Wednesday, 1 February 2012

The Travelling Part of Travelling!

A nice bright and early start for a Monday and not looking forward to the next 2 days. When we were discussing how we get to KK (Ben didn't have this problem as he took the easy way out and flew) was that we need to get the ferry to Sibu, and then a bus to Miri, spend the night there and then get another long bus straight up to KK.
The reason why this journey was such a ballache was because it consisted of this:


6.45 - up and ready for the taxi at 7.30.
8.30 - 5 hour ferry, of which I found 4 comfy seats, lay across them with my pillow and makeshift quilt (sarong) and slept for 2 hours. Also caught up with my diary, I was very proud of myself!
1.30 - off the boat and in a rush to get to the coach station... we made it with 10 minutes to spare!


Now this is where the problems start. We go to load out bags onto the bus and as there was 5 of us (2 extra's we met on the ferry) we realise there is no room what so ever for our bags on the underneath compartment of the bus... nor any room on the actual bus.
As obviously we cannot get on the bus without our lives, we ask the lady at the ticket office what on earth we can do and all of a sudden she decided that she cannot speak English.. she seemed to speak perfect English when she wanted all of our money.
At this point, we were all getting a bit worried as the bus took 10 hours and it was now 2pm. I ran around all the ticketing offices and asked if there were any more buses to Miri. At first they all said they had sold out but LUCKILY one man gabbed me (not in a rude way) and said they had seats on their bus and that it wasn't full and also that it was a VIP. For a 10 hour journey, there is no other way to travel!
Once I had this oh so important information, I ran back to the guys, said the bus was running, and at the same price and that we would need to get a refund.
This was not that easy. She refused to give us a refund and started showing us the T&Cs in Malaysian and generally refusing also to speak English. It ended with Becky shouting and swearing her, I won't repeat and she gave us our money back! PHEW. Now all we had to do was wait another hour before the next bus.


12.00 - Arrived at our guesthouse and tried to find out online how to escape Miri as we didn't want to spend any time there and after an hour of online searching and trying to ask the lady at reception who also didn't seem to speak English we gave up and went to bed with the idea that we would just get up early and try our luck.


7.00 - up again and ready to escape Miri, we get a taxi and arrive at the bus station at 7.50 and low and behold, the VIP bus straight to KK was leaving at 8! We quickly paid and hopped on.


Now, when you travel up to KK you are then leaving the lower state of Sabah in Borneo and going up north to Sarawak. So this in itself is not a problem, but when you throw in the little old country of Brunei.... it then means you have to get off the coach at TEN different check points and get your passport stamped. This is because we were entering and exiting the states that many times whilst passing though Brunei that you have to get checked at the border patrol. At first we thought this would be exciting due to extra stamps in our passports but after 2.... it just got plain boring.


To pass some time we started talking to the guy on the bus who ran the operation and discovered that he didn't know what freckles were and that he didn't like white skin, only girls with chocolate skin. Well if the sun actually bloody shone, maybe I would have nice chocolate skin!!!


The bus was also really really bumpy and we potentially spent more time flying out of our seats that actually sat in them! It was more like a bad fairground ride than a VIP bus journey.


7.00pm - finally arrived in KK! However, the difficulties have not ended, not that it's major but major enough after the journey we had just encountered.


We got given a room, found it, opened the door and almost died! The smell was what I can only describe as vicious. As there was 3 of us, she had opened up a private room for 4 and let us stay in that... the guy in there already was to blame.  I actually couldn't physically enter the room without holding my nose and Becky made some very absurd noises just to re iterate how much it stank. Even the lady that showed us the room was embarrassed and immediately went to get an air freshener as the room had no windows. Later on we learn that the smelly guy had actually just come back from 2 days climbing Mount KK and that's what the smell was. Obviously, we wouldn't have been so rude had he just explained but we generally just thought, he was a very stinky boy!


Then it was a pizza hut and bedtime!!!


Our time in KK wasn't overly exciting as we weren't doing any mountain climbing there wasn't actually that much to do. We spent one day just lazing around to recover from the past 2 days and then we were actually productive and did some sight seeing on Mamutik Island.
Mamutik Island was absolutely lovely and amazing that it was only 10 minutes by boat away from the city... it's just a shame that the storm had to start within 30 minutes of arriving. We got some nice photo's in though so that's all that matters.. as long as it looks nice!
Another lazy evening in the hostel and it was all preparations go for the morning, something which I was very much looking forward to!


Back at home my friend Jess had mentioned to me that her friend had stayed somewhere north in Borneo and absolutely loved it and that she would pass the details on to me for when I was there. That she did, and I cannot be more grateful. Jess put me in touch with Howard who runs a newly built eco retreat right at the tip of Borneo in place called Kudat. Over the previous few days I had been emailing Howard to see how it would work if all 4 of us were to go up there and potentially volunteer in exchange for some accommodation and Howard had agreed to have us for 4 nights. 


Our journey up to Kudat itself was average, no working seatbelts, the driver was driving whilst eating sweetcorn and talking on his mobile phone not to mention non working wind screen wipers, of which you need in torrential rain! So we were extremely glad to get off and wait for Howard to come and collect us.


Howard arrived in his big green truck and the journey began. We all shoved our backpacks and ourselves onto the back and sat and enjoyed the scenery on the 30 minute journey to the retreat.
Without sounding like a massive geek or soppy weirdo, this is one of those times where I had a moment and thought 'wow'. We were driving along the road in the back of a rickety old truck, watching the gorgeous lush rainforest and I couldn't have been happier. One moment it chucked it down with rain and then it would stop and then continue but only in one spot, but it didn't matter about getting wet as I was actually taking in 'real Borneo'.


