I won't name names...

I knew this hotel was dodgy and chose it (online) because of it's proximity to the airport in Kuala Lumpur. We three (four?!) are on our way to Sri Lanka for a short holiday, and until recently our flight to Colombo left ridiculously early in the morning so I wanted to be close. The flight time has since be changed to 11am and there is now no need to be out in the sticks of KL at all, but nevertheless, here we are.

We have stayed in plenty of shoddy places before. And it's not like this place is particularly decrepit, really. First impressions were not great: the building is a  Classic Tropical Concrete construction, painted maroon and green. The corridors are painted an insipid lime green with chocolate brown doors and trim. Our room follows the lime green and brown theme. We seem to be on the edges of some kind of derelict estate and were not keen to explore further than making a loop around the block to find the only restaurant open (but busy, at least) for a quick dinner of ordinary nasi goreng and mee goreng. Almost all of the buildings are deserted and in a state of disrepair, featuring broken sidewalks, weeds, and even half-grown trees sprouting out of gaps in the concrete.
Still, our room is clean and dry, has hot water and electricity, beds, a TV... far more than we've had in many places before. So I'm not complaining about our hotel, as such, although it was exorbitantly priced for something so ordinary. 

Anyway, enough of all that. All things being even, this time tomorrow we should be eating dinner in Negombo, Sri Lanka, by the beach, and deciding where we are going to go after that. We're half backpacking it around the country, as in going with the wind as much as travelling with a toddler will allow. We have a rough idea of where we want to go, and are just going to get people to point us in the right direction. Our girl turns three years old in a week, and we're hoping her birthday involves elephants somehow.

Penang 3

We have splashed out today and gone the full buffet breakfast. SP had a ball with fruit and steamed red bean buns; that child would eat papaya until she exploded if we let her. Today they're playing pan-pipe music over the speakers, but I wonder if they missed their market as all the South Americans that were here for the 'Love the Earth' conference went home yesterday. I think the Kazakhstanis that were here - there were dozens of them - might have gone too. I will miss them, they were loud and wonderful and played water polo in the pool incessantly.
We have taken the easy route and arranged a car to take us to half a dozen sights today, doing the full-tourist and going to the butterfly farm, the spice farm, the fruit farm, and any other farms we can think of along the way. This mid-range travel experience has been eye-opening. I can't help wondering how much easier life would have been on all those other back-packing Asian trips - is this our sixth trip now? - if we had occasionally spent a bit more money instead of being so budget obsessed.
Yesterday we went out the botanic gardens which was nice, but all the special exhibits were closed, as per usual Dylan-and-Katie-Style. There were monkeys of course. We saw some long-tailed macaques, and some other lovely dark creatures with very long tails and pale snouts and white rimmed eyes (leaf eating monkeys maybe?). However, SP was by far the most interesting thing in the park if the behaviour of the other visitors was anything to go by. Lucky it was D in the centre of this, I would have been very edgy. SP took it all in her charming-stride of course.

Penang 2

Written retrospectively

FRIDAY 23^RD October

Is today Friday? Already?

Penang is, like most tropical South East Asian destinations we have been too, florid and fecund and fetid. The light is luminous; this place gleams. I love it. I feel at home, apart from the feeling we are about to be skittled every time we cross the road. I’m not sure about having SP in the pusher around the roads as she goes out front; she goes first and is so vulnerable. We wandered around Georgetown for a brief while today before we got too hot and over it. We looked in Komtar – one of the biggest shopping centers – round and round for a while but it was a little boring. We didn’t feel overly inclined to buy anything, except perhaps shoes, but we had gone into town with only a small amount of cash.

In an old shop-house painted emerald we tried cendal for the first time. Delicious and syrupy: a mess of coconut milk, tapioca worms, red beans and shaved ice stained with brown sugar. I’d like to learn how to make it. We have resolved not to eat any junk food this trip, nothing preserved in plastic; local food all the way. Dinner tonight was wonderful Indian food from the little strip of shops over the road from the hotel. We started with cheese and cashewnut croquets. We ate spicy prawns, fried reddened and crispy chicken, potato and cauliflower curry with paratha and naan bread. We drank mango lassis and salted lemon juice. Afterward we finished it with carrot halwa and icecream and semolina pudding. SP sat in a fabulous pink retro highchair, scattering paratha all over the floor and crushing the croquets in her little hands. She smiles at everyone who walks past, like a film starlet. She makes friends wherever she goes, our blue-eyed babe. Local people and tourists alike are fascinated by her. She gets waved at, and high-fived, and her hands held and cheeks stroked and picked up out of her highchair and cuddled by random people we meet in restaurants. I think she must be very gregarious, like Dylan. She has just learnt to high-five back, which naturally we think is the cutest and cleverest thing we have ever seen. Lots of people have guessed her age right here, I think babies must be smaller overall here than Australian babies, so people don’t automatically think our tiny girl is much younger than she really is as happens at home. I think she is suffering a little in the heat despite our best efforts to keep in the shade or the airconditioning. I also think the 3 hour time difference has knocked her around more than I would have expected, although I suppose it would when you’re little and can only stay awake for a few hours at a time.

