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Hola!
Wow! I love Borneo - or more precisely, Sabah, Malayasian Borneo!
Spent a fabulous 4 days diving in and around sipadan, one of the top 10 dive sites in the world. Stayed on Mabul, a gorgeous tropical island and met loads of brilliant people, along with the french girl i met in halong bay, vietnam - i love how small this world is! Barracuda point in Sipadan was such an amazing dive site - we swam though about 500 barracuda, turtles wherever you looked & sharks everywhere! Sipadan is surrounded by a giagantic coral reef which forms a wall around the island & makes for some awe-inspiring diving!
After 8 dives in 3 days i decided i had to stop or bankrupt myself & headed off to Sepilock, home of one of the 3 orangutan sanctuaries in the world. I was really lucky and managed to catch about 5 of them playing around in the morning & 2 mums with their babies in the afternoon - so cute!
Then to Kota Kinabalu, where i booked my 2-day climb up the highest mountain in south east asia at 4,101 metres...it was just me and my guide, which was great since i could go at my own pace! It took me about 5 hours to make it up to the guesthouses for the overnight stay at 3000m, which was pretty good because the heavens opened about halfway up! Being steadfastly english & not one to sneer at a bit of rain, or a monsoon, i plodded on whilst all the malaysians huddled under the shelters!
Went to bed disturbingly early at 7pm since we had to get up at 1am to eat and head up to the summit for sunrise. urgh - no sleep later i missioned it up to the summit in about 3 hours, which, in hindsight was too fast since it was soooo cold i thought i was going to die of exposure! There was no shelter at the top and i had to wait there for 40 minutes for the sun to rise...but it was worth it! We were blessed with a clear sunny day, with a couple of whispy clouds. The view was amazing - you could see to the mountains of Papua New Guinea & across the South China Sea. Not a sight i will forget in a long time...
The way back down was much more hardcore - seriously crazy times scaling back down the side of the mountain with a rope on slippery granite rock. I think i must be getting over my fear of hights by now! By the time i had made it the 8.6km back down to the park entrance, i thought my knees had broken & my guide was starting to look pretty bored at my pace, poor man! But i did it, even though my legs felt like sewing machines after!
So the next day i treated myself with a trip to the tropical islands of tunku abdul rahman park, just off the coast of kota kinabalu, & passed out on the beach, turned a nice shade of pink, which i didn't think was possible after 3 1/2 months in south east asia, & caught my flight to bali...
I have unfinished business in borneo & am definitely coming back, watch this space...
Iona xx
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