A short flight and we are in Borneo , from all the legend and stories this has allways been a mystical place !!!! wonder what to expect ....

Kota Kinabalu, formerly Jesselton, the city we landed in did not treat me right! First night having way too many visits
to the rest room.Had to stay in bed the next day. The second day I was alive again and could adventure out of the room to the big joy of the rest of the family that had stay around the day before. We tried to keep the room one more night but it was not possible.

We decided then to go travel straight to Sepilok where there was a Orang-Utan center A small city located on the opposite side of the island .A small drive since it was only 302 km. But after driving a while in a taxi we understood why he said that it would take 5 hours. We can not really understand as Europeans the poor conditions of the roads here.

At one time I noticed at the road signs 272 km to Sandakan ( the bigger city we were driving to ) 2 hours later I saw
a sign stating 208 km - we had driven only 64 km .... hmmm We arrived six hours later.

The problem is always that the sun goes down precisely at six, and when it is gone it is dark, completely dark.
This night it was really raining , monsoon kind. So, imagening us there, in the dark, in the poring rain looking for a place
to stay in one of the worlds largest rainforests.Well like we always do, we managed, and this time we found the nicest little forest lodge near a small pond . A little too expensive for us but would do for the first night .

After a very nice sleep in the forest with all the loud sounds of nature just outside the lodge, we decided to move to a cheaper solution. We found a place very close by , at half the price but we had to smell to the humid and moist pillows.

We went to the Orang-Utan reservate . Here they still fed the Urang-utan relieced into the wild, twice a day.
Standing in the middle of the forest after a 10 minute walk to get to the feeding platform we waited. First there were
the small monkeys that you can encounter everywhere ,especially in India. The ones that always are ready to steel something... quite entertaining though. They put up a nice display for us - running,jumping,fighting and even walking among us while we waited for the big red ape to appear from the dense and mysterious forrest.

Just when we did not expect it to show, it did. Majestically, and very slowly it swung its way through the forrest on a rope
to reach the feeding platform. The size and the very relaxed movement gets to you and in between the 1000 of pictures
you manage to take you feel quite lucky to actually see one the in the wild but also a little ashamed to be one of the humans
that are slowly, but surely exterminating their world. After a while another one comes along and yet another,
and the feeding area
has 5, 6 of different sizes Orangutangs eating and playing in the tree 5 meters in front of you. You always seek their big
brown eyes and hope to get just a glimse of them and maybe a small connection with the animal but they were just so used to
people that they do not notice you or propably are just ignoring you.

We went back to the logde and had lunch before we had the second monkey incounter ... the Probiscus monkeys...
And what a thrill!

To me, those monkeys, ever since as a child I read the Adventure of Tintin Flight 714, are
more interesting then most of the other primates. They only exist here in Borneo ,have a huge nose and are horny
most of there lifes. (that is supposed to be something special for that race, but I could mention many others that feel
exactly the same ;-)

It was a 1/2 hours drive into the palm oil plantation that is overtaking the island.

The platations are the reason for the areas development due to the huge incomes. Deforestation is needed to give way for the plantation, and the wild life that lives in it, dissapears,but it is an income to the needy people in the area.

At the feeding ground that was quite similar to the one for the Orang-utang, there were at least 50 monkeys , a thrill to see
them with their huge noses and their funny behavior. Some came very close to us .

The last day in Sepilok we changed again to another hotel even cheaper but almost the best of the 3 . From there it was just a short walk to the Rainforest discovery center ,where we went for a Canopee walk ... That is really nice to see the rain forest from the top ..After that we went for a walk in the forest. That was even more exiting, no guide just the 4 of us trying to follow the path wich was sometimes difficult to find. A few hours later and after just a few kilometers we returned to the hotel totally exhausted.In a humidity of a 100 % , 35c in the shade and no wind in a rain forest a "walk about" is quite a task.

We flew back from Sandakan to avoid the long drive and further on to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. The worlds
17 richest country,and the richest in Asia.

Not what we found ... a small sleepy town where you can find slum in as big a scale as everywhere else in Asia. When you
expect a country richer then Italy, Australia or Canada you wonder were all the wealth is.

Well there is no shortage of Mosques covered with gold , and the Sultan has many Palaces, and these Palaces are maybe a
bit excessive.The Sultan's personal private collection has more than 600 Rolls-Royces, more than 450 Ferraris. His official
residence has 1,888 rooms, 290 bathrooms, and a floor area of 200,000 m⊃2; .

On the other hand the Brunei people do not pay any form of income taxes and have free medical care ,free schooling and
even free housing for those who need it . Hmmm still wondering why we found so many slums... But then this very nice woman
taxi driver explained it for us. All of the facts mentiond are true but only for Brunei people and over 10 % are foreigners
who can not become Bruneien citizens.The free housing project is true as well but at the moment there is 70 000 people
on waiting list.

Apart from this unfair sharing of the wealth of the country ,the country is sleepy... quiet , and has nothing of real
interest.

Went for a walk trough the city, saw the multiple Mosques, done in 1 hour, went for a boat tour on the river,
( probably the most exhiting of Brunei) done in 1 hour, ate at Pizza Hut and decided to leave again the day after, back to
Kota Kinabalu, but this time by boat.

After 2 boats one of them problably made for transporting icecream (because the aircon was so cold that we had to dress up
in our winter clothes) we arrived back in KK. Now we are sitting on our terrace blogging and just enjoying the last day in
Borneo before we go to Thailand tomorrow and meet Tove and Jon in Koh Lanta.(Danish family who own a resort there)