Deano’s Travels

What can I say, I love Borneo, see these posts for what I think of Sarawak, but this post is about my latest trip to Northern Borneo.

Bako National Park

Gunung Gading National Park

I visited the North Borneo region of Sabah with my friend Shawna, who was ready to escape the cold of the Chinese winter.

We had just eight days here but managed to cram a lot in, having a few days snorkeling on the islands off Kota Kinabalu, a few days wandering the treks at the base of Mount Kinabalu, some animal watching on the Sungai Kinabatangan, and scones and cream at a colonial house in Sandakan.

Kota Kinabalu has a diverse population including many Chinese, this amused Shawna as she thought that she was leaving the language behind her, as it was still Chinese New Year (which seems to last for about a month) we saw some celebrations, including these dancing Lions.

It is pretty easy to get to the islands from KK. Their are lots of boats that go from the Jetty and they cost about 13 to 17 MYR, there is an additional charge of 10 MYR to the national park to enter the islands (keep your ticket as they are valid on all of the islands if you are island hopping). Snorkels also cost 10 MYR to hire.

The Borneo sea has some fantastic creatures beneath its surface. At the time of year we were there, (February) it was Jellyfish season (I managed to get a nice sting) but they are not that dangerous; I went back to KK in July and there was not a jellyfish in site.

Other than the jellyfish there were lots of beautiful fish to see amongst the coral. The islands off KK are a great place to go snorkeling.

After a hard days snorkeling it is nice to get some food down you. Kota Kinabalu does not fail in this regard. There is a large outdoor food market, and the waterfront part of town has a lot of good (though fairly expensive) restaurants.

The town faces west this means that the sunsets can be quite pretty.

After KK we went to the Mount Kinabalu national park, we didn’t go up the mountain, which was pretty expensive, and pretty damn high. We did do some of the treks through the forest at the base of the mountain, which were tough but worth it.

We next went to Sandakan, and then onto the Sungai Kinabatangan where we did a two day/ one night stay. On the way we called in at the caves where they harvest Swiftlet nests for the Chinese birds nest soup dishes.

Once we got to the Sungai Kinabatangan we went on a few river trips. The animal life had to be seen to be believed. What has happened is that much of the area has been took over by the palm tree growers; this has resulted in the animals retreating to the protected national park area by the river.

We saw lots of animals including proboscis monkeys, Orang utans, long tailed macaques, a baby crocodile, Darters, Fish Owls and my favourite, the horn bills.

I’d recommend a trip to Sabah, North Borneo to anyone,

Deano

For some reason wordpress decided to only publish half of my last blog post (I really do hate Content Management Systems).

So here is a continuation of the post from Langzhong and Chengdu. I cannot be bothered to write it all again, other to say that I had a fantastic time in both places, and would recommend a visit to China for anyone who has never been before.

Deano

I am in the privileged position of having friends all over the world, one of whom is Shawna who I met during my time at Cornell. She has now moved to Chengdu, a city in the Sichuan region of China where she is currently working as a lecturer at the medical school of the main University.

As I was in the area it was a great opportunity to visit my friend, to see some of China, and to sample the food.

That’s all very well you may say, but what about the Pandas? Yes I admit it I have a soft spot for great big fluffy, slow moving bamboo eaters and the Sichuan area is famous for both its Pandas and its pretty girls. There were just so many reasons to visit, so I jumped on an Airasia flight from KL, cheap as chips to get there, I love Airasia An additional benefit was that I would be there to celebrate New Year too.

Anyway onto the Pandas. Chengdu has a Giant Panda rehabilitation centre. Here they manage to successfully breed the Giant Pandas by showing them Panda porn (the things you learn on a backpacking trip). In reality the place is more like a zoo, but it has lots of Giant and Red Pandas. The highlight without doubt are the baby Giant Pandas who love to show off their Kung fu skills; they are just so cute when play fighting that it is untrue.

The Red Pandas were also pretty cool.

Although Chengdu is a nice place and has great food, we did not want to stay in the city the whole time, so we went on a trip to the Feng Shui city of Langzhong. This is  a really old school Chinese city, full of cool streets and temples.

Hello my good people, as usual I’m a bit behind with my blog. I am currently in Palawan in the Philippines and have recently been to Vietnam, China, Borneo, Mainland Malaysia, Thailand and South Africa.

I will do a quick posts so that my readers (you know who you are) can see a few pics from my travels. I will start off with Vietnam.

I love Vietnam, the place is so lively, the people are friendly, the food is good and the scenery is beautiful.

The streets of Ho Chi Minh are pretty damn crazy; even walking on the pavement you risk your life if you don’t check what’s coming around the corner.

When I was in Saigon they were just preparing for the upcoming New Year (which I spent in China with my friend Shawna, see my next blog post).

After Saigon I the coast and stayed at a place called Mui Ne. The place is very popular with Kite surfers. I would have loved to give it a go but I screwed my back up snowboarding many a moon ago; looks tremendous fun though. When I was there I stayed right on the beach at a great little place called the Mui Ne Backpackers Resort. I ended up staying in Mui Ne for about a week, it really is a nice place to hang out.

Deano