Day 11 - Lahid Datu to Kota Kinabalu

The Malaysians are absolutely mad keen on the English Premiership and Vivien was no different. Unfortunately his knowledge of the English game did not stretch down to the depths occupied by Gillingham. We met up with Vivien before our departure to say our goodbyes and in the guides room they were surfing the internet. Seizing the opportunity I asked if they would look for the result of the previous days’ game. Upon finding that the Gills had won they joined in with my pleasure. The cheers turned to chuckles when the league table showed that the win had taken them out of the red relegation area, one place above the line. I’m sure Gillingham and Adam Miller (their scorer on the day) will stay with Vivien for a while.

Despite the Lodge’s worries that the heavy rain would delay the arrival of our transport, the same driver that had brought us down was on time. Indeed the first part of the drive was remarkably plain sailing as we saw far less logging trucks than on the way down. Once we had surmounted the hill that had caused all the problems previously we thought we were clear and so did the driver, who did whatever you have to do to the wheels to cease it being 4-wheel drive. His confidence was misguided though as within minutes we were stuck in a rut a couple of feet deep. A futile effort was made to push and it was a logging lorry coming up behind that was our salvation. A tow rope seems always at the ready and the lorry towed us backwards for the driver to have another attempt, but once again became stuck. Another tow, a different approach and this time we made it.

The rest of the drive was uneventful and we were thankful that the heavy rainstorm encountered in Lahid Datu hadn’t happened an hour earlier on the muddy track.

A Fokker prop plane took us from the small airport back to KK despite Ann’s fears that it wasn’t a proper plane.

Back at KK our young lady was waiting to take us back to the Rasa Ria. As we left the city, Ann rather surprised me when she said that she didn’t really want to be here. We were on our way to a luxury 5-star hotel and she was wishing she was back in the rainforest. We had truly made the conversion from the sunbed to the more active holiday with those few words.