Last Minute Trip to Borneo

Borneo was not on our itinerary when we set out on our trip over six months ago.  Our interest was piqued when a couple on Easter Island highly recommended a visit to see its wildlife, and we were sold on the idea when a fellow scuba diver in Australia gushed over the diving off of the island of Sipadan.  Thankfully, we built a good bit of flexibility into our trip and were able to book a relatively cheap last-minute flight out of Singapore.  Borneo is a huge island (third largest in the world after Greenland and New Guinea) and divided between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, but we decided to focus on the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah since we only had a week and a half to spend.  It's a good thing we didn't try to tackle more, because we left Sabah exhausted and ready to relax in an air conditioned room.

We kicked off our time in Borneo in Sabah's capital, Kota Kinabalu (mercifully simply called 'KK' by most locals and travelers).  The city is beautifully situated on the South China Sea, but otherwise is not that interesting.  It was razed twice by the Allies during Japanese occupation in WWII and as a result it lacks in historical sites and character.  No matter, as we only spent two days in the city before escaping.  Our length of stay was just long enough for the hostel owner to confuse Magge with various other white women at least three times, including an awkward exchange of repeated hugs and kisses as we checked out.  I guess we do all look alike.

View from KK's harbor front

Our time in KK wasn't all boring, though, as we did get a nice day out on a nearby island.  I'm having Magge, the underwater photography enthusiast, write about our time on Mamutik.  She was supposed to insert her brief writeup with a few pictures into this post, but I should have known than anything less than War and Peace from Magge is impossible, so it is now a separate post and is directly above this one.

From KK, we returned to our South American travel roots and took a way-too-cramped minibus to Kinabalu National Park, Malaysia's first UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to Mt. Kinabalu.  The mountain is Borneo's highest at 4,095 meters (13,514 feet) and may be the island's most popular attraction.  Tens of thousands of people climb the mountain every year, and "did you climb Mt. Kinabalu?" is the most common question you'll get while traveling around Sabah.  Magge and I looked into doing the climb, but it was too expensive and we heard it gets too crowded at the peak as everyone vies for the perfect sunrise photograph.  It costs at least 600 Malaysian ringgit per person, and last minute bookings, which we would have had to do, cost around 800 ringgit.  That's equivalent to US$190-250, which may not sound like that much, but when the average meal here costs seven ringgit and a night in a private hostel room with airconditioning is sixty to seventy ringgit, we just didn't feel like it was worth it.

 Imposing Mt. Kinabalu

Instead of climbing Kinabalu, we did a free day hike in the jungle at the base of the mountain that our guidebook stated was excellent.  I suppose it would be excellent if you've never before been in a forest, but we found it to be an average hike.  Or at least I found it to be average.  In the pouring rain, Magge was miserable and ready to be finished a third of the way into the trail.  On the positive side, I only got attacked by one leech, which can be prevalent in the area, and was able to get it off before it started sucking my blood.  I had warned Magge beforehand that I would probably start shrieking like a girl if I found multiple leeches feeding on me, so I'm glad that that emasculation didn't come to fruition.

 The weather turned, as it apparently does every afternoon

Magge somehow spotted this tiny (maybe two inches long), camouflaged frog on the forest floor as we were walking.  I think it was the only highlight of the hike for her.

With a few pleasant, but not spectacular, days under our belt, it was time to get into the meat of our time on Borneo: scuba diving and monkeys.