Tuesday 14th July

"Good evening sir, your 1.25am flight to Kuala Lumpur has been delayed by 6 hours"

Wednesday 15th July

18 hours later after an uncomfortable form of attempted sleep on, firstly a hotel lounge chair and coffee table, and secondly an Air Asia chair, we landed safely in Kuala Lumpur at 2.30am. Now it's one of those funny times of the day when you think 'is paying for a hotel room really worth it!?'…. we decided no, set up camp on the airport floor and set out a rough plan for the next 12 weeks; destinations, modes of transport and all the rest.
After a few more hours of trying to sleep in strange places, the buses into town started running, so we caught one into central KL and headed for China Town via the railway. Our hostel turned out to be right in the slums of China Town and reflects the outside conditions on the inside! Ah well it's a cheap bed with no bugs. Bags finally down we took a stroll around the surprisingly modern KL and visited a number of sights without seeing them (poor visibility meant the towers will be saved for our return visit before we head for home). The markets were pretty cool though and marked the first time (of many) on this trip when we had to make the choice of; noodles or rice! And; chicken, beef or pork! I'm going to love this food, but for breakfast everyday!? this is a little hardcore. The food court we chose had plastic tables and chairs and no H&S at all but can you complain at a 90p meal!? We didn't! Ok, ok, so then we cheated and had a late afternoon kip for 2 hours but we'd been up for effectively 36 hours on 4 hours sleep so not surprising. Not surprising either that after market scouring and sticking our feet in a pool full of chomping fish, letting them clean our feet in the market… when we finally got into a bed, at bedtime, we couldn't sleep! Rats…. well actually we had lizards… but rats!

Thursday 16th July

Have we actually slept properly yet!? Ah who cares! Back to the airport and off to Kota Kinabalu (the capital of the Sabah region of Malaysian Borneo). Deciding we were on a budget I marched Nikki 20 minutes up the road to the local bus stop in 34oc heat with our heavy bags - 1 hour later still at the bus stop with no sign of any buses, having turned down the offer of a free lift from a wily local (for fear of a scam) we succumbed to a taxi; a whopping £2.70! Maybe this whole budget thing is going to be a little easier here. First impressions were; what a delight the locals are! - nothing but friendly smiles and no pestering at all - lovely stuff. KK is a weird mix of some of what you'd expect from a more traditional SE Asian city; smelly drains, dingy alleyways and run down small shops all selling the same thing, but again surprised us with more of what you wouldn't maybe expect - clean and tidy with no beggars, and everyone seems to have a job…

Friday 17th July

I braved a haircut - back to this everyone has a job malarkey - how can one hairdressers survive paying 5 staff to sit inside playing cards and have two outside saying hello to everyone… not a pair of scissors being snipped in sight! And then when I want to bring custom their way the damn hairdresser needed goading by the greeter to stop playing cards and cut my hair! Crazy stuff. Needless to say the haircut wasn't a complete disaster and at £2.50 you can't complain even if it is! The guy/person cutting my hair did enjoy massaging my head more than I enjoyed having my head massaged/groped by long finger-nailed hands… hmmmmm! The government seem to employ a lot of people here to do very small jobs; loads of street sweepers, car park attendants etc, and all local businesses seem to employ triple the amount of staff needed (and still make a profit), so that kind of explains the higher standard of living here, and lack of beggars. I digress… we found out via the wonders of Facebook that Nikki's ex-colleague, Rob from EuroMoney, was in KK too (small world isn't it!) so met him for a drink before heading off to the food court for dinner. Avoiding the display of live eels we eventually got our food, after some hot negotiations, and ventured on into the night markets… all tat…. tat tat tat tat tat… but foreign tat, so almost interesting tat! Trying to find the bar Rob was in was interesting… Nikki suggested we asked one of the girls standing behind us on the corner… I started laughing and tried to explain subtly that one was in fact a man and they were both interested giving out anything other than directions! Eventually finding Pirates Bar we teamed up with Rob and his two companions Stacey and James for some hardcore karaoke. 4am finish. Nice.

