Malaysia - Borneo

We arrived in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the state of Sabah, and had a bit of a lazy day.  We hadn't gone to sleep until 2am and were up at 6am to pack our bags that morning.  We checked into our hostel, lazed about and then went for dinner and a cocktail with the Turkish guys.

The next morning we all made our way to a tribal village where we were shown the skulls which are still hanging in one of the long houses.  These skulls were 'collected' by the last head hunter of that tribe.  They told us that when you wanted to ask a girl to marry you, you first needed to go into the jungle, find a rival tribesman, cut of his head, and then present it to the parents of the girl to show that you were capable of looking after her.

We all got to try using a blow dart, I was even allowed to shoot it at a balloon which the guy was holding between his legs.  Luckily for him, I didn't miss.  We got a musical show and were invited up to play with them.  They also taught us how to make fire before we headed back to town.  The guys had to head back to KL and so after dinner they headed to the airport while myself and Kay went back to our hostel to try and make some plans for our short time in Borneo.

We decided that we wanted to go to turtle island and stay the night at a turtle conservation but the next day we couldn't find any agencies that could offer us the trip. We booked a bus over to Sandakan, which is close to turtle island, in the hopes that we could book something over there.  There was plenty to do in Sandakan and around so even if we couldn't we would still have plenty to do.  We arrived in Sandakan pretty late and checked into our accommodation, lucky for us, we had a whole 8 bed dorm to ourselves.  We must be the only lunatics that opt for a fan only room in that heat.

The next morning we went in search of somewhere to book the turtle conservation.  The first place we went to were looking for over RM700 (£140) each to spend one night there.  We were a bit hesitant and told the lady that it was a bit much and we would need to have a think about it.  She, very kindly, told us that if we went to the pier we would be able to book the trip directly with Crystal Quest, who run the conservation, and we would be able to get it for much cheaper.  She was not wrong, we managed to get both of us staying for one night for about half of what the agency wanted.  

We went to a nice Chinese place on the waterfront for dinner and spoke to a lady who had been travelling for 18 years (jealous!) and she gave us loads of tips about booking cheap hotels and flights. 

We made our way the next day to the orangutan sanctuary which is just a short bus ride outside Sandakan.  Twice a day they leave food on platforms for them and if you are there during these times you'll get to see loads of oranguatans.  After we'd had our fill of the amazing creatures, we went across the road to the Sun Bear sanctuary.  It wasn't so easy to spot these tiny bears, but a nice lady that worked there pointed some out to us and also showed us some on a telescope.

We went for a walk along a canopy walk way in a huge big forest close by after lunch and then caught the last bus back to Sandakan.  

There were only 12 of us taken to turtle island the following morning,  they only allow a small number of people of the island at any one time, which is nice.  The island was like paradise, the sand was soft and white and the water crystal clear.  We had some free time after lunch to lie on the beach or go swimming, so we rented some gear and went snorkelling.  After dinner we were shown a video about the conservation centre and what they do which was really interesting.  Then we played a game...the waiting game.  We were called a little after nine to go down to the beach so that we could watch one of the turtles laying their eggs, they only disturb one turtle each night.  The ranger takes the eggs away straight away, but the turtle isn't aware that this is happening and still tries to cover them over once she is done.  After this we were taken down to the water to release the baby turtle that had hatched at the centre that morning.  What an amazing experience that was!

We woke up early the next morning to have breakfast and then we were ferried off the island and back to Sandakan.  We caught a bus back to Kota Kinabalu that morning and from there a flight down to Kuching which is in the state of Sarawak.

When we booked our flights to Borneo, we booked one flight into Kota Kinabalu in Sabah and the next flight out of Kuching, Sarawak.  What we didn't know at the time is that there is no way to get from Sabah to Sarawak overland without going through Brunei.

Thankfully, the flights in Malaysia are super cheap!

Our first day in Kuching was spent walking around the town and doing some shopping. Even when my bag is bursting at the seams, I still always manage to find room to squeeze one more thing (or two) in.  

We took a local bus the next day to a place called Bau, from here we were planning to catch another bus to the fairy caves but when we got there the next bus wasn't leaving for another two hours.  This wouldn't give us much time at the caves if we wanted to catch the last bus back to Kuching so we opted for a taxi instead. It didn't really cost much, about £8 for him to drive us to the caves which we twenty minutes or so away, and then wait an hour for us to explore the caves and then take us back again.  The caves were so pretty, well worth the million steps up to it!

