Blog fans, Bea fans, unfortunate internet wanderers who have stumbled upon this by accident, I do apologise, but I am about to get poetic on your collective behinds. This place, this wonderful wonderful place, has stolen my heart and is holding it ransom. I think it's somewhere in an underground cave system. Or perhaps deep in the jungle, being manhandled by a harem of proboscis monkeys. Actually, it could be on the barbecue next to a massive red snapper. Wherever it may be, or whatever is being done to it, I don't really care - it's very happy where it is, tarima kasih (that's thank you in Malay).
I'll take my beret off and put my quill away now, and turn the poetry down a notch before I make you all sick. After my last post, I headed into the jungles of Sabah to the Kinabatangan nature camp to trek my face off. As Bethan and Charlotte will recall with horror, our last foray into jungle trekking did not go very well. However, this was a resort holiday in comparison. We had actual huts, beds, and electricity! A miracle. It was still quite basic, with added massive bugs, but very nice nonetheless. We did two boat trips down the Kinabatangan river, where we managed to spot proboscis monkeys (ridiculous looking animals), crocodiles, hornbills, lizards and many other things that I forget now, as I managed to take such awful photos that they all look like bits of tree or bits of blur. I did take a nice picture of the sky though.
Nice, eh? You don't see sky very often. We also did a trek into the jungle, which was fantastic - wrought with excitement, danger and a lot of sweat. It had been raining the night before (not uncommon in the rainforest [clue is in the title], or in Borneo for that matter. In almost all of Borneo, it rains on cue at around 4 every day. And not just a casual shower - a soaked to the skin, drench you and everything your have about your personage, bucket-down) so we had to be extra careful of leeches and big pools of water. I had 3 or 4 leeches crawl up my clothes in search of blood. Thankfully, my lightening quick reactions saved me from becoming a leech snack, but Carolina (also on my trek) had a couple of sneaky ones that crawled up her back and latched on. They're very clean and painless, but they're so creepy looking that it can be quite a shock. Kai, our toothless tour guide, very casually rolled them up into balls and flicked them back into the jungle while we frantically checked for more beasties. We didn't see too much in the way of wildlife, but Kai knew the jungle like the back of his hand so gave us lots of interesting tit bits about uses of plants and things. Which of course I have now forgotten. We did get urinated on by a silver leak monkey though! Cheeky bugger. Just moments before the business occurred, I had been gawping, open mouthed (of course), at the canopy above. The Batten-Harbour quick reactions saved me once again. Thanks mum and dad.
From Kota Kinabatangan, I headed back to Kota Kinabalu before heading off to Gunung Mulu national park. Mulu is in Sarawak, the other region of Malaysian Borneo, and is only reachable by plane or 4 boats. I, very un-greenly, opted for the plane. Flying in, the park is laid out below you and is absolutely beautiful - thick forest, unspoiled by palm tree plantations or deforestation, with huge limestone cliffs around its boundaries and juts of rock rising up from the trees. A highlight of the park is its caves. It has one of the worlds longest cave systems in the world (175 km i think) and also, until recently, the worlds largest cave mouth. This belongs to the Deer cave - the nature enthusiasts amongst you will have seen it in Planet Earth, as it is also home to 2 million bats and the largest pile of bat business (guano) in the world. I'm going to try and avoid getting poetical again, but standing in the Deer Cave was one of the greatest moments of my life. I'm not even going to apologise for that - it truly was. I've never felt so small, and so happy feeling so small. The sheer size and beauty of it was breath-taking. Outside the cave, you can sit on bleachers and watch the BAT EXODUS (I felt that deserved capitalisation!). Around 6 every day, the bats all leave the cave to feed, and lots of tourists can sit and watch them. They swirl out in big snake formations, a few thousand at a time. We lay there, eating snacks and watching synchronised bat ballet, and I felt very at peace with the world.
After my Mulu adventure, I came back to Kota Kinabalu and have been pottering around here in preparation for my BEA EXODUS to Cambodia to meet the lovely Stacey Facey, which I am very excited about. I have spent most of my time here eating. Quelle surprise! The night food market is lush - they have long rows of barbecues, where you can choose your fish/sea food of choice and they cook it up a treat and then you stuff it in your gob, covered in chilli and lime. Very messy and very tasty. Also a lot of sweet nut pancakes and fresh mango. Om nom nom.
Before I go, here are some photos! Really bad ones.
Me with a robot from Laputa at Studio Ghibli musueum in Tokyo (way back!)
People crossing the road with umbrellas in Shibuya, Tokyo.
Sunset on the bay at Kota Kinabalu.
A Jaws moment on the Kinabatangan river.
Who knows what this is?! One of my terrible, terrible nature shots.
Entrance of the Deer Cave from the Bat bleachers, Mulu.
Some stalactites (I had to wiki that one) in the Clearwater cave, Mulu.
Peace from Kota Kinabalu!
Lots of love, and I'll have some better photos soon!
Beazie xxxxx
CORRECTION - this stupid computer won't let me upload the pictures! I'll do it soon. Just imagine in the mean time. But don't imagine them good - they're not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment