Malaysain Borneo

My time in Malaysia was great. Most of it was spent in Sabah, Borneo. I spent 2 days in Kuala Lumpur and that was as much as I needed. I had come to Malaysia to get out of the city and do some diving and play with Orangutans. For as long as I can remember I have loved monkeys and the Orangutan is the probably one of the most amazing.

As soon as I arrived to Borneo I immediately fell in love with it. The people there were some of the nicest I have ever met locals and travelers. I was trying to figure out the cheapest way to get to my destination from the airport and the first person I asked offered to give me a ride into town. That was the kind of hospitality that I experienced all over Borneo. I had people offering to give me rides across town to the correct bus stations and all kinds of friendly gestures. When I would go on jogs through town every car seemed to shoot me a thumbs up with a huge smile, and many of them actually stopped to see if I needed a ride. It seemed like every other traveler I met was equally friendly. I met many people whom I know I will keep in touch meet up with again in the future. Borneo truly is one of my favorite places for these reasons alone.

Besides being home to some of the friendliest people anywhere, Borneo is just wild. I was walking down the street and on the side of the road was a massive monitor lizard just lounging about. I had never seen one in the wild and it was exciting for me. I would soon be bored by these guys because they were everywhere. As you all know I love animals. I did a jungle trek into the Kinabatagan River area and was basically in heaven. In just 3 days we saw all kinds of wildlife. Growing up I never thought that I would have the chance to see Proboscis monkeys in the wild, but I was wrong. Seeing the specials on Discovery channel it seems like they are so far away and you have to be some scientist the find them. I couldn't believe that we were there in this little canoe in the middle of the river watching these amazing animals leap from tree to tree with their gigantic noses flopping about. I felt like I was on the discovery channel. Exotic looking tree frogs, scary looking insects, blood sucking leeches, and exotic horn bills are a few of the others that we saw. I could have easily spent a month in the jungle but it was time to move on to the sea.

Semporna is where the great diving is. It is on the NE part of Borneo. I really didn't do much research before heading out there. I met a girl in Nepal who said that the diving was some of the best in the world, so I figured I should go. I was just planning on chilling out at the beach and do some world class diving. I was able to accomplish half of that (luckily the important half). The actual diving is off an island called Sipadan. It is about an hour boat ride from the mainland. The port town of Semporna is where all the dive centers are, and Semporna had nothing. It was really just a dirty old port town that smelled of dead fish and poo. Needless to say, I didn't do much chillaxing on the beach. That was no big deal though. The diving was excellent. Beautiful clear water and coral. Massive schools of fish and countless turtles. It was full of life. My main goal was to see the amazing whale shark. I can die happy once I have swam with a whale shark. My first day of diving was an exciting let down if you will. We did 3 dives the first day. My boat was divided up into two groups of five. Two out of the three dives the group that I was not in saw a whale shark. We were literally meters away from the giant fish. One person actually had a picture of the whale shark with my group in the back ground...we were just facing the wrong way. It was exciting that I was so close to one, but I really want to swim with one. The last two days I did some free diving and saw lots of other fish but now whale shark.

From Semporna I headed in to KK (Kota Kinabalu) the main city in Borneo. I spent a few days at the beach there where I saw the most amazing sunset of my life. I was nice there but a little to busy for me. I really just went there because I had a flight to Bali out of there. Borneo has definitely been one of my favorite places...it has everything that I love. I will make it back there someday for sure.