Life in the Rain Forest

Mulu National Park

Entrance to Clearwater cave

Wind cave

Cave formations

Entrance to Deer cave - exit for the bats

Inside out

The park land

Life in the rain forest

River life

Back into Malaysian Borneo and I enter Sarawak via a booming oil town of Miri, a jumble of a town which seems way bigger and busier than KK and is probably the most difficult place I have ever tried to navigate around on foot - there are so many different interlinking streets and nowhere to cross the roads. Good enough for an aimless wonder, which I am getting rather good at, before flying into the interior of Borneo and into the rain forest and to Mulu National Park. Although Mulu is in the rain forest it is more about the caves here than the rain forest itself - if you have ever seen the caves episode of Planet Earth then you will know where I am. The limestone mountains and cliffs in the area allow for numerous and expansive cave systems, some only discovered very recently and most still being explored. There are four 'show caves' that you can visit - Deer, Lang, Wind and Clearwater and they are all huge, with deer cave having the largest chamber and being home to millions of bats, along with their guano and the thousands of insects that feed on it. Clearwater cave is the longest and has a river flowing through it - it is 129km long but visitors are only allowed 400m in - oh how the dark winding cave beckons you onwards. All the caves have good formations in them and are visited either by walks through the rain forest or via a boat trip along the river. The caves themselves are spectacular but the highlight for me was watching, at dusk, the millions of bats leaving the cave. The bats do not always leave the cave as quite sensibly if the weather is foul they will stay in for the night. I went along two nights in a row and the first night, after there being some heavy rain, well it is the rain forest, near to dusk only a few thousand bats left the cave - I'm only estimating obviously. It was still an awesome sight and if I hadn't got back the next night I would have thought that I had seen all the bats leaving. The second night the bats started to emerge in small batches - hundreds or maybe thousands at a time, flying together in a long line swirling around, sticking together to avoid the waiting birds of prey and then one batch started to leave the cave and it was just endless, it must have continued for at least 5 or more minutes - bats after bats after bats - amazing. To top it all, even with all the rain, no sign of leeches :-)

Brunei

Time for prayer

Houses on stilts

My ferry between Malaysia and Brunei

Very photogenic

The mosque in the background overlooking the water village

The largest mosque in the country

A beautiful Borneo Sunset

I need to stop crossing borders, my passport is getting full. I had only just arrived in Malaysia and I have left already - working my away along the northern coast of Borneo - Sabah, Malaysia to Brunei to Sarawak, Malaysia - passport stamps for arriving and passport stamps for leaving. Brunei is not quite the gold encrusted pavements that I had anticipated but there is clearly wealth here. It is a very safe and quiet place - not much in terms of night life and the streets are almost deserted come 8pm. A very pleasant place to stroll the streets and museums and to discard your shoes and don a robe to visit the local mosques - the insides are relatively plain but the outsides can be rather grand - it is also quite hypnotic to see the sunset over the mosque and at the same time listen to the call to prayer. Although wealth is apparent there is also poverty with the mosque over looking the water villages, although a lot of the houses on stilts do have all the mod cons of modern day society. It is not until you travel the coast of Brunei back into Malaysia that the source of the wealth becomes apparent - oil rigs out to sea and nodding donkeys bordering the highways.

Kota Kinabalu

A quick snack - flat bread cooked with onion served with curry gravy
Long houses at the museum

Kota Kinabalu front

Just in case you forget that you are in a muslim country

I have arrived in Borneo, and although I have spent a few days resting and trying to shift my germs I have got out a little bit to see the city - more like a town. It is all about eating here - just my cup of tea :-) There are more eating places than anything else and if you are not buying a meal then you can go to the market and buy more food there. There are numerous influences in the food here and it all seems very fresh and very tasty - it is funny to see Filipino restaurants here as to my taste buds the Filipino food is far blander then anything else on offer. My favourite has to be the indian influenced restaurants - very good curries and lots of flat breads - all very cheap. There are even local canned drinks here, which is nice to see that not everywhere has been overtaken by coca cola and pepsi, though they are still present. I haven't tried the soya milk based drinks yet but I did have a can of Chrysanthemum juice - not sure how to describe the flavour but it was very refreshing. I got out to the museum and saw a bit of the history of Borneo, or actually just Sabah (see below) and all about the long houses in the area.

Borneo is one island but three countries - Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, and the Malysian bit is split into two provinces - Sabah and Sarawak. Get your atlases out and have a look!

Now I just have to get over my fear/disgust of leeches and get out into the jungle to see the

natural highlights of Borneo.

Aeroplanes and Air Conditioning

Damn them both! Aeroplanes are always a menace with all those germs freely dancing around a small confined area just leisurly chosing their next victim. Add in artic cold air conditioning in flight terminals and all those germs just dart for cover - and what better place to go than into a nice warm cosy place at the back of a poor travellers throat. And not content to stay in the throat some of those germs take a longer journey and travel to the chest. Needless to say I've been a little sick - again - bugger - nothing for 7 months and then twice almost within a month. Nothing serious but enough to keep me in doors and resting. Damn that air conditioning, it is far better to stay hot and exceedingly sweaty - isn't it?

Afternoon Tea

I was the smartest one there - not!

Selection of mousses
Let them eat cake

The Grand Hyatt

I enjoyed this so mush that I felt that it deserved its very own blog post and a few extra photos. I spent the afternoon taking afternoon tea at the Grand Hyatt - if you are a little bit hungry you may want to go and grab yourself a slice of cake before you proceed.

