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Hey guys!
We've just arrived in Sandakan after a hectic few days of getting eaten alive by mossies, suffering from dodgy tummies, getting very smelly and dirty and suffering the trauma of more squat toilets!!
As we mentioned on the message board we managed to climb the mountain...it almost killed us and took us 8 1/2hrs, but we made it. We were the slowest ones up there, the rest of our group only took 5 hours but they had all done stuff like that before. The views from the top were amazing and despite the rain, the pain and the altitude sickness it was well worth it and we enjoyed every minute. Take a look at the pics to get a gist of the torture we went through, 8km uphill!!!! It was tough!!!
After the mountain we went to the Poring Hot Springs to soak our weary limbs. Unfortunately the relaxing hot tubs we were expecting turned out to be big blue baths full of dead insects and scalding hot water, needless to say we didn't try them out. Instead we chose to pay a small fee to use a large open air swimming pool. It was absolutely freezing but very refreshing. We were joined by Nat and Sarah, our friends from Jersey who are currently on a one year round-the-world trip. They're next stop is Bali and then Fiji...lucky b*****s! After the pool dip we went in search of Jackie the Orangutan. We were told that Jackie, who is wild, comes down from the forest at 3pm to be fed some fruit by the locals. So, we got there nice and early and waited...and waited....and waited, until at 5pm they shut the gates and shouted at us 'NO JACKIE!!' at which point the heavens opened and we were caught in another huge thunderous rain storm...blasted Jackie!!! Anyway, we made our way back to our accomodation to get dryed off and have some dinner. During our quiet, relaxing and delicious meal of fish and chips...we were all startled by Mia's crys of 'aaaaahhhhhh, get it off me...Tinnnnaaaa, get it off me!!!' Thinking that a mossie had probably landed on her and that she was over-reacting again, I turned round to find a huge monster attached to her leg. It was about the size of my hand and it had apparently jumped from the window onto her leg. After staring in amazement and shock for a minute or two I quickly grabbed a fork to swipe it off....but it didn't move, it was firmly welded to her shorts by its huge clawed feet and was violently hissing at me. After struggling with the beast for what seemed like 5 whole minutes, i managed to peel it off and flick it across the room to the amusement of the guests on the next table. This country is weird!!!
After the Hot Springs we took a 5 hour bus ride to Kinabantangan. This is where we did our jungle trekking. We were greeted at the MESCOT ecology centre by Jimsai and Ina, our jungle guides. We all climbed into a small boat and headed off down the Kinabantangan River. On our way we saw a crocodile, some Proboscis Monkeys, Cheeky Monkeys (Macaques), some Red Leaf Monkeys, some Hornbills and a Monitor Lizard. We then stopped by the river bank, climbed out the boat and headed into the dark jungle. Having been warned about leaches, me and Mia quickly stuffed our trouser legs into our socks to avoid these nasties crawling up our legs and nestling into any warm and sweaty places!!! We trekked for about 15 minutes before we reached our camp, a shelter next to the Oxbow Lake. We dumped our stuff and walked for another couple of minutes to reach our sleeping area - a small clearing with a few well positioned trees to hang our hammocks on. After a very quick hammock demonstration we chose our trees and proceeded to erect our beds. They were suprisingly easy to put up which we were all grateful of. By this time it was beginning to get dark so we headed back to the shelter for some dinner - rice and SQUID!!! After dinner we all headed off into the jungle for a night walk to see if we could spot any creepy crawlies. We saw frogs, grasshoppers, spiders, stick insects and even a couple of scorpians, it was well cooool. When we returned back to the shelter after about an hours trek i casually rubbed my neck and to my horror I felt something slimey....i'd been LEACHED!!!!! I ran over to Rich (our tour leader) screaming 'LEACH, LEACH!' and all Rich said was 'quick where's the camera!!!' About a 100 photos later and after lots of screaming from me and laughing from the others, Ina pulled the leach off...I was bleeding!! The b*****d had drawn blood! I thought i'd better check the rest of me....aaaaaahhhh!....there was another one welded to my stomach. I think this one had been there for a while because it had grown pretty big and left a huge sucker mark on my belly. Rich said it had probably slithered from my neck and down my top to my belly....YUCK!!! After that nobody was taking any chances...out came the 100% Deet insect repellent, the repellant thats strong enough to melt plastic - quite literally!!
The next day we went to our Homestay. We were invited to stay with the Saibin Family - Mr and Mrs Saibin, their son and daughter-in-law and their three children. They were such a lovely family and really looked after us. They cooked us some lovely Malay food and offered us some snake fruit from their garden - Sedup! We practised our Malay - Nama saya Mia and nama saya Tina!...Terima kasih! and they practised their english which as always was far better than our Malay. After a very cold shower, which comprised of a bucket and scoop, we got dressed up in some traditional Malay costumes and headed of to a wedding reception at MESCOT. It was the wedding of a young local girl who was 17 and her fiancee who was 19. It was a wonderful event and we felt very priviledged to have been invited. After the wedding we headed back to our homestay and straight to our beds. We were woken at 6am to the smell of breakfast - noodles!!! And then, just to make sure we were fully awake, the kids put on a Karaoke DVD and made us join them for a song and dance.
Well thats about it for now. We've got loads more to tell you but we've been on the computer for about 3 hrs now uploading the pics and videos. There's no air con in this internet cafe...so we're dying of heat exhaustion and we're very hungry so i'm afraid you'll have to wait for the next installment. We're off to Turtle Island tomorrow to release some baby Turtles into the sea and then off to see the Orangutans the day after...can't wait. Not sure when we'll be able to update the blog next but it should be quite soon so please keep checking back.
Miss you all,
Lots of love, M & T xxxxx
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