Thailand: Koh Tao 20-29 Mar 12

I finally boarded the flight to Thailand at around 8am after sleeping in Taipei airport the night before. I flew with Thai Airways and it was around a three hour flight. The queue for the plane consisted of some very colourful people, including some orange robed Buddhists. A taste of things to come for Thailand, lots of the colour and variety I was hoping for.

I landed in Bangkok on Monday morning the 19^th March. I had heard so much about Thailand, South East Asia’s destination for travellers and holidaymakers looking for cheap, safe, hot and flavoursome lifestyles from the seedy to the spiritual, from laid back to hyped up. Bangkok airport already had some flavours of this; plants and colourful murals with a Thai flavour. The queue to get my passport stamp cast an even wider net. Swedish families on package holidays, really tanned and leathery retired couples, dreaded and beaded hippies, Russian blondes in high heels, business men, rich and privileged school leavers on their gap year yar, you name it! I got my month long visa stamp and wandered around the airport trying to get my head around the new sounds, smells and people of this erratic place.

The train to the city is really cheap and easy to use at 35 Baht. (100 Baht is £2). It takes you to an underground station, where I took the line to Bangkok main train station. It was all air conditioned up to this point and I hadn’t been outside or above ground since the airport, so coming out of that underground station I was greeted by the bellow of the sticky sweat monster. It was HOT, to say the least. April is Thailand’s hottest month, and I was just in time to see it gain full momentum. The train station was air conditioned a bit, but as soon as I stepped outside it I had to make sure I wasn’t walking into mirages of people and cars. My plan was to drop my bags at the station for the day and explore Bangkok on foot until my train to Chumphon that night at 10pm. But there was no way I could make 10min in the heat after no sleep, let alone an entire day. I ended up hanging out in the train station which was interesting. People were sleeping and sitting on every available surface including the floor. There were some restaurants on the upper floors looking into the open main space of the station, and various stalls, internet and food places. I went to the mezzanine level and ordered some green curry, looking forward to my first taste of Thai food. But I forgot what I had heard about how incredibly spicy the curries are here and that you have to ask for it to be mild. It was delicious and I was starved, so I wolfed it down and my head promptly exploded and steam blasted through every last pore over the crowds in the station. So I downed my iced coffee with tons of ice cubes, and forgot about the advice about ice cubes, as in they make your tum bad. Or is that India? Anyway, this was too much for my tired, over stimulated brain to process and I put my head down on my hands on the table and passed out for what I was thought was about 10min, but turned out to be over an hour. I woke up in a massive sweaty daze and unable to move my hands from pins and needles. Overcoming these small and insignificant but at the time intense dramas I passed the day and found that I could take an earlier train to Chumphon at 7.30pm. Brilliant, I’ll take that thanks.

The train was great. It looked like it was built in the 70’s, and was a sleeper train that had bottom and top berths. I had booked the bottom in the small hope I could catch some glimpses of the landscape out the window, and so I did while the train crawled and winded through Bangkok and out into the countryside. They had food on the train but my stomach still wasn’t happy and I was so exhausted I just wanted to sleep. The train was packed with western backpackers, all chatting and happy. I was sitting in a very normal looking seat and couldn’t figure out how they turned into beds, when a man came over and in about 10 seconds did a flick flack and turned the seats transformer style into a set of bunk beds that you drew a curtain around so it was your own private bed-pod. After sleeping in the airport the night before I thought I’d crash right out, but the mad old train rattling through this strange countryside and clunking over the tracks, as well as the fear I wouldn’t wake up for my stop at which we were supposed to be at 4am, meant that I was owl eyed for most of the trip. But as always when en route to a new place, happy.

The sleeper train corridor, check the foot in the top left corner

We arrived in Chumphon at 4am, where I’d get the ferry at 7am to Koh Tao. The train pulls up at the station and a conductor comes to poke all the backpackers awake and a stream of them pour over the tracks. This is the gateway to Koh Sumui, Koh Penang and Koh Tao and so most travellers got out and sat on the platform blinking and trying to wade through to people trying to sell boat and bus tickets. I had mine already so just sat and chatted to two wholesome Canadian guys, until it was time to get my bus to the ferry. I eventually made it onto the ferry and was getting hot, bothered and knackered and very ready to reach my destination after thirty six of travelling. The ferry to Koh Tao was around three hours, and I stepped off into the already hot early morning air to see Nick waving to me from the ferry. Happy girl! 

Nick

I aimed for Koh Tao because I wanted to get out of Bangkok asap to see some islands, and my old friend Nick from Bristol UK was living there so that was a very nice bonus for me, always love catching up after so many years. I got on the back of his scooter with my bags strapped on (ashamed to say this was the first time that I had carried my backpack on my back, it had wheels and I had easily wheeled it around until then). He lives on a steep hill with amazing views of beaches and island, trying to get up the hill with all my bags and me on the back of the scooter gave it a bit of a test.

Riding on the bike

Koh Tao is an island of divers, every man and his dog is an instructor or in the field. Nick has some friends there who are doing various exciting things under the ocean, like learning under water filming and documentary making. They met almost every day for dinner and I got into the swing of Koh Tao life without any effort; diving, driving the scooter around (well, actually on the back as a passenger), having a wee siesta when it gets too hot. Chilled out existence is an understatement. One of the funny things that stuck out to me straight away was the crazy set up of electricity wires running all over the place, haphazard and bunched together in webs that could not have been a good way to set them up, sometimes dangling right in the road and drooping under heavy vines.

Mental electric wires

Sairee Beach

Koh Tao is famous for being the cheapest place to get certified for diving, and also a beautiful place to do so. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do while in Koh Tao, but until Nick took me to Scuba Junction to sign up for the course I wasn’t even sure if it was something I’d be into. I’m claustrophobic and the idea of all that water on top of me with restricted breathing freaked me the hell out. But don’t EVER miss an opportunity through fear friends, please. I signed up and was starting the next day, how it would go I had no idea but was very excited.