Saturday 18th July

Off to the beach! The only beaches near towns here that are not polluted are on the Islands in the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, so having teamed up with 3 people from our hostel we set off for the jetty to catch a ride to Manukan Island… it's funny how many times we paid for that ride… some ringits at the ticket counter, then more ringets at the national park tax counter, then more ringets on the Island to access it - still cheap though! Once we'd found our patch of sand we headed for the food hut and patiently watched the fat local man push in front of us, order, and take, every scrap of meat they had for his fat family… we therefore settled for rice, vegetables and the gravy left over from the meat dish, but still lovely stuff. After being pleasantly surprised at some of the coral and all the fish during our snorkelling, despite the amount of litter and general rubbish in the sea (Malaysians and apparently all SE Asian countries see waterways s dumping grounds unfortunately) we started the task of finding our boat back to the main land. We managed it, but only just. On the way back, our taxi boat decided to race a nearby one… we lost but were quite glad our drive didn't try the 'steer with just your feet whilst doing chin ups on the boat roof' technique adopted by our competitor, all at full pelt on the engines (no-one on his boat had a clue what he was doing as they were all facing forwards luckily!). But that didn't stop our driver making sudden turns into their path and playing chicken... Fun! They did make us put on life vests though when the sea police cruised by, so some standards exist!
Dinner was at the Pilipino market see tomorrow for details) and was great, but not as great as the singing trio, dressed all in blue, performing on the stage outside our hostel… "I can't wive, if wiving is wivout woooooo, I can't wive, I can't wive anymore"… you get the idea!

Sunday 19th July

The day of organising our Borneo leg; getting tourist information out of the Tourist Information Centre staff was like getting blood out of a stone… useless. So feeling thoroughly disenchanted with Borneo we explored the Sunday markets admiring the tat, tat, tat and puppies… yes puppies and thankfully sold as pets not meat! Then we met Nick… our knight in shining armour. He was promoting Pirates Bar but instead offered us impartial backpacking advice in return for buying a lemonade at his bar. Back at Pirates after 15 minutes of no-nonsense ex-pat tourist advice, we'd hired a car, planned out the next week or so, and even had some free accommodation set up… all with the advice from Nick and Sea Dog - yes that's how he introduced himself! So the free accommodation; Nick thrust a phone into my hand and said… "If you going North, my friend Howard will put you up for a few nights.. It's ringing"… "Hello Howard, you don't know me but can we stay with you for night!?"… "Sure no problem" - great!
We then grabbed a mini-bus to the local beach and after some sand snoozing watched the mother of all storms come in. We took refuge in the beachside restaurant but didn't expect the carnage that followed; trees snapped in half, storm blinds getting ripped from their hinges with plants and bins up-ended - all from the safety of us standing behind a big glass wall…. hmmmmm!
Now the Pilipino market was a set of trestle tables interlinked with BBQs, where you point at any of the fresh fish or shell fish laid out on the table, they BBQ it for you, make you a dipping sauce and serve rice etc whilst you feast. Awesome food. To finish the evening, a farewell drink with Rob and our favourite singing trio (this time all in green) outside our hostel… "I don't want to wock, DJ, but wou're making me feel so wice".

Monday 20th July

You don't get a feel for a place until you drive the roads… and the road rules here are there are no rules… just one speed camera on the whole Island. Welcome to Borneo! Having realised 2km outside of town that we had a parking ticket we doubled back on ourselves, paid the 25p fee (can you imagine that in central London!), and set off for the 4 hour trip to the Tip Of Borneo. The last few km's were through some really isolated villages but what a great place - friendly kids, kind of friendly stray dogs, and some tarmac here and there. The Tip of Borneo is out of a picture post card, gorgeous. Once all photo angles had been exhausted, we headed for the deserted beach, deserted apart from a huge police station at one end that is… that police commissioner knew how to make important decisions! Several sunning hours later we made contact with Howard and arranged to meet at the local garage… now I've never before, and probably never will again, drive up to a garage forecourt wave at a man I've never met before (it was obviously to all parties who each other were as we were the only westerners in the entire place) and drive back to his house with no introductions. Howard it turned out is a patron of couch surfing.com, making Nikki and I just a another in a long line of backpackers getting free accommodation at Howard's huge house. After a quick house tour we realised Howard was a legend too. He was also to play tour guide for the next few days and all in exchange for English conversation!

