Beth and me went to Malaysian Borneo while Cat was still in Bali. We flew into Kota Kinabalu which really didn't have much to offer! We flew down to Tawau and got a taxi to Semporna where we stayed for the evening in huts on stilts over the sea, very cool.
The next morning we were up really early to catch a boat across to Mabul where we picked up all of our dive gear and signed (or rather crossed out half of and then signed) some stupid disclaimer form! We then caught another boat across the Sipadan which is an absolutely stunning island. They only allow 120 people to go to it per day and it's patrolled by the army but it is so amazingly beautiful!
We did 3 dives around the island and they were all amazing! The water was so clear and you swim around a wall which goes down 600m!! We only went down to around 27m but we really didn't need to go any deeper than that. We saw about 50 turtles which are so graceful! They're everywhere around you when you start looking! They swim right past you and go to the surface for air. They're beautiful animals. We also saw about 30 white tip reef sharks which you can get really close to too. They were really peaceful too. They were just sat on the bottom of the sand. We also saw an orang utan crab and a scorpion fish and swam near some trigger fish. I just loved the experience of swimming with so many fish. The only downer was that I had a cold and got 3 nose bleeds! Eek! I would love to go back there some day! I'm worried that no dive experience is ever going to match up to it now!
We went to Sandikan from Semporna and went to the Orang utan rehabilitation centre which was cool. The Orang utans are free to roam around and have feeding platforms that they can come along to if they want to. The rangers go along to one feeding platform at 10am and put food out for them and we were lucky enough to see 2 orang utans swing in from the jungle! They were so cool, they seemed to be performing for the crowd! There were some cool monkeys hanging out with them too!
From there we went on an overnight jungle stay! We caught a bus to a lodge in the moddle of the jungle. We had a bit of excitement on the way though as our bus got stuck in the mud (mostly because our driver kept reversing and driving forward and lodging us into the mud further!). It was so funny! Our saviour came over the hill in the form of a forklift truck which towed us out of the mud!
Once we arrive safely we went on a river cruise and saw probiscous monkeys which are so ugly! We also saw some other monkeys and hornbills. We also saw a small type of leopard cat which is apparently very rare. It was stalking out the monkeys for dinner! We went on a night walk through the jungle and saw loads of ugly insects but it was quite cool. I also had a leech on my back which I didn't find out until I got back cos no one would tell me what it was so I wouldn't freak out! We did another river cruise the following day and saw some more probiscous monkeys. It was a really cool trip!!