Borneo - Explore the rainforest - Ueli & Alisha

Borneo – Seeking the new adventure

Borneo, to be specific, Sabah was recommended to us from several travelers we met so far on our trip. Borneo, the island of the endless rainforest, or lets say whatever is leftover, and the home of the orangutans.

We more and more were into the thought “Hey why not? Let’s go to Sabah”. The island was close to our current stay Koh Tao. So, we started looking into flights to Borneo. We found a couple of connections via Surat Thani, Kuala Lumpur to Sabah, Borneo which is on the north part of the island considered as Malaysia. It is a bit a longer journey as we first had to get to Surat Thani by ferry and than take the plane. As we didn’t want to take the risk of taking the ferry at the same day and as we anyway have plenty of time, we decided to take the ferry at the next day, stay a night in Surat Thani close by the airport and fly the day after.

The journey

Next day, the journey to a new exiting spot starts! We were right with our decision as the trip with the ferry was long as we also had to change the ferry in Koh Phangan. We arrived at the airport region with a delay of around 1.5h. We were happy that we decided to stay for a night as we have seen some tourists travelling on the same route running towards the airport as soon as the bus arrived. The last thing we want is stressing around on our trip as time is not a factor for us luckily 🙂

We took a taxi via the Grab app, to our overnight stay 10min away from the airport. The hotel was in the middle of nowhere surrounded by palm oil plantations. Nevertheless, the owner was super friendly and took immediately care about us. This made that spot really charming and it was anyway only for one night.

Slept out and pretty relaxed, we continued our trip towards Borneo. After a stopover of 4h in Kuala Lumpur, where we spent a fortune for the provided massage seats, we finally arrived in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo. We booked a hotel for two nights in between downtown and the airport called Asiana hotel. Let’s explore and decide what we want to do further.

Kota Kinabalu – The arrival

On our next day we had a zest for action and started to explore Kota downtown. To be honest, nothing out of the ordinary. The city offers a couple of local markets but mainly malls in all kind of variations. Fair to say, the main part of the population is Chinese (~20%) and with the flight connections Sabah has to China / Korea, the main tourists here are coming from China & Korea. With that not enough, we also were able to come here exactly at the time when Chinese New Year is going to happen. Anyway, looks like more research from our side would have been required to avoid it. Nevertheless, lets dive into these festivities.

First, it was time to decide what we actually want to do here. Just going to malls cannot be the answer. Borneo – why are we here again? Right, we’ve got told or have read about the huge rainforests, orangutans and big variety of animals living in the rainforest. So, let’s find out about trips. This was the second big surprise. All tours half day / full day costs a fortune. If you go to the booking shelters, look it up online or even use TripAdvisor, everything was going in the direction of at least CHF 100 / person. This cannot be the answer, we thought. We decided to manage that in our way, just go there and organize it by our own.

Sepilok – Pure nature

No sooner said than done, we were sitting in a plane to Sandakan with the final target Sepilok. Sepilok is the place to be to visit the orangutans, famous around the world for their sanctuaries, rehabilitation centres, research centers and access to the deep forest. We booked for a night at the Sepilok Jungle Resort and decided to see how the things shape up as we still didn’t really get warm with Borneo yet. We also got a warm welcome at our room from a hand-sized spider at the window. As this was finally also a bit big for my taste, I somehow managed to push that thing out of our room.

Next day, new hope. Finally, exploring the nature and the animal life of Borneo. We started with the orangutan rehabilitation center where they more or less guaranteed to see orangutans. This was without a doubt the most touristic hotspot we’ve been so far. Therefore, it was more a disappointment as actually enjoying the feeding they prominently advertise. People watching was at that moment more funny than actually looking at the apes. The only thing that we were happy about going there was actually that we only paid CHF 5 entry where others paid hundred of dollars to actually get to see that after a painful bus ride with hundreds of other tourists pressed in some buses / vans. Nevertheless, we didn’t give up and went as a last visit in Sepilok to the Rainforest Discovery Center (RDC). It is more advertised as a bird watching center and I wouldn’t call us bird specialists but hey maybe we discover a new species who knows.

Rainforest Discovery Center (RDC)

Ok, I would say we didn’t go that far but to be honest that was the best decision and made the trip to Sepilok worth it. It required some walking in the humid 30-degree rainforest but we were able to see a wild orangutan. We only saw him jumping by in the trees but hey acting as the next explorers with only a handful tourists around us made a lot of fun. They also had an awesome walkway, called Canopy Walkway, 25m above the ground that made you feel to be a part of the rainforest. Some towers on the way even gave you the chance to look over the top of the rainforest (40m) and gave you a feeling of how tiny we are and how easy it would be to get lost in that forest. It was really fascinating and captivating.

Back at the hotel in the mid afternoon, we made up our mind to go back to Kota Kinabalu. We have seen the two biggest public centers in Sepilok, one a total flop and the other one an absolute insider tip. After packing, checking out, booking flights and another 30min Grab Taxi ride back to the airport of Sandakan, we were sitting again in the plane that brings us back to Kota Kinabalu within the next hour.

Chinese New Year experience

As we were not that lucky with our last stay at the Asiana hotel, we booked this time a hotel called Dreamtel. This time we were lucky. Really nice hotel for a decent price. Back at the city and closer to the Chinese New Year, we also faced big festivities just in the backyard of the hotel on a big public field. We dived into the party, good food provided by several food stands and big firework that went everything else than planned. It ended with fireworks that went off in the middle of the crowd. Anyway, Asia wouldn’t be Asia if everything acts like this would have been planned, is part of the program or hey nothing really happened. So, we left the party in the direction of the hotel with a little shock but still laughing.

Mount Kinabalu (4095m) – New challenge required

New day, new adventures. We made up our mind with doing our first mountain summit of a 4000er together, Mount Kinabalu. With an altitude of 4095m, listed as nr. 20 by prominence level and with a difference of height of 2295m from the starting point up to the summit. A two-day trip that brings us on the first day up to the base camp (3200m) where we will sleep for a night before it goes to the top of Mount Kinabalu and back down to the starting point at the same day. But I don’t want to tell to much yet. Alisha will get into that trip in detail on her next blog entry.

Back from Mount Kinabalu after two days we were lucky to stay again at the Dreamtel. We were able to store our luggage there and as the trip was physically pretty intense we were happy that we didn’t had to move to much anymore. Sore legs and overall tired was not everything. The rainy weather on these two days has left behind its traces. We needed urgently a warm shower and a couple hours of sleep.

Even at the next day, our body was everything else than recovered. As we both had the feeling that it is time for a change and we also wanted to get some rest on a nice island somewhere in Asia, we decided spontaneously to fly out at the same day with the target Nusa Dua, Bali.

Off we go!!

Cheerio, Ueli