21. Malaysia @ Borneo - Poring

When we got back from Kinabatangan river we spent a couple days in Sandakan just to relax as Carina was a bit sick.


Then we took a bus to a small town called Poring, which is known for it's hot spring and a lovely mountainous view. It's located quite near the mighty Kinabalu mountain.

Before going we booked a hotel trough hotels.com. Our next accommodation was called Kinabalu Poring Vacation Lodge. It was about 15 minutes walk away from the hot spring in a secluded and peaceful spot. The walk is via gravel road that's in a bad condition so it wouldn't be nice to walk there with all the bags.

But the surroundings are lovely.

There are both flora and fauna.

Our minivan driver from the town of Ranau where the bus dropped us took us all the way to the lodge. First they tried to charge us 40 Ringgits for the trip but we ended up paying only 20. That's how it always goes, the price is double first.

We really enjoyed our stay there; we had a nice big room that was clean, nice hot shower and television with cable channels. Also the staff of the place was really friendly and helpful even that they didn't speak much English.

The owner of the place, Joe, came to say hi on Sunday evening. He was also really nice and he spoke fluent English. He even gave us a ride to the airport couple days later in Kota Kinabalu where we flew to Taiwan.

The hot spring area, as nearly the whole mountain of Kinabalu, is run by a company called Sutera. They have put their prices high and it's quite expensive to climb the mountain. Their accommodations and restaurant are over-priced and they like to charge for everything possible. The hot spring turned out to be crappy. It was a bit under construction, which they didn't bother to mention in the ticket counter.

These are the cool pools. The hot once were tiny and not nice at all.

We had a little bathing moment anyway and

also went for a nice canopy walk on the treetops.

That was fun.

We had to pay for that one separately but it wasn't too much money. Just the way of doing things by the Sutera company was annoying.

Luckily outside the hot spring's fences was some nice restaurants with cheaper prices and we ate really well there.

All in all those two nights in Poring were really good. If the hot spring would be in better condition it would be definitely a place to go.



The last day one of the workers brother gave us a ride back to Ranau where we jumped in to a bus to Kota Kinabalu. Lodge's owner Joe took us to the airport and it was time to leave Borneo after 5 weeks of exploring.

20. Malaysia @ Borneo - Kinabatangan

We decided to go on a little vacation to the rain forest.

To get to our jungle lodge we had to drive for about 2 hours and 

then cross the river "Kinabatangan" to our lodge that was called Kinabatangan Adventure lodge. It was a really nice place to stay about 5 minutes boat ride from the nearest little village called Bilit. We had our own air-conditioned room (we only paid for a fan room) with private bathroom, tea and coffee facilities and a little table and chairs. Our room was one of four in the building. There was maybe six buildings all together the biggest one serving as a restaurant. It was really quiet and relaxing lodge.

Anorher lodge had much more people which made us glad that we we're not there. As it is a lot nicer to be on a river cruise when there's not too many people in boat.

Sometimes the weather was with us, but we also had rain.

We saw again a lot of Proboscis monkeys,

or nose monkeys as we call them. 

They gather in the trees before dawn to spend their night there.

We both like monkeys, but we were hoping to see orangutans.

We saw different monkeys. Different types of Macaques,

but also Silvered leaf monkeys.

We also saw many different birds like different species of Hornbills.

We saw Rhinoceros  hornbills, Oriental hornbills and Black hornbills.

We saw the White Bellied Sea eagle.

And the Stork Billed King Fisher.

W saw some Water Monitor Lizards on the ground,

and some in the trees.

On this picture we see the orangutan high way, they can use if they want to cross the river, but we did not see any orangutans.

These figs are a part of the daily menu for the monkeys and the birds of the forest. Also fruit bats like them, but they are not for humans.

More birds on top of the tree. This one is a blue throated bee-eater.

No animals in this picture. Only water.

We walked around the lodge and here is the view.

There are about 40 different species of Heliconia, which is Carina's favorite flower in the rain forest and also in the banana family. The flower is sometimes called "Lobster claws" or "Parrot flowers".

In the area were many butterflies.

It was amazing that there were that many and they were in all bright flowers.

The sunset was beautiful and peaceful.

This is a morning picture and that's why it deserves it's place in this blog. The cruise we went on in the morning was really peaceful, but we did not see as many mammals as we did in the afternoon.

We can now conclude that the rain forest and jungle are some of the places we like the most. We did not see any orangutans, but we had some really nice days on the shores and on the Kinabatangan river.

19. Malaysia @ Borneo - Sandakan + Sepilok

It is said that some of Southeast Asia's richest wildlife areas await the visitor when going to the east coast of Borneo.

So we took a bus to the city of Sandakan after a couple of days stay in Kota Kinabalu.



The bus ride to Sandakan took about 6 hours. The road to Sandakan goes near the Mount Kinabalu so it was kind of mountainous. The views would've been great if there weren't all the clouds = we could not see a thing.

When we got to Sandakan we were told that there's no bus from the bus station to the city. The bus stations are usually always a bit away from the city. With a bit of stubbornness we "knew" that there is a bus. So we walked trough a bunch of apartment buildings and found our way to the bus stop with a lot of help from very kind local people. Later in a tour office the people laughed when they heard that we made our way to the bus stop. They were glad to tell us the name of the stop so we could take a bus back to the station when we would leave Sandakan. We never needed the name because we took a taxi to the long distance bus station when we went further.

The town of Sandakan has about 200.000 inhabitants and is the second largest town in the Sabah region of Borneo.

We found quite a nice and cheap hotel called City View Hotel.

This was our view from the hotel window when we woke up the day after arriving. Sunday market....

The William Pryer Monument. William Pryer was the first British Resident in northern Borneo and the founder of Sandakan.

We had a little stop at "the English Tea House".

The Tea House.

Having a break at the Tea House.

The gate to the Puu Jih Shih Buddhist Temple,

Buddha.

The temple was of course on a hill, but the view was very nice.

The view over Sandakan. Not a very pretty city, but we both liked it.

The coastline of Sandakan. We both think it is one of the nicer places on Borneo.

We stayed in Sandakan for a few days before going further.

One of the days in Sandaken we went to Sepilok Orangutang Rehabilitation Centre.

The center was founded in year 1964 to rehabilitate orphan orangutans.

The Center cares for young orangutans orphaned as a result of illegal logging and deforestation and those who have been illegally caught and kept as pets.

At Sepilok the new arrivals are given a complete health check before starting on the long road to rehabilitating them back into the wild, which normally take up to seven years, but in some cases never is a possibility.

Baby orangutans are cared for 24 hours a day, just like a human baby and as they grow older they join their peers in the nursery.

Today about 80 orangutans live in the reserve surrounding the rehabilitation center.

Now food time. It is food time twice every day at the center. The orangutans can show up or not as they live in the wild, but a free meal is often welcome.

A mom and her one week old baby.

Today the center houses 26 orangutans in addition to those living free in the reserve.

The facility provides medical care for orphaned and confiscated orangutans.

After Sandakan our next stop was a trip to a jungle lodge just on the shore of the Kinabatangan river.