We went to Mantanani Island on 17th May.. It's a really tiny island (1.5km by 4km) about an hours boat ride off the coast of Borneo, near Kota Belud. The journey there was pretty horrendous - it was very bumpy and we'd all had a fair few drinks the night before, so not ideal! Mantanani looked like anyone's idea of paradise.... white sand and turquoise water! When we went snorkelling later on there were loads of cool fish and lots of blue starfish. We were given a short tour of the island - there are 2 villages, with about 850 people living there in total, and lots and lots of palm trees. The sunset that we watched on the first evening was amazing. We had to be shown the tsunami evacuation route, as there had apparently been tsunami warnings recently, which took us to the highest point on the island - 20 metres. Not really going to help us too much if a tsunami did hit...... We used parangs to get in to some fresh coconuts, which are soo good! A cow broke in to the kitchen that night and stole loads of our food! Most of our first week was spent 'mapping the island' (although the police actually have maps so we weren't 100% sure why we were doing it!) and we did a litterpick.. Very pointless as the police were meant to be helping and set the plastic on fire. They claimed not to know it was bad when I shouted at one of them (he was very apologetic) but I'm pretty sure they did. The aim was to get everything looking nice, and maybe stop the cows from munching the plastic bags! (Which didn't actually seem to affect them, they looked like they enjoyed it....) It was a shame that for most of the first week the guys at the camp were quite shy, but Albi, the village chief, is a legend. We had a traditional boat making lesson from him - which involved trying to hack out the middle of a log with an axe - and we thought he was quite old, and probably quite frail, but he managed OK lifting a log that took 4 of us to lift!! We all of course managed to fit in plenty of tanning, too!

Our second week was when we were doing our diving, and when all of the leech bites that I'd got in the jungle started to get infected! Everyone else was doing their PADI open water qualification, but as I already had that I was doing my advanced open water. This involved doing 5 out of about 12 choices of dives. Underwater navigation and deep dive were compulsory and I chose to do a boat dive, underwater photography and peak performance buoyancy. The navigation consists of following a compass so that you swim in a square, swimming out on a bearing, and swimming back to your starting point, and counting how many fin strokes it takes you to swim 30 metres, and for the deep dive you must dive to deeper that 18 metres (we dived to about 23 metres, the deepest point around the island). The boat dive and underwater photography are pretty self explanatory and the peak performance buoyancy is controlling going up and down just by whether your lungs are almost empty or almost full, so when you breathe in you should rise, and when you breathe out you should sink. The corals were actually best when we were around 10 metres, but when we were deeper we saw stingrays and a sea turtle! There were loads of really bright and pretty fish, it's just a shame that my camera had broken by then! My waterproof camera that is supposed to be able to go to 10 metres had leaked at 2 metres.. The only thing that wasn't good about that week was that because I was doing a different course I was doing different dives to everyone else, so I spent a fair bit of time on the island pretty much on my own..... but I really got through the books! I finished 5 while I was on Mantanani! By the time we finished the diving on Thursday my cuts were pretty bad, despite washing them at least once a day, and I was sick on Thursday, probably because of the infected cuts.. Tom had an ear infection and Tash had a nasty cut on the bottom of her foot, so on Saturday it was decided that we'd get a boat back to Kota Belud, and then a bus to Kota Kinabalu so that we could go to the hospital. Tom was first to be seen, and was straight in and out, being diagnosed with a middle ear infection and prescribed antibiotics. Tash was next, and was in for a few minutes and then sat waiting outside to have her foot dressed while I was called in to see the doctor. He had a quick look at my legs and then I was led off to another room down the corridor. I was laid down in a bed while he had a more thorough look at the cuts. He decided that he needed to hack one of them open a bit, so violently gave me a local anaesthetic underneath each one he would cut - it's pretty painful having a needle poked about in a cut and he wasn't very sympathetic! He didn't seem to be very good at the dosage either, as he kept starting to cut my leg when I could still very much feel it! Eventually I'd had enough anaesthetic and he 'drained' 3 of my cuts. The two smaller ones weren't too bag, but he cut a gash next to one that was just over an inch long and probably over a cm deep! Don't think I've ever seen so much blood coming out of myself, it was horrible! There were a few other cuts that were probably as bad (I say cuts, they started off as leech bites but kind of grew when they got infected.... nice) but after what he'd just done I didn't really want to point them out to him!! He put non-stick dressings over them, and then noticed that I had a nasty cut on my ankle, too. So he scraped off the skin with a scalpel, no anaesthetic this time! He then used bandages to hold on the dressings, rather than tape every single one. Then he turned his attention to my other leg...... Luckily he decided none were bad enough to warrant slicing open, but I imagine he'd got bored or something by this point as he just scrubbed my leg. He used hydrogen peroxide to clean them, which is quite sore when it's being rubbed in to cuts! Then he dressed and bandaged that leg, too. Finally I was done, and prescribed a week of antibiotics (3 times the regular strength!) and paracetamol, as well as being told to stay out of the sea. When I walked back in to the waiting room everyone burst out laughing, and I was told that I looked like a racehorse.... with the leg supports. At this point the anaesthetic was still working, so I also saw the funny side! we spent so long waiting for them to print our bill, and get our prescriptions that the anaesthetic was wearing off by the time we left (having had to fork out over 70 quid for the fun of it all).. We made a quick dash for the shopping centre, so I could buy a replacement centre and then food and bed.... We went back to Mantanani early the following morning, in extreme amounts of pain! even with the paracetamol it was extremely difficult to walk and I looked ridiculous anyway! However the shark attack story did go down well with any locals that asked what happened!

