Day 12 to the End - Rasa Ria, Kota Kinabalu

Lets face it there are worse places to be holed up for four nights than the Rasa Ria. It is a lovely hotel on a beautiful stretch of beach, somewhere perfect for resting up the still aching limbs. This blog will tail off now (if you’ve read the lot, you’ll be thankful for that!), because there is no much interest in sipping cocktails in 30degC of sunshine. Jealous or what.

We made a trip back into the city for some shopping. It tipped it down with rain and the night market where we hoped to buy a bit more fake was disappointing but perhaps we were expecting too much after Kuala Lumpur.

A second visit was made to the Nature Reserve and this was even better than the first time. This time four orang-utans came to the feeding platform with a group of long-tailed macaques. The eldest of the orangs, Hope, a seven year old will later this year be transferred to Sepilok to continue his rehabilitation. He is probably ready to go now but is needed at the Rasa Ria until one of the younger orangs is ready to take his place as group leader.

We also got to see a hornbill, albeit one that had been adopted by the rangers and didn’t seem particularly fussed about moving too far from his perch. Once again it was time well spent. It is extremely heartening to see these orangs so full of life, free to roam in the 64 acres of dense forest and that without the efforts of the sanctuary here and at Sepilok they would undoubtedly have been dead.
Even within the confines of the hotel the wildlife manages to surprise, no more so than when a porcupine wandered out from under a stool at the beachside bar.

We were thwarted by yet another rainstorm from attending a nocturnal watch at the Reserve but this gave us the opportunity of seeing the entertaining cultural dancing.

Fifteen hours of flying are now to be endured on our return to Heathrow and the reported cold and fog of England.

Conclusion

This was a major step for us holiday-wise. We had been entrenched in the sunbed holidays for many years and to be fair had been to some wonderful places. I, more so than Ann, had become unsettled and found our last trip to Cuba far from satisfying. Borneo had offered and delivered a different dimension, one we feel confident we will follow.

There was things we hadn’t encountered before that we had to adjust to. For example, not unpacking and living out of a suitcase for 12 days was strange, but we did get used to it. The early morning starts were a shock to the system, but that is when nature wakes up, so to see what you want to see you have to adjust your time clock accordingly. After the first few days it becomes the norm and because everybody else is doing the same nobody hangs around in the bar late into the evening and early nights are the order of the day.

We went to Borneo with the hope, not the expectation, of seeing orang-utans in their natural habitat and this was achieved. We went to Borneo with the expectation that it might rain a lot, this we also achieved in bucket loads! But did it matter, not one hoot, in fact it enhanced the holiday. Imagine if we had picked a sunbed holiday and suffered that amount of rain, it would have been a disaster.

Our guides were great, not only at pointing out sights and sounds, but on a personal basis they almost became good friends. Everything went according to plan, thank you to Audley for their planning back here in the UK and to KK Tours for their implementation in Borneo. So this is the start of something to continue for our holidays and we are already in the planning stage of an East African Safari to Tanzania if and when the pennies allow.

If reading this and perhaps having had the thought of doing Borneo yourselves, do it. You will not be disappointed.