We caught a boat ride down the river at sunset which was also very pretty.  A stunning orange and red sunset was a fantastic backdrop for all the unusual buildings in Kuching.

We took a bus and then a boat to get to Bako National Park.  The boat ride there was very good, the guy driving the boat pointed out a proboscis monkey sitting in the trees and also a crocodile. I was glad we saw those things because we didn't see anything on our trek.  It was a lovely, albeit tiring, trek through the rain forest. 

On our return, we showered and packed our bags ready for our flight to Singapore the next morning which will be our last country in South East Asia.  These last 5 months have a flown in.  I know time flies when you're having fun but I just wish I wouldn't go quite so fast.

Malaysia - peninsular

We left Railay around 10am and were put on a long boat to Krabi, from here we got a mini bus to a place called Hat Yai which is close to the Thailand / Malaysia border.  We had been told that there was a lot of trouble going on in the very south of Thailand.  A bit of a civil uprising of sorts,  but it seemed nice even if we did have to go through an airport security type process just to get into a shopping centre.  

From Hat Yai we got our overnight bus through the border and onto Kuala Lumpur, where we arrived around 5am.  Thankfully we were dropped off close to our accommodation and after more or less pleading with taxis to take us the short distance with our bags, we finally took their advice and just walked.  We were able to check-in almost as soon as we arrived and went for a wee disco nap since we'd not much slept on the bus.  

I woke around lunch time and found a million small bites all over my back! We were thinking this must be bed bugs.  We usually sleep on a bed bug sheet just to be safe, but we had been so tired that we'd just collapsed on the bed.  This had been, thankfully, our first experience of bed bugs while being away.  We put our clothes in to get washed and asked to be moved to another room.  We saw later that they had put someone else into our old room! 

We took the monorail to Little India which is an area of KL where I'm sure you can guess is full of Indian restaurants and shops.  We had some lunch here and bought some lovely Indian sweets from a stall.  From here, we took the monorail again to see the Petronas Towers.  We had decided against paying the £20ish to get to the top viewing platform and instead settled for taking photos from the bottom and thought we would come back that night to have a drink at one of the sky bars close by which would give us a great view of the towers at night.  Unfortunately though, I had been feeling not very well after waking from our nap, and by this point in the day I was feeling very unwell.  We headed back to our accommodation and shortly after I started to be sick.  I spent the rest of the evening back and forth to the bathroom hugging the toilet.  Sorry, I'm sure that was too much information.  Thankfully I woke the next morning feeling better which meant we could spend the day shopping in china town.  We had only been in Malaysia for two days by this point, but I was already sure I was going to love the place.  The people are by far the nicest we have met.  They are unbelievably friendly and so helpful without wanting anything from you in return. 

That night we took another night bus to Kuala Besut where we got a speed boat in the morning to Perhenian (small) Island.  We were dropped of on Long beach and Kay set of to find us some accommodation.  After checking in, we spent the rest of the day lying on the beach or swimming in the crystal clear turquoise waters.  One of the restaurants at Coral Bay, which is a few minutes walk from where we were staying, shows a film every night on a projector.  That night they were showing Horrible Bosses 2 and so we settled ourselves down on the couches and watched our first film in over 4 months.

The next day we did a snorkel trip around the island.  We were taken to Shark Point first, where myself and Kay unfortunately didn't see any sharks, but everyone else on the boat had! Gutted!  One girl said she saw one so big that she freaked out and came back to the boat early.  We stopped at another place after and saw some amazing fish, so big and colourful, it's times like this that I am so unbelievably thankful that I bought an underwater camera.  We were then taken to a spot where we saw turtles which was such an amazing experience.  Lunch came next which was followed by yet more fantastic snorkelling sites.  We had dinner and then want back to the restaurant showing the films so that we could have dessert there and watch The Hobbit 3.

The following day, I had a very relaxing day while Kay did another scuba dive.  

We then arrived in George Town very early, having 'slept' on an overnight bus.  We headed straight for our hostel, dumped our bags and then went in search of some breakfast.  George Town is famous for its hawker stalls and it wasn't long before we found one selling Roti Canai which is Roti with eggs.  Some nice local men, who were also having their breakfast there, helped us to order this and also a hot chocolate each.  We sat with them and they spoke to us about the Malaysian economy, which was a bit deep for 7am.  When they went to leave, they told us they had paid for our breakfast.  Our breakfast was so cheap, about 40p each, but even so, it was very nice of them to do that.

