Borneo - The King Of The Swingers

Anyone who knows anything about Borneo knows that it is home of the Orangutans.

These beautiful ginger fuzzy haired creatures are extremely loveable and Borneo is worth visiting just to go to an orangutan rehabilitation centre or orphanage and get a glimpse of them monkeying around.

Borneo also has a lot of other hidden treasure..

We only managed to go to a few places in Sabah (the Eastern province in Malaysian Borneo) here's what we did ...

Kota Kinabulu

The capital. I was expecting something out of the Jungle Book like canopies, greenery and lots of animals. In fact this place is very built up and also on the coast, so there are beaches a plenty.

We managed to stray into the national park to do some canopy walking (which was, at it's highest, 26 metres high). We also managed to see Mt Kota Kinabulu, a mountain half the size of Mount Everest. We didn't climb it, as we thought we'd climbed, walked, trekked up enough mountains/ volcanoes/ hills etc in Asia. We just took pictures from the ground.


Poring

The Poring Hot Springs is a natural bathing place. They have hot springs and also a cold pool. We spent about an hour in the hot water and about half a minute in the cold one. It was very refreshing though.

Sepilok

We headed to Sepilok (which is actually in the middle of the jungle) on a local bus. It was a six hour drive through the meandering mountain range.

We were in for the shock of our lives when the bus driver pulled up at the side of the road and called us off the bus. We'd been dumped in the middle of nowhere. Luckily some taxi man was driving past and picked us up. Realising we had no money we asked him to go via a cash point - which we later discovered, half an hour into the drive, was 12 miles away. Couldn't complain though, the whole trip including the six hour bus ride and taxi via the ATM cost about £10.50!

We stayed in a nice jungle lodge not too far from the orangutan orphanage, and managed to see some of the beasts at the feeding in the morning. They were very curious but at the same time shy. It was impressive seeing them swing through the over growth. Sad to also think that they are an endangered species.

We didn't have long in Borneo this time round. There are so many other things I'd like to do, like see the turtles and go scuba diving (it's apparently a very popular place to go).

I guess I'll have to go back. With so much to do it's definitely somewhere you could go ape.

Gold Digging in Brunei

So we're both young free and single. We were also heading to a place that would be full of rich people, maybe even young single men! Brunei has a lot of oil and the Sultan is one of the wealthiest in the world - he's worth 54 billion dollars (now that is a lot of money). The only down fall was that the whole country has no bars or pubs. In fact Brunei has an alcohol ban, so how on earth does anyone get chatted up?!

Worried that it was too expensive for our budget, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't ridiculously so. I was expecting magnificent mosques and skyscrapers looming over the city.

Brunei, what an anomaly.

It has the potential to be built up and bustling. It was very quiet, had no major buildings except the mosques and it was a little deserted. There were only a few small shopping centres, some coffee houses and a handful of hotels / guest houses.

Unlike the rest of Asia, the roads weren't dirt tracks, they were paved, (this is now how I tell how westernised a country is by the paved roads, trust me it's a novelty!)

It had a beautiful mosque called the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, which was golden domed. We went to see it at night, when it has been lit up and appears to float like an apparition over the lagoon it's next to.

Another mosque worth visiting is the Jame'asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque, which is just out of town and is the largest in Brunei.

I was intrigued about the Sultan. Surely if he has all these grand mosques and is one of the richest men then he must have a splendid palace. We attempted to visit it, but we couldn't see it for the trees.

We did see the other side of Brunei, the poorer side, as in the Fishing Village, which has been there for centuries (and looks like it has too). It seems every country in Asia has a fishing village somewhere. This village in the harbour of the city is basically a floating town, the second largest town in Brunei after the capital. It even has it's own fire station and schools.

All in all the country wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. The people are incredibly friendly. Lynsey and I even managed to hitchhike (that's a lie we didn't, we got lost and a family took pity on us and dropped us back at our hotel! There aren't any taxis lingering around, so we were massively grateful.)

We had a relaxing few days here. We even watched a Tug of War competition in the city's stadium, which was rather random. We even managed to have a look at some muscly young men! So this is where you pick them up!

I felt as though we had a great few days in this peaceful place. Even if I didn't get to actually see the palace or get a proper feel for Brunei's wealth ... I did however hear that the Sultan was divorcing one of his wives .. She was previously a reporter, which I thought was very interesting. Apparently he'd also divorced one who was an air stewardess. I started thinking Lynsey worked for BA and I worked for a magazine... maybe, just maybe, we should hand in our CVs .....

Interesting Indonesia

Indonesia is very much the Australian holiday place. A bit like how us English flock to Benidorm for a bit of sun, sand, English nosh and tacky night life. Indonesia, or Bali even, is every Ozzy's dream place. Surfing the turbulent waves, scuba diving at various spots, white water rafting, hiking up volcanoes and cheesy nights out. There is an abundance of activities (mostly surfing).

Bali

We stayed on Kuta Beach. I was expecting something to rival Australia's Gold Coast in beauty. Unfortunately not. It just had good waves. We got stuck in though and had a surf lesson; this cost 33 dollars at the Big Kuhuna Surf School. They guarantee in the first lesson you will stand on the board, if not you get a free lesson the next day. Amazingly I managed to stand on the board a good few times. I did also get a black eye ... the board went into my eye. I wasn't paying attention and the wave crashed the board into me as I fell off it.

We also went white water rafting where, unlike the one we did in Chiang Mai (Thailand), the water was actually pretty fast and we went over a dam.

The nightlife wasn't really that great here, so we didn't bother going out much. We did watch the World Cup at every opportunity so we did get to drink some beer!

Mount Bromo

The best thing about Indonesia in my eyes. We decided to get an over night bus to east Java to climb Mount Bromo - an active volcano. The mountain is freezing so we had to purchase scarves, gloves and hats. At 4am they pick you up from your log cabin to take you up the volcano to see the sun rise. This was unreal - hence why I got a little too snap happy. The place was crowded so we were lucky to get a good spot.

After this you go visit the crater. It's a steaming crater too and the views are out of this world. My breath was completely taken away. It was phenomenal and to say it was stunning does it no justice, words cannot even express it. To finish off we had a nice horse ride down the volcano.

Yogjakarta

We stayed here for a couple of nights to visit the legendary Borobodur, a 9th century Buddhist temple. It is described as the Angkor Wat of Indonesia. It's not as spectacular but definitely holds it's own in architecture and grandeur. We also tried Python and Cobra here (which tastes surprisingly like chicken ... maybe we really are living in the Matrix). I also had my hair re-bonded for about 20 pounds (this process basically is where a chemical is put onto the hair to permanently straighten/ relax it until it grows out, it's a couple of hundred pounds in England, so this was a bargain!)

Tulamben
This is an area in northern Bali. Here I did a wreck dive. There was a warship called the Liberty that sank just off the coast here. It now has beautiful coral covering it and hides a massive selection of fish within it's ghostly remains. We managed to see a stingray and even a baracuda. It was nice to try a different type of scuba dive.







We didn't get to go to Jakarta or even the Gili Islands. We will definitely have to go back to Indonesia on a visit. I'm guessing that when we get to Australia there will be lots of cheap holiday packages to Indonesia, seeing as the place was swamped with those from down under. If we're living over there for a bit then maybe Bali can become our new Benidorm.