Malaysian Borneo for us consisted of Kuching, Bako National Park, both in Sarawak and Kota Kinabalu/Mount Kinabalu in Sabah. It is pretty difficult to travel by bus to both places so we flew between them, so much easier.

When we arrived off our scary flight (lots of turbulence and an air pocket that made us feel like we were going to drop ut of the sky! It may have only been small but it lifted our bottoms off our seats!) from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching we settled in a lovely little guesthouse called Threehouse. It was just after Chinese New Year and pretty much everything in Kuching town was closed for the majority of the time we were there and it was raining, A LOT, so the dvd room at the guesthouse came in very handy.

The main attraction around this area is the Semenggoh Wildlife park where you can see Orangutans in as close to their natural environment as you're going to get. We unfortunately didn't see any, which is bad for us, but good news that the orangutans have enough food to fend for themselves in the jungle and don't need the fruit the rangers are offering. It was quite scary going in though, because the rangers take you into the forest where 'feeding time' happens but first give you a run down for safety reasons. They tell you that the alfa male can get a little tetchy if he sees a umbrella pointed at him or anything for that matter as he thinks it is the vet cming to sedate him so he has been known to attack in these circumstances. Worse than that they tell you that 'big mamma' who is the grandma of the troop is a little volatile and bites at least one person a year, usually more. Great! Glad she didn't turn up, lol.

The other attraction around is the National Parks. We visited only Bako National Park mostly because it was the closest to get to and we could travel there ourselves by public transport. The Park was lovely, needed to be looked after a little better but still worth a vist. We stayed just one night but did a few of the trails around the park. There are 3 different types of monkey there. Mostly famously, the Proboscis Monkey which is the one with a big floppy nose and a beer belly. The Silver Leaf mokeys are quiet and keep away from people, keep themselves to themselves kind of creatures but the long-tailed macaques, they're a different story. They will pinch anything and simply jump on your table to get it. One took a whole tub a crackers off a lady while she was sat eating her lunch. It took him a while to get into it but he got there in the end, it was hilarious to watch! We also saw a family of boar and a huge thing that i think was a boar but really not quite sure. It came right up to the restaurant area on the night and would eat any scraps it was offered. We didn't see all that much on the actual trails though but it was fun dodging the puddles and climbing up the steps which were simply tree roots.

Next stop was Kota Kinabalu. Like Kuching the town itself didn't really have that much to offer a tourist but the surrounding areas had a lot to visit.

First we wet to Mount Kinabalu so Dave could test out his fitness and climb the almost 4000 metres to the summit. I'll let him blog on that experience though. I stayed where it was safe at the bottom and explored a couple of the trails, reading my book and enjoying the peace and quiet for 24 hours!

We visited Lok Kawi Wildlife Centre which was really just a zoo but it was ok. We had to get the local bus again to get there but that only took us so far so we decided to take the plunge and try and hitch a lift for the 5km we needed to go. We actually were offered a lift in the back of a transit van before we stuck our thumb far enough for anyone to notice but we still count it as hitching. It turned out that the driver actually worked at the zoo. We saw al sorts of animals, most were i good condition. Just one of the sun bears was pacing along the edge of its pool and then dipping in, swimming round and then starting again. That upset me. The main reason we went was to see the Orangutans and they were brilliant, swinging on the ropes and climbing. We watched at feeding time where slices of bread were thrown to them. It was hilarious, one of them took a slice, dipped it in the water to soften it and then had a good munch, the intelligence!!

We spent our final two days in Borneo on Tunku Abdul Rahman islands. Namely Mamutik, Manukan and Sapi. They were all stunning. We hired a snorkel whilst there and saw so many beautiful fish and coral. I won't bore you with names. Some of the fish are very territorial and swim right up to your mask as if warning you off, funny.

Next it is a flight back to Kuching to wait in the airport for 7hrs and then fly to Singapore for a day! Before heading to Indonesia xx