We arrived at Howard's place, Tampat Do Aman (www.tampatdoaman.com) and we were all instantly impressed. He gave us the grand tour of the grounds and what he was achieving was beautiful. Although the project was still in it's early stages, you could see the potential and the brilliance of Howard's people not just for tourists but for the local Rungus people.


The whole project was being built by locals with all local materials and Howard was even building within the grounds a Rungus Cultural Centre which had only just started when we arrived. The 12 room Longhouse, communal area, 2 long drop toilets and shower block had already been sensitively completed and I can only imagine what the place will look like once finished.


Our time up at TDA was a time in which we all experienced new things and a time which I really appreciate.
We didn't get up to anything crazy but it was just nice to chill out and feel like you were helping something worth while.


As soon as we arrived we got taken down to Tip Top restaurant apart of TDA and had some lovely lunch sat right on the bunch. We were then told to just go and enjoy ourselves so had a quick bathe in the lovely warm waters.


To gain our accommodation we were to help Howard with the smaller bits to help the project come along. Our first day at 'work' was spent making signs for the bike trail and hacking up cocounts with a machete to make decorations for the communal area back at the longhouse.
Ben started with cutting up the wood, Caroline and Becky taped all sides ready for paint, and I painted all the signs blue ready for the instructions. I think Howard only wanted about 15, but we made around 25!
Whilst waiting for the signs to dry is was machete time! At first it was rather scary being entrusted with such a piece of equipment but once you got the hang of how to use it, you just imagine it's someones head and the coconuts were getting smashed in record time. Once this was complete, by us 3 girls I might add... Ben then drilled holes in them ready to hang which turned out to be slightly dangerous as Ben wouldn't always look at what he was doing which when you hold an electric drill.. isn't the brightest idea and I have photo evidence to prove it!
It was then time to add on the directions for the signs and we were finished for the day.


Howard would always pick us up in the morning, take us to Tip Top for breakfast and then always bring us back to get changed and then back from food and then back again at night... one of the nicest people I think we have all met.


Our second day at 'work' was hardly work and as soon as we got to TT for breakfast, we were told to take a walk and go and see the tip of Borneo which was a 45 minute walk up the beach and then back.. not to mention photo time but it was worth it. Such beautiful views! After our tiresome walk Howard came back and we pulled together all the signs ready for Howard to hammer up around the bike trail. All we needed to do was pass them to him and tell him whether the position was right or wrong! He then took us to a local village and again, it was so nice to see something 'real'.
We waded through mud and cow poop and met a few locals whilst seeing all the children play football, with a flat ball and even though compared to our standards, didn't have much, they all looked so happy and full of life.
Ben and another guest at TDA, Henry, decided to cycle around that day and hahahaha what a big mistake that was.. they got lost and probably cycled about 2 hours more than they needed to. It actually took Howard to asking the locals if they had seen '2 white guys on bikes' to find them!


For those who are still actually reading (and thank you, by the way) I am going to try and wrap this last part up.. I know I say this alot but I am actually going to try.


Our last day in Kudat was meant to be spent enjoying a nice leisurely snorkel at one of the lovely beaches with Henry as our guide. Snorkel we kind of did, but have fun we did not. We all walked over to the beach and in all honesty it didn't look like great snorkelling conditions due to quite high rips in the waves but we thought we would try anyway. It wasn't the most comfortable walk as the coral was quite sharp but we still persisted. As we started to enter the water I was already feeling a bit uncomfortable and luckily Henry was there for all of us to give us a helping hand over the more slippy rocks!
I took a bit of a step back as I was completely out of my comfort zone but the others went on. I decided to stop going forward with this stupid escapade and started making way way back to shore. Once I stood up, I could then see the severity of the waves and the actual danger that Caroline, Becky and Henry were in. Caroline was furthest out and all I could do was watch. Next thing I could just see the fear on Becky's face and knew that she was in trouble. Thank god that Henry was there as I actually do no know what would have happened as she was getting smashed around so much that I don't think she had any energy or power left to get back. After about 10 minutes of seeing them all struggle they made it out of the danger zone and started making their way back, apart from the fact that I could see blood pouring down Becky's leg. 


As they all came nearer I could see the extent of everyone's scratches and cuts and kind of felt bad that I just stood there and watched it all. We made our way back to the beach and I tried to make it back to TDA to get Howard and see if he could pick the 3 of them up as Becky's leg was quite bad and she was in alot of pain. I walked/ran the journey back which took me around 25minutes and Howard wasn't there. The only thing I could do was gather medical supplies from TT and wait for them to return and play nurse by bandaging them all up.
Henry was a typical boy and said he was fine, but the 2 girls needed lots of plasters and cover ups to stop any form of infection as coral ones can be quite nasty. To top it off, poor old Becky had scratches all over her bottom!!!


Such a nice day at the beach!


As our final job for Howard we eventually made all the coconuts we had hacked up into hanging ones. This meant drilling more holes in the bottom for the water to drain, inserting rope into the original holes so they could hang and filling the middle with leaves and compost for the flowers to grow into once hung. We didn't really do that much work for Howard in the time that we were there but I think we made a slight difference and hope he agrees.


Overall, our time with Howard can only be described as an amazing experience right in the heart of Borneo jungle and I would love to go back one day when TDA is complete and see the outcome of what Howard is working so hard for!


Morning after coral gate and it's yet another travel day. Howard kindly takes us back into Kudat and we make our way back to KK for our flight to the PHILIPPINES...



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