Penang 1

Written retrospectively...

Our card reader has bitten the dust so photos will have to wait.

Thursday 21-10-2010

We are in Penang. SP is asleep in the middle of the bed beside me.

Our hotel overlooks the sea, which is grey and blends in with the dull and hazy horizon. There is a view to the left of the beaches –such as they are – and the highrise hotels that line it below the green hills. I think our hotel would have been very nice about 30 years ago, or whenever it was built, but now it is quite tired and badly in need of upgrading. The hallways and lifts smell overwhelmingly floral, like someone has emptied an entire can of air freshener in each one. Our room, however, has the tropical and slightly mouldering smell that is so familiar to us. I don’t mind it; it’s better than the blossoming scent outside our door. The staff are lovely, one and all.

It’s funny to think how much I worried about transport safety before we left. How were we going to get from place to place with SP? When we arrived at the airport, we waited an age for a teksi before we were finally at the head of the line and jumped straight in. The traffic was very heavy, alternating from not moving at all to bumper to bumper at 80 kph. Then creeping creeping creeping. The driver suggested there might have been an accident and then the flashing lights slowly appeared round the corner. ‘O,’ said our driver, ‘dead on the spot’. And there was the shapeless body, covered by a white sheet, blood seeping through and bright like raspberry cordial. My heart fluttered in my throat like a trapped bird. Alive one minute then dead on the side of the road the next; abruptly a public spectacle, a traffic obstruction.

Nearly away!

Woo! Exciting! On Tuesday D, SP, and I are all off to Penang via Bangkok for a week or so, and then my aunt's place in Thaton in far Northern Thailand for another week or so. We haven't been to Thaton for a few years and I am very much looking forward to it, it's like our second home. It will be the shortest overseas holiday we have ever taken; we are easing ourselves into travel with a munchen. Even stranger, we have even booked our hotels in advance instead of just rocking up on the doorstep and hoping they have a room for us. This pair of backpackers is now a trip is going to need to do things very differently from now on. In Penang we intend to wander about eating fabulous Malaysian food and not much else. We might even sit by the pool at our hotel for hours at a time (it's where the WiFi is ;-)) When we get to Chiang Mai we're going to hire a car and drive the few hours out to Thaton. And then not do much at all because that's what holidays are all about.

Penang 20-12-2005

Whoops, this one's a long one!

Well I'm amazed, it's been days in the news here and I've had not one worried email about the floods! Yep, a bit of water around about the Malaysian-Thai border may be putting a bit of dent in our plans, there are no trains running (some of the track has been washed away) and no buses (the road is well over a meter deep in water). A few dozen people dead, only 25'000 evacuated in M'sia alone, has this made the news in Oz or not? Even here we have a bit of news in the paper (which I buy for the sudoku puzzle, I've developed an obsession) about all this racial crap going on in Aus (wtf? people are people are people, who gives a rat's @rse about their background other than it making a person more interesting? ignorent arrogant pigs the whole lot of them, BOTH sides, BAH giving Australians a bad name ). So anyway, our only real option is to fly (Dylan is checking out flights as I type) and this means we have to go back to KL from Penang (no biggie, that's what buses are for) and fly to BKK from there. But hey, at least if we fly to TL we dont have to pay for a tourist visa (which quite frankly I think is a bit sneaky, to ping people crossing by land and not by air). And this is what travel insurance is for right? (dont burst my bubble on this one, we'll give it a whirl and see what happens, worry about it when we get back).

ADDED LATER: All booked! Flying to BKK from KL on Air Asia (the local version of Virgin Blue), very cheap, 23rd december about lunchish.

So anyway, large devestating and destructive bodies of water aside, where did we leave you last time?

