Before retiring, our guide, Lok casually informed us that a light breakfast would be available from 6:00am before our morning riverboat ride left at 6:30am. WOW, that’s an early start for a holiday !!
Washing down a couple of slices of toast and marmalade with a couple of cups of coffee we sat silently soaking in the amazing scene before us, with sun just starting to rise illuminating an early morning mist that swirled over the river. With a shout and a wave from Lok, we boarded our boat.
We headed off through this magical morning mist downstream, this time to an mostly inaccessible ox-bow lake. Again, our pilot was spotting things on the bank that we would otherwise not have seen like a family of monkeys taking a stroll on the riverbank looking for breakfast. Turning a corner we saw a huge male orangutan sat in a tree, presumably enjoying his breakfast. Finding the entrance to the lake between dense bushes and trees, we picked our way along this tiny tributary until eventually finding the lake. Again, creatures appeared along the bank and Lok explained about the lake becoming choked with hyacinth plants, which were not native of the area but slowly choking areas of the river. Pulling alongside a tree we had an amazing close up with a beautiful kingfisher sat on a branch. Our quick-witted pilot pulled out some crackers, crushed them in his hand and tossed some bits in the water. This quickly brought some tiny fish to the surface that allowed the kingfisher to show off his amazing diving skills, catching a fish on the second dive. Stunning.
Our trip back upstream towards our full breakfast we happened upon a crocodile laying in the mud and while enjoying our close encounter, we spotted another type of kingfisher just above him. Further sightings of various monkeys entertained us along with hornbills and cranes.
Breakfast was thoroughly enjoyed as we swapped stories and sightings with our fellow adventurers.
Then, time to stuff the last few items in to our suitcases and check out for our trip back to Sandakan Airport. Just thirty minutes from the resort is the Gomantong Caves, the home of millions of bats, where our guide stopped for a short visit. Mrs Young was NOT looking forward to this part of our adventure one little bit. Arriving in the car park it was quiet, with it looking like we were pretty much the only visitors. Tickets were included in our package at the Myne, so no money changed hands, but if we wanted to take a professional camera in or shoot some video, there was a hefty charge levied. Luckily mobile phones are exempt from this charge.
This cave visit, although not on our list of things to do, was stunning, truly stunning. Surprisingly the cave is enormous and it being day time, very few bats were flying about, but there were plenty of Swifts darting about, two varieties, black ones and black and white ones. One thing we had not expected to see was teams of men harvesting nests from the very corners of these caves for the delicacy of birds nest soup. Harvesting these nests is an enormous acrobatic feat with long ladders precariously strung from the cave ceiling and guided in to place by a pilot perched on the end of the ladder and teams of rope pullers. Cirque de Soleil would have been proud of theses guys. Despite the mountains of bird droppings and the millions of cockroaches and bugs scuttling around, this was an amazing surprise of a visit, topped off by then seeing a couple of Orangutans in the trees overhanging the car park.
Back at the airport, checked in and supping a coffee we felt so lucky to have visited Borneo and truly wish, with the perfect crystal clear vision of hindsight, that we had organised our holiday differently and spent a few more days in here.
AirAsia arrived promptly, turning the aircraft around in 30 minutes, taking us back to KL with only some minor turbulence to disrupt our route.
Once back on solid ground we extracted our car from the car park and set Mr Garmin the simple task of getting us to our hotel in Melaka. Sadly though, Mr Garmin failed abysmally on the first attempt and after calling the hotel for a recognisable landmark he was reset, Mr Garmin finally getting us to the hotel about 30 minutes late.
Our hotel, The 1825 Gallery, still looking shiny and new, was simply stunning. Huge rooms, incredibly well fitted out with great attention to detail in its fixtures and fittings. The icing on this particular cake was the view from the huge windows, giving us an unobstructed view of the river running through the old quarter.
Arriving late we didn’t get too much time to enjoy the evening, so it’s was pretty much straight to bed.
mrandmrsyoung 