Borne-whoa!

We have only spent a week in Borneo, but this week has been so action packed and exciting that it deserves it's own blog, a page in our history books.. Our adventures started in Kuala Lumpar, which was a refreshing escape from the madness, and filthiness of India. KL is clean, modern and safe, and was a welcome break, but beyond that, there is little to see (except the Petronas towers) or do (unless your shopping or indeed have the money to do shopping). To waste some time, Lottie 'treated' Paul to a 'therapy' of having small nibbling fish eating away at his feet, but I think that Lottie had the most entertainment from this!

So, to Borneo, an island shared in ownership by Malaysia and Indonesia. Our flight over the country revealed how abundantly green the landscape is, aflock with palm trees (albeit palm tree plantations) and other varieties. Our first few days were to be spent upon the Kinatabangan river in Sabah. A suprise delivered by Paul to Lottie whilst in Kalcutta, we were to stay with a local homestay run by Osman. On arrival in Sandakan, we spent our first few hours searching for a pacmac (Lottie had lost hers) and found this task harder than you would think...a fishermans coat was as close as we come. Yet the torrential rain continue to dampen the streets but not our spirits... two buses, a taxi and then a boat later and we had arrived our at destination.

Osman and Yanti's humble abode consisted of a stilted (in case of floods) four bedroom wooden bungalow, sparcely decorated but homely all the same, where we were instantly made welcome in this river front homestay. Osman's family includes 6 children aged 5 to 15, who later became a source of continued entertainment for us. The homestay arrangement was that for a given price, you were given accomodation, 3 homecooked meals a day and regular snacks. We would then pay for each boat trip that we requested for discovering the wildlife of the rainforest that bordered the river..

..and on arrival, we were thrown right into the action. Within 20minutes of arriving, having tea and putting our bags away, we were on the river in the search for wildlife. Rain continued to poor, yet in our first visit alone we realised that Osman was indeed excellent at his job, spotting hornbills and eagles, macques monkeys and the probicious monkey (put it this way, the bigger the nose the more females the male has...spare the jokes regarding Paul's conker!). The highlight was getting up close and personal with a young adult male Pigmy elephant. We even briefly spotted a crocodile! An amazng opening experience, was followed shortly by our first homemade dinner which was a sumptious meal.

Our second day started with a early morning trip down the river, with a 6:30 start. The weather had improved and soon we found ourselves feeding 'piranhas' or the fish that are now used for nibbling at people's dead foot skin, and the occasional catfish that decided to get in on the act. We then adorned our leech socks for a trek into the rainforest. In this humid, and boggy environment (it is a wetland forest), we didnt see much but a few centipedes, some dear and boar tracks, but this adventure did not go by without some screams and shouts, at the prospect of being eaten alive by blood sucking leeches! Paul regularly came to Lotties help flicking away these bloodsuckers from her trousers!

Neither Lottie or I were fond of the trek, the river cruising was much more up our street (or river)! So back to the river, and this time we were lucky enough to find the king of the jungle..the Orangutan. At first we spied a female with her baby, so Osman oared up the boat in pursuit, but on doing so we bumped into the male. We were fortunate enough to be at the foot of the tree that this giant beast was climbing. A fantastic and adrenalin packed forage, enabled us to see the facial expression of the Orangutan up close, however for the time being we have completely forgotten our protection against the leeches...we were lucky this time however..

Paul, had rather much so underpredicted the cost of all this, so his quick pop to the bank ended up being a 4 hour expedition. This left Lottie at home with the family where she really started bonding with the children. Two hours later, and half a make-up bag consumed, and the children were full of buzz and excitment! As was Lottie. The family, as if they weren't already, became even more hospitable to us. With Yanti calling Lottie 'Darling,' Manisha (13) acting every bit the young R&B star with her swagger and dancing, and the two 5 year old twins running around and playing with anything that amused them, we felt completely at home. Osman always had a story to tell as well, usually crude!

More river cruising enabled us to get closer to Pigmy elephant herds, a few metres at times, which was an amazing experience, but we also got closer to more monkeys, snakes, hornbills, eagles and indeed 1x river rat! The highlight was an evening trip down the river with two English girls, where Osman was in particularly good (and flirtacious) form, riling the creatures of the forest as much as he could. In particular, on a tree spotted with macque monkeys, which draped down onto the river, Osman decided to move his boat closer to the action. The monkeys scrambled and left the tree in a hurry. However, in the scramble a mother mistakenly left her baby on one of these draped branches. With no where to go but the river (where crocodiles surely loomed), our boat or the slow climb back to safety, the baby was visibly and vocally distressed, letting out a few 'whooo, whooo's' was all he could muster. This came much to the annoyance of the pack of monkeys, who bared their teeth at us, threw logs in our direction, and prepared themselves to attack at any moment. The four of us were terrified at the prospect, and urged Osman to pull away from the tree, but he did not! Instead, the poor baby monkey slowly began climbing the wet branches of the tree, probably taking his first few steps, terrified at his potential fate! We all breathed a sigh of relief when the baby made it safely back to shore and climbed into his mother's loving arms, only for Osman to break the silence with 'Hey mama, remember next time not to forget your baby!'

