And we're back in the Philippines.....
We had to send our passports back to the UK to get our visas for the next phase of our trip and decided that the Philippines were the best bet to travel around for a few weeks while we waited as there was so much we didn't get to the first time round. We shipped our passports off and started our extra three weeks adventuring. (For three weeks is how long it would take to get the visas processed and back to us...more on that later).
First stop was 'oop norf' to the rice terraces of Banaue and Batad. I know I may have previously expressed a dislike for traipsing around rice terraces as the last time left me with another scar to add to the growing collection on my knee, but a gal can't ignore a World Heritage site now, can she??
We took the first of many many loooong bus journeys up to Baguio where we stayed the night and then pressed on to Banaue. We spent a day trekking through the 2,000 year old terraces of Batad (through the midday sun, again) down, down, down to a lovely waterfall. The walk was gorgeous and breathtaking - the only downside was realising that what goes down down down must go up up up.
After spending a few days up where all placenames begin with a 'B' we made our way cross country to Vigan; opting for jeepneys and bumpy, twisting roads rather than aircon buses and straight highways. Part of the journey was spent on top of the jeepney where you can feel part of the surrounding scenery and get sunburnt all for the same price as being cooped up inside. Unfortunately as I was getting down, my sunglasses picked a fight with a massive lorry and despite early promise, got pummeled.
Vigan is a lovely place - very Spanish influenced with horsedrawn carriages, cobbled streets, haciendas and courtyard evening dining. We spent a good couple of days wandering around in the blistering heat but most noteworthy was my first earthquake! Woke up in the middle of the night due to my bed jumping all over the place...very weird experience. Nothing too serious though, mum, before you get worried. After Vigan we headed right to the tip of Luzon: we had heard about a nice beach called the Blue Lagoon, which sounded sufficiently tropical and a girl needs a bit of sunbathing in her life every now and then.
Leaving the beach entailed another fun looong bus journey; I am officially OVER night buses. We wanted to head straight down to SE Luzon but were stranded in Manila for a few days as everyone in the country had the same idea. Easter sees a huge mass exodus down to the 'provinces' and we couldn't get booked on a bus for a few days. Another night bus journey (ARGH!) got us to where we wanted to be: Donsol.
Whale sharks whale sharks whale sharks whale sharks whale sharks whale sharks whale sharks. Brilliant. One of the best things I have ever done. We headed out with four others bright and early in a little boat to find ourselves some whale sharks to snorkel with. Minutes after setting off, we were ordered to jump into the sea and had our first glimpse of the butanding. The visibility is poor as the water is teaming with plankton, which is what attracts so many whale sharks in the first place. After the first sighting, we were all grinning like 5 year olds, but the best was to come: we saw six in total and got really close - the biggest one we saw was 9-10 metres long. A few times, I had to move out of the way pretty quickly as I always managed to end up right in its path. One of the images that will stay with me forever is of a massive mouth coming at me from below: due to the visibility the sharks seemed to just appear out of nowhere, which caused the heartbeat to hammer a few times! Another is seeing a fin appear on the surface of the water and then jumping in. Although they are massive, they are very docile and a few of them let us swim alongside them for what seemed like ages. Brilliant brilliant brilliant. I don't have any pics underwater, but this gives you the general idea.
After Donsol, we needed to make our way to Mariniduque, a little island off the coast of Luzon, which is famous for its Easter 'Moriones' festival. Another 12 hour bus journey, followed by a 3am boat crossing got us there in time for breakfast. We arrived on Good Friday and spent the next few days feeling the festival vibe. The men in all of the villages dress up as Roman Centurions and all make their own costumes - apparently they keep the masks a secret so that no one knows who anyone is. The festival's alleged origins: a roman centurion stabbed Jesus with a spear while on the cross, got some blood in his eye which cured his blindness causing him to proclaim his belief in Jesus leading to his being chased and beheaded by his fellow centurions. Lots of pretend fights, chasing and mock beheadings were had by all. The weirdest thing we witnessed was a group of men engaging in a bit of self flagellation - they cut themselves with razors and then hit the wound with a whip made from bamboo. [side note: the Philippines is very catholic, but ritualistic with it. In one town this Easter, somewhere in Luzon, 27 men were actually (by choice) nailed to a cross for a few hours although the government and church try to downplay this tradition and encourage people to find different, less violent ways to show their faith]. The chaps on Marinduque were keen to be photographed and were drinking beer and smoking cigarettes behind the scenes - all very strange...