I think the main events of the third week on Mantanani were a cooking lesson from Hilda, on how to make roti (really good but it turned in to a bit of a flour fight!), kayaking (without getting my foot wet of course), and painting the side of the building. I was getting pretty hot, bothered and frustrated by the end of the week about not being able to go in to the sea (although the plastic bags over my legs for showering were a pretty good look!), as it's impossible to do anything without being baked, and then of course all you want to do is go in to the sea to cool off... Our painting the side of the building was pretty fun, though. My sea turtle paintings were pretty epic!

We left for a few last days in KK early on saturday the 5th. Bella and Lu were climbing Mt. Kinabalu on Sunday/Monday, and Tash was leaving for Long Pasia on Monday, so Kate, Tom and I figured we needed to find something to do..... We went to visit Howard at his house on Sunday, as he'd recently come out of hospital having had malaria (I was pretty worried when I first heard as I stopped taking my malaria pills when I was in the jungle with him, but all is good!) and stopped at Tinangol on the way back..... They got us on the grade one rice wine at 3pm, and we decided there was no going back! we'd stay the night! We were all horrendously drunk, but it was a really good night! great seeing everyone again, and the puppies!! which have grown sooo much! We woke up feeling pretty rough on Monday, and we were originally going to have a big night, as the last night, but none of us were feeling up to it! Kate, Tom and I weren't really feeling that we could stomach alcohol, and Bella and Lu were knackered from the mountain climb. We had a pretty early night which was probably just as well as I had to leave at 7am from my flight to Kuala Lumpur.

Managed to meet up fine with Sam in KL and then we had to decide what to do.... We had thought that we'd have a day or so in KL, but decided it was too much hassle and not very interesting so we bought a flight at the airport to Kota Bharu. We knew that this was the closest place to the Perhentian islands, although when we got to the airport at Kota Bharu we were told that we were too late to go that evening, as the last boat leaves at 6.. an hour after we got there. We got really lucky, as we just caught the last boat across! It was a ridiculously bumpy ride, and where I had been extremely hungry before I definitely wasn't by the end! I was a bit worried that I might fall overboard too, as I came a long way out of my seat each time the boat went over a wave! We struggled to find somewhere to stay, but luckily there was a room at the last place we tried! It was the equivalent of 7 pounds a night each, so not too bad! We went out for some much needed food, where we managed to secure a nicer as well as cheaper room for the following night, and then on to a shisha bar, that had a man spinning fire - really cool! We spent a few days on the Perhentien Islands, just relaxing and snorkelling. Unfortunately the weather wasn't brilliant, though. It didn't rain much but it was very cloudy. We randomly bumped in to a friend of Sam's and his girlfriend, though - very weird! Sam and I both saw sharks when we snorkelled - one about 2 metres away from me, pretty scary! - but I think you needed to go deeper than we snorkelled to see prettier things. We also thought that we might kayak around the island...... quickly decided this was a bad idea, so thought we would snorkel over to the other island. Definitely a very bad idea, it took forever and we barely made it back! don't think either of us will be doing much kayaking again in a hurry...... Or at least Sam won't be doing it with me! We left on friday (June 11th), pretty early on. We got a boat back to the mainland at 8, and then had to wait till 11 for our coach. It was supposed to be a 5 or 6 hour journey to Penang, but took more like 8 hours!

