Monday, 30 January 2012, Kota Kinabalu

I am sitting at Starbucks in Kota Kinabalu airport waiting for Malaysia Air flight to Hong Kong where I will turn around on 2 Feb and fly to Vancouver.

Upon reflection I decided to abort SE Asia travel.  There are several reasons.  This years travels just seem to be not going as well as previous years nor as well as I had hoped.  Now I find that, even though I 'like' Sabah and Malaysia in general, it is either too hot or too rainy to spend much outside time.  Consequently most of my time seems to be inside a lodging place.  For example I took a van to Kinabalu National Park home of Mt. Kinabalu and a UNESCO world heritage site (of course).  When we got to the gate it was pouring rain and fog in all directions.  One could not see up the mountain nor down the valleys.  So I stayed on the van for another 10km to a town called Ranau where I stayed three nights and the weather did not change.  I then decided to return to KK and the weather did break for awhile.  It's a gorgeous trip through the jungle mountains but alas it was time to take a pass on the Park.

Other attractions on Sabah are the Urang Utan rehab area and Turtle Island both on the SE Coast on the opposite side of Sabah.  The few people I talked to were disappointed in these as they said, all you see at the rehab centre is a few Orangutans at feeding time and the fee for getting to Turtle Island is outrageously expensive as noted on some travel sites.

The way to see Sabah and Indonesian Borneo is to have lots of money and hire private guides and charter small aircraft.  Otherwise you are limited to seeing tourist packaged tribal villages on some tour group.  Which is ok, just not my thing.  Tourism is the 'new' tribal village way of life it seems.

I am not sure what I will do after I arrive in Vancouver .  I could go down to Mexico and try to get my dental implant work done; but I am inclined at the moment to wait until next fall.  Alternately I may go to Calgary and hang out at least throughout February and get back to Miramichi in March.