Kuala Lumpur. We got rained on again and I'm happy to report that we actually made it INSIDE a real orchid garden . It was my idea of heaven, D's idea of Ho Hum, flowers everywhere. Even prettier was the hibiscus garden next door, I'm not big on hibiscuses (is that a word?) in general but it was a formal garden and very nicely laid out, plus it had shelter from the downpour. We gave the bird park a miss but did visit a butterfly house (which was nice enough although not riviting, buggers dont like to pose for photographs and all the really interesting green ones were way up high on the ceiling), we ate icecream.The aquarium was pretty good too, and better yet, half price after seven pm (was still more than our room, but at least that was together not each!). We never made it up inside the Petronas Towers as the tickets were all gone each time we tried, maybe next time, it's not going anywhere!

After KL we went to Melaka. We arrived late afternoon one day and did nothing but rest in our FAB guesthouse, very impressed for the money, amazingly neat and tidy, even had the plumbing INSIDE the bathroom walls and the toilet didn't get wet with every shower, what a novel idea. They also had a whole heap of trashy magazines, including Women's Day (The Aus version) which kept me absorbed for hours (the selection in general, Woman's Day itself took me about 5 minutes to flip through. Ate Tom Yum soup in a hawker stall 100 meters up the road and that was about as far as we got that day. Next day pressed for time (as usual) we went out to the bus station (moved from the location in the LP guide) and bought ourselves tickets to Penang on the overnight bus, wandered around the town for a bit and then went to see a movie (Aeon Flux...mmmm... I'd call it a DVD rental, I was more absorbed in my popcorn than the movie, the acting was a little flat ).Then we were out at the bus station (again, 3rd time in two days) eating curry and roti and waiting for our bus. Sooooo... the bus. What is it about buses that makes them so freaking freezing cold? I mean, just because you can switch the air con down to minus 20 degrees doesn't mean you HAVE to . I was all kitted up in my air-con bus outfit, long socks, long pants, long sleeved shirt over a top of a tee-shirt, sarong at hand to use as a blanket and I was STILL cold, like being in a fridge on wheels. I could have burnt off warts with the tip of my nose (now THERE'S an image). Apart from the cold it was still comfortable and I actually managed to doze after a while. About half an hour past KL and half past midnight as well the bus came to a smooth stop at the side of the road... and there we stayed. As far as I could tell there was absolutely nothing wrong with the bus, I mean, it sounded fine, the A/C was obviously in optimum condition and we hadn't run into anything but nevertheless there we stayed at the side of the busy highway. Eventually (like, maybe half an hour later ) another bus arrived and D and I were flapped busily onto it 'It's ok, same company!' Alrighty then! And so the Great Bus Swap occured. The new bus could have transported ice-creams in the space under the seats... why didn't I pack an emergency ski-suit? I didn't realise I could be risking hypothermia in a non-mountainous tropical asia. A few of our fellow passengers got onto the bus but some were left on the side of the road in discussion with the old driver while we drove off (shivering) into the night.

We arrived in Georgetown, Penang (or Pinang, or Panang depending on where you look) at about 430 this morning. We stayed in the bus station for a couple of hours drinking tea and coffee, and eating rice and anchovies out of little pyrimidal banana leaf and newspaper packets waiting for the sun to come up (most guesthouses wouldn't have been open at that time of day so we figured we were better off staying put).

After a false start leaving the bus station on foot (it's moved, Lonely Planet strikes again and this bus station didnt even look new! ) we went back and caught a taxi into town and found a place to stay in the touristy area. We wandered up and down the street for breakfast at 9am to find that hardly anywhere was open! Not even the chinese noodle places which tend to be packed by 630am usually. I guess tourists dont get up early (well, why would you if you were on holidays?) so the cafe staff get to sleep in.

We visited Choeng Fatt Tze Mansion/Museum which is an incredible chinese style house built 1800-and-something-or-other, lumped in with a big group of mostly chinese tourists, a few westeners and some very misbehaved children. The guide was a wealth of information who occasionally seemed to be channelling Choeng Fatt Tze himself by closing her eyes and talking in a monotone. At other times she was lively, glaring at the children and lecturing us all. She'd make a fabulous school teacher, the scary type. That aside it was an amazing house, traditonal Feng Shui at work (for the time, it all changes eventually), got some great ideas for our own house (just dreaming).So yep, that's about it. We'll be on the move again in a couple of days back to KL and then onto Thailand. Lot's more to see here, it's a cute town.

Kuala Lumpur 16-12-2005

I wasn't going to write an update but figured what the hell, it's the middle of the day and too hot and sticky to go wandering right now so sitting in an internet cafe in the airconditioning seems like a better option.This particular cafe is 'No Gamers' so for once I'm not being deafened by the sound of violent computer games (yep, I'm still stewing over the violence thing).

