Day Three: White-water rafting

Our first activity.  We picked up from the hotel at half nine and travelled through some rural areas to the Cue Lu river. It's fair to say that this is our first experience of what looks like jungle.  On the way we saw occasional stalls with very lonely looking attendants selling fruit and veg and a lot of construction.  Lovely scenery but very difficult to capture from a very fast, VERY bumpy van.

When we arrived at the start of the course it was hot and jungle-ish.  There was a group of cattle, maybe oxen, all crowded into the shade of one tree and a bridge that looked and felt as rickety as anything in a spaghetti western.

The boat was a thick skinned dingy that fitted six of us plus the instructor on the back.  One of the girls was nervous and when asked if we'd like to try capsizing the boat to see what it's like looked like she'd been asked if she'd like to jump out of a plane for kicks.  So we all bundled into the boat with Dad and me at the front and in charge.

The route is a grade I/II, which apparently means it's safe for kids.  I'm not sure I can agree.  Dad fell out when the boat went head first into the rocky sure, the rapids weren't huge, but were enough to show you that water can be powerful.

I little later it was my turn to go for a swim.  I came out when the boat hit a rock in the middle of one of the more exciting rapids.  At first, seeing my boat sailing away in front of me, and another boat trying to help me up, I felt a little silly, especially as they were our undeserving nemesis and would receive a thorough splashing whenever they came near.  As I was thrown against another rock, and then another rock and then again and again I started feeling less silly and a little more concerned.  I could see that the rapid wasn't large but these rocks were proving to me both hard and immovable and were starting to bloody well hurt.  When the rapid did decide to hurl me ungracefully out, it did so at high speed toward a particularly large rock on the bank.  I only just managed to stick my feet out before hitting it.

Once I was sure I was still alive it was fun, stopping occasionally to swim and racing down rapids is exciting and scary.  The next grade up is, apparently much faster and more dangerous.  It's a two and a half hour drive, so it's unlikely to happen.

Getting home we still had to decide what we wanted to do for the rest of the holiday.  We had vague ideas of splitting out time between Sarawak and Kutching.

We wondered around more in the afternoon in a hope of figuring out how we'd see the Borneo we'd read about.  In our undirected wondering we founf Go Go Sabah and wandered in.  We told a nice, well fed, chap called Alex what we wanted and he immediately umderstood what we were saying.

Day Two: Kota Kinabalu

Day two, our first full day.  Bar a couple of ideas of what we wanted to do, we really were winging it and, well, I was already win during if not having preplanned more we had set ourselves up for a fall. Kota Kinabalu is a working city, it's not pretty, it's busy and hot. It's actually very claustrophobic when you don't know where you are.

Being the brave soldiers we are though, we got the free shuttle bus provided by the hotel and went looking for travel agents who could get us on our way at a reasonable price.  This is where it because apparent that neither of us had anything idea what we wanted to spend, or how we would keep ourselves entertained and fed in between all the excitement.  All that we were really sure of was that we didn't want to spend much time in KK, and we wanted to see everything and then sit in a 5* hotel for a few days R & R.

Working on an exchange rate of 2.8 ringgots to the pound, things were going to get expensive.  Very expensive.  We spent an hour sitting in a coffee shop discussing what our plan was.  Some, might say should have done this before.  Some right have a point, but then again, some can keep their point to themselves.  Hurrumph!

There seems to be three main areas we'd like to see.

• Kinabalu
• Matching
• Sarawak

Around Kinabalu is the mountain, some pretty wetlands with Probiscus Monkeys and fireflies and white water rafting.

We booked white water rafting for tomorrow and a dusk trip up a river to see the monkeys and fireflies on Thursday.

The treks up Kinabalu come three flavours or the D.I.Y. option. The D.I.Y. option is not an option, whilst possible, it requires permits and rooms booking and then tour agents have all the rooms booked up for months.

The one day option isn't much fun, a very early start with a quick match up the mountain, reaching the summit just in time for the clouds to arrive before rushing back down in order to escape before night fall.