My course was four days and I got up every morning to walk about 20 minutes to the dive shop on the beach and learn all about this diving lark. It’s so easy to learn about something that’s fun and interesting, I was absorbing so much information in those four days and I could have carried on for weeks. It helped that our instructors were two really nice guys and great teachers. Adrian is from Canada and is a natural born teacher, you can just listen for ages and he makes everything make sense and interesting. Davide is from Italy and was doing instructor training, and was thoroughly nice and patient with us. You could see that both of them loved the sea and diving, and it was infectious. There were only four people in the group plus our two instructors. A couple from Canada (lots of Canadians in Thailand, and they are all really nice I find) and an Irish girl called Mariaelena who was paired with me to be my dive ‘buddy’. You always have to dive in pairs.

Adrian and Davide, my artist impression

Adrian in teacher mode

The first day we just watched some videos and go through some basics, and I found it thoroughly interesting. The way your body works under water, how to set the equipment up, how to breathe and the chemical reactions that happen etc, so cool to be learning all this new stuff and be excited about gaining a new skill. We went into the sea to do some skills in shallower water on the second day, and then we went straight down to about 8m. The first time we had to go deeper I did actually feel panicked and claustrophobic, and couldn’t make myself sink because I was thinking about how scared I was, so I just floated right to the surface. The idea that I had to stay under water and couldn't rise to the top in a hurry made me feel a bit trapped. But after that initial fear, it became amazing, incredible, exhilarating. I was under water, breathing, weightless. WOW. The next three days were just fantastic, seeing this whole new world and learning all this seriously interesting stuff. Man I had the best time. Mariaelena was tons of fun and as excited as me, and our instructors were great guys and good fun too, life was good. On the last day of the course both Mariaelena and I were really sad we weren’t going diving the next day and this lovely little fiery Irish girl lit a fire under me to do the advanced adventurer course for another two days, five more dives. Without her l I would never have done it and had some of the best days of my life, so again, THANK YOU Mariaelena!!!

Mariaelena and I, with Farigo in the middle! He's in a plastic bag. 

We did a dive to 28m at a site called Chumphon, clear water and beautiful choral and lots of fish. That was incredible because I knew there was 28m of water above me but I didn’t care. The insane feeling of being down there wiped any fear out. We then made our way to the Sairee Beach site for some photography but just before we set off we were chilling up on the top deck of the boat for a while to wait for everyone to surface. We dived off the top of the boat into the sea and sat in the sun and ate pineapple, what a life. Just then some ominous dark grey clouds crept up over the horizon and some flashes of lighting warned us a storm was brewing. We set off to the next site as the storm came overhead, and absolutely drenched the boat and everything and everyone in it. We had to put our wetsuits back on to stay warmer, and the sea got choppy and it was wild and fun, I wanted the storm to really kick off but eventually it went away. 

Storm on the boat

Next day we dived to a wreck which was an old Japanese war ship that was donated to Koh Toa to be sunk as a wreck for divers, and we got to check out the guns and swim around it. Awesome to see this great monster of a war ship under 25m of water, a huge eerie underwater ghost. Our last dive was a night dive at a site called Twins, and to say a night dive is intense just doesn’t do it justice. You’re dropped in the big black ocean and all you have is a torch and your mates. Once again thanks to Adrian who made me feel totally calm and love every second of it! The dive was so mad, total darkness under water so you had no idea which was up or down or sideways, I was practically glued to both Mariaelena and Adrian but even then a few times almost crashed into some choral. It was the most alien sensation I’d ever experienced, floating weightless, breathing underwater and not knowing what is in front or above you.

Adrian then did such a funny thing. He told us to look out for the ‘blue box fish’ which only came out once a month and was really rare, and that he had a good feeling we would see them that night. After a while we sat down on the sea floor to practice some compass navigation, when Adrian made the hand signal for box fish and pointed behind him. Mariaelena and I looked on in wonderment fully expecting to see this box fish. But instead he picked up from the sea floor a blue plastic folder. We were so confused, until he took out of the blue folder our two dive cards with our new certification on it! All this under meters of water on a night dive! How funny is that, we were so tickled by this and proud and had some good hugs under water with Mariaelena. Haha! After that we turned our torches off so we were in total darkness and waved our hands around to see the luminescent plankton in the water. Soooo coooool!

So I guess I could write for days about the dives, anyone who has ever done it will know what I mean and if you haven’t done it I would put it on your bucket list fast. Just being suspended in this beautiful, alien world, doing somersaults in the water and floating backwards and upside down, the beautiful sea creatures, choral and fish, just fills you with wonder such as I haven’t felt since I was a child.

Our last night was mad too. Mariaelena met this mad Canadian girl called Angelina who was doing some underwater filming. She was full on, covered in tattoos all the way up to her neck and hell-bent on taking us out and getting us ‘retarded’ as she called it. So I got on the back of Nick’s scooter and drove to the other part of the island, where he promptly got a flat tire and we drank a shot out of a bottle with a snake and a tarantula floating in the nondescript liquid. So the night continued on in this ­­random way with us taking a ‘taxi’ back to Sairee beach (back of a guy’s bakkie or pickup truck) and started the bar hopping, passing lady boys, Thai’s riding down tiny alleyways with five people on the back of their bikes and tons of Western tourists getting sozzled. We did some dancing, some beach stumbling, some pancake eating, and some minus flip flops dance floor moves. It was really fun and a great send off from the island, although the next day everything was very, very difficult.

Koh Tao is a great place, if you’re into diving. It’s the cheapest place in the world to get certified, plus it has awesome dive sites. There are so many dive shops and so much competition, so it keeps the prices down and the quality good. I am so, so glad Nick took me to Scuba Junction, I could not have asked for a better instructor. And plus, I got to meet the lovely Mariaelena, who I then went on to Koh Lanta and Phi Phi with (more of that to come).

