Kota Kinabalu - Holiday in Borneo Pt. 2

Kicking it straight off with part 2 - my birthday. (For those of you confused check the entry before this - 'Kota Kinabalu - Holiday in Borneo Pt. 1'). We got up and had the usual breakfast in the room but with a cake mum had brought from England. We then spent the morning relaxing in the pool area. It was a great day for it too. For lunch we stayed in the pool at the bar for burgers and chips! The waiter (who was enamored with me the entire time I was there) found out it was my birthday and came back with a mug of beer with some cherry's on the glass! After lunch and another swim we went out of the resort for a short jungle trek. It was a very hot and sweaty climb up to the top but we were awarded with some great view of the bay. We took our time to catch our breath and talk to our guide Anna. Anna was nice though didn't seem to know and awful lot about the jungle and there wasn't really much to see. When we got back to the room we found a cake! We never found out if it was from my waiter friend or just from the hotel.

After showers we got ready for dinner, another barbecue. There was an incredible amount of food and apart from the chicken sausages it was all amazing. The hotel band came over and sang me a beautiful rendition of happy birthday. There was no way we could eat all the food that was there but we made a good go of it. I was then awarded with yet another birthday cake, bringing the total count to 3! When we finished eating, having also been eaten by many mosquito's, the band came back and played mum and dad's song - aw. It was a brilliant evening but I wasn't going to get drunk on my birthday for tomorrow was to be a big day!

So we woke up at 2.30am for the England match, not that it was really worth getting up for seeing as we didn't go to bed until past 12am. After the match was over we showered and got ready for my big birthday day out. For my birthday my parents had arranged to go to one of only four Orangutan rehabilitation centers in the world. This meant a short flight to Sandakan on the east side of Sabah and Borneo. This was a very scenic flight as we roamed over the islands and back around towards Mt. Kinabalu. It was an awesome sight as Kinabalu is only seen early in the morning before it is completely shrouded in cloud. Arriving in Sandakan airport we met up with our guide for the day, Zul. Our first destination was the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. When we got there we were ushered into a cinema to watch a 30 minute video on the work that the center had done and information about some of the Orangutans past and present. It was very informative and the UK charity fronting it sounded very interesting. After the film it was nearly time for the 10am feeding. This meant that everyone - in their hundreds - piled onto the viewing platforms to see if any orangutans would show up from the jungle for some bananas and milk. During the wait we saw a hornbill fly from tree to tree.

When it came to 10am the guide went up to the platform with some bananas, which were quickly seized upon by the noisy makak monkeys. Since the whole platform was completely taken by the monkeys we knew it very unlikely that the orangutans would be interested in heading there. However, some made it down the the platforms we were standing on, one of which was very interested in a small child roughly the same height, until the guide snatched the child away. That orangutan was happy to play around the platform performing roley polies for attention and swinging around the base. Another much older male orangutan strutted along the hand rail toward us with everybody surrounding it to get a good picture. A couple more younger ones were playing around the platform as well, all keeping well away from the annoying makak. When the orangutan left we made our way along the boardwalk toward the screeching cacophony of the makak and ring tail monkeys soaring along the plane. They were clearly in gangs, screaming at each other. It was incredible to see so many jumping around on the trees all about us. For lunch we were taken to an English tea house. The food was great but we all agreed that for a day of doing Malaysian/Borneo tourist things it would have been good to try some local foods. After lunch we were taken down to a water village. This was made up of houses on concrete stilts of which Zul maintained were much nicer inside that out. It was interesting to see two completely different celebrations across the same waterfront. One family was celebrating the loss of a loved one whilst another was celebrating a marriage. We were taken into one woman's home which was very well decked out. She was very pleased to show us around and sold a couple of bracelets to mum.

We were then taken into Sandakan for a look around the markets but they were starting to close. We then visited the Buddhist Puu Gih Jih Shih temple on top of a hill offering great views over the city and its harbour. The temple was covered in the usual gold leaf and housed 3 large Buddha statues. There were a number of pillars all with dragons embossed around the edge. Back into Sandakan we went into the memorial park to see what the city is most famous for. In 1945 Sandakan was used by the Japanese to housed2400 prisoners of war; 1800 Australians and 600 British, and forced them on one of the infamous death marches across Sabah. Of the 2400 only 6 survived and the memorial park gave a very intelligible insight into how the prisoners were treated and how the 6 escaped. The pictures depicting how the town was destroyed and how it grew back up again were very interesting as well. So after all this we were feeling very tired and depleted after a long, but fascinating day. We flew back to Kota Kinabalu and got back to Nexus early evening.

The following day was a very good day for relaxing. We had excellent weather and spent loads of time swimming in the sea and the pool. In the afternoon we took to making a piece of batik art. We were shown how to merge the colours together and all of us really enjoyed it! It was great fun especially as it was raining in the afternoon - as it often does - and it was a definite must-do rainy-day activity. We had dinner at one of the resorts restaurants for some Indian/Malaysian food. It was brilliant and the band came back over to sing us more songs. I tried a prawn sambal, which was like a sort of spicy curry with big tiger prawns.

Our last day out was to spend the day out in the Mt. Kinabalu National Park and the Poring hot springs. The drive there was long but definitely worth it. We stopped in a nearby town on the way where we got some amazing views of the mountain with the sun shining on it, making the clouds look very silvery. After a little hunt around the market we got back in the car to head to the hot springs. When we arrived we managed to tick off one of the things mum really wanted to do alongside seeing orangutans, walk the canopy bridges. She was mostly fascinated by this because it was designed by the same person who designed the one at Q Gardens in London. Apparently this one was more scary. Briony didn't help by jumping up and down on the boardwalk and swinging it, even though I told her not too .. .. .. and the pictures came out brilliantly! The walk itself was on shaky bridges connected by trees overlooking the jungle. I'm not sure anyone else noticed the view but it was quite amazing. After the walk we went up to the Kipungit waterfall. A large waterfall that was freezing cold.

When we were refreshingly chilled we headed for the hot spring baths. These were made up of large tiled concrete baths, some in segments for individual baths that took forever to fill. The hot water came straight from the ground and the cold from the waterfall. We also tried the very very hot and relaxing foot bath. We thought this was the end of the day but as we got back in the van our guide told us that a rafllesia plant was blooming near where we were. The rafflesia plant is the largest plant in the world and blooms just once in its lifetime for just a few days. After it has bloomed it turns into a dark grey sludge. Nice. So we went to where the plant was, which was essentially in someones back garden. It was a hilarious walk as it was so wet and muddy there was no way we could get up and down the steep slopes with our shoes on! We were slipping about all over the place and I'm sure we'll remember the walk to the plant as much as seeing the plant itself! After another exhausting day we were all very sleepy once back at Nexus but there was time for a relaxing dip in the pool before it got dark.

And that concludes part two. Sorry I have to keep doing this in segments but I really don't want to miss out any details lest I might upset somebody and the internet place is now closing. I'm not too far behind now so look out for another update soon!