We got to Georgetown, Penang island at about 8pm, and had to attempt to get a taxi to the resort. It was difficult enough to persuade a taxi driver to take us there, but then it was just annoying! The taxi driver had his wife in the car, and she got upset everytime he tried to drive at a semi-normal speed. So what was supposed to be a 2 hour drive turned out to be a 3 and a half hour drive! And we were of course very tired by this point, having been travelling for effectively 15 hours by then, so not very happy! Everything got better once we got to the resort, though, as someone came to take our bags for us and we had an upgraded room for no extra cost. We got room service for a very late dinner - amazing! Don't think they were quite used to people like us staying there, either.... as they asked me while Sam check in whether I was studying, as I was very young. I told the man that I was in September, and he asked about Sam. When I said that he had finished university he asked what he did, was he a doctor? Ha. We spent most of the week relaxing, either in our room or by the pool. We had a look round the golf course too, which had stunning views. We also went to a sea turtle sanctuary, which was cool, and obivously it's good that they're doing something about it! Mainly the things to do in the area were very expensive, as it was quite secluded, so we just chilled. We were looking at ways that we would get to Bangkok after, as our flight had been moved to the next day, and we had almost just accepted that we'd just have to miss a night in our Bangkok hotel, when on a spur of the moment decision we decided to leave a day early. We got a taxi to Lumut, and then a bus to Butterworth. We were feeling quite disappointed when we got to Butterworth, as it took a fair bit longer than we thought, and we were told that there were no buses or trains until midday the following day, so we thought that we'd just left the resort a day early for nothing.... We got a ferry across to Georgetown, and then waited for ages for a bus, only to discover where we wanted to go wouldn't have been much more than a five minute walk anyway! Luckily, from Georgetown, they offered buses leaving at 5am, and although it would be a ridiculously long journey, we wouldn't have to miss a night in Bangkok, which was already booked. We booked in to a very cheap hotel - RM40 for us both, about 8 pounds - and then went out for food. Everything was much cheaper than at the resort, and we could afford to drink again!

We were picked up by a minibus at 5am, that took us about an hour over the Thai border. Including all the passport stops etc, we got to Had Yai in about 4 hours. We could have gone in the minibus all the way to Bangkok, but we'd decided before that we'd switch to a coach at the first available stop! We just missed the 8am bus (hour time difference) but got the 9am one, having been shouted at by various people trying to get us to take their bus - I definitely hadn't had enough sleep to be patient and nice to them! It was one hell of a bus journey, and almost impossible to sleep as they had decided to show shitty Thai soaps, acted out on a stage, extremely loudly! so loudly that it hurt my ears infact! Not good...... But we got to Bangkok at about 10pm, which was a few hours earlier than we'd originally been told, so all was good! We got a taxi to the hotel, which we were originally pretty annoyed that he seemed to be a complete retard and had no idea where he was going, but when the fare was under 4 pounds, having taken us about an hour to get there, we decided it wasn't really too bad! We checked in and went up to our room - easy to see why it's voted best hotel in Bangkok! It's incredible! As you walk in to the room you see a dining table, with a small kitchen area on your left. At the other end of the room is a lounge with sofa, armchair and 37" flatscreen TV (with internet, over 6000 songs to choose from and a large choice of channels). Also is a door to our balcony, with an amazing view of Bangkok city skyline (we are above most things as we are 30th floor, so not much blocking it!). Also we have a huge bathroom, with a shower double the size of most, bathtub, etc and a bedroom with a king sized bed and 32" flatscreen TV! We had a glass of our complimentary bottle of wine while we waited for our dinner to arrive. Unfortunately there was a limited menu as it was after 11pm, but it was delicious nonetheless!

