My first stop outside of China was down at the Equator. Its Borneo, an Island shared by 3 countries. I went to the State of Sabah in Malaysia. My first stop was Kota Kinabalu (KK), a sleepy town of 500,000 on the south china sea. It seemed like a nice spot. The airport was right on the water. a beach was 2 blocks away. A resort 2 blocks farther. How convenyant. Things started good. A very nice paratrooper stationed at the airport invited me to go fishing with him next time I was in town. When I arrived in town (via the bus), there were not streetsigns, so someone drove me in his car to my hostel (which was only 4 blocks away). A very friendly place. The staff at the hostel was not very usefull, so I could not make any more interesting plans for my time in Borneo, but my goal was to do the 3 main activities: hiking Mt Kinabalu, A river trip into the jungle, and see the orangutans at sepilok reserve. But first, I went to the night market in KK. There were a few blocks of people selling produce, as well as cooked food, and many people selling all the different fresh fish from the sea. I had a grilled tuna. Tasty, but a bit pricey ($5 for a small fish).
My second day in KK I took a boat to the nearbye tropical islands. There are 5 islands about 1 KM off shore. First I booked a boat, found out that I overpaid by a few dollars (other boat operators were cheaper), went to the island, and went snorkeling. There was some coral and fish there but it really was not a great site. But it did make for a relaxing couple of hours. On the way back it started to rain, and my hat blew off, right into the ocean... Luckily, the boat driver turned back and went after my hat. The hat was saved, and the gods did not require us to send anyone into the ocean.
Before I forgot I should mention how interesting malaysia is ethnically and religiously. Its primarily a muslum country, but there is a real mix there. The facentating thing is seeing young girls, with the islamic headress, talking on there cell phone, and hanging out with outher kids dressed as westerners. its definitely a multicultural society.
That evening I had dinner again at the market (some bad curried fish), found a very nice upscale mall, boat some books, an ice cream, and went for a massage. It was a pricey yet expert foot and body massage. I was curious about this in a muslum country, yet here it was done by a women (at airport security they have men to screen men, and women to screen women), so the country is certainly not as conservative as I expected.
As it rained all day, and was suppossed to rain all day the next day, instead of going to mount kinabalu the next day I decided to fly first thing in the morning to sandakan to try see get to sepilok orangutan reserve int itime for the 10 AM feeding.
As I checked out of my hotel the next morning I got billed for 4 beers. I had drunk 2. 2 were drunk by a women who worked at the hostel. She asked me if I wanted a beer, then told me to take 2 from the fridge. (she had 1) later she just took 2 more and handed me one. 2 days later I got billed for all 4. Lovely. Luckily it was cheap and I was in a hurry...
