Hello everyone!

We have a had a really fun few weeks, so lots to tell! We got to Kota Kinabalu and discovered the night market! It is amazing, we went there so much! You walk along the rows of benches where you sit and at the end is all different types of fish, squid prawns etc. You pick your fish and they cook it for you on a barbeque at the other end of the bench. You have to make your own sauce, with soy sauce, chillies, limes, salt and sugar, its simple but so tastey! There are also beautiful islands only 10 minutes away from the city. You can snorkel but as we found out people have been taking bread down to feed the fish and they are a bit agressive as a result, so it was hard to relax. However the beaches are really nice to chill out on.

After a few days in Kota Kinabalu we headed to Sandakan to go to a place called 'Uncle Tans' that do safaris to the Sungai Kinabatangan river. We saw so much wildlife! We saw 2 wild oragutans, 2 groups of otters (about 15 in each group!), owls, eagles, hornbills, a baby crocoldile and the eyes of 2 big crocs that lit up when the torch shined on them!! We also saw proboscis monkeys, macaques and beautiful kingfishers!

After Uncle Tans we headed to Semporna. We really wanted to dive Sipadan island which is one of the top dive sites in the world! We managed to get a cancelation for the next day! It was only on the boat talking to people that we realised how lucky we had been as people had booked monhs in advance and there are huge waiting lists to go, and people go on holiday there and just can't get a permit to go (they only allow 120 people a day there)! We arrived at the island, and it was so beautiful! (No-one is allowed to stay there which probably helps). There was white sand and we have never seen water so crystal clear! A few meters of shore there is a near verticle coral wall that drops about 600m down! We saw loads of sharks, tutles nearly as big as people, huge shoals of barracuda (thousands) and the amount of fish was amazing!

After diving sipadan we really wanted to do some more and as it was my birthday we decided to stay on Mabul island and do another days diving and an extra days snorkelling. We thought we may have been disappointed with the diving at Mabul compared to Sipadan but it was still really good! We saw loads of pretty nudibranchs, a big cuttlefish, a school of squid, moray eels, ribbon eels, snake eels, turtles, crocodile fish, frog fish... and more! All the people at the resort were really friendy and nice and we had a great time. The day we were due to leave we didn't want to and ended up staying, they were having a band play that night and we didn't want to go! Rich ended up playing a few songs with the band aswell which made him very happy!

After Mabul island we had to get to Mount Kinabalu national park. We had booked a bus over night. However the journey didn't turn out as planned as the bus broke down at 4am! Luckily a truck drove past and picked up a few people. A select few managed to cram in the back. We were just praying it didn't rain! After a tiring and eventful journey we arrived at 7:30am, had breakfast and slept! The next day we started the climb up mount Kinabalu! It took 5 hours to get to where we were sleeping at an altitude of about 3,200m! We could both feel the altitude a bit. We had to start climbing to the summit at 2:20am the next day! We woke up and felt a bit ill from the altitude and I was a bit worried we wouldn't make it. We started climbing and I felt pretty bad, however the higher we got the better I felt! We made it to the top (4095m) in time to watch the sunrise and it was all so worth it! The views were incredible! The walk back down was really hard on the legs and both our legs have been hurting for days!

After the climb we went to Poring hot springs near by and had a jaccuzzi in the hot water to try to sooth our aching muscles. While we were there we managed to see a Rafflesia flower, the biggest flower in the world!

We are now back in Kota Kinabalu and will hopefully go back to one of the islands tomorrow and eat at the night market! We then fly to Jakarta in Indonesia in a couple of days. I think we are both a bit sad to leave Borneo as it has been so good!

That's all for now!

Lots of love

Rich and Zoe XX