Even though we hadn't really slept, we decided to take a map from the hostel and walk around the area we were staying in to see what there was to see.  We stumbled upon a festival sight and after talking with some guys who were working there, we found out that it was a world music festival that had been on the previous night but that was also on that night too.  They told us that we should take the train to Penang Hill to get the panoramic views over the city.

We needed to make the most of our couple of days in George Town, so we went back to the hostel after that so we could make a plan for the day.  We decided to go on the Hop On Hop Off tourist bus which would take us to the bottom of Penang hill and other sights in the city.  

From the bottom of the hill you need to take a short train ride up a very steep hill to the top which is 700m up.  The views of George Town were amazing and the breeze up there was very welcome.  We made it back down to the bottom of the hill just in time to catch another bus.  We only went one stop to a massive buddhist temple which was up on the side of the hill.  On the way up the many many steps to the top, we stopped at a bit where they had hundreds of tortoise in a pond.  There was actually far too many of them for the size of the pond, but it was fun getting to feed them.  We decided our last stop of the day would be a bit out of George Town where there was a market, the traffic was really bad though, and by the time we got there, it was shut.  We headed back to the hostel and had a BBQ for dinner and then opted to have an early night.  We were supposed to go the the festival with the others from the hostel, the guy running the place had told us not to buy a ticket and that we would all just go with some beers and sit outside and listen to the music, but we were just so exhausted by this point that we couldn't bring ourselves to go.

The next day we went to a mall close by hoping to get the lens on Kay's camera fixed.  We finally found a shop that could fix it but he was looking for quite a lot, so Kay decided to wait and see if they would do it cheaper in KL.  We planned to go to the National park that afternoon but the traffic was so awful because of the Thai water festival that by the time we got there on the bus it was starting to get late.  Kay went to a beach close by to do some sunbathing and I went back to George Town to do some sight seeing in the area where we were staying, which is a UNESCO world heritage site.  

We ate some lovely food from the hawker stalls for dinner and then watched the first episode of the new series of Game of Thrones back at our hostel.

We woke up super early the next morning to catch the first bus back to KL as our flight to Borneo was leaving the following morning.  

We arrived in KL about lunch time but had so much to accomplish that we just dumped our bags at the hostel and headed straight out.  First stop was try and get Kay's camera fixed.  We went to a massive electrical mall and asked every shop there, but none could fix it, none of them even had a new lens she could buy.  We went to another mall to the Nikon shop to see what they could do, but they advised that she would need to send it away and it would take two weeks to fix.  We eventually found a place that had one in stock that she could buy, it cost almost as much as the camera, but needs must.

We went back to china town, not before getting on the wrong bus and going in the wrong direction for 15 minutes, and then got conned into buying some iPads.  They were crazy cheap (£130) but we thought they were fake which was why they were so cheap.  Turns out, we had actually signed up for a mobile phone contract and it took almost two hours to get them to cancel the transaction and give us our money back, all this eating into the very little time we had already.  

After finally getting our money back, we had a very quick dinner and then we went to our hostel to get showered and ready to go out to yet another sky bar for a drink and a view of the patronas towers lit up at night.

All this had taken so long that we made it to the bar at 11.30pm, last orders was midnight.  It was just as well anyway with the drinks being £10 each!

We met some lovely Turkish guys and ended up going for a couple of drinks with them after the sky bar.  We told them we were headed to Borneo the next morning which drew blank stares.  Even though I'm not convinced they were entirely sure where we were going, they asked if they could come with us?  Thinking they were joking, we told them that of course they could.  

They actually came to the airport the next morning, bought tickets and came to Borneo with us!! 

The first of many very cheap internal flights in Malaysia! 

Railay Beach, Krabi - Thailand

I wasn't hugely upset to be leaving Pai.  The place is so pretty and has a definite charm to it, but we had been so unbelievably sick, I don't think I've had a bug like that since I was a child, that I was starting to get a bit fed up with Pai and the four walls and uncomfortable bed that had been my home for too long.  

We left Pai and did all 762 turns in reverse to get to Chiang Mai, and from there we boarded a sleeper bus to take us to Bangkok.  We had hoped that once we arrived in Bangkok in the morning, we would be able to get a train to Surat Thani and from there, another bus to Krabi.  Unfortunately, when we arrived at the train station in the morning, having said our goodbyes to Jess who was meeting with a girl we'd met in Laos to continue her Thailand adventure with her, we were told that the 8am train was already full, and that there were only seats available on the overnight train.  Having not really slept on the bus from Chiang Mai, we couldn't face another sleepless night and so opted to spend the night in Bangkok and catch the train the following morning.  