We got up yesterday morning and got the sky train in to Bangkok. We got off next to the river with the intention of walking up and seeing what we fancied doing... We got a boat, which we somehow didn't have to pay for, which had some amazing views. I took full advantage of the picture-taking opportunities! We got off where it seemed most people were getting off and wandered in to the market. It was pretty cool, although they did seem to be selling a lot of false teeth, and it was very claustrophobic! We walked alongside a Monastery for a while and then ended in another market. We could see a really cool looking building so decided to head in that direction... It turned out to be the Grand Palace, which we couldn't look in because you needed to be wearing full length clothes, which neither of us were. We were wandering along next to it when a Tuk-Tuk driver, named Tong, stopped next to us and offered to show us some of the cities' best sites for 20 Baht (about 40p!). We hopped in and were driven to a Giant Buddha statue - really was giant and very bright in the sun as it was gold! He seemed to be very good at the shortcuts and next took us to the TAT (Thailand authority of tourism) where we arranged our transport to Phuket and accomodation on Koh Phangan, where the full moon party is held. We were in there over an hour and Tong waited patiently outside! On the way to the marble temple he asked us if we would go in to a shop so he could get a fuel voucher. We didn't really understand so walked in, had a brief look and walked out. We worked out later that you had to be in there for ten minutes and then he would get a voucher for free fuel, and two if you bought something. The marble temple was cool, and apparently has the tree where the buddha achieved enlightenment, but my camera had an accident. It was on a ledge, on self timer, and fell off on to the floor! I think it was from someone walking past, but either way it fell on to the marble floor and now won't work as it has a lens error. Very annoyed! And Sam can vouch that this wasn't even my doing - dad! (and of course nowhere is open to fix it till tomorrow......) I was pretty grumpy as I was so hungry anyway, but this of course made me even more grumpy! We ate next and although we were going to carry on the tour, we asked to be taken back to the hotel. Tong asked that we go in to one last shop for his fuel vouchers, and for driving us around for 4 hours for 40p we didn't really mind! This one was a tailor, where Sam ordered a shirt (to be delivered to our hotel the next day) and we later found out was no. 1 tailor in a national geographic book of the 10 best of everything in the world! The concierge at the hotel was extremely helpful and called round lots of different camera shops for us, but the only canon one isn't open till monday. He told us lots about where was good to go in the evening, and kept mentioning that there were 'ladies' in certain areas. We were puzzled by this, but as soon as we got out of the taxi we understood! Sam immediately had a leaflet for 'banana ping-pong pussy show' and all other sorts of pussy shows shoved in his face! We were trying to look around the market area, and although we managed to get everything we wanted, the people trying to get Sam to sex shows were pretty un-avoidable! When we walked along a little further there were lots of groups of sluttily dressed women...... no prizes for guessing what they were! We saw millions of thai brides with older white men, thai guys with gay white men, and thai men dressed as women! A very strange place...... We headed back to the hotel for some food! Today we didn't do so much; we got lost wandering round the shopping area, lots of very tall buildings and not much signage (and saw a building that used to be a multi-storey shopping centre but is now burnt extremely badly by the red shirts the other week) and we got sweaty walking around a weekend market. It was huge and it was so hot today! We decided to come back to the hotel and swim - the swimming pool has different coloured lights along the walls, that light up in the dark - and take it easy!

Tomorrow we leave for Phuket - on our flight very kindly booked by the concierge - and have a few days before Koh Phangan and the full moon party. We then have one day in Bangkok before I head to Delhi and then home and Sam is off to New Zealand! I hope I haven't missed too much!

Right, so I may aswell start again from the end of Batu Puteh I guess, as my last 2 blogs weren't so successful!

The morning of the 26th we got up very early to leave to go to Sepilok. Sam and Emma were leaving us so that was quite emotional! It took a few hours to get there, and was probably the most ridiculously bumpy car journey I've ever been on! We met Howard when we got there and were given a brief tour of the sun bear sanctuary where we were going to be working. They also have a Pygmy elephant there, who got shot on a palm oil plantation, but wasn't killed. They didn't know what to do so gave the elephant to the sanctuary to look after. I think he's going to be moved somewhere better more permanently at some point before too long! The walk up to our jungle camp was pretty difficult with all our big bags! Lots of up and down hills, in the jungle.. So quite slippy and muddy! The camp had a kitchen area with a cooker and a big table with benches, a store room and then our beds were two rows of kind of semi-permanent hammocks, with blocks of wood to keep them in place at either end. There was a roof but no walls. Showers were a little bit away - bucket showers (which I think I'm actually really gunna miss when I'm in England!) with a kind of canvas tent around us. The toilet we had to dig! We went back down to Sepilok later on and were shown a video about sun bears - it was pretty upsetting.

We headed down to Sepilok pretty early, and it's about a 45 minute to an hour walk so we got down there for about 8. As it had rained loads and there was no cover over their bio gas converter, it was full of water! So our first job was to try and remove all the water from there..... not particularly nice as there was loads of stagnant water around, so loads of mosquitoes! I started to feel pretty ill again so I went back to camp and slept for pretty much the whole of the rest of the day!

We got up at about 6 again, as that was when it got light, and were down at the sanctuary for about half 7. The sun bear is actually right next to the Orangutan sanctuary, so we always walk through the Orangutan sanctuary to get there. Quite cool cause they're always taking the babies for walks and stuff! Bella, Phil and I got to work designing some ramps for the sun bears. They've just moved in to a new building, but need some ramps to get outside as it's a few metres above ground level. They had to be strong enough to hold a sun bear (who are sooo cute!) but also light enough to be able to be moved if need be... After lunch, Charlie, Tash and I went to do some shopping in Sandakan, as we were cooking that evening. The shop was probably one of the funniest afternoons of my life, but you probably had to be there! We only had socks on for a start, as our shoes were too muddy to wear, so we left them in the van. Don't think the staff thought too much of Charlie asking to have the Teryaki sauce opened so he could smell it, or him dropping a pack of beansprouts on the floor! Charlie went off to the loo... and he had some issues first with the lady not letting him take his bag in, and then that he had to buy some tissue paper! He got back to us, and then realised he needed to go again... So he left his bag (with tissues!) with Tash and went off again.... It was a squatting loo and he apparently had explosive diarrhoea all over the wall and then had no tissue paper! He had to clean up the toilet muslim style, with a bucket and water, and used his boxers on himself and then left them behind!! After the shop, we tried to go and find an internet cafe. A security guard told us if we turned left we would find one.... So we walked along the main road for a while, in our socks, before stopping to ask again where it was. The man clearly had no idea what we were talking about and pointed us toward a palm oil plantation! A bus stopped on the other side of the road, and said he could take us to the internet cafe, so we hopped on. It was a bit longer than we'd anticipated, it took us about half an hour to get in to Sandakan (which we later learned is quite a dangerous place, but I guess as we looked like tramps anyway it was fine!). We eventually found an internet cafe and managed about 20 mins before Mel and Fendy came to pick us up!

