After a short flight from Singapore we arrived in borneo, kota kinabalu. We had treated ourselves and pre booked our accomodation for here and we stayed in the shangri - la Tarjan aru, which is a 5 star resort. so it was a little embarrasing arriving with our backpacks wearing flip flops and shorts. But hey we soon settled in to our superior room with a great view of the sea, marina and mountains.

As we were at a posh resort we found the food and drink really expensive, but in true travellor mode we wernt down to the local supermarket and stocked up on loads of cans of drink and some food. We has a great mini bar in our room, so we emptied it and filled it with all of our own.

The first 2 days weather was good, but then we had a 2 days of bad rain, with minimal sun. But fortunatly one of whcih we were on a tour on the other side of the island, where the weather was dry at least. we were visiting the oragutan sanctury. We had a really good day, although we were a little disapointed. we thought we would be seeing some of the rehab programme where they wean the babies then rehabilitate them to the wild, and yes we did, but it was by watching it on a video before walking into the jungle to a look out point by a feeding table.

It was really humid and hard to breath, but when we got there we could see the alpha male Mr G. This was great to see as he was really big, but it meant that the other orangutangs were too scared to come any where near. We did get to see a female and in the distance a juvenile. A quick flight back to the hotel for a beach bbq in the rain.

a day or so later we went on a tour to see mt kinabula, pouring springs and on a canopy walk. on the way we stopped and went to look the worlds largest plant. we had to do a little trek throught the rainforest and it was scarey. We saw ants that were as big as some of the spiders back home. We were both really surprised at how rugged the terraine was and got covered in mud. Again the humidity was really bad and made us sweat loads. it was a brilliant experience.

The canopy walk was amazing. When we see im a celebraty get me out of here it looks so easy to be around all the bugs and walk on rope bridges, but we were both really surprised just how scarey it was. The canopy was really high and the bridge swung as we walked, we both hung on tight.

All in all we really enjoyed borneo and were not ready to leave our brief luxury room. we headed back to the airport and booked in. then 30 mins before the flight they called andy's name over the tanoy requesting that he urgently make his way to the info desk as there is a problem with his luggage. When we got to the desk they told us we needed to go back through passport control and immigration and head to the arrival hall. When we got there there was no one around. A tour guide stopped and asked us if we were ok, we explained the situation to him and he took us to the security office. The guy at secrity then took us through the arrival hall past baggage control and to the luggage belt. He peered throught the hole in the wall where the luggage comes out of and then said one of us had to jump up on the belt and go through. Andy bit the bullet and jumped through, to be greated by 5 police officers and his rucksack on the tar mac. the police spoke no english and proceeded just to pint at the ruck sack. After a short while the security guard that was with me, told me that there was something in andy's bag. it was all very scarey. i then jumped on the belt with the security guard to join andy. as the security guard spoke english he translated as best he could by saying "open OPen OPen" andy opened the bag and showed them insude but they were still not happy they were putting their hands over the rucksack and shacking them. After a short while, which felt like forever the guard translated the words you bag is vibrating. Suddenly i though s*** the electric tooth brushes. ANdy opened the wash bag and showed the police, they all jumped back. they could not undertand why it was vibrating. Andy then did up the ruck sack and we had to jump back on the belt and pop out in the arrivals hall like a bit of luggage. The strangest thing was that no one even batted an eye lid that these 2 people popped out of the hole. we then ran back to departures, had a bit of stress and we had already previously given in our leaving cards and tickets. All in all a very scarey moment, given the signs everywhere reminding you that in Malaysia they have the death penalty for smuggleing.

Finally we borded our plane and set off to Oz.

Lisa and Andy

After 5 nights we