To get to Koh Tao you can get a great little sleeper train to Chumphon for around Baht 700 (£14). Then you have to take a boat to Koh Tao, takes around 3 hours for around Baht 600. It’s all super easy and there are people at every point along the way telling you what to do and where to go, they are very much used to tourists in this part of the world. To get certified SSI to 18m it’s only Baht 9000 (£180) and then the advanced course is another Baht 7200 (£144) to get to 30m. Fun dives after that are only Baht 850 (£17). You can stay in your own really nice bungalow with own bathroom for around Baht 400 (£8) and hire a scooter for Baht 200 (£4) a day. So you can see why it’s the perfect place for backpacker diving missions. If you weren’t diving, it’s still fun and pretty and close to Koh Penang if you’re into full moon parties and that, and it’s got some great beaches so sure, go there even if you don’t dive. It does have that hastily thrown together, frantic built up feeling that the rest of Thailand’s more touristic places have, and it’s packed with Western foreigners so you don’t really get the full on Thai country flavour, but it is still a great little place to hang out for a few days.

Thanks again so much to Nick for hospitality in Koh Tao and leading me to diving, muchos gracias! Mariaelena and I got on the bus to the ferry terminal on the Thursday night, and on the sleeper boat to Chumphon and then bus to Krabi   , this was going to be a long journey to the South West...

Here are the pics.

Taiwan: Taipei 15-19 Mar 12

I flew to Taipei with my new life fixture Air Asia, and again they did what they said on the tin. We flew over the Philippine islands and it was a perfectly clear day. There are so many of them! As soon as one island finished another one started, a massive island belt all the way to Taiwan. It was really still so I got myself into my half awake half asleep flight coma listening to some music, when BOOM. The plane was hit with what felt like a gale force wind of boulders. It was over in a second but was the strongest force of turbulence I've ever felt, and my hands were sweating and my heart thumping until we landed smoothly in Taipei. It was so misty we didn't see the runway until the last second before touch down, and I looked out the window to see a plane taking off into the mist and it disappeared within a second, very eerie. 

I was going to Taipei en route to Thailand to meet up with some old buddies from back home. I met Wes when I was around 11 or 12 years old and we hung out in our little gang who are still all really good friends, unusually for friends from that age but great for us because they are awesome kiddies all round! He’d been living in Taiwan for a good few years, as had his brother Kent. Wes lives with his very cute Russian girlfriend Alina, and Kent was literally a couple of days away from moving to the Philippines so very lucky for me I caught him just in time.

Taipei is a world away from Malaysia and Borneo where I flew in from so I was expecting a culture shock. It’s a massive great big city on a packed little island of 23m people. The airport was big and glistening and bustling, and everything was in Chinese! Luckily they had English signs though too. Everything was covered in marble, which to reiterate is THE slipperiest substance known to mankind and should never be used as a flooring option, but here everyone seems to be taught how to avoid broken necks from the cradle. If not I don’t know how they all walk on this if ever slightly wet. Luckily Kent came to pick me up otherwise I wouldn’t have had a clue which bus to find or how to get to their house. He speaks Chinese, as do most of the westerners I met in the country. I just don’t think you could really get by for long without learning it.

Kent

It was around 5.30pm when we left the airport but it was already almost dark and pretty cold. I had it in my head that everywhere on my trip would be sweltering but Taiwan was still trying to break out into spring time, still holding on to winter’s coat tails. It was very foggy and misty outside and everything was covered in cold white. I tried to look out the window at the city as we rode in on the bus, but I could only see some lights, grey and mist, and I could just make out the new Sky Train they were building to the airport, towering above the motorway and looking very big and concrete. As we got into the city everything was built up and bright lights and hundreds of bright signs and shop fronts. 

Wes, Alina, Kent

The metro is really easy to use here, self explanatory with most signs in Mandarin and English. We hopped on one to where they lived where I dropped my bags off and we went to get some dumplings. This is where speaking the language is pretty crucial, ordering food and just doing day to day stuff as the locals don’t speak English much. Wes’ girlfriend Alina speaks fluent Chinese, so I'm lucky to have her show me around and make the exchanges! I have no idea how I’m going to get through China for three weeks. The dumplings were great, made right there in the shop, hot and steamed with ginger and chilli and soya dip. They also made their own soya milk there, which we drank hot with sugar out of a bowl.

Local dumpling house

I was in Taipei for four days and while I wanted to see a little bit of the city, it was just so nice to get my head together, relax and be with good friends. Alina took me to see some temples which were really beautiful, although none of them very old, Taipei is a new city. Some people were doing some funny exercises in the square of the temple, like old ladies walking backwards. 

Taipei 101 in the background

Poodle parlour

There is a good mix of western and eastern food and culture and so at times it feels as if you’re just in any other city, but then you turn a corner and find a side street market with everything as Eastern and as foreign as can be. The breakfast places are true testament to this. On offer are bacon and eggs with cheese but in a pancake eaten with chopsticks and soya sauce, drank with black tea. A treat of a breakfast nom nom.

Breakfast pancake

We went to a night market which was pretty nuts. Super busy with food, clothes, juices, trinkets and colours and lights enough to make your head spin. I wanted to buy some funky Taiwan clothes so got some t-shirts, the prices were only slightly cheaper than somewhere like Camden market though. The best thing about the night market was the food and drinks, man Taipei knows how to do drinks. Everywhere you turn there is a juice stall with any fruit juice you can imagine. Papaya, mango, avocado (although those weren't in season, argh). Green tea shakes, jasmine milk shakes, warm ginger shakes, drinks with little soft balls of jelly, any kind of tea and milkshake and juice shake you can imagine, a rainbow colours and tastes and textures. I had died and gone to shake heaven, honestly you could never live long enough to try all the variety of drinks. Some they make so sweet your head spins, but if you ask for less sugar they are amazing. We had some chicken bits fried in some dry spices at the market too, although that didn't make my tum feel amazing. We stopped at a temple in the market to eat, Wes has some good pics on his camera I’ll show you when I can. Red lanterns, great statues and lights everywhere, a great backdrop to drink those psychedelic cups of joy.

Another night we all walked down to the river in the wee hours of the morning, and it was great to hear the city so quiet because in the day its an onslaught of road works, building works and cars swooshing by and hooting. We walked along the river which had some outdoor exercise equipment which Alina and I tested out, and came to the conclusion that they were for little Taiwanese grannies. The river had some frogs and fish in it, with some birds gathering and flying around and it was pretty, but I could still feel the pollution of the city in my pores which made me think that I could never live in a city like this, where it feels like real fresh air never really blows through.