The rest of Sepilok was kinda similar, seems silly writing about every single day! We made 7 ramps in total for the sun bears, and on the last day saw one of the braver ones coming out - quite rewarding! (And I might add that we had to hand drill most of the bolt holes, quite difficult!) We also made a bit of a boardwalk that will be used to get to the sunbear centre once it is open for tourists. They estimate that being about 2 years time. There was one evening that we were walking back through the jungle and Bella saw a 4m snake! I can't remember what they decided it must be, but pretty deadly I'm sure! There was also a Sumatran Spitting Cobra that we saw - can kill you within 20 minutes if it bites! We had a little bit of a lie in on our day off.... we didn't get up until about 7! We went to the rainforest discovery centre, which had a few 150ft observation towers, and a rainforest canopy walkway that was not much lower! It was pretty cool, but not brilliant for someone who doesn't really like heights!

We left Sepilok on May 6th, and had a 6 hour coach journey before reaching Kota Kinabalu (KK) for a few days chilling. We ate at the night market each night - amazingly cheap and so much more than you can eat! My plate of noodles cost RM3 (about 60p) and was at least twice as much as I could manage! We also had a few nights out at Bed (a club!) and were of course re-united with Emma! As what she was meant to be doing in Thailand was cancelled... We also did some pretty amazing karaoke, went down so well with all the locals!

Charlie, Phil and I stayed on for a few days after the others went to Kipouvo, as we'd decided to do the mountain climb. Our extra day in KK was spent wandering round and a few hours in a cafe pulling faces! Hilarious, but we may have scared off all the other customers! We met a guy at the hostel called Khalil, who we found out was also doing the mountain climb the next day, so we decided we'd all do it together. We went to the night market with Khalil and a lady called Clare that night, before an early night!

We were up at about 6am on sunday, to do the mountain climb. We left Step-In at 7 and got to the bus station just after. On the bus to the base of the mountain we met another guy called Tom, who joined our crew for climbing the mountain! We got there at about 10 and took a few pictures at the bottom. We paid and sorted out all the forms etc - I was our guide, responsible for everyone! We got assigned a mountain guide - she was called Adi and was about 4ft3... we were suspicious as to whether her legs were long enough to climb a mountain! Once we got going, at about 11.30, our suspicions were confirmed! She was soon a long way behind us and not very much use as a guide! Luckily I was amazing as a guide, and the path up was very obvious. I struggled a bit with the altitude up there, found it very difficult to breathe, but it all went OK in spite of that! We made it to Laban Rata, where you spend the night (in order to acclimatise to the height), for about 2.45.. Not bad going! It's a 6km walk in total, and we were then at 3,300m above sea level! Dinner was a buffet that you had to have - very nice! We all went to our dorms by about 8.30, but there were some very noisy germans next door, so I think I only managed about 2 hours sleep! We were up again at 1.30am, for 'supper' at 2 before setting off up to the top, hopefully in time for sunrise, at about 3. We were worried at the start as we were behind so many slow people that we may not make it up to the top in time for the sunrise, but, once again taking on my role as tour guide, we orer-took and were second up to the top! I felt pretty light-headed and had no balance because of the altitude though! 4,095metres above sea level! It was raining so much at the top, and was only about 5degrees. None of us were really prepared properly for this and froze! It was windy, wet, cold, and we could see about 2 metres in front of us! Not surprisingly, we saw no sun rise. It just got light. Having waited for over an hour for it to clear up we gave up and headed back down. The first kilometre of the walk down is on flat rocks, with ropes to hold on to. This wasn't so good as I'd fallen over earlier and sprained my wrist and you really had to rely on the ropes as the rocks were so slippy and wet! Charlie had decided he probably didn't need to hold on to the rope, and when he slipped was only a few metres away from about a 40ft drop! This convinced him that the ropes were quite a sensible idea and we all made it back to Laban Rata for breakfast in one piece. We made it back down to the bottom of the mountain in 2 hrs 45 minutes, and had stopped to chat to loads of people. Going back down gave you so much energy after not being able to breathe! And we didn't even struggle with our knees. We ate lunch and bought postcards and headed back to KK. Mel picked us up to take us to Kipouvo at 5. The kids there did some dancing as it was the groups last evening there. Charlie and Phil then went back to KK, as Charlie was going home and Phil was going to Vietnam. It was quite an emotional goodbye from everyone!