The setting was grand - the first floor of the Hyatt over looking the bay and the buildings on Hong Kong Island, and a man at the grand piano tinkling the ivories before a very well presented buffet afternoon tea - a fine selection of sweet and savoury. I started with a few sandwiches and a little light salad, next came a refreshing plate of fruit to clean the palate - fresh and juicy pineapple, kiwi, melon, orange and a white fleshy fruit with little black seeds (not sure what it is called). No afternoon tea is complete without scones and jam and the biggest dollop of clotted cream you have ever seen - well I could help myself! Next came a little dim sum, noodles, sausage rolls and egg custard with caviar (which I did not like - either the egg custard or the caviar). Next a plate of all the chocolate desserts on offer - and there were quite a few - followed by ice cream, whcih I am sure was haagen daz, and just for good measure another dollop of clotted cream on top. A few heavenly macaroons and then a final plate of slightly less rich but just as delectable fruity cakes - like a mouth watering, melt in your mouth, mango bavarian mousse - oh so nice. And for those that are wondering, yes I did wash it down with tea - a new thing for me - I am okay when the tea is just poured and if there is a lot of water to add but I am still against the taste once the tea has steeped too long - I even have picked up the terminology!!! I was so full that I decided to skip the two MTR stops back to my hotel area and I walked along the front to try and walk off a few of the pounds I had clearly just devoured. A must for anyone visiting Hong Kong!

Hong Kong in Pictures - part 2

Riding the tram

Visiting the Hong Kong flower festival

A mass of colour

Afternoon tea at the Grand Hyatt - very decadent and ever so scrummy

Visiting giants - they are people in the fore ground

Selecting the only foggy day of the week to ride the cable car - doh!

Riding the MTR - doesn't matter if it is foggy!

Hong Kong in pictures

Enjoying city parks
Staying out after dark
Catching up on world news

Getting lost amongst the many buildings

Sundays are for hanging out - anywhere you can find room

Messing about on the water

Enjoying art work in the many parks

Riding the longest escalator in the world

Shopping!

Time to reflect

Relaxing in my hotel and enjoying the view

Enjoying fine chinese cuisine

Testing out new religions

How I have been spending my time in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong

My original trip had me in and out of Hong Kong three times with no real stop over to see the sights on offer, which seemed a bit of a waste, so I have changed my flight times and have a one week stop over in Hong Kong, where I plan to rest and recuperate, take in the fine dining, be a real tourist and basically just blend in to the crowds.

The writing on the wall

This was not graffiti but it was written on the back of a toilet door in Manila airport - how profound!

"Contentment is not fulfilment of what you wish for but appreciation of what you have. Appreciate life itself, even if it is not perfect."

What a fitting end to a trip to the Philippines. I wonder what people thought when they saw a camera flash going off in the toilet stall ;-)

Cockerels

I forgot to mention the number of cockerels that there are in the Philippines, even in the middle of Manila you can wake up to the lovely sound of cock-a-doodle-doo - endlessly!!!! I assume the number are due to the fact that cock fighting is still a much practised sport here - coming in third to national past times only to kareoke and texting :-)

Philippine Oddities

I am coming to the end of my travels in the Philippines and I thought I would just mention a few oddities of travel here. I have not traveled a lot in Asia so I do not know if they are specific to the Philippines or are general throughout.

Cash: credit cards are not accepted in a lot of places here and there are not that many ATMs outside of major towns, and even if there are ATMs they can quite often be 'offline' (not working) and have a maximum withdrawal limit - often $80. You have to be prepared and get your cash out whenever you can and plan your trips around towns/cities. It was with much dismay that having phoned ahead to my dive resort in Cabilao to check if they accepted credit card (which they did) that when I came to pay my bill they said ' we accept credit card but the machine often does not have a signal'. Oh! I had very little cash on me. There was no panic, I was to be accompanied, on my departure, to the next town and its ATM - via the motorbike, boat, jeepney route. After queuing a considerable time at the only ATM in town I was told that the machine does not accept foreign cards. Oh! So what to do? I left my e-mail address and was told that they would get in touch and I could transfer the money bank to bank. What a way to do business! The bill was $200 and as of yet, 6 days later, I have yet to hear from them.

Other things to get used to here:
Smoking - everyone smokes and there are very few smoke free zones, including on the buses. Toilet paper does not go down the loo and a lot of places do not provide it anyway (always carry your own). Not that it bothers the men, they just stop the bus and pee at the side of the road - nice!
Cold showers - most of the places that I have stayed have had cold showers, and in a few places the shower consisted of a big bucket full of water and a little bucket to scoop the water out and throw it over your head.
Mangos and pineapples are in season and have been lovely but remember to ask for no added sugar when asking for fresh juice.
Food is okay and inexpensive but is not as tasty as Thai and Chinese and they like to fry a lot of things.
Most places to stay charge out for a room rather than per person so it is a little more expensive to travel alone.
Enjoy the travel - the journey is just as exciting as the destination.
And be prepared to be stared at - the Filipinos have no quarms at openly staring at you - and I am not even blonde!

Letye

My travel companions on the ferry

I spoke too soon about buses with flat tires! Another island and another journey - a reverse of the motorbike, boat, jeepney, followed by two more jeepneys, a ferry crossing, a bicycle cab (foot powered tricycle rather than a motorbike powered one) and one more jeepney. The last jeepney being an added bonus as the ferry didn't actually land in the town that I had expected it to - oops! It was also this jeepney that had a flat tire on the journey, but as before it was swifly mended and we didn't even have to get off. A long days travel from Bohol to Leyte and I seem to have left most of the tourists behind, though I did get to share my room with an uninvited guest - a small mouse.

More diving and relaxing for me in Southern Leyte, in an area called Padre Burgos. The diving was good but I didn't see as many critters here as at Cabilao, I am not sure if the critters are just not here or whether the dive guides were just not quite as good at finding them. Very relaxed all the same and some good company with fellow divers.