Tuesday 21st July

Having been tipped off by Neville (a friend of Howard's whom we'd met the night before over beers) of a great beach where he was working, we headed over and even got a tour of the exclusive resort he'd been employed at to manage the tiling work on. About 3 minutes into Neville's site tour we realised this was no ordinary exclusive resort; each plot had a lavish house with huge rooms and balconies, a private swimming pool, private beach and it's own set of mini out houses for their personal entourage of staff. It came as no surprise when we heard the prices! Only half finished you could tell these places were going to be stunning. "Come on then, I'll take you to the restaurant at the top of the hill" Neville then drove us up the steepest road we've even been on - gained 1000 metres in height in as many metres driven - which then suddenly opened up into a panoramic view overlooking the entire region. "So are guests going to have to drive up that steep track?" I asked. "Oh no" says Neville, "Guests will get the resort helicopter up". No further questions.
Howard and Neville were the only westerners in the whole town, so when we went out for dinner we were treated almost like royalty - apart from that is in the restaurant where, having read through the 6 page menu and made our choices, we were instructed we could only have lemon chicken or fish and chips as the chef had just resigned! Nice.

Wednesday 22nd July

Howard took us out for breakfast and insisted on paying (free accommodation and free food… awesome!) where we had our new discovery of Roti (Indian bread with various spicy dipping sauces). A quick tour of the market took several hours as everyone stopped to talk to Howard (he'd lived there for 2 years so was quite the boy about town), but the insider information on the local customs and social etiquette was really interesting - the favourite is to chew rolled up tobacco in vine leaves so your teeth go red ad fall out… nice!
Farewells completed, we headed back to KK via the Chinese Temple, State Mosque, Heritage Village and the Sabah museum - how very culturally aware of us! We then returned a very dirty car, to a very laid back rental man (so laid back he forgot to take our money when we took delivery of the vehicle!) and retreated to our usual hostel; Rainforest Lodge, where our favourite singing trio were still singing, dressed all in white on this occasion.

Thursday 23rd July

Getting to Sandakan, the main town out west and gateway to the orang-utan sanctuary, involved a six hour bus journey. Having tackled the bombardment of touts that attacked us at the bus station and being hustled/pushed/ pulled towards a bus that was "leaving imminently" (in actual fact it was leaving in 30 minutes time) we boarded the bus and watched and laughed as every other backpacker was put through the same tout trauma we'd just encountered, also only to also realise the bus was going nowhere fast! Finally we started rolling our way through the mountain range of Borneo, cross country, along some seriously steep roads. Jungle immediately gave way too huge palm oil plantations and small villages - it's such a shame how much rainforest has been cleared for palm oil plantations, but who are we to pass comment on 'progress'. Is it wrong to sit back and watch a low budget kung-fu film with bad Australian actors whilst the heartland of Borneo flashes pat the windows?… I decided no, and watched the crap films.
Once in Sandakan we met Mr Lum - our hostel host for the next few days, and went on a cultural walk of the town. 10 minutes later we'd seen all that Sandakan has to offer; 100 step stairwell, an English Tea house and a house where some famous author; Agnes Keith (I've never heard of her!), had written many books in. Dinner was again in tradition; plastic tables and chairs, smiley staff and tasty food.

Friday 24th July

Having successfully negotiated the bus station we boarded our bus for the Sepilok Orang-utan Sanctuary and spent the trip catching up with a family we'd met a week ago in the Pilipino markets. Once at the sanctuary we huddled in with the several other hundred tourists and waited in the blistering heat for a glimpse of the famous mammals. We saw one! He came swinging in ate some grub ad b*****ed off again, all within minutes, but we did feel privileged… we'd travelled for days to see this and despite the tourist trap smell about the place, were determined to remember it well. That was until we decided to do a jungle walk… oh my lord the mud… and the leeches… I didn't know you could get bitten in those places… and so the memories became slightly more memorable.
Back in town we popped over to the death March memorial park, which was very appropriate for such a dark chapter in history; back at the end of WWII, 1,600 POW's held in Sandakan were forced to complete two marches west, totalling 250km, in order to keep away from the advancing Allied troops. Already struggling to survive, any stragglers were shot or bayoneted. Something like 400 survived the first march and no-one survived the second. The only reason we know this happened was because 6 Australians escaped and lived to tell the tale. Dark indeed.