We headed off to Utan Paradise at a very reasonable 10am the next day. Utan Paradise is where we were doing the jungle trek. We spent a few days in the jungle, staying in hammocks and washing in the river! The trekking was very slippy as we are now apparently in their rainy season - expecting rain every day for a few hours! We were in the Crocker range, Mt. Kinabalu is the highest in the range. We didn't actually see that much wildlife - just a few monkeys and a few snakes, and Jason got bit on the bum by a Lepan! (A poisonous centipede) The first night in the hammock was probably the worst nights sleep I've ever got - I was drenched! And it gets quite cold in the middle of the night.. The guides went out and picked jungle vegetables to go with our rice and beans meals, which were..... interesting! Swimming and washing in the river was pretty cool, though. The leeches were not so cool! They don't hurt, it's just annoying how long they bleed for! And a couple of sneaky ones got in under my rucksack straps.. The mosquitoes also weren't so much fun. I got about 25 bites just on one hand! I look like I have some sort of odd disease.. maybe chicken pox! I also must have got stung by something as one of my toes swelled up ridiculously and was really hard to walk on! We got back to the Utan Paradise base at about 11am on Thursday and spent the day chilling there. Yesterday we came back to KK, where we lost Emma again, and this time she won't be back! We went out in the evening as it was Jason's last night with us, too! Quite sad times.... Had an interesting day around KK though, and we found somewhere that sells pizza and cheap beer! First time I have had cheese since I've been out here! Definitely one of the things that I miss the most! We went for manicures, pedicures and massages yesterday, too. I feel sorry for the people that had to deal with our feet after being in the jungle!! And the massage was pretty painful! RM75 for the whole lot, though - about 15 pounds. So I think that brings me pretty much up to date! We're off to Mantanani Island for 3 weeks tomorrow, to do some diving. I'll be doing my advanced diving award, and everyone else is doing the open water diver. No phone or internet there, though, so this will be the last one till we're back in KK before I leave Borneo! Hope everyone back home is doing good!

Were in Sepilok for 10 days, and have now been in KK for 2 days.... Highlights were probably being mugged by an orangutan and helping save a pygmy elephant! Aswell as helping the sunbears and seeing them come out on the ramps we made them! Been enjoying the beach here on Mamutik island, very nice! Am climbing Mt Kinabalu tomorrow and jungle trekking next week! No internet time left so more some other time.....

rest of monday

So on monday afternoon, we carried on to the Sepilok Orangutan centre... We managed to get there in time for feeding time, which was pretty cool but it was soooooo hot! Saw probably about 5 orangutans, though. We then carried on back to Batu Puteh, about a 2 hour car journey, where we ate dinner. Still not quite got the eating with hands thing! We then went to another culture show where we received gifts from the community.

OK, I thought I could write a bit more but I can't! No time!

2nd week!

The beach last Sunday afternoon was really nice, although a little cloudy! Not ideal... But was still nice! As far as I remember Sunday evening was pretty uneventful although it seems like it was about 3 years ago now!

On monday I went to the local school to teach for the morning. This one had two classes - 3-4 year olds and 5-6 year olds and went from 8-12. I was teaching the younger class and it happened that there were only 4 of them then! With 2 teachers and also me, so maybe a little bit pointless.... We did some letters to start with, some were really, really good, and knew all of their letters (which considering they're 3 and 4 was not bad going!). We had breakfast at about half 9 - biscuits and milo (like watered down hot chocolate, can be cold too though). After breakfast they played with some stuff that they had to make shapes with, and it clicked together - not bricks, I don't really know how to describe it! Then the kids did some colouring in of a hat, top, socks, shoes and trousers, and had to cut them out and stick them to another bit of paper. There were a fair few upside down people! Then it was time to go back to the longhouse. We had lunch and then organised a dance we'd been asked to perform for the community that evening, of our culture...... we did Grease, ha. We were also going fancy dress that evening so we got all that sorted, too. There were a fair few pirates (me included), gypsies, army, and jesus and baby jesus. Lots of people from the village arrived at about 8 and there were speeches and prizes for sports day and then we got on to the rice wine rounds! I wasn't doing too badly until I was the one taking it round to everyone, where it seems to work on an 'I drink when you drink' basis.... It was after we'd done a fair few rounds of rice wine that we did our dance, which went surprisingly okay! The rest of the night was lots more rice wine, and we exchanged bracelets - they all gave us one and we'd made some for them too. I think we went to bed at about 3 in the end.