Night market

One of the best and most fun things about my Taipei trip was having some great little jam sessions with Wes, Kent, Alina and some of their buddies. Wes and Kent are both musicians, photographers and artists and belong to the band Reigndear, seriously check out their stuff. Wes has made some awesome videos from footage he’s taken and edited himself of some underwater dives, and Kent has made some funky products like clothes such as some Reigndear tights which I was lucky enough to get my hands. He has also written some books of poetry, and some beautiful photography. I’m sure I’ve left some stuff out as it seems there is nothing these boys don’t do! Wes had bought a guzheng (here is a video of one being played) which is the most amazing instrument, like the eastern version of the harp but played horizontally. Wes and Kent busted out the guitars while I had my little ukulele, Alina had a mouth organ and there was a keyboard piano, man it was fun! There is nothing so fun as a night spent jamming some tunes with some buddies over a few beers.

Alina and Wes playing the Guzheng

Jamming in the house of fun

Kent was making his way to the Phillipines so we were able to get a taxi together to the airport. The driving here is nuts so you just have to close your eyes and clench your butt cheeks... an apt way to leave this high energy city. I had to sleep in the airport as Kent’s flight was at 1am and mine at 8am. I went to terminal 1 which was basically just a building site with some cold marble floors and every shop closed, so different to terminal 2 with three floors of marble and shops and comfy seats, so I made my way over there on the deserted Skytrain and found myself on a comfy sofa in the arrivals area, where I put in my headphones and actually managed to sleep. I woke up with a raisin’d faced lady prodding me with a hoover at about 5am.

Was so nice to catch up with you Wes and Kent! And so nice to meet the cutie pie Alina. Thanks for a much needed four days of old friends, music and chillage.

Here are the pics.

To Thailand baby!

Borneo: Kudat 12-15 Mar 12

Shawn and I left Paganakan Dii relaxed and ready for the six hour bus ride back to KK, after deciding to go to Kudat for some remote beaches and village life on the tip of Borneo. We were dropped off at the Sepilok roundabout on Sunday morning and were told that if we just hailed down one of the buses going by we would be able to pay there and then to get on. The bus stop was hot and grimy, and we hailed down about three buses who all said they were full, and let on the other people at the stop who had tickets. After two hours waiting in heady sticky heat we started wondering if this wasn’t the way to get buses at all, but eventually one stopped to let the three giant Germans from the river tour who showed up out of nowhere with a ticket, and we begged them to let us on, and after much deliberation they did, thank goodness for that! While we waiting every second car that rode passed, be it grannies or young guys, hooted and waved at us.

The bus went through the small towns and villages of Sabah, letting people on along the way. A man offered us some sticky mango pieces from a plastic bag that he was chewing on. We stopped off at a row of village shops and the heat and smell hit us head on as soon as the bus door opened, with very cute and happy kids running around staring at us buying iced coffee and spicy crisps. The scenery got more and more beautiful and winding through valleys and hills, all lush and green. As we got nearer to Kota Kinabalu National Park we saw the huge misty mountains and the Mount Kinabalu peak rising up through the green. It was so high we couldn’t see the peak, and as we drove higher and higher we eventually drove straight into the cloud and over the highest point of the route and the big full bus hurtled down slippery wet roads while I tried not to think about when the breaks were last serviced. Eventually the roads became less windy and straighter and then we were on the built up approach to KK.

Waiting at the bus stop in Sepilok

We got to KK bus station which is 5km outside of town so you still have to take a taxi into town, which is priced by the taxi racket of KK drivers at MYR 25. We decided just to pay it and get out of the full, hot bus station as it was pouring with rain now and getting late, we still had a three hour taxi to get to Kudat! But not before one of my favourite things, a trip to a public squatting toilet, the ones where you have to crouch down and the entire floor is soaked with water and whatever else, so pleasing especially in flip flops, mmm. When we arrived at the out of town taxi rank in KK it had stopped raining and we found a ‘shared taxi’ to Kudat, which was also only MYR 25 but was three hours instead of two minutes, so the taxi drivers at the bus station are having a laugh. We had to wait until the shared taxi filled with people and it was already around 6pm, with three hours to go to Kudat and then a further 30km to the remote backpacker place I had organised so still a long way to go and already a seriously long day had gone by already. Eventually around 7pm it was time to go, after we had drank a litre of cold Milo and ate an entire bag of peanut butter biscuits.

Stopping for snacks en route to Kudat

The ride to Kudat in the shared taxi was crazy. There was Shawn and I at the back and an old Malaysian couple who didn’t say a word. The weathered driver played really loud tinny euro party rave which didn’t at all go with his salt of the earth, countrymen exterior. Maybe inside he was putting his hands in the air and waving like he just didn’t care, but his face stayed solid and unsmiling the entire way. And what a way it was, dark windy pot holed roads, at some points the road disappeared, even this was the main road to Kudat (in times gone by the capital of Sabah). It was getting later and later and every time we thought we had made it to Kudat the driver just kept on hurtling over pot holes and turning up the disco. I started to worry about where we would stay and if we’d get there in time to check in somewhere. Finally, after some mildly hysterical laughing and anxiety, we arrived. The driver took us to a beach front hotel, and luckily there was still someone behind the desk even though it was past 10pm. I thought it might be expensive being a proper hotel but we only ended up paying MYR 24 each.

Kudat is a great town. There are next to no tourists, and it is totally authentically Malaysian Borneo. The hotel was on a square in the town, and there were still some cafes open with people relaxing sitting around on tables outside and some watching badminton on the outside telly’s. Kids, grannies, groups of teenagers, all just milling about lazily as if they were all in their own living rooms and perfectly content to all be socialising together. We walked around a bit looking for somewhere for food and got stared at as tourists are a rarity. We went into a place that was just closing up and had to point at the bowls of soup and noodles to order as no one there spoke English, although they tried so hard and were so sweet about it. We sat outside and watched the teenagers socialising, they are so nice here. All of them have their own funky look, they are all slender and energetic and none of them drink as it’s a Muslim country so there are no louts, just cute teenagers all hanging out riding their bikes and gossiping and playing computer games at the local internet cafe across the road. They remind me of manga cartoons with their funky hair and sinewy frames...