We are in Kuala Lumpur in Peninsula Malaysia now. We have already noticed one subtle change here from Borneo... the food is quite a bit hotter! Not quite needing to lunge for a bucket of water but definately feeling the bite of chilli and the old burning lips sensation we have been missing for so long.We are staying in China Town in an old colonial building with enormous windows (and a street light right outside unfortunately). Our room is very basic, yet another one with twin beds instead of a double and shared bathroom (spotless, yay!) but in the hallways and along the stairs and in just about every spare space of wall there is some quite amazing artworks on display which makes up for the twin beds. They also have free tea and coffee and the guys that run this place are far too cool, long haired and listening to reggee and old rock so overall this place (The village) has a nice feel to it.

Last night we caught the train out to KLCC station (Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre) where we ogled the Petronas Towers which looked like jewels in the night, we were thouraghly impressed even if it does come from oil money (BAH HUMBUG). We wandered through the shopping center between the towers feeling very daggy and broke (had just about every fashion brand name there you can imagine) and walked along what has to be the world'd longest corridor (felt like it anyway to tired feet) to find the aquarium where we are going tonight. Dylan will bemoan the cost I know (the entrance fee will be more than double the cost of our room, the mind boggles) but I've insisted. I love aquariums! And this one is very very new so it should be pretty cool (it better be anyway ).

We caught the train back to China Town and managed to get very lost for a good half an hour before we figured out where we were supposed to be, word of advice, NEVER trust a map in Lonely Planet, they have a nasty habit of leaving out quite significant roads, having them go on when they are in fact a dead end and just generally being misleading. So that's about it, soon we are going wandering to the bird park, butterfly and deer gardens, and the hibiscus and orchid gardens and they'd better be bloody open this time otherwise I'm going to get seriously annoyed!