Woke up feeling a little the worse for wear on Tuesday! Wasn't really appreciating the hour drive to the beach but felt fine by the time we got there! Was much nicer looking in the bright sun. We swam around a bit and went for a walk along the rocks. Lunch was a barbecue and rice which was nice, although I didn't have the barbecue part, I had some vegetables in a nice sauce that they'd cooked for me - delicious. We left the beach for Kudat at about 3, so we could all get some money out etc. Got back at about 5 and had to pack up and stuff.....

Wednesday we were supposed to be leaving at 7, but by the time we'd all said goodbye it was more like 8! We had a big coach for us, which was pretty good to spread out on, but got a bit boring by the end of the 6 hour drive - past hundreds of miles of palm oil plantations - to Batu Puteh (translation white rock, apparently). We were given refreshments and then went to our 'homestays'. Here we were each staying with a local family, although we were all expecting something a little different, more remote. We were under the impression that we were in the middle of a jungle and had electricity for only 2 hours a day, where this is definitely not the case! We had dinner - sitting on the floor and eating with out hands, definitely an experience - and then went to a 'culture show', dressed as the locals were - they gave us clothes to wear. This was lots of traditional dancing and music but I think we were all a bit too tired to appreciate it properly!

On thursday we left for the jungle on a boat at about 8. We went on a mini 'trek' (not actually much of a trek, more of a gentle stroll!) to collect seeds and to look at all the cool bugs etc. We had lunch by a lake and a few of us went for a wander. We were just on our way back having not really seen anything when wild Phil spotted a monitor lizard. We were looking at it and trying to get closer for a while but had to back off when we realised it was probably getting a bit freaked out and we didn't actually fancy being attacked by it... Was probably about 2ft body and 3ft tail we reckon. We went back to the village where we went to the nursery to plant the seeds we'd picked up, as part of a forest regeneration programme. Dinner at the homestay again - still haven't mastered eating rice with my hands. Then we all hung around for a while before an early night.

We were up at 5.30 on friday, for an early morning river cruise. We saw a few monkeys (mainly long-tailed macaws - not sure on spelling!) and a crocodile, and lots of kingfishers. We went back for breakfast and then had a morning at the nursery, moving the seedlings to bigger pots etc. We went back for lunch and packed up our stuff ready for 2 nights in the jungle! We went by boat again and set up our hammocks before going on an evening river cruise. We saw another monitor lizard, lots of long-tailed macaws, some pig-tailed macaws, some silver somethings (monkeys), proboscis monkeys and lots more kingfishers. In the evening we went on a night walk, where we saw a massive spider, some big bugs, a cavat cat in the trees, a snake and a load of other bugs and smaller spiders - pretty cool. We went back and had a fire by the side of the river for a few hours, and then bed in our hammocks. They were actually really, really comfortable. I saw a few cavat cats when I got up for the loo in the night, looking through the trees.

The hammocks were so comfortable that despite how noisy the jungle was I managed to sleep through until about 7 on saturday! Probably the latest so far on the trip! We had breakfast and then walked to where we were clearing vines so that they didn't kill the recently planted trees. We used parangs - basically machettes that are longer and thinner, quite fun but had some nasty blisters! Was around then that I started to feel a little bit ill. We walked back to the camp and hung around a bit before going for another river cruise. Unfortunately still no orangutans, just the monkeys and a few black squirrels. We went over to the other side of the river for a barbecue but I just lay infront of the fire - was so, so cold enen though I was practically lying on top of the fire! Saw a crocodile on the beach while we were still on the water but it'd gone by the time we got there. Went straight to hammock when we got back.

I was feeling a bit better on sunday morning. We left at 6am for a 'solo hike'. We were left in a little patch of jungle for half an hour to see what we saw. I saw a family of the black squirrels and a monkey swinging through the trees. After going back for breakfast we walked through the jungle to where we would be planting some trees. I wasn't a whole lot of use so I tried to sleep - far too many annoying flies for that though! Was pretty glad when we walked back.. although we went a longer way in hope of finding orangutans - wasn't massivley happy about that as the chances of seeing an orangutan up a tree from the ground are pretty much zero! Went straight to bed in my hammock when we got there, only waking up for about an hour to pack up my hammock and go back to the village to sleep again! So I slept pretty much the whole day in the end.... I think a few of the others went to a wedding reception in the evening which they said was good, but I still wasn't feeling well so stayed in bed!

