So after a relaxing week in Sanur chilling with Flora and LJ by the pool, including some minor moped incidents, like me ending up slightly hitting a wall and being saved by about 10 Indonesian men who then proceeded to take selfies with flora, being stopped by the police and bribing him and me slightly crashing into flora (we were still friends when she left).
Flora headed off to the Philippines and LJ to Australia. Then a drastic change of plans including me going home for Christmas as it was too complicated and expensive for family to come see me. Then heading to Australia in mid Jan with my working visa. But in the meantime i booked a flight, I headed to Borneo feeling slightly nervous due to lack of planning and being alone after 6 weeks of being with friends I’d met along the way.
I got to Kota Kinabalu which was a bit of a rubbish place, rundown and empty. I arrived at my hostel and met a few girls who I chatted to and had lunch with the next day and shared my ‘wisdom’ of Thailand and Vietnam. I decided to meet a friend Dani (who effectively planned my trip and saved me) I briefly met in Ubud in Sepilok 5 hours away from KK. I got to the bus station at 2.45pm, I had just missed one bus and the next didn’t leave until 5pm.
I thought it’ll be ok I’ll get there about 10, the bus didn’t get to the junction where I was dropped off until 11.30pm, where I was possibly the most terrified I have been since I started travelling, fortunately my phone saved me, maps me managed to find the place I was going to. Otherwise I was in the middle of a secluded town completely alone and scared shitless (excuse my French) I will never do that again!
I was shaken up for a few days after that. I met Dani and we headed to see Proboscis monkeys the ones with weird noses, they were pretty cool we also saw silver leaf monkeys and rhinoceros hornbill birds.
The next day was possibly the best day of travelling so far, we headed to Sepilok Orang utan Rehabilitation Centre. I saw orang utans swinging through the trees, eating on the feeding platform and one came onto the boardwalk a metre away from me. I was so excited for the whole day. I’ve always wanted to see orang utans.
We then went to see the sun bears and they were so cute, they are currently trying to educate people especially locals to prevent the extinction of these bears as they are killed for their meat and for the use of their gall bladders in traditional medicine.
After sepilok we headed to Sandakan with the intention of doing a few days and nights on River Kinabatagan. We stayed 2 nights in Sandakan, we visited the Australian War Memorial from WW2 which I found extremely interesting, I wasn’t very educated about the Australian role in the war or the Prisoner of War camps the Japanese ran so I left feeling slightly sobered but more educated.
Continue reading (Incl. Pics) at: Kates World of Pit Stops: Back to nature!!
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