38. Bird Cave

We left the reserve and continued up the coast. It would be a few nights till my flight to Vietnam so had planned one more stop in Borneo at a town called Sandakan.
On the way there we stopped at a huge cave where they harvest nests to make bird’s nest soup: A delicacy in many parts of east asia.

The van dropped me and Cassie off. It appeared that we were the only visitors there so got a guide to ourselves. He walked us to some raised walkways and into the cave. Once inside we could see workers clambering up enormous rickety ladders to the ceiling where the birds nests were. It was gloomy, lit only by a gap in the roof at the far end.

The smell was pretty dreadful - most likely caused by the huge piles of bird poo that lay beneath us. The piles seemed to have lives of their own. The brown black surfaces constantly moved and shifted, and as our eyes adjusted we realised it was because the piles were full of cockroaches. There were millions of them everywhere. On the ground, the walls, the walkway and the handrails. At one point I idly flicked one from a handrail into a poo pile. Cassie noticed and was horrified. She gave me a bit of a telling off. I tried to make the case that at least I wasn’t regularly making countless birds homeless, but somehow what I did was far worse.

We made it to Sandakan and booked a room in a mid range hotel. The town was quite pleasant, if a little run down looking. We had three days here. On the first day I decided to follow instructions for a walking tour of Sandakan that I found in a tourist leaflet.
I have to say the tour was a little underwhelming. It took me to a temple which was closed, a dirty clocktower in the middle of a roundabout and a chinese graveyard which, whilst expansive and probably more interesting than some of the other tour items, still was not anything to write home about.

The next day, after writing my mum a postcard about the Chinese graveyard, Cassie and I researched what was nearby and decided to book a ticket to an interesting looking proboscis monkey sanctuary that afternoon.

37. Kinabatangan Nature Lodge

It was getting late in the afternoon by the time we arrived at the Kinabatangan nature lodge. It was pretty a rustic place. It comprised of a series of wood cabins dotted amongst the jungle. Slippery wooden walkways sat over the leafy and muddy forest floor connecting the cabins.
We didn’t have much time to dump our stuff before needing to gather at the reception building for an evening river cruise.

There were around six of us. We headed down a gangplank to a small wooden motorboat. After clambering aboard, the boat chugged into life and set off down the river. It was a stunning trip. I was amazed at the range of animals we saw dotted around the jungles of Malaysian Borneo: orangutans; proboscis monkeys and hornbill birds to name a few.

Apparently the river cruises would be done every day - one at dawn and another at dusk. I was not at all sad to hear that.

It was a typical “ecotourist experience”. A term that I hadn’t heard of before now, and certainly had never actually done. On the other hand some of the fellow guests were quite the eco warriors, coming prepared with hiking boots, explorer hats and those sort of lightweight trousers that you can turn into shorts with a zip at the knee. I felt a very much like the odd one out essentially having lived the last 2 months as a beach bum.

The following night we took a nighttime jungle trek. We’d been told that there had been a lot of rain recently so the trails were waterlogged. We decided to rent wellingtons, since I guessed my trusty flip flops wouldn’t quite cut it. Unfortunately it seemed that every single pair I tried leaked pretty badly, so I just tried to pick the pair that seemed to let in the least amount of water.
We set off and my boots instantly filled with water, but I still enjoyed squelching my way round the jungle, and seeing the nocturnal wildlife our guide pointed out.

Later we got back to our room and I took a shower. I was shocked to find that an opportunistic leech had attached itself to my chest. Got knows how it managed to get in there.
I couldn’t remember the thing you are meant to do with them so I grabbed it’s body and sort of flicked it’s gob to make it let go. It seemed to work. I told Cassie, who was so horrified she immediately jumped back into the shower to double check that she was not carrying any unwanted passengers too.

On the last day one of the cruises took us to see a wild herd of elephants. As we approached we could just about see them moving through the trees, chomping on leaves and trumpeting quietly. It was quite stunning to see them in the wild.

The elephants were obviously a big draw because as we approached we saw a little gang of boats full of tourists straining to get snaps where the trees were less dense. One lady on a boat in front of us was so eager, in fact, that she got out of her seat and clambered up the small muddy river bank to get a better view. It was a short lived effort, because just before the top she slipped, and with a squawk toppled down the bank landing in the shallows with a splash. She was fished out, unharmed and embarrassed. I did wonder how many leeches she’d probably have to evict from her person later.

