Before I got back down to work..

On our way back from Australia, we spent five days in Sabah’s coastal city of Kota Kinabalu. It was our first chance to see the fantastic beaches and to do some shopping.

During our stay we visited Tanjung Aru beach on the mainland and two of the small islands close by. With KK being on the West of Sabah, we headed to Tanjung Aru beach to watch the amazing sun set, stroll along the sand and to dip our toes in the Chinese Sea, the beach is very popular with tourists in the evening due to its great sunset, and it didn’t disappoint. Along the beach we also saw a washed up jelly fish and thousands of tiny crabs that dug out their burrows and left tiny balls of sand all around their entrance.

There are five main islands off the coast of KK, during our stay we visited Manukan and Sapi. On our first trip Naomi and I caught one of the small wooden motor boat from Jessleton Point, past the front of the city, over to Manukan Island. Jessleton point is the old major port in KK and is the reason Kota Kinabalu city was previously called Jessleton Town. The boat ride only takes 20 minutes and we arrived to a very busy pier surrounded by shallow crystal blue water, filled with coral and fish. Naomi and I spent the day lounging on the beach and swimming in the shallows, before getting a late lunch on the beaches edge and catching another boat back to the main land... via Sapi island to pick up some other people and then a quick stop at the huge marine patrol boat. Being a white girl, it was a bit scary pulling up alongside a ship and then a load of paper work being exchanged, with the recent kidnappings in Sabah I was extremely glad when we finally moved off an headed back to the mainland! Whilst recovering from our impromptu stop at the ship I managed to see a sea turtle swimming about 5ft from the boat, unfortunately it dived as we got closer so I didn't manage to get a picture.

On our visit to Sapi Island we were joined by Gwen, a fellow Cardiff university placement student. Here we spent the morning snorkelling in the shallow waters, looking at the diversity of fish and corals. It was too hot to lie out on the beach, so in the early afternoon after a few hours in the water, taking pictures of the fish and attempting underwater selfies, we headed back to the mainland to assess our tan lines and my burnt nose!

Naomi and I spent one afternoon at the Sabah National Museum, despite mixed reviews on the internet, the museum was great and had an exhibition of Roy Knowle’s work. The ‘Sacred Legacy’ exhibition contained photographs of people working in all areas Sabah from 1940’s to 1960’s, it showed young children dancing, women harvesting the crops and men building their houses along with royal visits and military gatherings. The rest of the museum was spilt into sections showing the military history, the wildlife of Sabah, the costumes and instruments of Sabah and a rather creepy section on head hunters, mainly consisting of skulls and killing instruments! Naomi and I were very surprised to come across two Banteng skulls displayed in one of the sections, but it once again reiterated to use the prize value of these beasts. The wildlife section contained replicas or stuffed versions of many of the animals of Sabah, including a very realistic looking Clouded leopard and rhino and super cute elephant calf.

The museum also had grounds, which contained an Islamic mosque and replicas of traditional wooden houses from all different areas of Sabah. Despite the paths between the sites of the houses being slightly run down and the layout of the grounds somewhat confusing the houses and museum of Islamic culture were great to see.

In KK we continued to make the most of normal food, having a great meal of pie and chips in an Irish pub on the water front and other restaurants where continental food could be eaten. We met Gwen for dinner on a few nights and also joined her on the Friday night when she met up with the Couch surfers at Borneo back packers. It was great to meet so many people who were all in Sabah for different reasons, from just visiting to working as engineers getting electricity into the small villages around Sabah. It was here that we met Gwen’s friend Liam, who turned out to be from North Wales, he was working in Ulu Papar a series of indigenous villages in Sabah, that are threatened by prospects of a mega dam being built to provide water for the city. He is also helping to put electric into these communities villages and was running the Borneo half marathon on the Sunday morning.

So on the Sunday we decided that we would head over to watch the running at the sports village in the north of KK and support all the runners as they came over the finish line. Due to the heat  and humidity in Sabah, the Marathon started at 03.00, the half marathon and 05.00 and the 10k and 06.00, so it was an early start for us. At 6am we caught a taxi over to the Stadium in Likas where the finish line was. We were in time to see the first few kilometres of the 10km race and the schools race, then it wasn’t long then before the first runners started making it to the finish line.