Kuching 14-12-2005

Hello all.The last few days have been a bit of a non-event, but maybe everything is after our stay at Uncle Tan's. So I'll just write a bit of a run down over where we've been and what we have (and haven't) been doing.OK, so after our time in Brunei when we did almost nothing, our hotel lady organised for us to travel in a newspaper car to Miri, the first big town in Sarawak over the border. By newspaper car, I mean a nice plush car driven by a Chinese man called Richard which delivers newspapers to Brunei very early in the morning and then takes travellers back in the empty car afterwards, making a bit of extra cash on the side. It was about a dollar more than the bus would have cost and took 2.5 hours instead of 6 hours (and half a dozen bus changes), no contest really as to which one to choose! Miri was just another town, the only thing of note about it was that our windowless room turned out to be very very dusty, had a red light over the beds and two very suspiciously placed holes in the walls aimed towards the beds which we presume were peep holes and promptly plugged up with paper. There was also a line of ants in the bathroom and the TV was controlled from somewhere else as the channel kept changing unexpectedly! All this we could deal with OK as we got there in the afternoon and left before 6am in the morning but it was still all a little bit sordid. On the way to Sibu an woman ripped D off over the price of drinks, the old quote one price for the drinks and then say 'not enough money!'. Mildly irritating. Next town we wizzed through was Sibu which also had not a whole lot of note about it. Both Sibu and Miri have things to see outside the town but we just didn't have the time to spare. So Sibu, what's to tell about Sibu? They had a big fountain that verged on tasteful (apart from the coloured lights ), a big statue of a swan with all the 12 Chinese zodiac signs in life size concrete arranged around it. There was an enormous covered market with live chickens and ducks wrapped in newspaper with the heads and feet sticking out either end. We ate some very ordinary satays (and they were expensive considering they were crap). There was a nice Chinese temple on the water front where we rested for a while waiting for our boat. Then there was our hotel room... or rather the midnight entertainment there (nothing to note about the actual room, it was a drastic improvement over the previous one). We were woken around midnight by the sound of a man shouting. Actually shouting would be putting it mildly, ranting and raving would be more accurate description. He was screaming what could only be abuse and obscenities (I would have loved to know what he was actually saying, maybe it was just 'I've lost my keys and can't get in') and thumping with all his might on some of the doors. He paced up and down the corridor screaming, pausing only to bang on the doors again or spit loudly on the floor. After a while he went outside where we could still hear him yelling and spitting and then he was back inside again. We could hear other people talking to him through the doors but this had no effect except to make him more irate. Then he was back outside again and the manager closed and locked the metal gate across the stairs so instead of banging on the doors, he was now rattling the gate like some enraged beast. After a while though the gates were unlocked (why I do not understand) and again he was back pacing the hallway. This time his friends (?) yelled back ('shut up man!') making for quite a racket. In Australia you would have called the police by now to take him away for a night in the cells to cool off (sober up? come down?), maybe things work differently here.Then he was gone and we went back to sleep. In the morning we were talking and we realised a couple of things that our drowsy minds had not, one: that its' very unusual for anyone here to make such a fuss (they shout a lot, but not like this, presumably he was drunk or high), and two: that we'd lain there in the middle of the night just wishing he'd be quiet and go away, no surprise, no shock at all, no nothing but amusement.So yep, that was Sibu The boat ride to Kuching was OK, lots of people threw up noisily but I had the mini-disk on and the ear plugs in so that was tolerable. Intermittently we could smell the bathroom which was not so tolerable. And totally intolerable was the movies we watched. Never in my life have I seen such violence on screen, we watched Combat Soldier, I couldn't hear any dialogue, just gunshots. A man was blown apart and then most awful was the scene of a woman getting raped. After that I stared out the window or at my knees. Can someone please explain to me how in this country (and other Asian countries) swearing, nudity and sex are absolutely not on but hideously graphic violence is perfectly OK? I realise in Australia we are shielded from a lot of that on our screens but this was way overboard. The boat was full of children, granted most of them were completely ignoring the TVs but for the couple who weren't I wouldn't want to be their parents trying to explain the rape scene. How in the hell are we supposed to make our planet a more peaceful one if this crap gets shown all over the world? It was an American movie, not that that makes a whole lot of difference. The whole thing made me so mad.Sorry, launched into a bit of a diatribe there. Does anyone want to defend a pro-violence stance here? Go on, I dare you.OK so after all that we were finally in Kuching, meaning 'cat'. To illustrate the point there are numerous cat statues scattered around the city, some funny blobby concrete ones with wire whiskers and some more classy sleek brass ones. The souvenir shops are filled with catty paraphernalia, key rings, door stops, earrings, wooden statues and assorted trinkets. There's quite a lot of very cool wooden and brass bits and pieces too making me lament the size of my bag and the cost of postage home.We finally found a cafe selling fruit salad some of you will be happy to hear, we had our most expensive meal ever there but the fruit salad made it completely worth it, we scoffed a huge plate of pineapple, melon and papaya, dipping pieces into a dish of sugar and salt with toothpicks. We've also found a couple of vegetarian places and have managed to go two whole entire days without meat so far, a nice change.We walked for ages to find an orchid garden which turned out to be closed and in the middle of a construction site. We seem to have a knack of choosing places to visit a long walk away which are closed. We got caught in a rainstorm out the front and waited out the rain under a pavilion with the construction workers, one of which was quite young but had hardly any teeth. We also visited a couple of museums, including an Islamic one with some ancient pieces (including a 3000 year old bowl) and some beautiful art. We've made trips across the river in tambangs (little covered boats) sponsored by Lipton and painted in lurid yellows. Tomorrow we fly to Western M'sia and Kuala Lumpur, don't really know what to expect, will it be the same or different to Borneo?Well for someone who hasn't done a whole lot recently I sure had a lot to say! Hope it didn't get too boring.

Hello all, Feeling a little uninspired ATM, think I'm just a little too hot and sticky today.

We arrived in the main port of Brunei - Muara - yesterday, it's only 25km from Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB). We caught a bus into town and then another one from town to the hotel we planned to stay at which is a few km out to the east. It's cheap by Brunei standards, only B$30 a night (which is a little less in AU dollars) and has a very friendly proprietress full of (slightly misleading) information. Last night she told us about a lookout nearby, 'only 10 minutes'. Sure. 10 minutes.Try 20 minutes up flight of stairs to the first lookout with a good view (and a snake).

We decided to keep on walking up the hill to the second lookout and lets just say it was a bloody long way and there were lots and lots of steps. The path looped around and then went back down the hill to the first stop...I counted 770 steps from the second point. We and our temporary travelling companions (a UK couple called John and Tanya) were shattered by the end of it but dragged up the energy to catch a water taxi to a night market in town after a stop off at the hotel for a shower.

The taxi was fabulous fun, they're little pointy wooden boats with an outboard engine. The drivers stand up in the back and shine a spotlight into the darkness so they don't run into any other taxis or the houses packed into the river. From the city we begun to walk the '15 minutes' (closer to half an hour) trying to find this mysterious night market where everything was 'only 1 dollar' (try $1-$6) where once we finally located it we had a fabulous dinner of crab (took us ages to eat that one) noodles, fried chicken and rice. I had a bizarre very pink milk drink with bits of jelly and corn floating in it. It was quite nice but a bit too sweet and artificial tasting for me to get it again.

