Hi Guys, Ungle Tan's Jungle Adventure: This is a jungle experience that, travelers that I had met, just kept raping about. Honestly, from the moment I arrived it's been - have you been on the uncle tan's jungle experience? It's amazing, you've got to go! It was a three day two night jungle adventure that included a night safari, two morning safari's, a jungle trek, a night trek and two after noon safaris. In this occasion the word safaris means riding down the Kinabatangan River in a boat spotting wildlife. This is one of the best ways to see wildlife as you can cover so must jungle. Uncle tan's office is in Sandakan and we were driven an hour to join the river where we were transported anther hour by boat deep into the Kinabatangan jungle. The accommodation was wooden stacks with chicken wire around them and a mattress on the floor! It's all you need. The staff were amazing and so friendly. This was going to be a pretty roughing it experience and I was looking forward to it. The safaris were excellent and the guides were so good at spotting the wildlife. The morning safaris started at 06:30, the afternoon trips were at 17:30 and the night safari left at 21:30. These trips were only every meant to be for an hour but ever one was at least one and three quarter hours. One of the reasons was that there is only two times of the year that elephants are spotted in this huge section of rain forest. This period is late August so there was a possibility that the elephants were on the very far fringes of the boundaries. So the guides always took us as far as possible to give us a small chance of seeing wild elephants! As a small group, we were so lucky! On the safari's we saw a wild Orang-tan, elephant and three crocodiles! To see an Organ-tan would have been special on its own as the are only 35 - 40 in this whole massive area of jungle but to see an elephant and three croc's too was wicked. On the elephant front was had been traveling down river for ages spotting different animals and right at the end just before we were going to turn back, the guide turned off the engine. We just floated there listening to the calls and echoes on the jungle which was so relaxing. Out of the blue we heard an elephant! The driver started up the engine and we set off again towards the noise. A little way down the river and we saw this elephant face poking out of the forest. So the guide turned round and parked up against the bank and we all got out to my amazement and went looking for him. He was a pigmy elephant and he was beautiful. The crocodiles were a little scarier! As when you are about three metres away from them and they when gracefully slide into the water. Slowly but surly start to disappear until you don't see their eye anymore and they are heading straight under the tiny boat you are in. You think - it's time to move on pal! The wildlife that we would regularly see would be proboscis and different types of macaque monkeys leaping from tree to tree. I could have watched this all day long. Different varieties of hornbills and eagles flying overhead or just sitting in the canopies. Flying across the surface of the river were kingfishers and great egrets. Monitor lizards and provosts squirrels. It was just superb! The treks were interesting to. They were more aimed at looking for smaller insects, frogs, snakes, spiders, lizards and learning about the forest. We ate leafs and were shown which ones were poisonous. Pointed out which vines you can cut and drink, which ones kills the tree they are entwined round and which ones don't. We were taught what trees are used by locals and why etc etc it was really cool. The whole experience was just fantastic! Mt. Kilabulu: I had to wait for two days before I could get accommodation on the mountain. While I was booking the accommodation I met and arranged to meet the bloke that was sitting behind me (Barney), as he wanted to climb the mountain too. Later that day I returned to the hostel room and Becki was there! Becki was a girl that Tom took a shine to on Kho Tao and that we (Tom) met on Kho Phangang for the full moon party. She was traveling with a guy called James and they also wanted to organise climbing Mt. Kinabulu. So I was going to have some friends. As soon as we arrived at the park the heavens opening and it absolutely poured it down. We had to run for cover in a restaurant outside the park. I was hoping that this weather would clear up. As climbing the mountain in that weather would have been miserable, especially when you aren't properly geared up for the rain. The rain soon stopped and we registered and checked in. As soon as we walked into a dorm room, Barny was laying there. We didn't do much that afternoon/ evening other than play cards. We were up early to see if we could join up with another four people to make sure that we paid the minimum price each for the compulsorily guide. We easily meet up with four people and got a guide and set off to climb the mountain. The weather was hot and humid and this made things fair hard going. We had a distance of 6km to cover on the first day which isn't that much. But when it is so humid and hot, and the climb is so steep, it really starts to take it out of your legs. Especially when the climb is stair like! We made it to the accommodation about four and a half hours after setting off and as some as we checked in, it poured down! We were so lucky not to get drenched. Especially when it is that cool as you are so high and there is no heating. We played cards again and went to bed early as we had to be up at 02:30 to start the second part of the climb to see the sun set at the summit. We set off early doors and it was freezing and very dark. You couldn't see a thing without your touch! As soon as we got going you warmed up though. You could definitely start to notice the air getting thinner as everything was getting harder to do. The second half of the climb was much more exciting than the first to be fair. There wasn't artificial stairs to climb. It was all steep rock to climb where we had to use ropes in sections. We had 2 and a half kilometer to cover and Barney, James, Matt and myself got a move on and were one of the first groups on the summit. However, we had a while to wail for the sun rise - so it got stupidly cool and I mean freezing. The sunrise was superb and the views spectacular. The pictures don't quite capture it! The descent was hard work too! I've never liked coming down from mountains, it's just all the pondering your joints get and this mountain was no different. Barney and I were the first ones off Mt. Kinabulu by a long way but my body took a battering. My muscles really hurt and aches for two days! Bye for now Miffy x x x