Naomi and I dug out our flags that were still packed from Australia and hung them out over the barrier. Liam came in just under 2 hours and thankfully before the heat of the day and was surprised to see Gwen, Naomi and I on the finishing straight waving our flags, it was the least we could do considering they had just run 20 kms in 30 degree heat! As we continued to cheer runners through we were staggered to see some of the juniors coming in from the 10km race wearing only flip flops, to top this off they had just run a sub one hour 10km.. crazy!

Our remaining time in KK was spent meandering around the shops where we found lots of nice gifts to take home, although the majority of shops either sell phones or phone accessories and out here hello kitty is a teenage and adult character instead of a childs!

On the Sunday evening we caught the night bus from KK back to Lahad Datu, arriving at 3.30am! After walking back up to the house, we unpacked and headed back to bed for a few hours of horizontal sleep without banging our heads on the window!

We spent five days in Lahad Datu where we prepared for next expedition and celebrated my 21^st birthday! Having spent the previous two weeks sightseeing, socialising and supporting athletes, on my birthday we decided to relax and have a lazy day, eating cooked breakfast and making a birthday cake. The cake was an apple cake in a pig design, decorated with pink icing, strawberry jam and sweeties. In the evening we headed over to our favourite restaurant, ‘Secret Recipe’, here they serve fish and chips, amazing cakes and have the most reliable internet! As an extra birthday treat Jo returned from her home in Penang with bacon, so for the next few days we had bacon and eggs for breakfast! It had definitely been 21 days of celebrating for my 21

Before we headed off on expedition we went back to Danau Girang Field Centre for a few days. The field centre was involved in a land recovery act, where a local plantation had encrouched on a patch of government owned land. The local people were fighting to reclaim this 20 hectare piece of land and turn it back to forest. On our second day at Danau Girang we joined Ben, the head of DG and some of the PhD students, as the assistant tourism, culture and environment Minister spoke at an event and then officially started the digging up of the palm oil trees. The mini digger then continued to work, removing the rest of the palm oil trees, as we began planting tree seedlings as part of the restoration project. After this we were invited to a traditional Malaysian meal, where we were served rice wrapped in a banana leaf and delicious meat and fish dishes, followed by a sweet, green coloured, custard like pudding that looked interesting but tasted great! The whole day was extremely successful and, hopefully, will lead to other encroaching plantation being caught and further action being taken across the state.

After a busy few hours at the plantation event we headed back to the field centre and in the evening Naomi and I joined 2 of the French boys and some of the staff for a night walk. The night walk started well as we saw some proboscis monkeys and a malay civet, along with many frogs and far too many ants. About two hours into the walk we came across two tarsier, Naomi and I were very excited as this was our first tarsier sighting and there were two of them! The next thing we knew the tarsier had been caught by the Malaysian guys, and we were ringing back to the field centre to let them know we were bringing them back, for data to be collected and to put satellite collars on them. Having spent very little time at DG Naomi and I had no idea where on the trails we were, so we just followed as the boys hastily made their way back to the buildings. To keep the tarsiers calm, they wrapped one in my hoody and another in a t-shirt before placing them in bags back in the lab. Unfortunately the satellite collar was not working so after taking samples from the very grumpy female and very quite male the boys headed back out along the trail to release them where we found them.

On the Sunday we headed out in the boat with Danica, to find one of her female proboscis monkeys using a satellite tracker. The large group of monkeys were in the trees near the riverbank and from the boat Danica could download the data of the monkeys movements from the previous weeks.

On the Monday we said our goodbyes to everyone at the field centre before heading to Sandakan and then back to Lahad Datu to finish preparing for expedition. In Sandakan we took my plant specimens to the Herbarium for identification, after spending hours carefully collecting these specimens, drying them and mounting them, leaving them all at the herbarium was a bit sad. Whilst in Sandakan we also picked up the new mattresses, that were finally in stock, after ordering them in February, comfy beds in the house.. yay!