After Marinduque, we headed back to Manila as we were expecting our passports to be back all newly visa-fied in time for our flight on 7 April. Alas, this was not to be and as I write to you now, I am still without passport. Due to various factors beyond people's control we are experiencing a serious delay in being reunited with our documents. Latest update is that we now have the required visas, but a certain volcanic ash cloud is impeding their return journey. Still, the Philippines isn't the worst place to be stranded and so we went back to our guide book to find somewhere new to play.
Somewhere new to play turned out to be Mindoro and its beaches. First stop was puerto galera, which was nice but too noisy and crowded so we made our way south to find something more tranquil. Something more tranquil is called North Pandan island, off the coast of Mindoro, and a blissful few days were spent lolling around the beach. The island doesn't really have electricity - just enough solar power to keep the beer at an acceptable drinking temperature! After Mindoro, we headed back to Manila via Lake Taal and more volcanoes, where we wait in hope for our passports to be returned. Hopefully they come back soon so that we can get off to Hong Kong and China to start the next part of the adventuring - cross your fingers.
New pics are in 'More Philippines'. Can't believe it's been six months already....
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Japan
I can't believe how quickly the three weeks went in Japan; although we managed to see quite a lot I will definitely have to go back there and I think everyone should be made to visit the country at least once!
We had a few days in Tokyo hanging out with Andrew and Cath's mate who lives there now and the days are a blur of paying 4 quid for a beer instead of 30p, not understanding anyone, maid cafes, manga bookstores (with eyeraising surprises), bowing at everyone we met, Yoyogi park and all who dwell in her, men dressed as bo-peep, karaoke, plastic food displays, warm sake, Hello Kitty, amusement arcades and all the social rules and norms...unless you're drunk, of course.
Tokyo highlights include:
- a visit to a cat cafe, where people can pay huge sums of money (and we did) to have half an hour playing with cats. Truly random experience, especially when you consider the fact that none of us particularly like cats that much. I spent the whole time with a dribbling cat on my knee, in abject fear of EVIL CAT, a rather nasty looking creature that had been pointed out to us with various gestures and hand signals by the girl working there as someone you don't want to mess with. They have a loyalty card so that if you go there 20 times, you can get a pound off on your next visit. I probably won't be using mine...
- Yoyogi park, where all the weird and wonderful head to of a Sunday afternoon. It's close to where you see the Harujuku girls in the crazy outfits and is full of its own crazy. I tried my hand at an Indiana Jones whipcracking, saw many many dance rehearsals, stood next to a man trying to coax his pet monkey out of a tree but my favourite was definitely the rockabilly dudes. They dress up in full leathers with big hair and dance for hours to all the tunes of the 1950s. All day. Brilliant.
After Tokyo, we headed up North to find hot springs and snow monkeys (after stopping to buy hats and gloves and scarves - bit of a shock to the system all that weather). First stop was Nozawa Onsen, where the winter olympics were once held and where lots of Ozzies and Japanese still head for winter skiing. We had the dubious honour of being the only tourists they could think of that went there purely for the hot springs without heading to the slopes! The town is famous for its many onsen - very Japanese ritual based public bathing in natural hot water involving communal nakedness and strict guidelines on what you can and can't do. Also very good for a hangover, as it happens... After that, we headed to Yadunka for the snow monkeys who bathe in their own hot springs and are very cute!