We powered back off into the darkness to our hotel in another water taxi and slept the sleep of the dead in our air-conditioning.This morning after yet another curry breakfast (I'm dying for a fruit salad or something light for breakfast already) and frothy tea (much to Dylan's disgust, he's been trying to order a frothy tea/coffee for days with no success, hehehe ) we headed off to see the Brunei Museum which our hotel lady assured us was only a 20 minute walk up the road. Half an hour later we stopped to look a 16th century sultan's tomb which was more run down than I expected, but deserted apart from a group of monkeys crashing around in the trees. I liked it nonetheless (love that half lost feel), I especially enjoyed the desk, 2 office chairs and filing cabinet right next to the tomb (what does the dead need with paperwork?). Then we powered on for another 15 minutes in the heat and sun only to find the world renowned museum was closed for renovations. I felt distinctly underwhelmed by the amazing sights inside. Then back to the city via bus and a long lunch in a little cafe with no less than 18 fans blasting away from the roof (what would use more power I wonder? 1 air conditioner or 18 fans?) while we waited for the 4:30-5:00 slot allocated to tourists to look at the mosque in the center of town.

We also walked around Kampung Ayer, the water village (it's enormous) strung our along Sungai/River Brunei. It's very cool looking from a distance but up close it's set in a sea of mud and tonnes and tonnes of rubbish. How does a country as wealthy as this have an area like that? Kampung Ayer is the history of this place, once upon a time Brunei was almost ALL on the river. It was odd to see after everywhere has been spotless and gleaming.

By the time 430 finally arrived we wandered up to the doors of the mosque to discover...you guessed it, 'closed to non-Muslims today'. It wouldn't bug me but we only have one day here and so far all we've achieved is a sunburn.So that's been the last two days. Lots and lots of walking, a bit of disappointment, and overheating and winding up in half empty shopping centers to cool off eating ice creams. Cheers guys

Kota Kinabalu 06-12-2005

Well that was seriously annoying, I was halfway through writing an email when it vanished of the face of the net so I'll have to start over.

Humph.

So, where was I?

OK, we're back in KK again and planning on heading off to Brunei tommorow via Pulau Labuan, an island off to the south.

We got back to Sandakan yesterday afternoon after 2 nights and 3 days in the real jungle on the lower Kinabantangan River (try saying that 10 times quickly ). It's supposed to be one of the best places in SEA to see wildlife and after our visit I can attest that it is. Our camp was situated on one of the many ox-bow lakes in the area, we reached it by boat via heavily forested channels from the main river. We were staying in little wooden huts on stilts connects by boardwalks over the mud. The LP book calls the place 'sparten' which personally I think is stretching it a bit. We had a damp mattress on the floor of the hut and a mosquito net. The windows and doors were covered with wire netting, this time we were the ones on the cages while the animals were outside. There were a couple of squat toilets and we washed with buckets of river water (brown with sediment, nice) and scoops.

The river was high when we got there so the boat dropped us off practically at the front door, we saw photos of the river reaching the roofs of the huts from a flood about 2 years ago, amazing (they dont call it rainforest to sound romantic). There were wild bearded pigs rooting around under the huts, 2m monitor lizards wandered past periodically, long tailed macaques danced in the trees overhead (and were liable to steal anything not guarded under lock and key), bats swooped through the kitchen/dining area at night catching insects buzzing around the fluros and a rat nibbled the edge of Dylan's T-shirt while we slept (he wasn't wearing it at the time).

The wildlife spotting started as soon as we were on the boat on the way to camp, our boatman pointed out birds (kingfishers, beautiful), monitors and proboscis monkeys in the trees overhead. That night we saw a civit by the bathroom (like a cat with a pointed face, it was just beautiful, grey with dark spots), it just sat there while we looked at it. We went out of the boat that night, birds cant fly at night (except for owls etc) as they can't see so we just putted up to them and took dozens of photos while they sat there on their branch, I'm still amazed at how our guide Remy even spotted the first kingfisher, a little brightly coloured bird that could sit in the palm of the hand and he saw it wizzing past in a boat 30m away in the dark? It was eerie on the lake at night, so very very dark with the stars overhead and strange noises in the gloom. The forest is never quiet, insects, lizards, owls and frogs at night and birds, animals and yet more insects during the day. We were out on the boat again the next morning, the river was shrouded in mist which hung around for afew hours. The atmosphere was just incredible, hard to describe. That morning we saw more proboscis monkeys, this time leaping out of the trees and belly-flopping into the water with an almightly splash before paddling to the next tree. The guide said they do that when the trees are too far apart to reach just by jumping although I suspect they do it just for fun. We went for walks in the forest (more monkeys, enormous insects, spiders, millipedes that smell like amaretto). At night we put on gumboots (and it was practically an adventure just to find a matching pair that weren't full of water) and slopped through a marsh behind the camp where we saw dozens upon dozens of pretty frogs, a simply massive scorpion which Remy had climbing all over his arms) and a highlight for Dylan, a taranatula with a body the size of a golfball (because we all know how much Dylan LOVES spiders ). I took lots of photos. On the last evening there was a reticulated python on the egde of the camp, it's body was thicker than my arm (like, a LOT thicker) and it was about 4 m long, gorgeous. They can really get speed up when they want to! For some reason it wasn't scary at all (except for Remy, the man perfectly happy to let a 15cm scorpion crawl all over him but was holding the torch with shaking hands from 8 meters away).

