Part of the tour we booked included a buffet breakfast at a nearby hotel so of course we made sure we got our money's worth on that alone. The first stop was at monkey beach, which Sean loved.
Next we made a stop at Shark Point. This was the second time we'd been to shark area where we didn't actually end up seeing any but there were still loads of nice fish to see.
After here we pulled up to a small island. At this point the heavens opened just as we stepped off the boat onto the sand. It was actually a lot warmer in the water than out so the entire hour we were here we stayed in the shallow water keeping warm whilst the pouring rain beat down and the thunder rumbled above us. It was pretty exciting actually. Unfortunately Sean had an accident here. He'd gone back to the boat to get our snorkels and came running back jumping over the ropes that each of the boats were tied up on to the beach with. Just as he jumped over one it pulled tight and sent him flying into the sand! I missed it all but even writing about it now still cracks me up! He ended up with a horrible graze on his foot though :/
We had a quick stop for lunch then went to one more snorkelling point. The final stop of the day was The Beach and it worked out to be the perfect time to go. We had read so many things online about how busy it gets making it near impossible to get a good photo but we were so lucky. There must only have been a handful of boats when we got there. It was perfect! Such a nice place!
The last day on the island we tried exploring a bit but it turned out to be a lot hillier than we expected and we both got so dehydrated so we headed back down to the beach and spent the rest of the day there haha definitely not as fit as we used to be! On one of the beaches we'd found we came across a local guy holding 2 small gibbons. It was so bazaar as he wasn't really parading them or showing them off but just casually sat down at a table in the restaurant. Sean went over and one started reaching out so the guy let him hold one. They didn't look badly treated or anything but as soon as we mentioned getting a photo he asked for money which we definitely wasn't going to give. Those few seconds were the highlight of the whole trip so far for Sean. He was so happy.
Chilling in his hole.
The following day we made the short boat ride to Phuket. We'd only booked 2 nights there giving us one full day so once we'd done all the boring stuff of finalising accommodation for Borneo, checking in to flights, doing the washing and all of that, there wasn't much time to spare. We did get to see the most beautiful sunset though.
We had decided to fly from Phuket down to Kuala Lumpur which meant we had a night in the airport before our flight the next day to Borneo. We had purposely picked a late one so that we wouldn't have as long to wait around, so after landing at around midnight we then found a quiet spot in the airport and tried to get comfy on the floor with our backpacks as our pillows. It wasn't exactly the best nights sleep but it saved us a nights accommodation. We ended up getting woken up at about half 5 by a giant moth and when I say giant if was humongous! Fluttering around our heads. At that point we headed to McDonald's for breakfast.
By the time we arrived in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, we were shattered. We stayed there for 3 nights just catching up on sleep, exploring the city, trying to find Sean some new trainers, and writing the rest of this blog post. The main chunk of our time here in Borneo will be spent further inland at a place called Sepilok to see what we really came here for - the orangutans. As well as lots of other monkeys and wildlife. Exciting!
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Its now a week later since we wrote this... oops! Unsuprisingly the internet wasn't the best once we had headed into the jungle so it was impossible to upload. We had a really good time there though which we'll explain more about in the next post.
Before we go though here are a few pics that we forgot to put in on the last post. The fire show was on the beach on the island of Koh Samui right infront of our hotel. It was amazing to watch and turned out to be such a good night.
:)