36. Trip to Kinabatangan

The time had come to move on from one of the world’s finest diving spots. It was bittersweet. Cassie Crosby was leaving at the same time we were. We had got to know each other quite well over our stay on Mabul Island. Around mid-afternoon we all caught the boat back to the mainland together. We had one evening in Semporna before heading on.

During dinner we discussed our plans. Cassie, who was on holiday for 2 weeks, would be stopping at a few places to do jungle treks and river cruises and that sort of thing in Sabah on her route up the coast and ending in the Kingdom of Brunei. It sounded fun, and she invited us to join along. It fit in quite nicely to my vague plans, which were to get to Vietnam at some point in a week or 2 as my last “stop” with what money I had left. Pat wasn’t interested though. He’d overspent a lot and wanted to go straight to Laos.

So Cassie and I agreed to be travel companions for a week. She sent off an email to the first place: a jungle lodge, so they could add me on to her booking.
The next morning dawned and we headed to the bus station. Cassie noticed there was no word from the lodge - so send a follow up email, just to be sure.

We bundled onto a coach heading north on a jungle lined highway. After an hour or so the bus got to the stop Pat needed for his connection. We shook hands as he hurried past but I felt the farewell lacked some of the ceremony it deserved. Cassie had some signal so rechecked her emails, but still there was no word from the lodge. With that she tried to call them, but it just rang out.
At this point I felt it was a very real possibility that I would be homeless in the jungle, and have to survive on largely forgotten Grylls and Mears knowledge.

After another couple of email free hours we disembarked at the stop where Cassie’s transfer was meant to pick us up. It was a strange, remote sort of place: A disconnected few buildings lining the jungle highway. We waited and enjoyed a reasonably priced buffet of quite tasty local cuisine.

After a bit of a wait a small minivan pulled up, and we hopped on board. They did not seem confused that I was there, so with my mind a little at ease they set off into the murky green jungle depths.

35. Sipadan Finale

I had a healthy buzz from the day’s dives, which called for celebration. That evening a lot of guests were drinking out on the decking / common area, including the divemaster who had joined us that day: Marie. Before long we grew a little footloose and decided to go wandering around the little island. We went to one bar that was a part of a different fancy “east Side” resort. It felt a little sedate and boring to us rough and ready west siders, so we soon left and headed to one of the nearby beaches. There we found some locals that Marie knew. We sat with them on the beach. One passed around a milk jug filled with liquor that apparently had been distilled by his kindly old grandma.

The night drew on and thanks to granny's special distillations I had gotten quite steaming - so decided to go back. Pat said he would stay on for a bit. So I took the key and stumbled off back to the homestay. The only problem was that my guidance system was on drunk mode, so I got very lost. I remember getting to one side of the island and finding myself in various resort beaches and getting shooed away by security men. After much walking, tracking, backtracking and getting thoroughly confused I came across the familiar slum that hid my home. I got in and Pat still wasn’t there. It was around 4 in the morning so I passed out, leaving the door open so Pat could get in.

I awoke with a throbbing head and a horrible taste in my dry mouth. Pat had gone already. It wasn’t long before more diving. I tentatively opened the door and crept out to find pretty much everyone from the previous night all up. Turns out that Pat got back before me and banged on our door for ages to no avail - since I had the key but wasn't there. He did succeed in waking up half the homestay. Johnny Keely from next door apparently let him crash in his room. I felt terrible.

We did 4 dives around Mabul that day: panglimara reef; Lobster wall and kapalai or “house reef” which was a purpose built area made up of the skeletons of houses that were slowly filling out with coral.
That night we did a night dive at paradise 2 which was a cool. One thing I like to do on night dives (since it’s pitch black) is look entirely away from the coral, rocks and all torch light for a while. All you feel is weightless. All you see is black. The only sensory input you get is the breath in your regulator. Somewhere deep down there is an involuntary twang somewhere between dread and vertigo, forcing me to look back. Both to reassure myself the world still existed, and also that I’ve not lost control of my buoyancy and am shooting up to the surface. Or worse: down into oblivion.

I wasn’t we got back and it was fine. Although not all that fine since it was the last day :(