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After recovering from the birthday hangover with room service in a luxury suite near Phuket airport (complete with private roof terrace!) I Arrived into KK via KL and put myself up in the oh so local Novotel for a nights rest before joining the tour the following day. It appeared to be the hotel of choice for Air Malaysia's elegant Air Stewardesses plus the Miss Sabah candidates, which was being held at the attached Borneo1 shopping mall. I felt a tad scruffy in comparison!
The Borneo tour started with a nice group dinner. Made up of 4 kiwis, 1 Aussie, 1 American, 2 Swedes & 3 other Brits. And our Malay leader Han.
The next morning was spent amusing the staff in a local bakery by using the available baskets to pick up our breakfast buns?! and sourcing a last few bits for our climb. Then it was off to Taginambur Village in Kota Belud district for our homestay with the very welcoming Robert. He put on some great food (Inc the rice we helped to pound & de-husk earlier), gong music and dancing, courtesy of a local teenage group. We all had a go at the gonging, very therapeutic, and at the dancing too :)
The next day he took us to his plantation to show us the rubber extraction and production process. We then set off for Mt Kinabalu HQ, where we did a very short prep walk, visited the botanical gardens, and tho it wasn't flowering season it did at least have an awesome pitcher plant - the ones that trap insects that can't climb out. We passed the rest of that day fretting about the looming climb and keeping each other awake in our wobbly bunks.
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