What wildlife???? What life?????

Malaysian Borneo-exotic thoughts of dense jungle, orangutans, exotic flowers and birds.......well!!!!!!


Borneo is a large island divided across the middle. The northern half is Malaysian, and, the southern half is Indonesian.The north-western section is called Sarawak. The north east is called Sabah. This is the place we visited.

As our taxi sped away from the airport I was feeling very excited. We were to begin our trip in the capital of Sabah, called Kota Kinaballoo. We had picked a little hotel with a pool for three nights, from hostelbookers, on the internet. It was only 21 pounds in total. I was looking forward to jungle, rain forest and a myriad of wild animal, birds and sea-life; the reason we decided to go to Borneo. I sat back and looked out of the window. The factories and brick built houses, garages and shops were a bit of a surprise. At the next junction our taxi headed away from town, which was a bit disconcerting too. I asked where we were going and he said that our hotel was on the coast in Papar. Where the hell is that? I thought. I hoped that we were not too far out. Forty minutes later our taxi pulled up outside a large resort with a sweeping entrance, not our kind of place! I had a feeling that we had done it again!!!

We walked into the entrance area and the receptionist seemed surprised to see us. I thought we were in the wrong place. I hoped we were in the wrong place, as beautiful as it seemed. We showed him our bit of paper. He said that the rate was higher than our receipt said, but, since we seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, we argued the point. He made a phone call, and then accepted our booking. I looked around as Lee booked in. We asked if there were any restaurants or supermarkets nearby. Ten minutes, he said. Oh, I thought as I heard Lee asking, "How many people are actually staying here?" I was not surprised by the answer.
"Just you two, Sir," he said, smiling. I looked over the large lounge area, the empty restaurant and out to the manicured lawns. We asked why there were no others. He said that last week many people had stayed there but booked out just yesterday, (Did they know that we were coming? ). We established that meals were available. We could have then delivered to our rooms, at no extra cost, if we wished, we were told. Lee asked if we could have a couple of cold beers. No alcohol. We were told. Ah.....A Muslim hotel, we thought. We had stayed in one in Satun, in southern Thailand. Bemused, we were shown to our room. We walked in thoughtful silence.

The room looked reasonable and the view over the pool and the sea were rather nice, though I did seem to startle the security guard who was walking across the lawns when I opened the curtains. They did not seem used to seeing people here! I went out on to the balcony and lit a mosquito coil. I closed the door and flicked the light on on the balcony. It did not work. I went to the other side of the patio door looking for another switch, only to find a two-inch gap between the wall and the the window frame! The mosquito's would have a field day. I turned to tell Lee, who was already looking crestfallen after examining the bathroom. The soap dispenser was broken and the soap had been put into an empty water bottle. It did not look too attractive. When he opened the bedside drawer there was a used tissue and some receipts. We decided to ask for our money back and get the hell out of there. The receptionist provided his car and a mate for 400 ringotts, to drop us into town. We shot off with boom box and rap on full.I knew the words, which amused the driver. I was just glad that the windows were tinted as I mimicked the Peugeot advert set in Mumbai
Kota Kinabaloo, the capital of Malaysian Borneo, looked quite shabby as we drove around in the dark, early evening. It is a medium sized town with a colonial past. The population was Muslim, with Filipino workers in abundance. We wanted to go to the National Park and the Abdul Rahman, (Yes, folks at Alumwell-I did not enquire who he was.) Marine Park. We decided that the backpackers looked grim so we opted for the Kinabaloo Hotel. Another mistake, though I did laugh about the sign warning that no Durian fruit was allowed. It is popular in this part of Asia, about the size of a marrow and smells like a rotting corpse! It actually does not taste much better, either! A room was ten pounds. It had no window but seemed clean enough for one night. We dumped our bags and set out to find something to eat.
We walked around the area and saw no other backpackers or westerners. We did discover, 'The Lilac Lodge', however, and booked three nights there, moving in the next day. It was opposite a huge, open, fish restaurant that seemed to inhabit a shopping mall space. The designated seafood swam in tanks all around us, which was disconcerting. Some slug shaped things in large plastic bottles seemed to squirm and rotate in a disgusting manner, they were lobster sized without the legs. Yuck!!! An irritating man on the stage seemed to want to attract my attention. He was drawing portraits. Having seen my recent photo's there was no way I was going to have an enlarged version done!!!! I gave him one of my irritated stares and he left us alone. We had a beer and left, squirming slightly at the sea life's fate. We would not eat here.

The buildings looked grimy. There was no colour, nothing attractive. Men stared at us from the small, dark rooms that passed as shops and cafes. I smiled at the older women. They smiled back. The streets seemed warm and grubby: added to the now familiar smell of sewerage and drains was the disgusting smell of huge, open bins. Great! We were sweating from the intense heat of the night, trickles of sweat ran down our faces and back as we looked for somewhere acceptably clean, to eat. I noticed some lady-boys, which was a bit odd in this staunchly Muslim town; they seemed happy enough.

