Honeymoonin' in Borneo = unique landscapes, endangered species and underwater creatures! The total package! After a full day of travel, we started our journey from the busy capital city, Kota Kinabalu to Palau Tiga aka The first survivor island! The stormy day made for a rough 1.5 hour boat ride, but was worth the trip to check out the rather desolate island and take a trip to the mud volcano so we could swim in the murky water (cooler than it sounds) and cover our skin in mud (good for the pores, right?). We also spent some time snorkeling and walking around the island, trying to imagine living on here ‘surviving’ without losing your torch.
With Kota Kinabalu as our hop off point, we then spent one more night at ‘H2 Backpackers’ (our home away from home) before stretching out to climb almost 5,000m in elevation atop Mount Kinabalu. Day one we ascended 6km of the 8.4km and appreciated the jungle type atmosphere until reaching a higher elevation of a flat rocky surface. By 1pm we’d crushed day one and ended up napping for almost 4 hours before a scrumptious buffet among new friends. The following day we had a 2 a.m. wake up call for breakfast and prepared for our 2:45 tough ascent in a mostly vertical climb to reach the summit for 5:30 a.m., just in time to settle in (and freeze) before sunrise. But damn, was that sunrise worth it or what? It shone in the horizon and illuminated the flat, textured rock surface that we’d climbed unknowingly in the middle of the morning. We got some great photos and enjoyed the views for a bit before heading back down, which, to no surprise was a lot easier on the way down :)
Sore legs and all, we headed out the following day to Mulu, the jungle section of our trip. We stayed at The Marriot, which was outstanding and, not to be a diva, but had a really great pool and buffet! Our hut stood upon stilts and we loved the space and greenery of Mulu! We spent the days in the Mulu’s conservation area and did jungle treks, checked out huge cave systems, watched a bat exodus from the caves, and took a boat ride to a cute village area, and more caves where we got to swim in the fresh water that flowed from it. Mulu was remote, beautiful, and peaceful.
Our next stop was to Mabul Island via a fairly wet boat ride from Semporna town, to spend 3 nights and 4 days SCUBA diving in the world renowned dive site, Sipadan (rated top 10 dive spots in the world!), Mabul, and Kapalai. The island was super chill, which comes with the territory of divers in general, was a shared island with locals, and was also a spot for turtle rescue and release. Some of the sea creature spotting highlights were: thresher shark (stunning its prey with the whip of its tail), Elvis the large eel, ghost pipefish, flamboyant cuttlefish, blue ringed octopus, a lot of turtles, a school of barracuda, blue spotted stingray, and crocodile fish. We were lucky enough to make some friends from Quebec and South Africa and spent some evenings reminiscing about our ocean findings over beers or playing lawn games.
Waterlogged and happy, but still excited to see more sea turtles, we made our way to the precious Turtle Island, where mommy turtles come to lay their eggs on the same island that they were born on many moons ago. By day, we spent our time on the beach, in the museum, and luckily friending a ranger who let us release a baby turtle, whom we named, Pearl. The highlight of the trip to Turtle Island was being called out by the guide in the middle of the night to observe a mother turtle dig her nest in the sand with her big flippers, enter a sedative type state of relaxation, and release up to 100 baby turtle eggs. The rangers collected the eggs right away, although mom had no idea, and put them safely into protected incubators in the sand to increase their rate of survival 10 fold (predators). Mommy turtle, having just given birth to several new babes, spends the evening in a state of RnR and in the morning she waddles her way back to the ocean, hoping that at least one of her eggs will survive the cruel outcome of the baby turtle survival rate. We were lucky enough to watch 10s of baby turtles being released in groups the following day and cheered on our little shelled friends as they braved the big seas. If I didn't already love turtles enough before visiting Turtle Island, I can tell you, that they are without a doubt my favourite animal (besides Cooper our dog of course).
Time for the "National Geographic" part of the trip! Sepilok for Orang utans, Kinanbatangan for river cruises to see proboscis monkeys, and Gonantong to admire ancient limestone caves. When arriving to our hut on stilts, we were elated to be in "Organ utan land" and to be in the middle of no-where! We ventured out on day one to a conservatory that was a place where animals could come to be cared for, but also had no boundaries to the outside world aka the rainforest! We were SO lucky to have chanced upon a curious orang who was swinging aimlessly from tree to tree - aware of our presence, he stopped and looked out of curiosity too, and we couldn't get over the likeness between their species and ours. We felt lucky that we had scored by seeing him on the first afternoon of our visit. And luckily for us, that was the only orang that we saw on our trip, as there were none to be seen in the designated sanctuary as it was too busy and too hot; and given their endangerment because of losing their habitat to palm oil tree plantations for consumerism, we felt elated to have laid eyes on such a spectacular creature in the wild. Later, in Kinabatangan, we braved the mosquitos and mud to enjoy several river boat rides (long wooden boats) to spot long nosed monkeys, macaques monkeys, and large crocs. The monkeys were a RIOT to watch as they swung along trees in their harem -fighting, loving, and mothering their youth. Apparently, the larger the nose, the more power they have in their clan. Next stop, a labyrinth of caves with massive icicle shaped limestone, bat scat, and very expensive bird spit. Yes, that's right. There is a special swallow that makes its nests out of saliva and once abandoned it is collected, heated, and made into teas and pills to help with anti aging and other nonsense that I promptly tried upon returning to Kota Kinablu lol.
Our final stop in Borneo was for RnR at the luxurious 5 star Gaya Island Resort. This setting definitely did not match that of the other places we had stayed for the previous 2.5 weeks, and we enjoyed the huge tub, king bed, balcony, hammocks, buffet meals, infinity pools, sun and sand. To be honest, we enjoyed our time here, but slightly missed the ruggedness of the outback we had just come from. We did find ourselves some nature canoeing a mangrove and snorkelling to see more turtles and colourful fishes.
We bid farewell to Malaysia, sad to go, but happy to have one more stopover in Singapore before heading home; and what a city is was! It's clean, orderly, and well - expensive! We did a lot of walking around to some markets, breweries, waterfronts, and even took a ride on Singapore's version of the London Eye. We really enjoyed the cloud forest exhibit where it simulated a similar temperature, flora, and environment to that of a cloud forest that could be in Costa Rica. We marvelled at the big tree lights show at the Gardens by the Bay, stared up at the huge Marina Bay Sands hotel with the infinity pool 100 stories up, and took in the sights and smells of the botanical gardens. On our final day of our honeymoon, we acted just as kids would and hit up Universal Studios for rides and entertainment. It was a perfect way to cap of a perfect honeymoon. Oh, did we mention the palatial Singapore airport? Who has a functional waterfall in an airport?? Wow.
Back to reality - but full of memories, photos, and experiences! Thank you, South East Asia.
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