Borneo, home of the endangered orangutans, has been on my list of places to go for a long time. What can I say, I am a sucker for cute animals, especially those that may not be around forever. Using Kota Kinabalu as a base, I was hoping to do plenty of day trips out into the wilderness as well as get some beach days in. I was a little disappointed at how difficult places were to access. We took a trip out to Pulau Mamutik Island for some snorkeling (couldn't find the fish but did enjoy the beach), and it was so darn hot we started an afternoon ritual of visiting the Le Meridian Hotel for sunset and happy hour in the pool.
Romantic images of rolling hills covered in tea plantations have also sat with me for a long time, so I took the opportunity to visit Sabah tea. It was a very long bus ride out, and we did have a personal tour of the tea factory. Although the highlight might just have been 7 of us in a car the size of a mini, which was our hitch back down to the town to get home. Gotta love SE Asia.
It wasn't until we got to eastern Sabah that we got to see our first glimpse of the "men of the forest" at the Sepilok Orangutan rehabilitation centre. They really were impressive up close. We also took a cruise through the jungle on the very narrow Kinabatangan river. Although we didn't see any orangutans, we did see plenty of other wildlife, including the proboscis monkeys.
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