The next day the little town was bustling. We went to the market and bought some papaya, litchis (which are more sour and way more sticky here) and the little sweet bananas. I was happy to find a normal food market, because every other place seemed to be selling snacks and sweets. Boy, snacks are the thing here. Every size, colour and taste in multicoloured bags laden with sugar, snack craziness! I had two boiled eggs for breakfast at a cafe as that’s the only thing I recognised, and of course some sugary coffee with ice which is fast becoming a staple food group for me.

The place we were heading was called Tampat Do Aman. The only reason I found it was because of the person who left the website up on the computer at Uncle Tans, and it looked like exactly what wanted. It’s run by an English guy called Howard, who has been living in Borneo on and off for eleven years. He has just built an eco lodge which is a wooden longhouse, some outside huts for tents and outdoor showers (with no wall facing into the jungle, so that you can share your bits with the animals and stars) and outside composting toilets. He is also building a small museum to keep a record of the local people’s history and customs and will be free to locals where they can learn about traditional building techniques, jungle plant knowledge and some other historical facts about the area. All in all he is a thoroughly nice and interesting man, and has done all kinds of diving, army, jungle type adventuring and knows a lot about all those things. He speaks Malaysian and Mandarin too, and he still runs everything day to day. To get to the place which is 30km outside Kudat, you have to ring him up and he fetches you. So that’s what I did, and he arrived at 12pm sharp and after picking up some stuff in town took us to the village, chatting the whole way about his crazy exploits.

When we got to his camp he showed us around proudly, and you could tell he probably built most of it with his bare hands. There were two beds in each room, but because it wasn’t full we got a room each. They were in the traditional longhouse, and were small but cute with some wooden bunk beds and a fan. They were partitioned off with just some wood, and as I was putting my bags down and ready to go to the beach, a tiny black and white cat (the breeds with a short tail) squeezed itself under the door to say hello.

Inside Tampat Do Aman longhouse

Map of the beaches

Main beach

Howard then took us down to the beach in his 4x4, and I think the way it works is he takes people down there in the morning, to a restaurant that he runs with his girlfriend. From there, you can laze on the deck, eat delicious food, walk along the beautiful pristine beach. There are around six amazing beaches all along this coastline, and to get to the others you either have to scale the rocks or hire a bike and go back on the track and ride to each beach. I was just so happy to be at a beautiful remote beach in Borneo, with the jungle practically backing onto it, that I went straight out for a walk and a swim. There was no one else on the beach except for a couple of fishermen and some children playing, and I lay half in the warm water of the Sulu Sea, and half on the beach and just let the waves wash over. Ahhhhhh. Shawn and I stayed there for ages, soaking it in, climbing the rocks, exploring the main beach. I noticed some teeny tiny flies on me and thought nothing of it, they had the tiniest sting which was hardly noticeable. We walked back to the restaurant and had some icy fruit shakes; watermelon, apple, ginger and lemongrass and then hung out with the other guests of Tampat Do Aman. There was a Finish couple, of which the girl had some crazy stories of her Finish upbringing, a German couple and a lone German girl.

The restaurant deck Tampat Do Aman

Kids on the main beach

We stayed there for three nights. One morning Howard took us rummaging through the jungle learning about local plants and the history of the area. We ate all meals at the restaurant on the beach which were all delicious (Malaysian cinnamon curries and fry up breakfasts with homemade potato fritters and the best fresh juices I’ve ever had). One afternoon we hired a bike and went riding out through the tiny villages and dirt roads to some of the other beaches. This was seriously untouched by tourists Malaysian adventuring, and I loved every second. The locals were all so friendly, waving and smiling but not staring intensely or approaching us, just gazing from afar. Sometimes we’d have a chat with some and every time they were super friendly even though they couldn’t speak English. One of the beaches we went to had a small island in the middle which we snorkelled around. There was too much debri and seaweed in the water – probably from a recent storm in the ocean somewhere – and every beach had its own little army of sandflies waiting for you, but other than that they were white sand and turquoise sea loveliness. The sandflies little nips all turned to huge red sore bites, itchy as a burning hot rod. But I forced myself to not scratch, and put lots of Rushka’s natural reconstruction cream on them. Don’t scratch sandfly bites whatever you do! Otherwise they get infected and then scar. I also walked right to the ‘tip of Borneo’ on my own one afternoon, with the local tourists staring a little when this bedraggled pale girl came sweating up the hill. 

view from tip of Borneo

We also had night swims where you could see the illuminated plankton light up in the water in the waves, under a beautiful clear sky. And the sunsets were so beautiful too, pinks and oranges.

One of the beaches off the beaten track

exploring to the beaches

HUGE LEAF!!

So, all in all if you want to see a bit of Jungle, a bit of Malaysian village life and see some beautiful beaches that aren’t frequented by tourists, go to Kudat and Tampat Do Aman! Howard I guess makes the money at the restaurant as there isn’t really anywhere else to eat, so for three nights and four days with all food and drinks and transfers it was £52. This is pretty steep for Malaysia but you know what, it was worth it! We had a good laugh and a great time in Borneo. On Thursday I started the trip back to KK where I’d spend one more night before going on to Taiwan.

Here are the Borneo pics. 

Howard telling some stories

Howard in his kingdom

Borneo: Sepilok & The Kinabatangan River 5-11Mar 12

I flew with Air Asia again to Sandakan, about a 40min flight from KK. I’m starting to dig Air Asia, the pilots seem to handle the turbulence and landings nicely. It was hot and raining when I got there, big heavy train drops and apparently it had been raining for days. Everything was steamy and luminous green. The airport is neat and well run; to get a taxi you go to a counter and tell them where you’re going, pay for the ride and then take the ticket to a taxi. The cost was MYR 30 which is what the guidebook said, it's nice how organised and non scam-y Malaysia is, no touts or people yelling at you for cheap rides and hotels. The airport was in a much cleaner, prettier and more rural surrounding than KK. I was happy to get out of the town and get somewhere rural and jungly.