After crossing the road we found a place to eat. Lee had chicken sweet and sour, I had fried rice. Both were cheap and tasted okay. We even had a beer! As we were tired from travelling we returned to our room. I went into the bathroom and was suddenly aware that I could hear every word of a telephone conversation that was going on next door. I also became vaguely aware of some banal music drifting up from somewhere below too. I closed the bathroom door and got into bed. After 10 minutes our neighbours through the adjoining door returned, and, again, it became clear that we could hear every sound. There was the bathroom, a short disagreement between a man and a woman in a language I, thankfully, could not understand, and much rustling in plastic bags as I drifted off to sleep.


The next day we booked out of the Kinabaloo Hotel. They seemed surprised. We transferred our bags across a few streets, booked a trip and had a walk up to the harbour. It was an easy town to explore but we did not find much that we liked. The few western style bars were grouped together on a jetty overlooking the sea. It was all a bit isolationist for us. We walked back past the market as the sun set. It was unbelievably warm and added to the smells previously mentioned, the barbecued fish and rotting fruit were overwhelming! We turned towards the town and our lodge as we had an early start the next day.

We had booked a day trip to Kota Kinabaloo National Park the next day. The lodge had made 100 ringotts (ten pounds) on us we found out as we had booked the trip through them. They gave us the wrong receipt initially, so that left a sour taste before we had even set out
We were picked up at 8am and began our adventure. There were only three of us and the mini bus driver from hell played Shumaker around the hairpin bends of the mountains for two hours, overtaking three vehicles at a time:another white knuckle ride!! There were often sheer drops on either side of us too! We trekked through the rain forest and saw rain... and yes you guessed it...forest. No wildlife, a few orchids, some hot springs, that were so full of locals I declined to go in. It was a bit like sharing your bath with 7y1!!! We had a good lunch at the lodge where the guide proceeded to show us all the local wildlife that we would not see! We walked into the rainforest after lunch and climbed high enough, up very uneven steps, to do the tree canopy walk, 42 meters up in the air, in pouring rain. The walkway was constructed of a series of narrow aluminium ladders threaded with rope, from which they were suspended. Netting had been placed either side. As it was a bit like a training programme for tight rope walkers, at the circus, we did not dare take our eyes off the finishing line. Total madness! There were five of these bloody things and NO WILDLIFE. I was so disappointed. The climb down was an endlessly punishing series of steps. We did get some satisfaction from the efforts we had made and Lee did well with the heights. We just had the returning two and a half hour mini-bus trip to face. We were very relieved to get back, and a bit disgruntled for the next two days as we felt that we had been ripped off.

We did find other backpacking places and the colonial history in Atkinson's clock and Jessleton Point pier were an interesting change. We sat quite happily in a pleasant breeze and a more muted sun, because of clouds, for two hours on our last day and wished that we had taken a boat out to a couple of the off islands from here. Ah well.....

We took an hours flight into Sabah, on the northern eastery tip of Borneo, and got the taxi to our backpackers. It was lovely apart from the garish colour schemes. Our window overlooked the sea, from where I did spot sea-eagles dipping in the bay. The town was smaller and shabbier that Kota Kinaballoo. The hostel was empty again, apart from us two, but we did book a rather expensive trip to a type of desert island where green-back and hawksbill turtles came to lay their eggs after 50 years of roaming the sea.

We set off, at great speed, a couple of days later, in a small speedboat, at 9.30am. It took one hour and we stopped the engines to look at a large pod of dolphins that honoured us with their presence for a while, then sped off again amid spray and engine roar. The island had white sand where we were allowed to wander along the clear waters. We could snorkel and swim too. I floated in the warm waters while a Brahmin Kite circled overhead and thought about school, as it was Tuesday afternoon. I had hated Tuesdays last year! It is strange how life changes.
By evening I had done a pretty good impression of a tomato, much to my embarrassment, but others were red too. It was all forgotten as we watched a distant tropical storm like a firework display in the warm night then the call came that a turtle had come up onto the beach. By the light of a full moon, in the warmth of a tropical night we watched in awe as this huge sea creature laid her eggs. Her shell was over a meter in length and 92cm in width. I felt amazingly priviledged to witness this and the release of some new hatchlings, just ten yards from where I had been sunbathing in the afternoon. An amazing and magical experience, though their survival rate is less that 5%. I thought about our Basic Skills book about the turtle.

The next day we returned to Sabah, leaving turtle island at 7am, and docking at 8.15am. It was quite a choppy journey and we were sprayed with sea. We were being picked up at 10.30 to go into the jungle and up the Kinabatangan river to spot Probiscus monkeys, in the wild.

It took 45 minutes to get to the jungle lodge, which was actually based at Sepilok, the Orangutan rehabilitation centre, that we had visited earlier that week. A two hour drive brought us up to the side of the rather wide river. Our boat looked very flimsy and I had a moment of hesitation as the heavens had opened and I could not see how the boat would not fill with water. Luckily, another boat picked us up and off we set, in the warm rain. It did subside so I got my wildlife fix. We saw lots of probiscus monkeys as they come down to the river at sunset. They are huge and comical looking. I was thrilled. We saw silver lemurs, long tailed macquacs, crested snake eagles, two types of hornbills, a kingfisher and many other local birds. I was tired, wet and happy as we returned and even complimented the driver on his superb, relaxed driving.
Earlier in the week we had seen a large monitor lizard near the harbour in Sandakan so Borneo had, at last, delivered its promise of wildlife, though it had been a very expensive place to visit!!!!