We decided to keep looking and, after yet more meandering and yet more travel agents we booked two trips, more out of desperation than need, I think.  We are white water rafting tomorrow and going to see some monkeys and fireflies on Thursday.

The travel agent was convinced that we were rich because of our surnames and, as she pointed out, we'd under estimated the exchange rate by a half, we felt pretty bloody rich too.

We asked the travel agent where was good to eat and they recommended the fish market.  They're exact words were "It is very expensive for us, but not for you."

The fish market was exactly what I had imagined an Asian fish market to me like. Row after row of tanks with live fish for you. Not just fish, horseshoe crabs, crabs, sharks, snails and other mollusks and crustaceans too.

After being accosted by a very friendly, but determined waitress who In think would have chased us down the street, had we tried to leave without buying something, we decided to have a couple of tiger prawns and a grouper.

The tiger prawns were massive, ours were only medium sizes too! It was served with some shredding stuff that was also really good.

The grouper was also lovely, cooked quite plainly but served in a very slightly spiced sauce that didn't overpower the fish.  Presentation isn't a strong point but the food was good, even if it was served on plastic picnic plates.

As you can see, we are both smiling, that might be because of the GIANT bottles of Tiger beer served with it though.

Day one: Arrival

After allot of hassle from the company that provide the Escape Travel Card we left Bristol at about four and flew from Heathrow at half nine.  We arrived in Kota Kinabalu at about two, very, very tired from travelling. The flights were fine, the food was acceptable without attempting to push any boundaries in quality and the film selection was so-so. I wasted two hours of my life watching "I am Number 4", which turned out to be a pile of number two.  The Avengers partially made up for it in because it monsters in it, super heroes and good special effects. So ends my Malaysian film review. We stopped over in Dubai and Brunei, both nice airports, especially Brunei, it's small, un-rushed and friendly feeling.

The airport taxis are regulated, you don't pay them directly, instead you pay at a booth inside and give the taxi driver the receipt.  We didn't realise and walked to the taxi rank and were then asked to go back inside and pay first. It's a good system though, no danger of someone just getting off then plane and feeling jet lagged getting conned.  The driver spoke English very well and drive like his taxi was about to turn into a pumpkin.

The Celyn Hotel isn't exactly luxury. It's got all the amenities you'd expect in a Travel Lodge. Dad seems happy enough.

It's hygienic, the beds appear clean. It has air conditioning. That's it, well, almost it.  The replacement for the bog brush is a small power shower attached to the side of the toilet.

Tomorrow we'll go into Kinabalu and decide where we are going next.

After passing out for a couple of hours we thought that some dinner was in order, we decided on a relatively inoffensive looking place and I got a minced chicken and rice 'thing' and Dad got a chicken drummer with some nice sauce on it, rice and some red stuff that made your head explode. a trip to the supermarket to get some liquid and snacks was in order. It was painfully hot, a sneaky little sauce too, it pretends to yummy and harmless for a few seconds before turning on you. Tuchè, evil red sauce, tuchè. It was late, and the most exciting thing we would be able to do was wonder around the supermarket. Putting on my ancient (Twenty two years old and still good) sandles was the last to,e I would. The trip in my suitcase had not been gentle to them and after five minutes the left one was in two pieces and I was walking like I needed a wee. I now have new sandles. Let's hope they will last another twenty two years. The supermarket is quite an experience. Everything is for sale, it's massive and it seems to have been organises by a sociopathic idiot. There is almost no reason to why mugs are on the shelf next to nuts, next to batteries next to bleach. We found the snacks section, which was actually the best organised part. Dried fruit is popular, so we have some Papua and 'something else' that has been dried and looked interesting, like red tree bark. Seaweed is the next popular snack, it comes in several flavours, as you can see I'm the photo below. < > Yes, the flavours are, not hot, hot and very hot. After our experience with the hot sauce we didn't risk of and went the big girl's blouse flavour one.