Back from Borneo

Well, I had a pretty awesome  three week vacation in Borneo.  I was busy every day seeing and experiencing  different things.  For the past several years I have spent the majority of my vacations doing backcountry trips in Ontario, but this year my friend Steve, who happens to be teaching in an International school in Kuala Lumpur in peninsular Malaysia, wanted to climb Mount Kinabalu.  The waiting list is like 6 months long for it so it needs to book early.  He asked if I wanted to join and I said sure…   Borneo looks like a good place for adventure with many things in close proximity to experience – pristine rainforest, whitewater rafting, scuba diving, nice beaches, mountain climbing, exotic tropical wildlife, huge limestone caves, great trekking…  kinda hard to beat all that, sounds great!

So several plans came together right before my departure and it lead for a nonstop action packed vacation.  I managed to get 3 weeks away from work. 

I flew in to Kota Kinabalu, the largest city in Borneo in the northwest, in the province of Sabah. After a day or so of acclimatisation, we  got started with rafting on the PADAS river.  After that was the two day rather tough climb to the summit of Mount Kinabalu, one of the highest peaks in southeast Asia.  On the way down, we basically walked down the cliff face on the Via Ferrata. After that was a 4 day stay at the Mantanani Islands, a small group of islands close by to the North of Kota Kinabalu, nice and relaxed, not very expensive, not many tourists and not developed (yet…).  There Steve and myself got our PADI night dive certification, did a bunch of daytime dives, and even got to dive a WWII wreck, the Eikyo Maru, a Japanese merchant vessel torpedoed by a US sub in 1945.  At a depth of 40m it is at the limit of sport diving  and we did our first decompression dives on the wreck as well. After Mantanani, Steve went back to KL, and I continued my adventures..  first on a 5 day, 4 night trip to go trekking in the Maliau Basin to check out the awesome old growth rainforest, and the 7 tiered Maliau Falls while I was at it. Then I finished off my trip with a trip to Sandakan to check out the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center and to the Kinabatangan River to check out all types of wildlife – birds, crocodiles, orangutans, pygmy elephants, monkeys.  A lot of cool stuff.  I only wish I got to visit the huge caves at Mulu, or had a bit of extra  time to hang out on the beach instead of diving all the time.  Other than that, it was an excellent vacation, many memories and experiences to be had.  After that,, the tiring 20 hour commute home. 

I will be doing a few write-ups on my thoughts and tips on specific locations or trips soon.  I also got to use a bunch of new gear a lot, namely my Osprey Waypoint 65 travel pack, and my new boots.  I had second thoughts on the Salomon 4D boots.  They are a bit too full-on boots and too large, so I went back to MEC to exchange them a couple days before my flight.  I was planning on trying on the Vasque Breeze boots, but they had none in my size in stock.  So I ended up with some Keen Gypsum MID.  These wouldn’t have been my first choice but in the end I am very pleased with them and they have performed quite well on my trip. More to come…