Next stop was all the way down in Nagasaki - bullet trains are brilliant. We arrived in Nagasaki on the last day of their lantern festival at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations, which was rather fortuitous. Many varied and wondrous lanterns were seen by all. After Nagasaki, we headed up to Hiroshima and it is hard to properly describe my feelings as I did the tourist thing in both places . As modern towns, they are great and the kind of place you could daydream about living in, but it is not possible to escape the obvious recent past. We visited the museums and memorials in both towns, which were well done and moving, with a focus on education, the eradication of nuclear arms and peace. It was very interesting to revisit the history - particularly since we have seen a lot of places that were directly impacted by WW2 on this trip so far - and it has made me want to search for my old text books when I get home to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Hiroshima was particularly hard to see as they have so many 'before' and 'after' pictures of the town and it is truly shocking to see the utter devastation that was caused and hear the heartbreaking stories of the survivors.
We headed out to Meyijima island near Hiroshima for a bit of light relief and to see the floating shrine - designated one of Japan's top 3 most beautiful scenes. It was ok. More interesting were the hundreds of deer that have taken over the island! They are not afraid to come up and either headbutt you or eat your clothes in an effort to convince you to feed them. After that, we headed up to Osaka via Himeji and stayed there for about a week while we visited Kyoto (lovely place, full of geisha girls, zen gardens and temples), Nara (ancient capital of Japan) and Osaka town (where they have a street dedicated to the sale of plastic food items) itself.
I can't possibly write about all of the brilliant things that make up Japan, so this will have to do until I can bore you with my stories over a cheeky glass of wine or two when I'm back.
After a fantabulous three weeks, we have had to say goodbye to Andrew and we're back in the Philippines enjoying the sun and cheap beer while we sort out passports out for the rest of the trip. We are enjoying the ease of travel, sun, foreign food and cable TV while we can as China, Mongolia and Russia will probably be a bit of a shock to the system...slightly nervous!
Have uploaded some pictures - have a look.
We had a few days in Tokyo hanging out with Andrew and Cath's mate who lives there now and the days are a blur of paying 4 quid for a beer instead of 30p, not understanding anyone, maid cafes, manga bookstores (with eyeraising surprises), bowing at everyone we met, Yoyogi park and all who dwell in her, men dressed as bo-peep, karaoke, plastic food displays, warm sake, Hello Kitty, amusement arcades and all the social rules and norms...unless you're drunk, of course.
Tokyo highlights include:
- a visit to a cat cafe, where people can pay huge sums of money (and we did) to have half an hour playing with cats. Truly random experience, especially when you consider the fact that none of us particularly like cats that much. I spent the whole time with a dribbling cat on my knee, in abject fear of EVIL CAT, a rather nasty looking creature that had been pointed out to us with various gestures and hand signals by the girl working there as someone you don't want to mess with. They have a loyalty card so that if you go there 20 times, you can get a pound off on your next visit. I probably won't be using mine...
- Yoyogi park, where all the weird and wonderful head to of a Sunday afternoon. It's close to where you see the Harujuku girls in the crazy outfits and is full of its own crazy. I tried my hand at an Indiana Jones whipcracking, saw many many dance rehearsals, stood next to a man trying to coax his pet monkey out of a tree but my favourite was definitely the rockabilly dudes. They dress up in full leathers with big hair and dance for hours to all the tunes of the 1950s. All day. Brilliant.
After Tokyo, we headed up North to find hot springs and snow monkeys (after stopping to buy hats and gloves and scarves - bit of a shock to the system all that weather). First stop was Nozawa Onsen, where the winter olympics were once held and where lots of Ozzies and Japanese still head for winter skiing. We had the dubious honour of being the only tourists they could think of that went there purely for the hot springs without heading to the slopes! The town is famous for its many onsen - very Japanese ritual based public bathing in natural hot water involving communal nakedness and strict guidelines on what you can and can't do. Also very good for a hangover, as it happens... After that, we headed to Yadunka for the snow monkeys who bathe in their own hot springs and are very cute!
