We finally made it to Kota Kinabulu in the evening and easily found a place to stay in the main backpacking area. We were back in dorms but that didn't matter because we had the room to ourselves. Our original plan was to see if it was possible to go to Mulu national park, which is in the Sarawak region of Malaysia Borneo, which holds the biggest cavern and cave entrance known to the world, but because we left it to the last minute, it would have been too expensive. This meant that we had to use our expertise and our travelling experience to plan another exursion. We met three Danish lads and two English girls from down south somewhere and collectively decided to go to Adbul Rahman National Park, which is a collection of small islands that has decent beaches and good snorkelling spots. It was sunny by the time we left the hostel but when by the time we arrived, it started to get dark and started raining! Swimming in the sea was a bit tricky with sharp dead coral in shallow water so we weren't in there for too long. Instead we had two kids who had too many e-numbers to deal with Danny and Becky jumping off the port, although it did take Becky about half an hour to do one jump-she fell in installments!
Becky 'Moroccon chilli' Lee and Ellie 'Timone' James (the two girls from down south) pleaded us to allow them to join us on our excursion because they wanted to be around cool people for a little longer, and after me and Danny weighed our options, we allowed them. They were going to pay 200 pound to climb up Mt Kinabulu, which is the highest mountain in SE Asia and is a 2 day climb up and down, but they cancelled it after realising it wasn't worth it. Vincent, the pisshead and owner of the hostel, who also speaks seven languages and wouldn't shut up about it didn't take their cancellation too lightly. Apparently he's short staffed and new staff keep leaving after 2-3 days because he's a complete arse and an alcoholic.
We left early morning and got the minibus to Crocker range, which is a mountain range surrounded by rainforest but only a very small portion is open to trek. Vincent told us it was a 2 hr trek each way but when we got there, it was only a 45 minute trek and there was nothing interesting to see. We walked around the Rafflesia park, which holds the biggest flower in the world, but there was nothing to see as they weren't blooming and they only live for 7 days at at time so you have to be pretty lucky! The park ranger gave us a lift to Keningau so we could get the bus to Renau, which is the nearest town to Kinabulu headquarters, but the last bus had already left so were stuck in Keningau for the night. We got stared at around here because I don't think many foreigners come here but it was something that we were used to. We found a place to stay and got something to eat and this was the start of our awkward chats at dinner with Becky and Ellie-you don't wanna know!
The next morning, we got up at 6.30 am and got the bus from Keningau to Renau and started our trek pretty much straight away. The trek was pretty simple, we walked through the jungle up to the entrance of where people climb up the mountain and then made a different way down. There were some slippy moments, when Dan nearly fell of the side but apart from that everything went cool. We didn't see any animals and there weren't many clear views as we were in the clouds but it was still cool to trek through the jungle and look like a sweaty mong! Staying at the park was very very expensive, even for a dorm so we did our trek and stayed the night at Renau. We made our way to Poring hot springs the next morning to have a decent clean but that plan was scrapped when we spotted a nice hike up to some waterfall. The trek was a lot harder than we initially thought because it was just going up all the time and took a bit longer (with Becky having her strop) but the waterfall made it every bit worthewhile. It was a secluded waterfall, about 70-80m high, with no tourists around because they probably couldn't be asked to do the trek, so it gave us the chance to have a quick dip in the freezing water. The trek down was a lot quicker but it got slightly delayed because Becky tripped and did a pencil dive into the floor. This girl had a bandage for a small scratch on her foot so you can imagine how long it took for us to sort her out, when she got a cut. I wanted to laugh my head off because it was such a funny fall but I held back and kept a mental image of it instead
We finally made our way back to Kota Kinabulu after our 3 day freestyle excursion and went straight to a pizza place, which I was absolutely craving for. We watched the final of the world cup, with our lack of sleep and we were struggling when it went to extra time. It was mine and Danny's final day together as he goes to Phillipines for 2 weeks and I go back to Thailand for 6 weeks of thai boxing training. We ended up going back to the islands with the girls again and again it was sunny when we left but when we got there, we were stuck in the middle of a storm - NICE ONE! After spending nine and a half months with Danny's white ass, we said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways. He wouldn't stop crying but this was something I had to do and he head to learn how to deal with it - you're a big boy now! Good luck to him for Phillipines, I'm sure he will be fine as I've taught him everything I know but don't worry, there will be a re-union in Thailand at some point before we head back!
Kota Kinabulu photo link:
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