ASIA

It's 9.43 and we are soon to get packed and check out as we have a 2.30 pm flight to Kota Kinabalu.

Sandakan has been amazing! I've decided to write it all in one blog post (so apologies for the long post!) as the jungle trip ran over 2 days.

On Sunday 13th, after a nice long sleep, Hope and I were both up early at 8 am and went for breakfast.

After breakfast, I got ready and walked over to the Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre (only a 15 minute walk). Hope chilled out in the resort on the decking area and read her new book.

The Orang-utan sanctuary cost just 30 Rm a ticket (approx. £6). Although there are quite a few tourists when you're in there, it is completely different to a zoo and the whole concept of the centre is excellent! Their aim is to return orphaned injured or displaced orangutans back to the wild. Many of the orphans have successfully undergone the process of rehabilitation and have been released into the 4294 hectare Kabili- Sepilok Forest.

The centre also had nature trails and walks within the reserve, and it was all beautiful to walk through.

First I walked to the nursery where they had many baby orang-utans who I assume had not long been in the centre as one was not that great at climbing, and there was a lot of enrichment there. It is very similar to Mona here, the chimp sanctuary that my sister works at in Girona.

Though there were many people trying to get to the glass to take photos, it was still amazing! Orangutans are the most beautiful animals and I was in my element watching two or three of them playing. I had a great time just watching them all for a bit.

After that I walked to the feeding ground where they put food out in the hope for the orangutans to come. On the way I saw a big orangutan in the distance swinging through the trees - it was amazing!

The orang-utans did not come for food, only many proboscis monkeys. However, it's not actually a bad thing as when they don't come, it shows they are making progress in their rehabilitation as they are finding food themselves in the forest.

I stayed for a bit, but in the direct sunlight it is so humid that it's practically unbearable! So I went to the shop and got a few things, before walking back to the resort.

Hope and I chilled for a couple of hours, grabbed some food, then I got my bag together and waited in reception to be picked up. I was doing a 2D1N jungle tour on the Kinabantangan river with Uncle Tan's. I was so nervous as I had read how basic the conditions were, and was worried that I would be on my own. However, the tour was incredible and I had the most amazing 2 days!

Hope enjoyed a couple days chilling out, reading her book, catching up with everyone from home, and relaxing. She was very content.

I was picked up from the resort at 12.30, and taken to Uncle Tans's centre where I had lunch and met my group. There was a Dutch girl called Fred who was lovely, so I ended up spending most of my time with her. We had 3 couples in our group; an older Australian couple, a young Spanish couple, and a young German couple.

We had our briefing at 2 pm where they told us the agenda for the next couple of days (most people did the 3D2N tour). They warned about how basic the conditions were, and he even said that a lot of people in the past walked out at this point as they hadn't read the website and didn't realise there were no dorms.

After the briefing, we drove for about an hour to where we got the boat down the Kinabantangan river. Everyone was so nice so the bus journey flew by, as we were all chatting. The boat down the river was around an hour, but en route if the driver saw any wildlife he would drive into that direction so we were all on our look out the whole way. We saw some birds along the way, and some monkeys. Some of the Macaques were staring at the boat like they wanted to come with us! It was great!

When we arrived in camp, we put all our bags in our rooms (I shared a hut with Fred, and the couples were all in a separate hut with double mosquito nets and double mattresses). The 'room' was literally a mattress with a mosquito net over. There are no doors and no windows in the huts. We had to put any medication/food/drinks/toiletries into the red buckets in our rooms to prevent the rats and monkeys from getting them. The man told us of occasions where people have woken up with big holes in their bags, and all their food eaten, as rats have got in to them. I read all of this on the website though so I wasn't too shocked.

We chilled out for a couple of hours with the group, played some cards etc. The strangest thing happened though... the Australian man Stephen asked if I'm from London, so I said no I'm from the midlands, he goes 'where' and I'm there thinking ... how is a man from Perth going to know where Leicester is!? But I told him anyway... and he goes 'no way ... that's where I was born' and his wife Caroline says 'he's a ten pound pom!' (As they call it in Aus). I was absolutely shocked! It turns out that all of his family are from there and he was born there 60 years ago, and his family moved over to Perth when Australia was paying British people to move over. We were shocked!! It was so funny talking about Leicester. Who would have though eh?! Such a small world!!!

We played 21 blackjack, then had dinner. Dinner was gorgeous - so many vegetarian options. I had pok Choy again, with rice, and other vegetables. There was plenty for the meat eaters too - all laid out in a buffet. Whilst eating we had a visitor over us - a big bat was just constantly flying over us and going round in circles.

After dinner, we got ready for the night safari. I was so excited!!! We had to bring our rain coats, torches and cameras.

The night safari lasted about 90 minutes, down the Kinabantangan river. It was amazing! We took it in turns to hold the torchlight to look for wildlife - you could see them as their eyes reflected back. We saw so many crocodiles eyes, which was so cool... however as you get closer, they go back under. We saw numerous monkeys - they call the mackats 'jungle safari' here as there are so many altogether and they love to go around stealing things. They told us in the camp to keep everything on us at all times, or else the monkeys would come and steal our stuff.