Next stop was all the way down in Nagasaki - bullet trains are brilliant. We arrived in Nagasaki on the last day of their lantern festival at the end of the Chinese New Year celebrations, which was rather fortuitous. Many varied and wondrous lanterns were seen by all. After Nagasaki, we headed up to Hiroshima and it is hard to properly describe my feelings as I did the tourist thing in both places . As modern towns, they are great and the kind of place you could daydream about living in, but it is not possible to escape the obvious recent past. We visited the museums and memorials in both towns, which were well done and moving, with a focus on education, the eradication of nuclear arms and peace. It was very interesting to revisit the history - particularly since we have seen a lot of places that were directly impacted by WW2 on this trip so far - and it has made me want to search for my old text books when I get home to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Hiroshima was particularly hard to see as they have so many 'before' and 'after' pictures of the town and it is truly shocking to see the utter devastation that was caused and hear the heartbreaking stories of the survivors.
We headed out to Meyijima island near Hiroshima for a bit of light relief and to see the floating shrine - designated one of Japan's top 3 most beautiful scenes. It was ok. More interesting were the hundreds of deer that have taken over the island! They are not afraid to come up and either headbutt you or eat your clothes in an effort to convince you to feed them. After that, we headed up to Osaka via Himeji and stayed there for about a week while we visited Kyoto (lovely place, full of geisha girls, zen gardens and temples), Nara (ancient capital of Japan) and Osaka town (where they have a street dedicated to the sale of plastic food items) itself.
I can't possibly write about all of the brilliant things that make up Japan, so this will have to do until I can bore you with my stories over a cheeky glass of wine or two when I'm back.
After a fantabulous three weeks, we have had to say goodbye to Andrew and we're back in the Philippines enjoying the sun and cheap beer while we sort out passports out for the rest of the trip. We are enjoying the ease of travel, sun, foreign food and cable TV while we can as China, Mongolia and Russia will probably be a bit of a shock to the system...slightly nervous!
Have uploaded some pictures - have a look.
the past few weeks
Finally I find a bit of internet connection!!! I know I'm in trouble with you lot for not updating this, but I have good reasons involving no internet, mountain villages, rice terraces, lovely beaches, mental countries and all sorts....
Boracay was great, once I finally made it up there - bit of a trek on the local buses. Not a whole lot went on - bit of horse riding, cocktail drinking (pina coladas on the beach for 70p you say?), boat trips and sunning myself - but it was perfection. After a few days on Boracay, we headed to Manila to meet up with Micmac whose friend had kindly put us up in an amazing suite at a posh hotel, which was not what we were expecting at all. We had a great few days catching up and going on trips out of the city and that coupled with the hard life in Boracay meant that we were nice and rested for the craziness that was to be Japan. Thanks again for the hospitality, Micmac x
Boracay was great, once I finally made it up there - bit of a trek on the local buses. Not a whole lot went on - bit of horse riding, cocktail drinking (pina coladas on the beach for 70p you say?), boat trips and sunning myself - but it was perfection. After a few days on Boracay, we headed to Manila to meet up with Micmac whose friend had kindly put us up in an amazing suite at a posh hotel, which was not what we were expecting at all. We had a great few days catching up and going on trips out of the city and that coupled with the hard life in Boracay meant that we were nice and rested for the craziness that was to be Japan. Thanks again for the hospitality, Micmac x
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Bliss
Have spent the last few days seeking and finding island paradise. There has been some swimming, some sunning and lots of relaxing. Amidst all this chilling out, I have found time to upload some new pictures so you can stop hassling me about doing it!!
Off to Boracay tomorrow for a few days of serious r&r - it's been a tough decade so far...
Off to Boracay tomorrow for a few days of serious r&r - it's been a tough decade so far...
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
My new favourite place...
...has got to be the Philippines. We arrived in "Manila" (flew Asian equivalent of RyanAir, thus were deposited in a cow shed several hours from actual Manila) and from there we had a connecting flight straight down to Cebu. Having a few hours to spare, we decided to grab a beer and chill out, only to discover that said cowshed did not have beer for sale. Major international disaster was averted when the little coffee shop owner promised us some black market action and got his mate who worked back in the duty free shop (the wrong side of customs) to bring us some beer: our first introduction to the fact that everything is for sale here...at a price, of course.