What else? Squirrels, mice, rats, butterflies galore, crocodiles (not small ones either), a turtle, fish with wings. We totally blew the budget and it was totally worth it. I could go on, tell you about the cool guides we had (other than Remy), the nice people we met, the siestas in the hammocks in the afternoon, the fab food, the way the boys in particular tripped over the benches everytime they went past (the legs stuck out), the football games in the clearing, the way the river went down so much in the space of a day we had to walk a kilometer downstream to a different boat landing, monkeys with coke cans and mosquito bites but I wouldn't want to bore you all. We had a wonderful time on the Kinabantan all in all although the shower and A/C back in Sandakan was greatly appreciated. We went back to KK via a stopover for a couple of hours at Mount Kinabalu (the highest mountain between Mt Everest and Papua New Guinea) to wander around the botanic gardens there. I took lots of photos of Nepenthes and orchids which probably no-one finds interesting apart from me. It was a soggy garden, very forested and cool that high up and a nice change from the hot humid low lands.

Lots of people climb the mountain as it's 'easy' as far as mountains go but I took one look at it and thought bugger that! I suffer on a flight of stairs that's a bit long. I had an encounter with a leech somewhere along the way, a stealth attack that I didn't notice until D saw blood smeared all over the back of my leg. The leech was gone, thank god otherwise I may have just had a heart attack on the spot. It didnt hurt at all though, I guess you can say that for it at least!

Sandakan 02-12-2005

Hello hello, s'me again.

As per title, we're in Sandakan, currently surrounded by children shouting encouragement for very (very) loud computer games. We're on the third floor of a dingy shopping center, sitting in the dark (all the better to see the screens with I guess) and typing. Or trying to type anyway, D's getting very frustrated over a runaway W key on his keyboard.

This is not what you'd call a happening sort of town, we've wandered the streets, eaten curry for almost every meal, walked up the top of the hill to see the panoramic views promised by the LP guide... or at least we tried. Halfway up it started to spit with rain, 30 seconds later it was a downpour. Never gotten so wet in such a short amount of time, bit like jumping into a swimming pool fully clothed and then walking up a big hill but never mind. Never see rain like that in little old Adelaide so it has novelty value. Fortunately the aforementioned lookout had a roof (courtesy of the local rotary club) so we sat and waited out the rain in the company of a few rather bemused Malaysian men (probably wondering what sort of people don't recognise when it's going to rain). It was a pleasant walk back down through a little bit of dripping forest on a very slippery path.And that's about all there is to see in Sandakan.

But nearby there is a place called Sepilok (probably translates into 'The place of Tourist hoards) where there is an oranutang sanctuary. So being the good little tourists we are we toddled along this morning to have a look. Now bearing in mind that the last couple of days here we've seen 3 other tourists and that's it so even tho we KNEW we were going to Sabah's premier tourist attraction I didn't think that there'd be THAT many tourists there. But there were, probably about 100 or so of them (ok fine, US - although I like to think we're a little different because we spend less money ).But the actual oranutangs were pretty cool, we were lucky enough to see quite a few of them, at least 10 including a mother and baby (insert awwww noise here) and a whole heap of macaques too. All the oranutangs were juveniles (apart from mum and bubs) so we had a whole variety of sizes from very very small - human toddler size - up to half adult sort of size. Very entertaining, they look a little bit like famine babies I thought (sorry, is that completely politically incorrect?) with long dangly arms and legs, bit fluffy heads and pot bellies. But the tourists OMG! I just wanted people to just pipe down and watch for 5 minutes, so noisy. One guy (UK) in particular really bugged me when he reached out and held the hand of one of the orangs, geez mate are you blind? illiterate? just stupid? Clearly signposted in about 20 different spots ' please don't touch the animals' (risk of disease, plus they're trying to rehabilitate them back into the wild). Just gave me the shits cos I know he'd know better than that. Now he's just walked into the net cafe (leaning over to cover my screen ).