After the night safari, some of the group went to bed, but Fred and I (and the German couple for a short amount of time) went and sat in the big open hut where the young Malaysian lads (who work at the camp) were singing and playing the guitar with another group staying on the camp. We joined in, had a few beers, and had such a funny night. Lights went out at 12, and we are supposed to go to bed then but they were all so drunk that we continued the music and stayed up longer! It was a great night!

However, having 4 beers probably wasn't the best idea. 1 or 2 and you're tired, 6 or 7 and you're drunk .... but 4 made me wide awake and in a very happy mood. But this meant I couldn't sleep. I was tossing and turning for a good hour or so, but because Fred was asleep by this point, I freaked myself out a bit when it hit home that I was in the middle of the jungle .... and they saw a VERY venomous snake just one night before (the Mongrove cat snake). I saw one of the men flashing the torch light outside, so I went out and spoke to him. He works every single night patrolling the camps for any snakes getting too close to the rooms. At first I felt reassured and a lot safer.... but then it kind of freaked me out a bit as I realised they needed someone to check ... because there clearly has been times where snakes have been close.

I walked round with him for over an hour as I was wide awake and was freaking out a bit on my own. When we walked past the river, we could see a crocodile the other side (his eyes were reflecting) - the crocodile didn't move the whole time!

He showed me a photo of the snake he saw the other night (different to the mongrove cat snake but looked very similar. I can't remember the name now but he showed me it in the book and I read about it - I had my own tour really!)
I thought I would end up patrolling with him all night seeing as we had to be up at 5.45 anyway, but by around 2.30 am i felt tired so luckily was able to sleep. I did wake up again at 5 though so just stayed awake for the hour (I wanted to get up but it was still a bit dark and I didn't know where the man was so thought it was better not knowing if there was a rat in my hut or anything haha!)

Although I'd had little sleep, I felt refreshed and excited for the day!

We had tea and biscuits, then did the day safari tour. It was excellent! Although we didn't get to see an orang-Utan (however, watch this space!), we saw so many Macaques (primate) and were lucky enough to see a Bornean gibbon! We saw some of the most beautiful birds - kingfishers, a number of different type of Hornbills. We saw eagles, and saw an owl. We saw more crocodiles, and lizards etc. It was incredible! It lasted about 90 minutes.

Then we got back to camp and had breakfast - which was a yummy buffet. After breakfast, Fred and I chilled on the hammocks until I had to pay my bill and get ready to leave. I wish there was an opportunity for me to stay all day but leave in the evening, but unfortunately not. I was very tempted to stay another night, because they had 2 walking tours and another boat trip in the day, followed by another morning safari the next morning. However, I decided that I should go then as planned, and I'm glad I did in the end as I had a great day in Sepilok.

On return to Uncle Tans, we had lunch, and then we were dropped off at our accommodation. When I got back, Hope was chilling in the room as it was so hot and humid outside. We both had an afternoon nap for about 3 hours.

At about 3/4, I went to the rainforest walk in Sepilok. Hope was on a good point in her book so she decided to stay at the resort and chill out with her book. I met Natasha, the Canadian girl who we met at Uncle Tan's and we did our own walk around for a couple of hours before the guided night walk started at 6 pm. We were so lucky - we saw an orang-utan! I was amazed!!!!! And of course very happy I ended up leaving the jungle when I did, as they didn't see an orangutan the day after either, and I was so lucky!

The guided evening tour was amazing! We watched the flying foxes jump off the tree top, then walked around the rainforest and saw a number of different animals. We saw 2 snakes, both I think were green pit vipers which are venemous (one we almost stepped on), many frogs, lizards, some more beautiful birds, many extremely long worms, and a number of different animals. It was amazing!

However, the heavens opened at the start of the tour, so we were walking around in pouring rain. When it rains here - it rains hard! And me being the idiot I am, didn't bring a rain coat or a torch so the walk was a struggle (until the kind tour guide let me wear his waterproof, bless him!).

The tour lasted about an hour and a half, then we walked back to our accommodation (Natasha was staying at the Sepilok Jungle Resort so about 400 m before ours. I had no waterproofs to put my phone in so it very almost broke - it took a couple days for it to dry out properly (but luckily it's fine now!)

We were absolutely soaking - it looked like I had jumped in a swimming pool!!! When we went past her accommodation (after the half hour walk in the rain), I started to freak out as I realised that I had no torch but couldn't get my phone out as it would have broken in seconds. So I tried to run in the pitch black in the thunder and lightning with no light... in the end I got my phone as I didn't want to stand on any snakes or anything haha. My phone was playing up for a few hours, but now it's fine (I'm very lucky!).

After getting changed into dry clean clothes, hope and I had dinner and a few cocktails. We had a nice chilled evening having a few lovely drinks and nice food (we ended up ordering a lot - shock! Malay curry, pizza, chips and flavoured rice).

A few drinks well and truly knocked me out though - the most tired I've been in a while!Read more