We arrived in Cebu late at night and although there was no room at our first choice of inn due to a local festival winding down, we were able to find somewhere decent close by. We spent the next day exploring the town, which I found to be reminiscent of South America (despite never having set foot in the place in my life). I found it to be a weird mix of Catholicism and other religious practices - women dancing with candles by holy statues and the like.
Whilst sorting out our visa extension, we met a rather nutty Norwegian chap (he'd been in Cebu city for 75 days and hadn't travelled around at all) who directed us to the tourist haven of the Crown Regency hotel. I discovered a new love of heights - you can do a 'sky walk' on the outside of the building up on the 38th floor and there's also a ride you can do, which tips you at a 55 angle so you're looking down at the little tiny people on the ground below. They've also got a rather amusing 4D cinema, where elephants not only feel like they're about to hit you with their trunks, but you do actually get water in your face when they splash you. The 4D rats running around were not the highlight at all - lots of screaming!
From Cebu we headed to Bohol and despite my previous 'never again' protestations, I found myself in the jungle once more (after a taxi, fast boat, tricycle, jeepney and small bangka boat journey!). We stayed at a place called nuts huts and it seemed more remote than the last place in Sabah: complete with unidentified critters that went bump in the night creeping into our room. Our huts were right at the start of the jungle, on the river and we spent our three nights there clinging to each other in abject fear!
After the jungle huts, we decided we needed a bit of a beach (we're in the Philippines after all!) and so headed to Panglao Island and Alona Beach. There may have been a spot of rum drinking until 4am on the beach with some Australians and Fijiians but I couldn't possibly comment....
The next stop was Siquihor (pronouned 'sicky whore'), the island associated with witchcraft by the locals. We didn't find any witches, but we did find a little bit of island paradise and a nice quiet place to chill out for a few days after the festivities on Alona. We're currently in Dumaguette on Negros and have been here a couple of nights. Yesterday we went to Apo Island for some snorkelling where we did not see turtles, despite strong rumours of their existence. The coral and fish are amazing though and it's apparently one of the top dive/ snorkel sanctuaries in the world.
Tomorrow we're off to Sugar Beach, about 4 hours on the bus from here, which my guidebook describes as "a gorgeous beach and a western orientation that makes every sunset one to remember..one of Negros' best-kept secrets". Aaahhh.....you've got to love those Filipino beaches/ sunsets. How's the winter working out for you all?
Highlight: seeing Tarsiers at a sanctuary on Bohol - so cute! And apparently the inspiration for yoda and the cute gremlins.
Challenge: convincing ourselves that the weird scratching, scuffling and bangs we heard in the room were merely due to the lizard that lived outside and most definitely NOT from anything jungle related coming into our room....
We arrived in Cebu late at night and although there was no room at our first choice of inn due to a local festival winding down, we were able to find somewhere decent close by. We spent the next day exploring the town, which I found to be reminiscent of South America (despite never having set foot in the place in my life). I found it to be a weird mix of Catholicism and other religious practices - women dancing with candles by holy statues and the like.
Whilst sorting out our visa extension, we met a rather nutty Norwegian chap (he'd been in Cebu city for 75 days and hadn't travelled around at all) who directed us to the tourist haven of the Crown Regency hotel. I discovered a new love of heights - you can do a 'sky walk' on the outside of the building up on the 38th floor and there's also a ride you can do, which tips you at a 55 angle so you're looking down at the little tiny people on the ground below. They've also got a rather amusing 4D cinema, where elephants not only feel like they're about to hit you with their trunks, but you do actually get water in your face when they splash you. The 4D rats running around were not the highlight at all - lots of screaming!
From Cebu we headed to Bohol and despite my previous 'never again' protestations, I found myself in the jungle once more (after a taxi, fast boat, tricycle, jeepney and small bangka boat journey!). We stayed at a place called nuts huts and it seemed more remote than the last place in Sabah: complete with unidentified critters that went bump in the night creeping into our room. Our huts were right at the start of the jungle, on the river and we spent our three nights there clinging to each other in abject fear!