My driver was an old jolly retired man, who rattled away at me in English and didn’t wait for my replies to his comments, I think he just liked being able to practice English on someone. He boasted happily about how many tourists are surprised how well he knows the language, and that all the other taxi drivers came to him if they needed translation. He was surprised to find that I was alone like everyone is, but then he said ‘don’t worry, you can meet your orangutan friends tomorrow’. Hehe. He swooshed through the wet and potholed streets through some villages and then turned off the Sepilok roundabout (which had a big wooden sign with an orangutan on it) and into well kempt road leading to the Rainforest Discovery Centre. On this road was Sepilok B&B, and we pulled into the wet gravel driveway up to the reception house. The taxi driver was chattering away to the very last, and made sure the receptionist saw me and waved enthusiastically as he drove away. I really like Malaysians!

Sepilok B&B is in a beautiful location, practically backing onto the jungle. It’s got some longhouses and cabins dotted around the property and can take quite a few people, but it was ghostly quiet when I got there at about 3pm. The rain was coming down persistently as I went to the reception area, which has a deck that acts as the internet, restaurant and common area. They said that the dorms weren’t open because of a water supply issue, so they tried to charge me MYR 68 for a room with three beds instead of the MYR 28 for a bed in the dorm which was quite cheeky, but I got them down to MYR 48 in the end. They put me in a house a short walk away from the reception area, and it was completely empty and quiet. I squished down there with my bags, it was great to have a whole room to myself. It was a really nice room, clean with comfy beds and the bathroom right next door, so it was almost a luxurious amount of space. I went out for walk in the rain to the tiny shop down the road, which was seriously local and I got very much stared at when I went in. I was starving and bought a bag of chocolate chip cookies and some water, and some natural mosquito repellent because I realised that I was now in the middle of the jungle and didn’t have any yet. No deet here though, wherever you look only natural repellent. So if you’re planning a trip buy deet at home. I walked back down the luscious green road back to the B&B, and still not a soul in sight so I went back to my room and watched a movie. Actually it was a lovely peaceful moment to relax so I relished it. When dinner time came I squished to the reception area with my laptop and ordered some spaghetti. There was one other group there now, some British people who were loudly talking about nothing interesting and two French girls who ignored everyone so I just entertained myself with internet and movies until I realised that I was the only one there in a pool of light amidst a dark jungle and very loud insects and frogs shouting at me to go to bed. It was great walking back in the mud and pitch dark to my own little house, where a family of white squawking geckos was waiting for me in my room.

The next morning the sun shone, and I took a walk about two hundred metres down the road to the Rainforest Discovery Centre. It has some high up canopy walkways, some short forest walks and a cultivated garden with beautiful flowers and indigenous plants and also some 5km walks if you fancy sweating your guts out for a longer walk. There was hardly anyone there, so I had a great couple of hours wandering around and looking at all the Latin names of plants and checking the jungle insects out in near solitude. You just can’t believe how things grow here... the lushness, heat and moisture overtake you, so you feel like you could almost start sprouting some plants and vines of your own out your head. Masses of big juicy plants, trees, moss covering anything and everything. 

I thought that one night in the eery jungle Sepilok B&B was enough, so I called up somewhere that was recommended to me by a friend to see if they could pick me up, as they were only down the road. They could, and they did! Just after lunch I arrived at PaganakanDii, one of the nicest places to stay in all of Sabah for sure. It seems almost like a holiday camp when you drive into the gates, with small houses surrounding a couple of lakes with wooden walkways and huts assembled across the water for fishing and picnicking. The car winds you through some gravel roads and thick bushes, and up a really steep slope and there you find yourself amongst some very picturesque wooden log cabins and longhouses. They have a main building with an open deck with bean bags for relaxing and then a restaurant on the deck below, where the food and fresh juices (watermelon juice? YUM) are all delicious and really cheap. Something that I noticed the backpacker places doing in Sabah is to have somewhere you can eat on the premises, there isn’t anywhere nearby to buy food and it makes sense because they almost make more money off the food and drinks than the rooms, which are a total steal at MYR 30 a night. The place was also eerily empty, the guy there said everyone was at the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, which is the thing to do around here and I’m sure keeps quite a few people in business. But it was beautiful and so relaxing, I had a whole longhouse all to myself! It must have had around 14 beds, with a balcony that faced right out into the jungly-ness and everything was hot, loud with insects and perfect. They had a platform outside that you could sit and gaze out onto more of that jungle. After a nice snooze and shower (really nice facilities at this place, warm private showers and super clean) I went to the main house and got myself some fresh icy watermelon juice and found that some people had arrived at last. There was cute couple from Scotland, and an Australian girl Susie and we spent the night nattering away and eating yum food. They put everything on a tab which is wise so you have no idea how much you’ve ordered until you get your bill at the end. But they are all so nice and friendly I didn't mind.

The next day we all went to the famous Orangutan centre and it seemed pretty packed at 9am which surprised me... where were all these people staying? They piled us into a dark room to watch a video about the centre but I snuck out and made my way into the feeding area so I could catch a glimpse of them first before anyone. There was a wooden walkway and then a huge platform for people, facing into the forest where there was some trees with tree houses and ropes for the jungle people. I got what I hoped for, a first glimpse in solitude of a mommy orangutan with her baby clutching on. They are so human-like, beautiful intelligent creatures who have 96% the same DNA of humans. I watched them in awe for a bit and then the crowds came to watch the feeding at 10am. Another Orangutan came swinging on the ropes to the platform, and I thought of this ‘I want to be like you’ scene in the Jungle Book with King Louis. I hung out at the centre until the second feeding at 3pm, where some macaques joined the party. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable day and I’m so happy the centre is there. they are doing something good things in saving these creatures and fighting to conserve their environment from the palm oil plantations sweeping Borneo.

