Tang Dynasty Hotel Kota Kinabalu

... reeks of a rotted out corpse? Just wondering out loud here...

And speaking of rotton, I can add another notch to my belt for surviving crazy taxi scams! A city bus runs from KK to the airport and this journey would require a four block walk to a stop and then transfering at the main terminal before continuing on to the airport. As much as I love saving money on transportation so I can spend it on fun stuff and good food, I ...

... development. I was very excited by this close encounter and apparently didn't stop talking about it all day - am sure I only mentioned it once or twice ;-) (Errr only told literally everyone we met for a week)
There were also a lot of Macaw monkeys hanging around at the feeding, one of which was carrying a tiny baby. They were pretty shrewd and when the orangutans were distracted jumped onto the platform grabbed some food and ran off again. We ...

... either public transport or a private, faster but more expensive, alternative. There is only a little scam here, switch saves lots of energy. People look more serious here, not smiling that much, resembling a bit the Western style, but willing to help upon request.
The two greatest highlights of the country, Mt. Kinabalu and Sipadan, lie in Borneo, and are extremely commercialized. Due to daily divers quota I was not ...

... though. It was a huge outdoor place selling an awesome variety of all sorts of sea stuff. Once you decided which stall to eat from, you choose your fish and then they cook it right there in front of you. Between us we had Red snapper, Squid and King prawns, they tasted amazing and it only cost 4 quid! That was easily the highlight of my day!

I decided to stay another day around KK before heading off so i booked up to go white-water rafting (with Korean girl in tow). Part of the ...

... to a nearby harvest festival which I suppose was like a tradional English village fete where I had my picture taken with Miss Borneo 2009!!

The next day was one of the toughest i've had by far. After getting up late and a short walk to the ferry terminal we caught a speed boat to a nearby tropical island. After an hour or so of snorkelling and sunning my lilly white body on the beach we had to get back in the speed boat to go to the next island. More of the ...

... And I loved that about him, add to the fact that he had served in the Australian army in 56 for National service…. Top bloke. Shelley and I named him John Locke as he was dressed In fatigue trousers and had an air of adventure just like the character from the TV series LOST.
Sapi was smaller than Manukan but the beach was nicer. We hired a pair of snorkels and set out to check out the coral, most of which has been destroyed by explosive ...

... I had used the free Wi-Fi in the Kuala Lumpur to notify the hotel of our late flight though, and they did not charge us the regular 25 ringgit fee for the lift to their hotel. We had tried to reserve a two person, air-conditioned bunk,-bed room at Borneo Global Backpackers at ca cost of 50 ringgits per night, but once we showed the cost of the bunk-bed room was 58 ringgits a night. Since this was the same as getting a larger two twin bed room, we ...

... hatte, mit Pfeffer und Salz gewürzt...Ihh. Dafür gab es tolle Omlettes, die man sich nach eigenen Wünschen frisch zubreiten lassen konnte. Da wir ja nicht auf die Spitze des Mt. Kinabalu raufkonnen, weil die Mittelstation ausgebucht war, sind wir einfach den gleichen Weg hoch gelaufen und wollten sehen wie weit wir kommen. Der Weg war nichts für Menschen mit Rücken oder Knieproblemen, die "Stufen" waren wirklich steil. Während unsere ganzen Wanderung waren wir in ...

... had been gradually slipping behind and becoming more of a burden than a pleasure. The next day our legs were even sorer - I guess the 48-hour peak is true! We visited the Handicraft Market and Central Market. We couldn't stop laughing at each other when walking down stairs or tall kerbs so after lunch we went back to the internet and the blog. After several tedious hours in front of a screen Chrissy wanted to visit the Atkinson Clock Tower, which proved a good opportunity to ...

... trip, however this was different as last time we all went to the same house and slept together. This time we got split into pairs and dropped of at our host family for the night. Our family were lovely, more people emerged as the night went on, we wondered how many people actually lived there. None of our family could speak english, but it is amazing on how to can communicate the basics when you have to without language. They cooked us a ...