We hung around for a while after all the tourists left and watched the few remaining monkeys and orangs and listened to the cacophony of insects overhead, that was really nice. The jungle is unreal, makes me feel very small.Speaking of jungle, tomorrow we head out into in on a little tour for 3 days (2 nights) on the Kinabantan river. No idea what the actual itinerary, we booked it over the phone, arranged a time and then the guy hung up!It will be good to see a bit more of the real deal, the trip here on the bus we saw a little of actual jungle but mostly we saw miles upon miles of oil palm plantations and the occasional forlorn dead 500 year old rain forest tree trunk in the middle of it. Depressing. And just so you know, we're in a much nicer room this time, we even have our own shower (with hot water!! ) We're greeted by a smell of mothballs as soon as we enter the building (doesn't go through to our room fortunately) and on every landing there's a little dish of sand to put out your cigarettes in (there is actually the beginnings of an anti-smoking campaign here but it has a LONG way to go).

On the hunt for a laksa soup tonight but all there seems to be here are curry shops, KFC (the curry shops do a crispy chicken which has miles on KFC) or cake. Already it feels like we are running low on time, we're going to be in an awful hurry to get to Kuching in good time, oh well, we'll see how we go.

Katie

Kota Kinabalu 29-11-2005

Bringing you this post from the KK State Library....

Well we have arrived!Kota Kinabalu seems to be a pretty chilled sort of place, in fact so far there's been no hassles whatsoever, we've practically been ignored which is kind of nice after some of the other places we have visited before.It's not as hot as I expected, and so far not a single mosquito has bitten me although I have seen a few whopper insects.

Yesterday evening it rained, and rained, and rained, welcome to the tropics!

At first I was thrown by getting so little attention, the nice cars and easy transition into the country but there are a few tell tale signs that make me feel at home...Drinks in little plastic bags, treacherous footpaths, gaping holes over the drains, roosters crowing all day, lemon juice in a mug and coffee with ice, boys singing love songs and playing guitars outside the window... we're back!

We're staying on the 3rd floor of a backpacker place, in their only non-dorm room. It has a bed in it, and lurid crimson curtains which give the room a romantic pink tinge but that's about it. However after 5 hours of broken sleep over 2 days I couldn't give a rats what the room looked like so long as it had a bed that fully reclined and didn't have to be returned to an upright position periodically.The bathroom is technically a shared one, but there's hardly any one here so it's not really a problem. it has that wonderful shower arrangement we have come to know and love whereby the shower is positioned so that the water is aimed directly at the toilet . I tried to heat the water via a string of expletives (this did nothing for the water but would have surely burnt the ears of anyone unfortunate enough to be in hearing distance) but after the initial shock it was very refreshing, albeit quick!

The main part of this town is tiny! We can walk to all the main attractions within about 15 minutes. The landmark for our street is a fabulously silly enormous marlin made of sheet metal by the water front in the middle of a roundabout. We've been for a wander past several markets on the waterfront and found a wall of aquariums in a seafood restaurant when we were attracted by the sight of two very large concrete crayfish outside the doors. There were some enormous fish and a variety of mysterious marine creatures, all of which could be bought for a small fortune to eat. They seemed quite happy for us to have a sticky beak around with no intention of sitting down.

Speaking of food... my ambition to be braver and try more things started on the plane flight over when we were given spicy anchovies and rice for breakfast, I managed a few of the anchovies so it was a good start. I have well and truly had my fill of reconstituted orange juice in little plastic containers and weak coffee over the last few days.And on airline food... we were given tuna sandwiches on one flight, followed by shrimps and eggs, and later anchovies... Malaysia Airlines seemed to be going out of their way to chose the most highly scented foods for an enclosed space. Quite funny or at least I thought it was.

We ate our first curries in a little halal restaurant across the road from where we are staying, tasty but stone cold and full of bones (of course). Bit nervous about eating something out of a dish in a cabinet but fine so far, we've heard that people rarely get sick here so it's all good. We also followed our noses and found a Vietnamese place with really nice food. Lots of Chinese places about but hardly any Malay. On a mission tonight to find some.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I think we'll head to Sandakan in the east tomorrow on the hunt for orang utans, we're planning on floating down a part of the river where we are guaranteed to see at least some wildlife, possibly even some wild elephants (now that would be cool).

Katie

Oh and we saw a squirrel