After the jungle huts, we decided we needed a bit of a beach (we're in the Philippines after all!) and so headed to Panglao Island and Alona Beach. There may have been a spot of rum drinking until 4am on the beach with some Australians and Fijiians but I couldn't possibly comment....
The next stop was Siquihor (pronouned 'sicky whore'), the island associated with witchcraft by the locals. We didn't find any witches, but we did find a little bit of island paradise and a nice quiet place to chill out for a few days after the festivities on Alona. We're currently in Dumaguette on Negros and have been here a couple of nights. Yesterday we went to Apo Island for some snorkelling where we did not see turtles, despite strong rumours of their existence. The coral and fish are amazing though and it's apparently one of the top dive/ snorkel sanctuaries in the world.
Tomorrow we're off to Sugar Beach, about 4 hours on the bus from here, which my guidebook describes as "a gorgeous beach and a western orientation that makes every sunset one to remember..one of Negros' best-kept secrets". Aaahhh.....you've got to love those Filipino beaches/ sunsets. How's the winter working out for you all?
Highlight: seeing Tarsiers at a sanctuary on Bohol - so cute! And apparently the inspiration for yoda and the cute gremlins.
Challenge: convincing ourselves that the weird scratching, scuffling and bangs we heard in the room were merely due to the lizard that lived outside and most definitely NOT from anything jungle related coming into our room....
Sunday, 17 January 2010
Happy New Year/ Decade
It has been brought to my attention that I have not made a very auspicious start to the new decade when it comes to all things blog and update. I will now attempt to rectify that by distilling the past few weeks into a few easy to digest paragraphs! Photos will have to follow at a later date as I am under duress to apply a draconian edit to the last batch...
So....last update was Christmas eve. aka 'the day before'. Christmas day was a rather boozy affair thanks to aforementioned Ritz champagne brunch. The day started off rather fabulously: the sun shone and the three of us headed down to the pool for a Christmas morning swim. After that, we all felt rather smug and got ourselves dolled up for the Ritz. Lunch was amazing - the food was great and it came a very close second to the traditional family time, I think we were all glad to have each other there. Once we got over the emotion of the day, we got on with the serious task of drinking (only so that Andy would feel that he had received proper value for money, you understand). At one stage, I had champagne, pink champagne, red wine, a mojito and port in front of me. I think they were also serving food. I'm not sure. The rest of the day passed in a lovely blur of calls home, making lots of new friends (including getting a picture with a newly married couple) and a little spot of discovating until 3am. Boxing day was horrible.
Since 29th December, we have been making our way up through Borneo - from Kuching in Sarawak through Brunei to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, which is where I am writing to you from now. Kuching was interesting (despite the cat museum) and I got my first taste of jungle there with a little trek through Bako national park. After that I decided I'd probably had enough jungle and I may have had an 'I'm a banker, get me out of here' moment and booked myself into a spa resort in the middle of the trip while Catherine got involved with the biggest, scariest, longest, tallest, widest etc caves in the world. In my defence, my last cave experience had not gone well at all and I wansn't even in spider Borneo then!
New Year's Eve was spent at a rather cheesy disco at a hotel in Kuching, complete with live band and INTERNATIONAL ARTIST. You'll be pleased to know that I got myself dragged on stage by the band after busting some moves to MC Hammer. She's still got it...
New year's day started ridiculously early as we had to be at the port to get a boat at 7.30am. Well, actually, we didn't, as the boat didn't leave until closer to 9am but we were totally fine with that. The next few days were spent: on boats travelling upriver through Sarawak sharing some tuak with the locals; on the back of a four wheel drive through the rain forest hiding from spiders; in Brunei; and then on more boats back into Malaysia and Sabah.