Our final night involved eating traditionally with the family, off the floor and with our hands, we devoured longtail prawns, chicken, veg ..the works basically! We then partied the night away with the kids, playing with the balloons that we purchased for them, dancing to the lastest RnB and laughing aplenty. On the final day, when we departed, we were sad to leave, as were our hosts sad to see us go, and this even drew a tear from the mother Yanti. Osman's signing of text. ''My family with always remember you and Lotthy.'' However, Lottie and I both know that we will be back at Osman's in a few years time, hopefully sooner.

We then headed for our next adventure...scuba diving in Sipadan. Starting from Semporna, where we stayed in a wonderfully luxurious stilted hotel by the harbour, we then headed for the island of Mabul. Mabul is a small inhabited island that lies 20minutes from the UNESCO world heritage site of Sipadan, which is famed for being one of the best diving sites in the world. A mixture of local fisherman and budding scuba divers occupy the Mabul island, which as a result has become somewhat overpopulated. However, the crsytal clear waters and reefs surrounding it were enough to whet the appetite!

Our first days diving was local to Mabul, each site less than 5 minutes in a boat, so each dive included an hour break back on the island. Within our first 3 dives, we found some wonderful species..green and hawksbill turtles (although none of them moved from the sea floor!), angelfish, boxfish, unicornfish and even the odd stingray. Each of the dives, was often cut short by Paul's lack of air, as he was yet to relax his breathing enough, so Lottie became his second lung on more than 1 occassion...not that our dive instructor had noticed!

We then had a break day where we searched for improved accomodation, and spent some time relaxing on the beach. On this day we chose to go snorkelling just off the jetty, putting Lottie's new underwater camera (purchased in KL) to the test. Amazing! The visibility was excellent, the coral colourful, and the sealife abundent. Rich turquoises, yellows, purples offsetting against the blue waters. The photos, were better than we had hoped, albeit our only opportunity to photo a turtle came at 5-6metres so we were yet to have a decent photo of a turtle.

The second days diving was improved, and the highlight was definitely swimming through a school (or swarm!) of over 1000 jack fish..silver and reflecting the light, as we swam towards them, they circled around us, until we were surrounded by these fantastic fish! We also saw a giant grouper, about 2m long, many lionfish with their frilly tails, and much much more! However, Paul was still consuming air like a balloon on speed, so the dives were again shortlived (40mins or so).

Finally, the day had arrived that we were due to dive at Sipadan. Being a protected site, only a limited number of divers could visit per day, but thanks to Paul's organisation we already had our permits (others missed out). On arriving at Sipadan, 20mins from Mabul, we were confronted by circa 100 army soldiers, who were the only occupants of the island to protect the wildlife, however it seems this was a training excercise and that they were not chasing after Paul for pocketing a seashell (it was left on the floor on Mabul island!).

The island, is best described as paradise (with the exception of the army presence!!). Golden sands banked by palm trees, crystal clear waters, and 30 meters out a drop off of circa 500meters deep, commenced the beginning of the diving opportunities. The sun was beeming down on the island, and this brought about much happiness.

Our first dive was at one of the most famous sites in the world - Barracuda point. Famed for, you guess it, Barracuda, large schools that in the same way as the jacks, would swarm around an incoming intruder. Also, this meant one thing for sure..sharks! Sharks has been a thought playing on Paul's mind for probably just over 4 months now, having never dived with one before. So, the risk-reducing accountant had many questions regarding the shark life prior to backward rolling into the waters. Within a minute or two, we stumbled across our first white tip reef shark, and much to Paul's relief, he didn't panic or feel at all threatened! Phew!

All three dives at Sipadan were equally amazing. We saw many turtles and this time swimming (we had by now realised that getting close to them annoyed them enough to move and swim off!), reef sharks every 2-5 minutes, a school of Barracuda's as promised, giant trevaly's and every other fish under the sea. The sealife is so abundant down here we could understand why it was a protected venue!! Incredible! Whats even more incredible is that in all three dives Paul had relaxed his breathing enough to no longer need Lottie's air, despite the swarming sharks! We also managed to get several great snaps of a hawksbill turtle as Paul chased in with Lotties camera!

Our day was split up between diving and relaxing on the sunkissed island, having lunch, bathing on the sand, and paddling in the water. Once more, it is obvious that we will return here... diving is becoming more and more additive, we now understand why our operator is called Scuba Junkie!

We have now returned to KL, where we will be catching a flight to Bali in order to avoid the downpours that are engulfing Thailand and Northern Malaysia... so, expect more tails of diving and beachbuming to come soon, hopefully we will be talking to you next time about the Mantra rays...