (and Queens J) before reality bit and we had to head back to the backpacker life and a hostel L. We had a list of things to achieve in Borneo and it was quite long and it all needed planning and putting into practice. The most important thing was to climb Mt Kinabalu - hence all the running and training on my part and Ali tackling the stairs at home at least twice daily in preparation for the big event. I also wanted to do some diving and grab some beach time before we headed back to the mainland; as well as squeezing in a quick jaunt to Brunei and perhaps Sarawak as well if we could manage it. Ali said she was happy whatever we did as long as at some point 'we went to see the monkey and orangutans!' Actually, I think we were both as keen as the other to go here as its one of the only places in the world where you can see the orang-utans in their natural environment.

We spent a great deal of time researching and making phone calls in our little hostel room before coming to the conclusion that Mt Kinabalu might have to be missed out this time. We had both been emailing and calling for the past month trying to get accommodation in one of the lodges but it turned out that they didn't like answering either because it was easier to sell all the beds to tour companies who then sold them as part of packages for 6 times the price that one could do the climb on their own. It would have worked out to be £80 each to climb the mountain which just wasn't worth it when there were so many other things to be done so we abandoned that idea for now and decided to head off to Semporna and then on to Mabul to dive the world famous Sipadan and the islands around it. We spent a good few hours deciding where to stay and eventually managed to find a budget hostel on the island of Mabul that wasn't ridiculous and also included a day of diving for considerably less than the other 5* water village resorts on the island and also the published prices of the Oil Rig that they had planted right next to this gorgeous island that had been converted into a dive platform complete with its own artificial reef underneath. You couldn't actually stay on Sipadan Island as it had been converted into a conservation sanctuary a few years previously because tourists were ruining it with pollution.

What was a bit of a disappointment was when we stepped off the bus after 10 hours in Semporna; having been told we would head straight to Mabul that evening; we were told we would have to stay in the town that night as the boats didn't run that late in the evening but that they could provide us with accommodation at a 'very reasonable price' if we so wished. Obviously we did so wish but after 10 hours on a bus neither of our sense of humour were particularly intact and we gave them both barrels for misrepresentation. This problem actually turned out to be a bit of a pattern in Sabah. You would be promised something and pay for it, only for the actual thing you were getting to turn out not to be as good/decent/anything like that which was promised. You would then be faced with one of 3 reactions from the vendor when you mentioned something: denial that you had actually been promised that, indifference and a smile (which was probably the most infuriating or finally, an offer to pay more money to get what you had originally paid for. It actually became quite wearing and we both became increasingly pissed off with the effective cons that we were falling victim to - through no fault of our own. It was the only place I had experienced this reaction of anywhere I had travelled so far.

I was quite happy that we were getting the same diving at about a quarter of the price of everyone else there! We also met a very pleasant couple who came with us to Sipadan for the day but only snorkelled and we spent a lovely day chatting to them whilst fending off rogue monitor lizards who took a fancy to our bread and jam!

The diving itself was AMAZING. Ali wasn't too confident to dive after a bad experience but took her heart in her mouth and plunged beneath the waves and it was SO worth it. Sipadan is meant to be one of the top 5 places in the world to see varied wildlife and it truly was. The coral life wasn't all that impressive but after you have seen coral a few hundred times, it isn't all that thrilling but I was simply blown awayby the animal life we saw - sharks, SOOOOO many turtles, squid, cuttlefish, starfish, you name it, we saw it and probably more than 1 in the course of our dives. The largest turtle we saw was nearly as big as a Mini - I'm not joking - it was HUGE!

After the 3 dives on the first day we stopped off at the oil rig to drop off some tanks and out of interest, I investigated how much it would be to stay there. I had secretly wanted to stay there all along as it would have been very cool but we just couldn't justify it financially. Upon enquiring, it turned out that we could have the same package as we had in our place with better food and accom for a mere RM50 (about £17) more so decision made, we organised transport across for the following day and returned to the floating shack for our evening meal. The place we were staying wasn't actually too bad but during the night, I was awoken by Ali who was convinced there was a monster or a burglar or something HUGE in the room with us. The following morning when we woke up, it seems that everyone else had suffered the same fate and been awoken by the noises in the night. I think it was 2 mice fighting in the wallspace but I'm sure Ali would tell you that zombies or horrid animals were trying to get in to kill us all! Needless to say, we left the floating shack and headed to the rig looking forward to something with solid walls and no mice. Or at least if the mice were going to be there, they would be highly trained Royal Marine mice and move silently with daggers in their teeth!

Once on the rig, we were again disappointed to find out that the dives we had booked weren't available because despite asking to do them, they had picked us up too late for the Sipadan boat so I was limited to the local dives around Mabul and Kapalai islands which wasn't ideal but actually turned out to be ok. Ali decided not to dive that day so, armed with my new camera case, I went off in search of nature.

24 hours passed and we headed onto Sepilok, the home of the Orangutan sanctuary. Actually, we flew there because both of us weren't willing to sit on another coach forever and we also were painfully aware of time limits once again. 3 weeks just wasn't long enough to see everything. When we arrived at the hostel, Ali once again gave us a lovely surprise and paid for us to upgrade from the dorm to a freestanding cottage in this lovely botanical garden complete with a/c, comfy mattress and soft pillows. In fact the only thing we could fault about the entire place was the shower which didn't drain away so you ended up ankle deep in soapy water and the loo became semi-submerged. This was a small loss considering we got a discount on the actual price and the whole place was absolutely gorgeous. We headed to sleep that night extremely excited about the following day and seeing the orang-utans in their element.

It was better than we could have ever have imagined. The animals were wild and going through a rehab program to get them back into the wild which consisted of a number of feeding platforms throughout the jungle in Sabah. 2 of these were accessible to the public and allowed you to get within a few metres (if lucky) of the animal and the best thing was, unlike most of the other sights in Sabah, that they didn't charge you a fortune for the privilege. SO refreshing!

We attended both feeding sessions and took a couple of hundred photos each of the animals feeding and playing. In the morning, we were also lucky enough to see a troupe of monkeys who provided the warm up act to the main event! It was truly humbling and incredible to see how human-like they really were. We both left the sanctuary at the end of the day elated from what we had seen and headed back to our little slice of paradise for one more night before we started the dash to Brunei and the promise of a St Patrick's Day party in the Officers Mess of the Royal Gurkha Regiment!