The next day I was to leave Paganakan Dii and head into the jungle with Uncle Tan’s adventures, which has a camp set up in the jungle somewhere along the Kinabatangan River. I got taken to Uncle Tan’s, also just down the road and got signed up and had some free lunch. (If you do a tour with them or stay they give you three free meals a day, tasty Malaysian food) There were about 14 of us going on the trip, and they squished us all into a rickety combi van and drove off in full speed along the bumpy road to the river location, two hours away. It was a sticky, hair raising ride with only a two lane road, so trucks cars and all sorts overtaking at full speed and hitting potholes with full force. I spent most of it chatting to Shawn, a guy from America who was travelling in these parts on his home from teaching English in Taiwan. The landscape was extremely lush and rural, it reminded me of driving through the Transkei in South Africa, although people seem to have much newer, better cars here like big 4x4’s, must be because they’re cheaper here. Petrol is also insanely cheap.

There were miles of palm oil plantations, and still plants and vines crawling over and bursting out of everything. We arrived in a tiny village where out boats were waiting for us. Seven people to a boat, just big enough to carry us. We had to wear stupid orange life jackets though which I hated, besides being hot it made us stand out like sore thumbs as tourists.

The Kinabatangan River is big and brown with mud. There was recently a viscous flood here so the banks were extra brown and muddy. We made our way down the river away from the village, until all the huts and signs of people disappeared. I think it took about forty minutes to reach the camp, which you could only make out by some boats moored up to some wooden stairs. We were told, or warned should I say, that the facilities would be very basic. Sleeping in a door-less hut, non flushed toilets and no electricity. They warned us so many times not to expect a five star hotel that we I wanted to make a game out of every time they mentioned five star. But when we got there, it was way more sophisticated than they gave themselves credit for. There was a main wooden restaurant deck area, another area for the jungle trekking briefing, nice wooden houses with mattresses and mosquito nets, and proper toilets that you only had to pour a bucket of water into the flush. There were wooden walkways between everything, and they had even cleared and smoothed out a small football pitch and badminton area.  The huts were amongst huge trees that was now in a swamp, probably from the major floods. There were macaques squealing and playing in the trees as evening drew in, and tons of loud crazy jungle insects. When I told my travel doctor that I wasn’t going to take anti malarials, she said as long as I don’t sleep naked in a swamp in Borneo I’d be fine. Well, I wouldn’t be naked. Haha. We had a briefing and then they made us some awesome dinner, flamed up by the manager and head chef. I forget his name but he gave me a ‘sunshine smile’ for this pic. There were only guys working there, all young Malaysians. They really, really reminded me of the Red Indian’s who turned into wolves from the movie Twilight, all fit and energetic and jossteling eachother and playing contact sports exactly as a pack of wolves might play together. They busted out some guitars and tambourines after dinner and entertained us with some classic rock and pop Malaysian style. That night we had our first night river ride, to see what come out at night by the Kinabatangan. It was great to be floating down this river in the middle of Borneo and hearing the sounds of the jungle at night. 

The next morning we woke up at 6am for the early morning river boat ride, and the river was all misty until the sun came up and burnt it all away, and we could look into the trees. We saw some wild orangutans (AMAZING to see these jungle people wild in their own habitat, swinging through the branches and looking at us as we floated by), gibbon monkeys and macaques monkeys. Other animals we saw on the trip were huge crocodiles, eagles, birds, proboscis monkeys, otters, snakes. Not in huge abundance, besides the monkeys who were everywhere, but definitely a really lovely wildlife experience. I’d say that sleeping out in those cabins in the jungle and taking some walks into it from the river banks was great in itself. Also the Uncle Tan guys working there and making us awesome food made it (one evening giving us a cooking lesson, the chef said he had been preparing food for that night for 5 hours that day). All Malaysian or Asian inspired food, very spicy and lots of protein and strange vegetables. There were some nice people staying there too. A group of Swedes, a friendly Spanish couple and a huge, strange family of German giants – Dad, mom and son of around 30. Also my buddy Shawn who I laughed with a lot, making up stories about the people there and about how we would scare the wits out of them by dressing up in a orangutan suit and hiding in the jungle and then jumping out at them.

We stayed there three days and two nights. It cost MYR 430 and I’d recommend it, there are also other guys doing it but I think that Uncle Tan’s has been around the longest. Thanks to my friend Ben for recommending some good stuff in Sepilok! We decided to go back to Paganakan Dii for one more night that Saturday night to regroup, have a shower and chill out before catching the six hour bus to KK the next day. There were hardly any people there again so really quiet, except for a set of couples so felt a bit like a honeymoon hotel that evening, but don’t let that put you off the place.

Both of us had around three days left in Borneo and didn't want to spend it in KK, and it wasn't long enough to check out some of the famous diving areas further South. So I searched for somewhere secluded with some nice beaches but I couldn't find anywhere online that didn't seem overun with tourists, but then at Uncle Tan's back at Sepilok someone had left a window open after they had used the internet, a place in Kudat. It looked secluded, out the way with beaches and some huts. Perfect, to Kudat we go!

Here are the pics. 

Borneo: Kota Kinabalu 3-5 Mar 12

I flew into the capital of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo, Kota Kinabalu, with Air Asia which is the Easyjet of Asia. It’s pretty minimal but who cares? It was on time with new planes and the pilot seemed to know what he was doing which is enough for me.  I'm nervous about flying in these parts because of the giant swirling monsoon storm clouds that make the planes flail about like a cork in the ocean, but my heart was my throat and my stomach in my shoes for only half the flight which wasn’t too bad.  It appeared as a stroke of surprising forplanning that I had  pre-ordered dinner when booking the flight and seeing as it was dinnertime I thought this showed my travel organisation at its best, although I was sure I hadn't ordered rubbery bits of gnarly chicken cartilage dripping in oily peanut sauce so I didn't get to eat anyway.

