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Paddy and Debs on their travels
Singapore, Malaysia and a beach in Thailand - Orang-utans, Jungles, and the End of the Party…
Arriving in Singapore was a welcome respite from the chaos and pollution that characterises the rest of Southeast Asia. Singapore is spotlessly clean and everything about the city is efficient and tidy - perfect for a couple of shandy-drinkers like ourselves!!! Whilst there was no-one main attraction here, it's an interesting place to visit and we spent a day wandering around the Colonial District, Chinatown and Little India. Best of all, unlike many other Asian cities, Singapore actually has pavements which meant we could even go for a run without the usual dodging between cars and motorcyclists!We could happily have spent a week here relaxing but time and budgetary constraints meant we only had a couple of days here before heading to Malaysia.
We traveled by bus to Kuala Lumpur and spent a day seeing the sights before heading north to the Cameron Highlands, a hill-station famous for it's many tea plantations where we spent a morning touring a tea plantation and tasting the results. Whilst interesting, we decided that tea-tasting wasn't nearly as much fun as wine tasting although strangely we didn't have the memory loss that accompanied the latter!
Our main reason for visiting Malaysia though was to go hunting Orang-utans so off we headed for Malaysian Borneo where we visited one of only four Orang-utan rehabilitation centres in the world and spent a few hours watching these incredible creatures.
What we really wanted though was to see Orang-utans in the wild and where better than the Borneon Jungle. The town of Sandakan, in the east of Borneo was our base for a 3 day/2 night trip to the jungle and one Thursday morning we headed off to our jungle camp, located just off the Sungai Kinabatangan, Saba's longest river and one of the best places in Borneo to view wildlife. We knew we wouldn't be staying in luxury when we booked the trip so the accommodation didn't come as a shock - the lodge itself comprised a communal area for eating and 15 or so 'huts' (essentially open-sided cabins raised on stilts which slept 6-8 people).However, we hadn't quite expected the water levels to be as high as they were as we'd thought the rainy season was at it's end. This wasn't the case though as the river was 3m above it's dry season level and it became clear that any treks we did were going to result in us getting VERY wet!
The first day we had a night boat trips along the river spotting proboscis monkeys and many types of birds and then came the part we were dreading - trying to sleep! We considered drinking enough beer so that we'd pass out but once we saw a) the state of the loos and b) the distance they were from our hut, we decided that that was the last place we'd want to have to go at 3am! The staff at the lodge had told us that on no account where we to leave food in the huts as it would attract vermin but unfortunately, despite nodding along with the rest of us, the Chinese couple also sharing our hut hadn't understood a word and left a big bag of food and at 3am, we had rats running around our mattresses in search of dinner. As we didn't even have beds, just mattresses on the floor, this was definitely too close for comfort and we were very thankful of our mosquito nets which at least offered us some protection from them!
The next couple of days were spent on more boat trips up the River Sungai hunting Orangutans (didn't find any!) and proboscis monkeys and trekking through the jungle. Whilst you were all enjoying a Friday night drink after work, at 10pm we headed out for our jungle trek - wading in the dark through muddy leech-filled bogs in thigh-deep water searching tarantulas! Yes, we also thought there must be better ways to spend a Friday evening. Never had 'A Friday Night with Jonathan Ross' seemed to appealing!We did find it slightly difficult to share the enthusiasm of our guide who excitedly pointed out the scorpion - just ahead of us in the water we were wading through - water that went well over the tops of our wellies and into our boots! Thankfully though neither of us got leeched and the scorpions left us alone but by day 3 we were filthy, covered in mosquito bites and desperate for a shower and a rat-free night's sleep but it was a great trip and although we were well out of our comfort zone, we were glad we did it….and even more glad we didn't go for the 5-day option!!!
After this, we felt fully justified in spending 2 days on Borneo's islands of Manukan and Sapi relaxing and snorkelling before travelling to our final destination - the island of Koh Chang between Thailand and Cambodia.
This is the last week of our entire trip and we're spending it in a beautiful spa hotel overlooking a white sand beach. We've had a relaxing week and done nothing but swim, read books and have Thai massages.And that's it - the end of the party.Our travels are over.On Friday morning we land at Heathrow and after a couple of weeks visiting family, it's back to our lives in London.
This trip has been amazing and we've seen and done so much in the last 9 months. We've visited Mayan ruins in Mexico, snorkelled with sharks and stingrays in Belize, seen the sunrise from the top Tikal, Guatemala, dived in world class marine reserves in Honduras, got smelly in Nicaragua, trailed Howler Monkeys through cloud forests in Costa Rica, travelled the Inca Trail in Peru, walked through Geysers at sunrise in Bolivia, trekked through Patagonia's incredible scenery in Torres del Paine, Chile, ice walked on Glaciers in Argentina, tangoed (and got engaged) in Buenos Aires, watched football in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, swam with dolphins in New Zealand, caught up with friends in Australia, visited temples in Thailand, survived Vietnam, seen the horrors of war in Cambodia, seen the sights of Singapore, trekked through jungles in Malaysian Borneo in search of Orang-utans.
We've traveled thorough 20 countries in 3 continents, we've spent 70 hours on a plane, 34 hours on trains, 180 hours on boats and a staggering 550 hours on buses…..and now it's time to come home.
We've had an incredible trip and we're so so glad we took the time to go off on our travels but after 9 months of living out of a backpack, we're ready to come back and are looking forward to the home comforts we haven't had for so long - a decent pint of bitter (Paddy), Wine! (Debs), proper Cheese (non-existent in Asia), seeing you all, maltesers, apple crumble, chocolate mousse, but most important of all - our mums' roast potatoes and a belated Christmas dinner!
Thank you all so much for reading our blog over the last 9 months and for all your emails and postings whilst we've been away - it's meant a huge amount to us to read your messages and know that you've been thinking of us and we've loved reading your stories. We're really looking forward to seeing you all very soon….and maybe Paddy will even have had a haircut by then!
Love Paddy and Debs x
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