Home!

Sorry it’s been so long!

I wasn’t doing too much at the end of my trip… just chilling in KK and then flew back to KL for a bit of shopping :)

I unfortunately had to cut my trip short because of the incidents in Bangkok so I’m home early! Flew to Singapore for a 10 hour layover before heading to Bejing for 3 hours then finally landed in Toronto.

Canada is so different from Asia (although the weather is comparable right now haha). I’m doing my best to adjust and it is so nice to see all my friends and family.

Thank you so so much for everyone who supported me during this trip, it meant so much to me.

Much better.

Found this little jewel on N’s camera… much better than my version

Sikau

Mabul & Sipandan

So we just got back from diving… man it was so amazing.

We had so much fun staying on Mabul island for the night in their longhouse – they all live in these run down houses on stilts in the water along the shore.

Bucket showers and sporadic electricity; I was in love with this place. There were kids all over the place and tons of cats. So much character everywhere.

Did 3 dives on Mabul yesterday which were awesome. The third was a night dive (first time for Norah!) so that was pretty sweet too. Saw cuttlefish, eels, frogfish, triggerfish, crabs, tumpetfish, leaf fish and some HUGE turtles. Like 1.5m x 1m. They were so pretty and so big that they looked fake haha. The coral was really nice and their walls are super cool.

Today we dove in Sipadan – it sure lives up to it’s reputation. Saw tons of turtles, sharks, sweet lips, fussilier school, baracuda school, octopus (changed colours!), scorpionfish, moray eel, groupers, triggerfish… so cool! The sites are gorgeous and there is just so much to see from every direction. Definitely happy we went.

On the boat ride home we saw two trutles mating at the surface which was sorta cool too.

Had a few health issues which was a bit of a bummer (ear/head/tummy pain) but I stuck it out and was very much rewarded.  Wish we could’ve stayed longer but it was a little pricey. All of the instructors were awesome – one of them was Canadian! And then there was Lando………. sigh.

Fabulous experience #4851

Sikau….. again.

So last time I uploaded pictures I couldn’t see what ones I was loading so they were a little bit random… here’s a couple more that are better!

On the morning cruise we saw all the monkeys by the river :

mom with a baby holding on

Then we went with Dean (‘crazy old guy’) on a walk on our last morning. The trail away from the guesthouse didn’t last too long as it ran into a palm plantation (there’s so many here in Malaysia! :( it’s so sad how much of the jungle has been destroyed for them) so we ducked under the electric fence — keeps elephants out — and walked around the plantation, seeing some little kids and just wandering around.

Then we saw a guy actually harvesting the palm berries. Using essentially a pole with a machete on the end, he hacked off the branches and then when he could reach the berries he cut them down. So obviously we jumped on the opportunity to try cutting them down!

took two of us to cut the branches - so embarassing haha

The palm berry we cut down!

We just left Sukau today and arrived in Semporna. Going to Mabul in the morning to go dive! Staying over there to dive the next day in Sipadan. So pumped.

We’re in the VIP section of the internet cafe currently…

What luxury.

Gotta get some sleep before our 7am wakeup.

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Love ya mum

XOXO

P.S. While waiting on the side of the road this morning for our bus to Semporna, two guys got out of a mini van and started weed wacking the ditch (don’t ask me why) the younger guy had a tshirt wrapped around his head (maybe cause it’s hot? who knows). Nor tried to take a creeper picture of him but he saw and posed. So that was sweet. Then later he took off his ‘hat’ and BAM all this crazy long hair appeared! We definitely had to take another photo and while pondering how to do it he just walked up and asked us to take his picture… perfect!

And yes, Norah does have the hots for him –  Tobias has some competition now.

Sukau

Greetings from the jungle!

We’re living right on the river in this fabulous guesthouse.

They have river cruises in their little boat so that’s what we’ve been doing lately.

The first day we went on the afternoon cruise we mainly landed far up the river to find the elephants. They like to graze in near the plantation… there were about 50-60 visible in that area! So awesome.