We met up with Jess, Rheann and Rheann's friend Siobhan for dinner that night before myself and Kay hoped in a taxi to The Dome skybar.  This is the skybar which was used for filming scenes in The Hangover part 2.  We'd read that there was a bit of a strict dress code but with nothing but flip flops or hiking boots to wear on my feet, I put on my nicest dress and my hiking boots, jokes, flip flops, and hoped for the best.  I'd love to say it was "No shoes, no shirt, but I still got service", but I was politely told that there was no way I was getting in with flip flops.  Thankfully, some ingenious woman has started selling shoes from her shop across the road, this happens a lot I guess, and so I bought the ugliest pair of pumps you'll ever see, and off we trotted back to the bar.  Apparently, the hideous shoes are much more acceptable attire, and we were granted access to the lift which would take us up to the 64th floor.  The views from up there were absolutely breathtaking. They weren't demanding you buy a drink, which was nice, but we decided to treat ourselves none the less to a drink each, at a grand total of £28. We had just spent four days in Pai doing nothing, and eating even less, so I think we deserved a wee treat.  Only enough time ( and money ) for one though as we needed to be up before the roosters to get the train to Surat Thani.

We met a lovely Canadian on the train to Surat Thani who invited us to stay with him, his wife and three year old kid when we go to LA.  Seriously contemplating it, he seemed very genuine and said he would show us the sights around LA.  We took a bus from Surat Thani to Krabi and stayed there the night before getting a boat to Railay Beach the next day.

We got off the long boat and were advised, by some idiot, to head to the other beach about ten minutes walk away where, he said, we would find plenty of cheap accommodation.  This was complete nonsense, but we walked the ten minutes, with our heavy bags on our backs, and had to find this out for ourselves, the hard way.  I went for a walk and eventually found some nice cheap accommodation back on the beach we had previously been on.  We spent the afternoon walking around Railay, having lovely fruit shakes and booking things to do while there.  There was a big crowd of scots staying at our accommodation, it was lovely hearing the accent and not have to explain my name to them.

The next day we went on a snorkel trip.  This consisted of visiting a few different islands, some snorkelling and then a BBQ on a quiet beach.  After sunset we got back on the boat and went out to sea again so that we could do more snorkelling, this time at night, with phosphorescent plankton.  This was one of the nicest island trips we've done.  Railay beach and surrounding are just breathtaking! Swimming with the plankton was unreal, so so cool seeing it light up in the water. 

The next morning we got up bright and early to do some rock climbing. We were taken to an area at the end of our beach where we got to do five climbs each.  It was quite hard going at times but the view from 30 meters up was well worth it.  We had lunch with a lovely canadian girl who was climbing with us and then the three of us spent the afternoon catching some rays on the beach.   

We spent our last day at Railay exploring some of the beaches in the area.  We walked some ridiculous jungle path to get to Ton-sai beach.  We sunbathed for a while but as it was pushing 40 degrees we did the sensible thing and went for a long lunch. After lunch, we met a nice New Yorker on the beach and she spent the afternoon with us sunbathing.  There is a path over the rocks at the end of the beach that will take you back to Railay.  We decided this was a much better option as the jungle path was a bit of a killer and Sarah (NYer) had already been to Railay this way that morning and assured us it was much quicker and easier.  It probably would have been, if we hadn't got a bit lost, walked far too high up the hill, and ended up coming out at some random point on the beach, startling the couple sleeping in the shade.  We spent some more time sunbathing and swimming in the crazy hot water, which wasn't particularly refreshing.  Myself and Kay left late in the afternoon to walk to the view point which was up in the hills that we had been rock climbing at.  Sarah decided against it and made her way back to Ton-Sai, hopefully using the right path this time! 

We had expected a bit of a rocky path up to the view point as some Scottish people we had met at our accommodation, who had already been up, advised we wear "proper shoes".  What we were not expecting, was to have to scramble up the hill for about twenty minutes.  Our clothes and bags were completely covered in the red dust from the hill by the time we made it to the top.  It was worth it for the stunning view of all four beaches and the beautiful sun set.  

Our last time in Thailand this trip.  Feeling a bit sad to see the back of it, we've been here so much now that it's starting to have the familiarity of home.  But onwards to Malaysia we go for more fun and frolics.