We flew over to Borneo from KL to a little town called Kota Kinabulu. We decided to walk to the museum as the guide book said it was only a 20 minute walk. An hour later we arrive with half an hour to go before it closed! We had a quick look around and then set off on the hour long walk home. We went out for a few drinks that evening. We had been told that there was a ladies night on at one of the bars and ladies drank for free. Trying to economise our money we thought this was a perfect night. However, for that week they had changed it so that all ladies got a free spray on tattoo rather than drinks - we were not impressed!!

We got up the next day and went to a little island just off the coast. Just as we arrived it started to rain so we had to sit under a shelter for a few hours before the boat came back to pick us up. That night we went to the coach station to get a coach to Sipolok. We had been told there was no need to buy a ticket beforehand as we would be able to buy it before we got on the bus. By the time we got there the bus was full! We had to stay in hotel next to the bus station that evening and get up a 5 am the following morning to buy a ticket for the first bus that day. The journey took a few hours so we arrived at lunch and decided to head straight up to the orangutans utan rehabilitation centre for the afternoon feeding. The organ utans were amazing, very cheeky and cute.

The next day we got the bus to Sandakan, there wasn't really very much to do there, it was just a stop off point to get the bus down to Semporna the next day. We got to Semporna and arranged to go snorkelling the next day at Sipadan. The boat journey to the island was a bit of an experience. The sea was very choppy and the weather was very good. We were heading out to the island when we started to git some big waves. The crew decided that the boat was too heavy to make it through so we had to a detour to some floating houses in the sea. The crew borrowed a mobile phone from one of the passenger (they didn't even have a radio on the boat) and called the coast guard. Some people of the boat were going to a different island so they decided that all those going to the other island should wait to be picked up by the coast guard while the rest of us had to get back on the boat and go to the other island. The journey was very rough, we were all holding on for dear life. When we finally made it to the island my knuckles were white! But the journey was worth it, the island was gorgeous and the snorkelling was the best so far. The island has a coral reef going out about 10 meters and then it's a shelf so drops down 600 meters. You could feel the difference in sea temperature when you swam over the shelf. There were lots of turtles and I saw my first shark, it was a white tip reef shark about 2 meters long. I think if I had been diving and had seen it I would have been terrified!

The journey back was much calmer thankfully. Sorcha and I were flying back to KL the following day so we had to get the night bus back to Kota Kinabulu which meant having to say goodbye to Matt. I'd been travelling with Matt for nearly 2 months by that point so it was emotional saying goodbye to him.