KK isn’t a big city, although it’s the biggest in Sabah. It has some sea front hotels, a jetty, some restaurants and then some bigger hotels and grander buildings on the outskirts of town. The capital of Sabah used to be Kudat when the British were controlling the area, and then it changed to Sandakan when the pirates and tribes of the Sulu Sea chased the Brits away from Kudat. Sandakan then got bombed in WW2 to show the Japanese who were occupying it a thing or two, so the capital got moved to KK. It’s a bit beat up and dirty and just a city I guess, the reason to come here is to climb Mount Kinabalu and to organise the rest of your stay in Sabah through tour operators. They say that you have to plan way in advance to do anything in Sabah and mainly go through tour operators, but I found you can knock a few hundred MYR off the package price of the climb if you try organise most of it yourself. There are a few people trying to hussle tourists in KK but nothing like big tourist traps like Bangkok. For instance the bus station is about 5km outside of town, why I don’t know, and the taxi drivers charge you a relatively hefty sum to get into town. The people are a bit used to tourists but I still got a few stares when I went for a wander through the Sunday market and to the rest of the town.

It was quite late when I landed, and after trying to find public transport of any description and failing, I got a taxi into town with another backpacker from Melbourne called Jeremy. The currency here is Malaysian Ringgat, and is around £2 for MR10. The taxi was around £6 between the two of us. We got dropped off in the dark in what looked like a roundabout in the middle of nowhere but turned out to be Australia Place, where most of the backpacker hostels are congregated down a side street. I found mine by just turning around and walking two steps. It was Bunibon Hostel, and was about £4 a night with free ‘breakfast’ which turned out to be five day old white bread with some fly flavoured jam. But that didn’t stop me from eating quite a few peanut butter sandwiches from there, free food is the best. Other than that it was okay, it had an outside area where you could sit and natter or watch telly in another language and there were a couple of guests there who were good fun, including a stark-raving-mad Swedish fishermen who entertained us with his travel tales and persistently tried to make us smoke his pot.

The rooms were tiny but had these huge bunk beds so you only had space to squeeze yourself in with your bag and hop into the top bunk, which wobbled so much when you moved it banged the wall and made all the other beds and no doubt the whole hostel shake so you really had to lie still. The aircon was in direct line with my head on the top bunk, so while I had icicles forming in my nostrils the rest of the room was a relatively bearable temperature. Not much sleep going on at Bunibon Hostel! The bathrooms were okay, unisex again and with one warm shower (usually the showers are cold in these tropical places).

I had a chat with some people there about climbing Mount Kinabalu which is the thing to do here. It’s the highest mountain in (South East Asia, not Asia!As my sister Bec pointed out to me!) at around 4000m and you climb for 6 hours, sleep a bit at the top and then in the early hours you climb a bit higher to see the sunrise. It sounded amazing but is a gruelling upward climb, and looking at the state of everyone who had done it, not being able to walk straight for a week afterwards and with wrecked back and knees, I thought that I shouldn’t risk it as I didn’t have any proper walking shoes only cheap flimsy tennis shoes from Primark. I would have done it in those but I got heavily warned! Also it was really expensive, at least MYR 800 which is £160.

The next day I went for a wander around the Sunday market. The streets were crammed with sunglasses, clothes, random electronics, sarongs, puppies in cages (I know, hate seeing that) and strong smelling food and other bits and pieces. I bought some sunglasses and a huge papaya and took that back to the hostel for breakfast. Jeremy had told me about an island in the Lonely Planet guide that was good for snorkelling, and avoiding all the tour operators that were happy to take MR150 to take you there, we found the jetty and managed to get over to the island for MR40 with snorkels and flippers included. The island Mamatik was one of five in close proximity to KK, and looked like a popular day trip destination for locals. It had a beach front off a small jetty and a restaurant with some holiday cabins and people swimming with clothes on (being a Muslim country), so we walked down the beach trying to find a quieter spot for snorkelling.

The water was so warm! We tried some different spots and found a few fish but nothing like the Lonely Planet describes as the best snorkelling off the KK islands. I went for a walking farther to find some different beaches and spots, but the rest of the islands small beaches’ were covered rubbish which was really sad.

We went for a walk through the jungle path and found ourselves right out the other side of the island. I thought it would be really fun to walk around the outside of the island on the rocks and shore instead of back through the jungle pass. I didn’t quite think this through because it turned out to be a tiny bit traitorous with slippery rocks and deep pools of sea with crabs and think forest, and we had to swing on vines and do some monkey manoeuvres to get across some of the rocks. Good fun though, eventually we made it back to the pier again, soaked through. I was later told that the biggest of the five islands is almost autonomous with shanty towns of Philippinos with no rubbish disposable infrastructure, and they just dump everything into the sea, such a shame.  The boat ride was really fun though and you could see KK in the distance with the misty jungles behind it.

We got back to the hostel and found the group making dinner. The guests consisted of an older French guy from Algiers who I think worked there, the mad Swedish boatmen, two Swedish girls, a Swiss guy, two Malaysian ladies who were friends of the Algerian, a proper English girl, my Australian buddy and me. The Swiss guy Felix had driven from Russia to Thailand, and then cycled all the way from Thailand through Indonesia with two friends.

We went out to find some food and found the night market in town which actually turned out to be the red light area, with some not very nice looking street food, and so walked further and found an outside food area with Chinese and Malaysian dishes. Here all the restaurants have a kitchen and then all the seating and everything else outside. They all have the pictures of the food displayed above the counter which is really handy if you can’t understand anything. We grabbed a seat in the square and had rice, some garlic-y oily spinach and some beef curry. It was quite tasty and really cheap, with drinks and some milky desert stuff it came to £3.75 each. Tipping isn’t the thing here but I did anyway, as we stayed there for ages eating and making merry. When walking back we came across a square where they had set a stage and an Asian band was entertaining the seated crowd with some keyboard pop, everyone bopping their heads.

I decided that night that I wouldn’t stay in KK any longer as I didn’t want to climb the mountain, and I wanted to get out the city as soon as I could. So I booked a flight to Sandakan which is on the East Coast of Borneo, to go to Sepilok where I had arranged to take a boat into the jungle for three days. The next morning I got a taxi to the airport with the Swedish girls who were going to the Phillipines and caught the Air Asia flight to Sandakan which was around £25. I could have taken a bus but that would have been a whole day of travelling and I didn’t want to waste time, and the flight was only 40min. I was really happy to get out of KK and the grubby hostel and to the Jungle!

Here are the Borneo photos.