For the March holidays, it was the character-filled East coast of Borneo. But first, we attended to the colourful and rather short Malay wedding. As we arrived with Liya and Rakema, we got stares from literally everyone, especially Kirsty seeing that she was the only white person there and with all the attention she got, I swear she could have been the bride. They encouraged Kirsty to sing at the wedding, 'Flying without wings', Westlife was the only music they had with English lyrics. *Cranks up*, the look on Kirsty's face, she had never felt so petrified but she managed to get up there and sang that finished off with a round of an applause. We then got invited into a typical Malay house on high-rise sticks to have traditional Malay food such as sweet rice in banana leaf with local coffee, beats Nescafe by miles. I know I'm a hypocrite here but am now becoming a pure coffee bean lover. Even though only close members of family are permitted into the bride's room while she was pampering, we got asked to enter into her room. I think she felt flattered that 2 people from England attended to her wedding and as we left, we exchanged the Malay greeting, 'Salam' as you bow down with your hands in between one another then you touch your chest gracefully with both hands. Flew cheaply to Sandakan to experience a Chinese home stay with the lovely Chong family. Although I stayed at a random person's (Catherine's sister-in-law's friend) house, they certainly welcomed us with open arms by going out of their way to make us feel at home. Margaret whipped up delicious Chinese dishes *smacks lips* that I asked for home-made recipes with the likes of sweet and sour chicken, lemon chicken etc. So yes Mum, expect me to baking up a storm in the kitchen when I get back home. Chatted away with Margaret's daughter, Teresa, seriously that girl amazes me as she speaks seven languages. You'd think that Chinese people speak one language, uh-huh-no, think again! Come to think of it, how small is Europe and how many languages it has? Let alone the size of China and how many dialects they have. Chinese is in one written form, Manderin but not all Chinese people can read it as it is a complex language. Mind you, I got Teresa to write down some Manderin for me. Getting an intimate glimpse of orang-utans at the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre was awe-inspiring that the human-like orang-utans are now my favourite animals. One of the only four orang-utan sanctuaries in the world, and the largest is located at Sepilok, a must visit place as it is too good not to miss. As I was heading to the feeding platform, an impressive mature male, not to mention hairy creature jumped onto the wooden walkway. Only a meter apart, it was unbelievably amazing that it stared right at me with its gifted eyes for like 10 seconds. Witnessed the orang-utans eating away their bananas as well as doing amazing aerobics, showing off their 'in- the-wild' jungle moves. Young orang-utans in particular are endlessly appealing, with ginger fur and intelligent eyes. Margaret took us to the Sandakan memorial park, which commemorates the sacrifice and the suffering endured by both Australian and British soliders who were held by the Japanese as Prisoners of War in the early 1940's. The tranquil memorial park was previously a Japanese POW site and the starting point of the infamous 'death marches' to Ranau and only 6 Australians who escaped survived out of 2400 soliders. Quite moving while reading the comments from the 6 survivors, 'Lest we forget'. Visited Puu Jih Shih, a Buddhist temple perched on a steep hill overlooking Teluk Sandakan, it was also a lookout point that you could see how in the neighbourhood the Philippines islands were to Sabah . I have to say that Sandakan town is a bit of a joke, rather run-down and overtaken by seedy Filipinos illegal immigrants that even Margaret hates going to town. Don't get me wrong, I have met some friendly Filipinos but the vibe I received from the locals in Sandakan weren't exactly comfortable. Margaret took us to the English Tea house, which was quite amusingly full of white people, it had a croquet lawn and the works! Why come from the U.K, to visit Borneo, then sit in an English tea house?! Fair doo's we were there with locals. Admittedly, the scones we had were pretty much to die for (clotted cream and jam) *mmmm*! After a strenuous day, we still had the enough energy to visit the cruel crocodile farm. Was just horrible to witness the cruelty of the animals kept there, I'm sure it's nothing compared to other zoo-type places around the world but it was enough to make my skin crawl. Basically, when we arrived, we walked over a bridge above loads of crocodiles kept in a tiny enclosure. We then headed to see a 'crocodile show', which consisted of the men working there, pushing the crocodiles by the tale and shaking them in the water to get some action out of them, then play fighting with them, holding them in the air, then dropping them head first on the concrete. They were just taking the absolute pee, like dancing with them, throwing them as if they were a piece of crap with complete disrespect. Stayed an additional night with the Chong family while Kirsty went to Turtle Island on the third night. I didn't go as it was a rip-off (yes, am sticking to the backpacking budget) but Georgie and Kirsty said it was incredible witnessing the regeneration endangered green turtles being hatched and only one of them survived out of a hundred. Met up with Kirsty & Co at Sepilok B&B the following morning to proceed to Uncle Tan's at Gum Gum for some serious jungle fun. Two little kids, Liam and Kira joined us, they turned out to be absolute LEGENDS, best behaved kids I've ever met. The staff constantly informed us that the camp is not exactly the Hilton, facilities are Spartan in nature and to expect to be roughing it out in the tropical rainforest. In recent years, due to excessive