Our time in Sabah has been mostly about seeing Orangutans. We spent a morning at Sepilok sanctuary, where we saw two orangutans as they came in for feeding. The centre rescues the animals and then gradually releases them into the wild, so the ones we saw were part way to freedom. After that, we were picked up for a tour that we'd organised into the jungle to stay in a lodge on the Kinabatangan river for two nights (here). During our time there, we were lucky enough to see orangutans in the wild three times along with hornbills, macaques and proboscis monkeys. We also saw a LOT of rain. The river rose two metres during our time there and on the way back today, our bus had to go through a river that wasn't there two days ago.
We're back, dry and showered now and looking forward to our next adventure - our flight to the Philippines leaves on the 20th Jan.
Highlights: Orangutans, the boat trip from Kuching to Belaga, staying in a longhouse with skulls from the headhunting days, NO SPIDERS!
Low points: seeing the devastation of the rain forest: it is truly unbelievable how much of borneo's forest have fallen victim to palm oil farms, hearing that orangutans might be extinct in 10 - 30 years- i was woefully unaware of that, leeches in the jungle shower, not having a shower for three days, losing my phone
So....last update was Christmas eve. aka 'the day before'. Christmas day was a rather boozy affair thanks to aforementioned Ritz champagne brunch. The day started off rather fabulously: the sun shone and the three of us headed down to the pool for a Christmas morning swim. After that, we all felt rather smug and got ourselves dolled up for the Ritz. Lunch was amazing - the food was great and it came a very close second to the traditional family time, I think we were all glad to have each other there. Once we got over the emotion of the day, we got on with the serious task of drinking (only so that Andy would feel that he had received proper value for money, you understand). At one stage, I had champagne, pink champagne, red wine, a mojito and port in front of me. I think they were also serving food. I'm not sure. The rest of the day passed in a lovely blur of calls home, making lots of new friends (including getting a picture with a newly married couple) and a little spot of discovating until 3am. Boxing day was horrible.
Since 29th December, we have been making our way up through Borneo - from Kuching in Sarawak through Brunei to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, which is where I am writing to you from now. Kuching was interesting (despite the cat museum) and I got my first taste of jungle there with a little trek through Bako national park. After that I decided I'd probably had enough jungle and I may have had an 'I'm a banker, get me out of here' moment and booked myself into a spa resort in the middle of the trip while Catherine got involved with the biggest, scariest, longest, tallest, widest etc caves in the world. In my defence, my last cave experience had not gone well at all and I wansn't even in spider Borneo then!
New Year's Eve was spent at a rather cheesy disco at a hotel in Kuching, complete with live band and INTERNATIONAL ARTIST. You'll be pleased to know that I got myself dragged on stage by the band after busting some moves to MC Hammer. She's still got it...
New year's day started ridiculously early as we had to be at the port to get a boat at 7.30am. Well, actually, we didn't, as the boat didn't leave until closer to 9am but we were totally fine with that. The next few days were spent: on boats travelling upriver through Sarawak sharing some tuak with the locals; on the back of a four wheel drive through the rain forest hiding from spiders; in Brunei; and then on more boats back into Malaysia and Sabah.
Our time in Sabah has been mostly about seeing Orangutans. We spent a morning at Sepilok sanctuary, where we saw two orangutans as they came in for feeding. The centre rescues the animals and then gradually releases them into the wild, so the ones we saw were part way to freedom. After that, we were picked up for a tour that we'd organised into the jungle to stay in a lodge on the Kinabatangan river for two nights (here). During our time there, we were lucky enough to see orangutans in the wild three times along with hornbills, macaques and proboscis monkeys. We also saw a LOT of rain. The river rose two metres during our time there and on the way back today, our bus had to go through a river that wasn't there two days ago.
We're back, dry and showered now and looking forward to our next adventure - our flight to the Philippines leaves on the 20th Jan.
Highlights: Orangutans, the boat trip from Kuching to Belaga, staying in a longhouse with skulls from the headhunting days, NO SPIDERS!
Low points: seeing the devastation of the rain forest: it is truly unbelievable how much of borneo's forest have fallen victim to palm oil farms, hearing that orangutans might be extinct in 10 - 30 years- i was woefully unaware of that, leeches in the jungle shower, not having a shower for three days, losing my phone
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