The 7 of us and the boat driver were probably about 30ft. away from the herd. There were babies, mamas, old males with their big tusks… after a few minutes of picture taking, we noticed one of the bulls approaching. Norah and I were the first two to see the boat driver’s face (alarm bells definitely went off!) and he quickly ushered us backwards. — You know it’s not so good when the local retreats; they’re always the fearless, adventuresome ones! — We hurriedly walked back through the bush to the muddy road but then suddenly the elephant moved faster so everyone started running. Then faster. Both us girls lost our flip flops in the mud as we tried to speed up, I saw sunglasses fall… no one cared, we all just wanted to get a safe distance away. Luckily it slowed down (and the people behind us picked up our shoes ahah). Then we realized that the one crazy old guy in the group was still behind the elephant so we all were yelling at him and he somehow managed to run around it while we were all clapping our hands to try to scare it away from the boat.

Gah. What a great first cruise!

Have since been on another afternoon cruise and we did a morning one today (6am! bleh.) where we saw a 2.5m crocodile! Also heard a leopard in the bushes.

Seen a bunch of other animals too: proboscis monkeys, long-tailed macaque, pig-tailed macaque, silver leafed monkeys, black hornbills, blue-eared kingfishers……

Sorry, forgot to rotate this.. just turn your head

Today we were really close to these pig-tailed macaques. They were just chillin and eating… the babies were so cute!

We’re just loving this place! Gunna stay until the weekend and then we’re off to the south for diving :D

P.S. This is our German friend Norbert that we met in KK. He’s pretty much a rockstar.

WE MADE IT

So from KK we planned on going to Sukau… on Monday morning.

We just arrived this afternoon.

Here’s how it went:

After sleeping in, we took the local bus on Monday morning to the bus station where we got a mini bus to another station but then the driver said to get back in since we needed to go further. Hopped back in and later got dropped off at the side of the road of an 8 lane “highway.” Hmm. Crossed the road to find out where to go and kept being told to cross the road … after crossing back and forth around six times we realized that there was another bus station three streets behind the road. Go figure. So we trudged over there to find out that there was indeed a bus to Sukau that left at 1:30pm. We waited a couple hours for our bus in a little restaurant where Norah conquered the hugest plate of nasi g in the world.

Our bus driver was a little crazy and didn’t really stop for anything (not to mention we were sure the bus was going to fall apart) and by dusk, we were told we couldn’t go to Sukau because ‘it wasn’t safe for women’ …….. okay. So they drove us another hour and a half south and dumped us in a place called Lahad Datu. Took a very overpriced cab to ‘the city’ and stayed at a little guesthouse with a very nice receptionist named Sam.

Notice the LARGE gap between 'Sukau' and 'Lahad Datu'

They had these lovely bathrooms – we had one in our room and we saw one at the bus stop on the way – it’s pretty much a 3′ by 2′ room with a slanted floor and a hole in the wall. If you’re lucky there’s a faucet that you can use to wash your feet off cause lets face it, there’s no way not to pee on yourself.

So we got up early early to make sure we didn’t miss the bus to Sukau… but then had to wait 2 hrs for it to leave ugh ahah. Two hours later we got dropped off at the side of the road where the junction was and had to take a crappy truck into ‘town.’

We finally made it!

It’s quite rural… our guesthouse is about a 30 min walk from the town where there’s only 1 restaurant that we’ve found so far but it’s so pretty. Like Don Det sorta.

We got caught in a bit of a downpour this afternoon but we’re just so happy to be in this lovely place. Staying at least a few days and not sure where we’ll head after that.

Diving in Sipadan with Norah next week! We’re so excited.

Sending lots of love to my family at home right now… I’ll see you all soon.

Still here…………

Haven’t quite made it out of KK yet as we’re loving the air conditioning and still feeling a little under the weather. (I promise, we’ll leave tomorrow though)

So I have no new adventures.

BUT

Yesterday I learned the difference between Britain and England. Who knew they weren’t the same thing?!