logging, the Kinabatangan river has developed a murky colour and destroyed irreplaceable rainforests in various areas along the river. Modern technology owes ecology an apology don't you think? The camp is situated in a jungle environment on a floodplain by some beautiful ox-bow lakes. It was flooded while we were there but this meant we moved amongst the canopies of trees, viewed wildlife by boat along the tributaries. Officially, the camp area is called 'Danau Girang', in local language means 'Happy Lake'. Accommodated in raised rough huts with no doors or windows, floors covered with linoleum and light mattresses with mosquito nets. Like you needed to know this but survived without a shower for 3 days! Only supply of water is pumped from the lake to the bathhouse and we had to conserve water. We were advised not to bathe or wash in the Kinabatangan River as in recent months, man-eating big crocodiles have been spotted on river safaris and have been seen taking wild pigs. As it would be most environmental unfriendly to do our 'business' all over the jungle, we relied on the nasty 'biological toilets'. Wish I brought my insurance against rain as in raincoat but the lovely Lan aka Tarzan lent me his the whole time *giggles*. Invested in RM3.90 (around 60p) rubber moulded shoes, locally known as 'Addidas Kampang', but it turned out that they weren't needed as walked barefooted in the jungle throughout the whole time. Was heaps of fun wading through the squelchy mud and letting it ooze through our toes and up our legs, especially when we fell down exceptionally deep bits of the path and were muddified up to our thighs. As well as the additional sound effects just made it banteriffic. Cause of the conditions and lots of unbalanced toppling over, it took us around 20 minutes to walk the short distance to base camp. The safaris was about 2 hours long and a bit painful on the derrière, especially the night safari but worth it. Was hard to stay awake, kept finding myself being dug in the ribs when anything exciting came up. Even Liam and Kiera was lasting longer than us! Next morning was a nastily early rise to make the morning safari before breakfast. Georgie managed to drag us all out of bed as well as having some monkeys hammering on our iron roof early in the morning. Lan took us off into the mangroves, down narrow stream like inlets. Was like going on a little love cruise, had vines and trees and plants arched over us and monkeys hopping round and about. Lan nick named the proboscis monkeys (can only be found in Sabah) as 'Red Rocket' cause they were kind of ginger and they flew from tree to tree. We headed on through the mangroves, to an opening of water, like a little lake. Lan told us that in June last year, they witnessed 100 elephants coming to drink here and they celebrated with a huge party in camp. The trek was awesome! We'd already met Mr Tractor Millipede since the day we arrived cause he liked to chill out in mud, which there was a lot off. Our instructor let us hold him and if you rubbed his back, he gave off an odor like Marzipan. We continued to fin funky spiders (Wolf Spiders), which were intense and long legged spiders, which were a bit creepy as their legs were about 50cm long, almost transparent but they had a big black body. Our guide, Garfar carried a machete and cut down anything that got in our path (which was quite a lot, seeing as there had recently been a flood). We were still all in bare feet and we were warned about 'Root Foot', where the roots of trees can easily get caught under your toe nails and rip them off. We often reached parts of the path submerged in water, thus found ourselves wading waste deep in murky brown water, with floating spiders, and god knows what else below us. We were warned to tread slowly and Kirsty was constantly on the lookout for snakes. Kiera was pretty deep in the water and loving it! After the afternoon boat safari, we were all sat in the main hut (on stilts) waiting for dinner, when there was a loud creak and the hut shook as if there was an earthquake and the part of the hut we were all sitting in distinctly fell about 2 feet. So we quickly made our way to the other side, as the guides fixed the stilts. Night jungle trekking, loads of frogs, spiders, scorpions, but best off all, bearing in mind it was pitch dark, we saw a set of eyes in the bushes. Was a typical 'Disney' moment, like in Snow White where there are scary eyes in the dark. We followed it, and turned out to be a wild Malay Civet Cat (like a little leopard/ beaver). Wading through the water in the dark wasn't exactly a pleasant experience but quite exiting. Was loving the night trek and took some amazing snapshots. We had to remember that the animals we came across are wild animals. They are not domestic pets or animals that have been trained like in the zoo. They can be unpredictable, even though they may appear calm, they may attack if they feel unsafe. I have to admit, this made me a nervous wreck but managed to get it under control. It also didn't help when they were talking about getting lost as I was trekking through the jungle, I thought 'If I did this by myself, I'd never get out alive' and Uncle Tan's crew said something like 'No one needs getting lost on this earth. The world is round, if you keep going you will return to your starting point'! We saw some gorgeous scenery on the 6 hour bus journey back to Kota Kinabalu, drove through the mountains in Ranau and past Mt Kinabalu. Returned to North Borneo Cabin for the weekend and a clean shower was well needed after roughing it out in the Borneo jungle. And to finish off, "This responsibility (caring for the environment) has less to do with the question of right or wrong than with the question of survival. The natural world is our home. It is not necessarily sacred or holy. It is simply where we live. It is therefore in our interest to look after it. This is common sense." Tenzin Gyatso (The Dalai Lama) x