Firstly, apologies for the lack of action on the blogger for the last few weeks. We went for rather a long walk in the mountains and didn't find anywhere with internet. Or hot water. Or meat. All is not lost, though, as we are now back in Kathmandu and I have uploaded the next sensational instalment.

Sabah

Having finished with Sarawak, our next destination in Borneo was the other state, Sabah. To get there, we were faced with a tough decision which would test our mettle as backpackers. We had to weigh up whether to get the bus, which would take just over nine hours, or get a plane taking just under forty-five minutes. It didn’t really take us long to make up our minds, and are now officially classed as ‘flashpackers’.

The first town in Sabah on our list to visit was called Kota Kinabalu. We found a guesthouse easily enough, and though it had the whiff of cat wee about it, we couldn’t be bothered to look for another one. After a quick wander around town, it was decided that unless you were planning to ascend the local mountain (called Kinabalu), there wasn’t actually an awful lot to do. We had already decided against climbing the mountain in order to ‘conserve our energy for our impending trek in Nepal’. As well as that reason, we were rather put off by the fact that the authorities were trying to charge all tourists over £150 each to climb it! So after a couple of days mooching around, including a reasonable but unspectacular day’s snorkelling at the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Marine Park (try saying that when you‘ve had a few), we were on our way again, this time to a town called Sandakan.

We arrived following a six-hour bus journey (no private jets available that day) and after the standard amount of wandering around with our backpacks on looking like snails, we found a place to stay. After checking in, the chap behind the counter asked what our plans were for the rest of Sarawak. Half an hour later, after us mumbling some ill-thought out plans and an inconceivable timetable, the rest or our days in Sabah were all booked up - a couple of days to relax in Sandakan, followed by a three day two night jungle river boat trip (in order to look a jungle beasties) and finally three days diving in the world-famous Sipadan marine park. We had tried to apply for a permit to dive in Sipadan over a month previously, but had been told that there were no permits available on the dates we wanted. Luckily the chap in our guesthouse ‘knew somebody’, so all was sorted!

Before all excitement and action could begin, however, we still had the couple of days r&r in Sandakan. This involved sampling the food and drink on the seafront outside our hotel. We ventured a little further on the final afternoon, and went to Agnes Keith’s House - she’s an old author who once lived in these parts and who’s old house upon a big hill has been done up.

The house was good, but the cherry on the pie was the English afternoon teas that were served in the garden. Having whipped around the house in about half an hour, we spent the following hour enjoying earl gray with scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam, whilst peacocks strutted about the croquet lawn - very good indeed!

Whilst checking out the next morning on our way to meet the arranged transport to our jungle river trip, we were greeted by the chap behind the counter with rather alarming news. “Unfortunately, the accommodation used by the jungle river cruise people was destroyed by a rampaging elephant last night”. Luckily, no one was hurt and the long and short of it was that we’d been upgraded to accommodation which boasted attached bathrooms! Imagine that!

The next few days were great - loads of wildlife to be seen on the Kinabatangan River on both day and night trips. We were lucky enough to see the pigmy elephants which are only spotted about four times a year. We also spotted heaps and heaps of monkeys, including the Proboscis - apparently quite rare, but not, it seemed, in Borneo.

We spotted quite a few birds including a kingfishers and owls which were pretty cool. Other bits and bobs we got rather too close to were crocodiles, all manner of large lizards and some rather nasty looking deadly snakes.

Then it was on to Semporna, from where we’d catch a boat to Mabul Island, where our accommodation was booked for our diving. The accommodation was a strange collection of wooden huts built on stilts out into the sea and was fairly basic.

The food was great, though Lauren had to remind them shortly before each meal that there was a vegetarian amongst their midst, as they rather amusingly seemed very proficient at forgetting to cook anything veggie! Really not funny at all. No.

The diving was fantastic. On our first full day, we did two dives around Mabul and saw lots of stuff including turtles, crayfish, nemos, rays and strange giant cuttlefish which changed colour as you got close to them. The next day was, however, the main event, and our three dives in Sipadan were amazing.

The coral was beautiful, and the abundance of marine life was breathtaking. We could hardly move without seeing huge turtles, or sharks gliding right by us. A highlight for me was hovering about a foot above a sleeping four-metre reef shark. It didn’t stay asleep for long, and upon awaking, sped off straight towards Lauren’s head! Luckily, there wasn’t to be a Jaws moment, as it skimmed past her effortlessly, maybe sensing that a vegetarian wouldn‘t make good eating. Other highlights were swimming within a huge tornado of large barracudas, and definitely the staggering colours of all the nearly pristine coral - something we’d not witnessed thus far in our short diving careers.

Our third day on Mabul was spent snorkelling, and again, we saw loads of beautiful coral as well as a couple of turtles and rays - I also got stung by a swarm of little stinger things which were rather painful. I’d all but forgotten about it until later that night when my arms came up in the itchiest rash known to man. It lasted for a couple of days and was bloody agony!

With Borneo all but finished, we headed to Tawau airport the next day and caught our flights to Kuala Lumpur. After a night and day at our usual place in KL’s Chinatown, we were on another short flight to Singapore the following evening. We had originally decided that we’d stay in Singapore airport for the night, as our next flight, to Kathmandu, was pretty early the next morning. Our plans changed, however, as we met up with Dave and Storm again in Singapore for some beer and crashed round at their place - cheers again guys!

We both enjoyed Borneo greatly, but it was not the steamy, rainforest-clad, adventurous place I’d imagined it would be. Huge, huge areas of rainforest have been sacrificed for palm oil plantations, and a lot of very modern, flashy cities with the obligatory Pizza Huts and KFC’s have sprung up funded by both the offshore oil as well as the palm oil. Not quite what I wanted to see, but I suppose it represents a lot of progress to the people who actually live in the country, and who don’t want to remain years and years behind the rest of the world.

So, just two more legs of the epic journey remain - a month in Nepal trekking in the Himalayas, followed by a month and a half in India! Not long left now - but long enough not to think about that CV quite yet…