This wasn’t on our itinerary but we were given the opportunity to go on another early morning river safari, so it was up at 5.45 and out on the boat at 6.30 🤦♀️
We went in a different direction this morning, initially following the Kinabatangan river towards the sea, but then going off on the Black river tributary. Much narrower and fringed on both sides by nipah palms we were told to keep a look out for male orangutans as they like the fresh shoots from these palms and there was evidence of their presence in broken down palm fronds. Sadly we were not lucky today. We did see another yellow ring cat snake, kingfishers, a wood pecker, white bellied sea eagle, a sleeping colugos and high up in a tree and well camouflaged, a female orangutan and her baby. But she was not coming out of hiding!
The river became narrower and then we stopped at a bend in the river for the second breakfast. Cold pancakes and hot drinks this morning. The setting was delightful. Again that peace and quiet. No roads, people, aeroplanes, just nature’s noises.
All too soon we are on our way back and it was time for the proper breakfast, collect our things, say farewell to Andis and our captain, then board our water taxi back to Sandakan.
Our journey back followed the same route in reverse, and now we have had the chance to look at a map we can see how the river meanders, and links with tributaries, leaving us confused about which way we were facing!, to finally get to our destination.
Back in Sandakan and our hotel room we have good WiFi! So time to catch up on all our social media!😉😂, get the iPad and iPhone to talk to each other, send a few messages and write my blog! Big thank you to Anna here for a bright idea to use notes on my iPhone which requires no internet connection so I can write anywhere and then copy and paste! It has been a life saver this last few days when there has been so much to say!
We treated ourselves to a coffee in the bar. £2.00 😱 That is so expensive by Malaysian standards. And then further horrors, we spent a couple of hours by the infinity pool. Most of the time in the shade as even late in the afternoon the sun was still too hot to sit in it for long. And I managed a swim as the water was warm. 😊
Then it was time to find somewhere to eat. On the basis that everywhere looks like places you would avoid with a barge pole at home, and we knew that the food was good despite appearances, we went back to the restaurant from our first night here. 2 plates of beef and ginger with fried noodles and 2 cans of coke cost £5.00. Yes that’s right £5.00! You will see why we decided not to eat at the hotel!!! Like last week the place was busy, mainly with local people but also with some who looked like tourists and were being brave, probably having been on Trip Adviser like us!
So now we are getting ready to leave here tomorrow. With some sadness again but also excitement about what India may hold. Thank you to those who we have travelled with us for letting me use their photos in this blog when theirs were better than mine!!
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