Saturday 25th July

Off to Poring Hot Springs… the home of the natural hot baths and too many Chinese/Japanese fat people trying to get some sulphur action. Our bus unceremoniously dumped us in Ranau (a junction town for several spots of interest off the beaten track) where we searched around and eventually found someone who would drive us to Poring. We were warned it was a daytime tourist trap so opted to stay the night and wait for the masses to depart before we headed in later in the afternoon. And head in we did; the botanic gardens were… well… not very botanic… and barely garden like… but oh well they weren't the reason for the trip! We had a good swim, decided the hot pools were a waste of time (slow to fill up and not very hot!) and settled into our hotel room, which we were sharing with several cockroaches, a few lizards and the world's largest centipede - this thing was huge! All successfully evicted we finally felt safe to sleep (well actually Nikki slept with one eye open all night I think, but I slept well!).

Sunday 26th July

We'd heard a rumour that locals fed a wild orang-utan, called Jackie, in the gardens of Poring and so spent an age trying to track her down in some of the worst orchid and tropical 'gardens' we'd even visited!, but never quite got to the bottom of seeing her! Instead we headed to some nearby waterfalls for some picturesque trekking… when I say nearby, these waterfalls were the longest 3.5km I've ever walked! 2 hours of the steepest walking I've done later, and we finally arrived at the falls almost out of water and hungry, but they were pretty! The return journey was far better/quicker thank goodness! Once back we had a well deserved ice-cream and even managed to blag a free lift back to Ranau! Bonus! From there we headed to the Kinabalu National Park via a mini-van and a local's supped up Japanese banger.
Staying just outside the park was about 1/3 of the price of accommodation, inside the park boundaries, monopolised by one company. So we stayed outside in what I can only describe as a mountain shack and not a 'hotel' as the sign advertised! Now, we could have complained about the cold showers, the toilet block being at a 45° angle making standing difficult, but we didn't…well you can't at £3.60 a night! Neither did we moan about the torrential rain or the power cut, but instead opted for befriending some Dutch backpackers and together ran to the local café (the only one open in 5 miles) where we found about 30 others all doing the same thing; trying to keep dry and find some food - the place probably only gets about 5 people on a good day! Still we managed to eat, exchanged stories and tips, and survived the night in the shack.

Monday 27th July

Walking inside the National Park in the shadow of Mount Kinabalu was challenging, not because of the steep hills (there were plenty), but because it was impossible to navigate; we planned a lovely route and ended up going completely the wrong way… three times! But a few hours later emerged feeling rewarded despite not having a clue where we'd just been or what we'd seen.
And so our itinerary took us away from the hills back to KK. How?, we weren't sure, but we knew which direction on the main road it was. Now, technically we weren't hitch hiking, we were simply at the side of the road waiting for an official bus, whilst simultaneously being open to the option of a passer by stopping - which they did and allowed us to barter them down to the lowly cost of a bus ticket (but with the added bonus of a door to door service), bargain! For some reason you feel safer when money exchanges hands! Back to our favourite hostel, our favourite Pilipino night market and our favourite singing trio (this time all in Blue) "Twust in me when I say… I wuv you baby "
　

Tuesday 28th July

Please don't rain as the weather forecast predicted… thank goodness the BBC got t wrong again! Instead we had a tropical storm at about 3am - we woke up thinking the building was going to collapse, but eventually woke up to a very calm a blue skied day…. so off to the Islands again for sun worshipping, this time Sapi. The process of getting a sea taxi was now familiar one, but the spine crunching trip across the water wasn't… he seemed to speed up for the big waves and actually enjoy the crunch as we crashed back down in our chairs. After some serious sun worshipping and some great snorkelling it was time for the dreaded return leg… I've never been in a boat before where I genuinely though we would actually tip over in the swell (you know it's serious when the guy actually slows the boat down to negotiate the waves), but thankfully it didn't and we finally found terra firma, soaked but alive! Dinner on plastic chairs and tables was a must ,and avoiding the singing trio meant I never found out what colour outfits it was today.

Wednesday 29th July

So the beginning of Swine Flu meant we had an R&R day. When your whole body aches there is nothing better than a full body massage (Malaysia style not Thai!). So having been ushered into a shop backroom by two ladies, we took off our clothes and enjoyed the relaxation.
… welcome to Air Asia! "But don't worry we've booked you into the Plaza hotel"… oh excellent!…. "In the conference suite with the other 300 passengers"… oh, not so excellent.