This morning we had to get up at about half 6, and although I'm feeling better today, still not brilliant! And haven't managed to eat hardly anything yet..... Bad times. Today so far we've been to a Sandakan POW memorial park - for the Australians and British that were sent on death marches in the area by the japanese in WWII. Horrible reading about what they went through. Then we went to a buddhist temple, very pretty. This afternoon we're going to Sepilok Orangutan sanctuary, and although I'm gutted about not seeing one in the wild, seeing them here is better than none at all! :)

first few days

So I left my house on sunday night, for a flight at 5 to midnight. After a 13 hour flight, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 8pm (7 hours ahead!). After being knocked over several times while attempting to lift my rucksack, I managed to find a cash machine and get a taxi. I had a hotel booked in the centre of KL, which took about an hour to get to. I thought that paying about 35 pounds for it would ensure I could get a nice nights sleep there..... but there were cockroach's in my bathroom! Nice.... Having breakfast the next morning was interesting, too. Not sure about rice and noodles for breakfast! I left my seat for a minute when I spotted some toast and found I was joined about 5 other men! A strange experience to say the least. I was staying right next to the towers in KL which was pretty cool. My flight was at 11.10am so I made it back to the airport for about 9 and managed to pick up a Malaysian simcard. It was a 2 1/2 hour flight to Kota Kinabalu but the pilot somehow managed to get us in half an hour early. I had a drink at the airport and met Ant and Mel before meeting Man (Man the man..) and heading for Tinangol. I slept most of the way but it seemed that we picked up a lot of people on the way! It was about a 3 hour drive to Tinangol and it rained torrentially the whole way. Luckily the weather had picked up a bit by the time I got to Tinangol and had to get out of the car though!

I met everyone there and we had about half an hour before dinner time. And time to start on the rice wine! Rice wine is made locally and tastes something like watered down Vodka. There are 3 grades.. We've been drinking grade 3, the weakest, which is still something like 20%. You drink in rounds, the first being a full glass and half or quarter glasses thereafter, and it's considered rude not to have the first. I managed a relatively early night the first one, and avoided drinking too much!

I woke up at about 6.30 on wednesday, and we all had breakfast before walking in to the village for about 9 to start work. We're helping build a new kindergarten, and this morning involved levelling the ground where they were going to concrete for a playground, using spades and hoes. This was pretty hard work as it's so humid and so hot anyway! I don't think I've ever been so sweaty! We managed to get the whole day's work done before stopping for lunch at 12. We had a 2 hour break as they tried to find us some more work to do! We varnished logs that will be used as supports in the afternoon, but this didn't take us too long either. We played badminton for an hour or two before heading back to the longhouse at 6ish. The long house is about a metre and a half above ground level, with a kind of ladder to get to the porch, and then another to get in to the main house. There's a big communal kind of living area on the right, and the left is split in to 5 rooms for all of us. Toilets and showers are separate, and the loos are basic to say the least!

Thursday we were all up and in to the village at about the same time again. The village has 3 main longhouses, which each house about 100 people, I think. There are a few other smaller houses, too, a school, and a small shop. As we had been so speedy the day before there wasn't much to do. We did a tiny bit more levelling, and did a second coat of varnish on the logs. It seemed that the guys had done so much before I got there, too, that they were at a loss as to what we could do as they had no more materials! We had a pretty chilled day before doing a little more varnishing and a little more badminton in the afternoon. I think everyone else had done a lot of rice wine evenings in a row so we decided an early night was good for everyone!

We got a lie-in friday morning, before heading down to the sports field so we could put on a sports day for the kids (aged between about 3 and 13). We stressed a lot all morning about our lack of organisation, but when it came to it we found this wasn't really a problem as the kids pretty much did as they pleased anyway! We did lots of different events, including egg and spoon, coconut shy, 3 legged race, pass the balloon, bulldog, etc. There was a lot of cheating but I think they all had fun! The kids then seemed to attach themselves to us, and while some went round arguing over who got my camera, two little girls kept demanding to be picked up, so I have very sore arms! It was great fun but so knackering! We managed to get away at about 5, and back to the longhouse for dinner. As we had missed out the night before a very heavy rice wine night was had, with a fair bit of karaoke!

Saturday I think we all felt a bit the worse for wear, but none as bad as Emma, who threw up the whole way in to Kota Belud, and had to buy some lovely new clothes...... We had a little look round the shops and had lunch before heading off again. On the way back we went to a bee centre, where they showed us how they made honey, and then a village where they make gongs. I bought a few of the smaller ones but they weren't quite as impressive as a 20ft one they have standing there - the biggest in Malaysia, apparently. We headed back to the longhouse where I proceeded to be eaten alive all evening by mosquitoes!

Today we're in Kudat for a few hours in the morning, to catch up on internet and some shopping, and then beach this afternoon. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm told it's gorgeous! :)