Day 55 - 59 Kota Kinabalu and Budding Jacques Cousteaus

After leaving the hussle, bussle and 'black marketeers' of Yangon behind, we headed for Kuala Lumper (KL), the capital city of Malaysia and then a direct transfer on to Kota Kinabalu (KK), the capital of Sabah, Borneo, another two and a half hour flight. Kota Kinabalu, lying between the green peaks of the Crocker Range and the waves of the South China Sea, was formerly known as Jessletown but it's name was changed in recognition of Malaysia's highest peak, Mount Kinabalu at 4,095M.

Although Harry, now almost 12, didn't usually eat the delights of aeroplane 'food' on account of his travel sickness, I did notice him eating a bit of chicken curry!! Harry now, had not actually been travel sick since the second day of our journey, not even with all the driving through Laos, which was truly amazing and hopefully, I think, he is well on his way to being cured! This is a great and unexpected result! ........ Following a quick and necessary chocolate fix during transfer at KL Airport, having not experienced the taste since we left the UK and rather resembling a heard of thirst quenched wild animals at a water hole after 55 days wanderring in the desert heat, we connected our transfer through to KK on Malaysia Airlines.

Unfortunately, Malaysia Airlines food was probably not the best flying food to test Harry's stomach, but his chicken curry, on the Yangon to KL section, proved edible. Imogen's chicken curry on the other hand, didn't. She had clearly chosen the 'sale or return ' option, when chosing her curry, as she decided to give it back outside the Kota Kinabalu Airport Arrivals zone, just before getting a taxi to town. It was now getting on for 10.00pm and we hadn't had time to book any accomodation in KK, but after a quick bit of homework and price haggling, we booked in to the Best Western Daya. With only one emergency stop on the waterfront, allowing Imogen the joint pleasure of taking in the late night sea view and depositing the last part of her meal on the promenade, we got to the Hotel and went straight to sleep, with Harry, Fred and Imogen in a king size bed and Jo and I next door in an interconnecting bedroom.

Unfortunately, at about 1.00am Harry, who has been sleeping next to Imogen, quietly drifts into our bedroom and calmly .... I assume still half asleep ....... and waking us up, ......... announces that Imogen has diarrhoea and it's all over his leg and Imogen's teddy! As WE were still half asleep and he seemed so calm about such a hideous event, we thought he was probably sleep walking or having a very strange dream and clearly needed to be quietly escorted back to bed. However, on enterring their bedroom, the unforgiving and pungent smell revealed that Harry was fully compus mentus and quite accurate with his assesment!! ........ PANDAMONIUM ensued with lights on, all children awake and out of bed, Imogen directed speedily to the shower, bed sheets and duvets stripped and pilled tightly to try to control the smell, lest the other 200 guests in the Hotel become subjected to a full evacuation of the building as the unrelenting aroma made its way in deathly silence through the hotel air conditioning system! ........................ Jo, unable to stand the smell, remained in our room for as long as she could!, I assume hoping the firebrigade would soon arrive with full breathing apparatus! ............. not good!!! ................ However, I was extremely impressed by Harry's calmness at this situation! as he too was hosed down in the shower! and without going into any more detail, housekeeping arrived and helped us change the beds and I ended up roaming the streets trying to find an all night 7/11, at 2.00am in the morning, in search of baby wipes, man size diapers (all they had!!), disinfectant and divine intervention from God!! ...................... hopefully Imogen's troubles would be short lived and salmonella or campila bacta was not what we were dealing with!!

The next day revealed Imogen looking a little more perky and taking it very easy it today, we were hopeful that the divine intervention had paid off and the remaining man sized diapers could be saved for another day! .... or hopefully not as the case may be!

The next couple of days were spent chilling out and spending rather a lot of time at the Tourist Information Centre, with an extremely helpful lady, working with us to plan our itinery for the next three weeks; sorting out my Sipadan diving licence, together with our planned trip to conquer Mount Kinabalu for Harry's 12th birthday and seeing the Orang Utan's in Sepilok. It all took time!! ... but was pleasantly interspersed with much need Coffee sessions at the 'Old Town White Coffee' house and 'The Coffee Bean' in central KK. ......... I certainly have never been served a Pint of Latte before!!

We were soon introduced to 'Pat', who came to our hotel to organise my Sipadan Licence and also kindly agreed to take us to the Airport to organise a couple of internal flights, along with his wife and 2 young children, who had just finished school. On the way back we joined them for dinner, at a slightly 'different' restaurant facility, the food of which was not too good, after which they very kindly dropped us back at the waterfront, whereupon Imogen, clearly remenissing on her last visit to the promonade, promptly threw up! ............... mmmmmh? maybe not quite cured yet! .................. hopefully another sachet of dhioralite would do the trick!

To prepare for my Sipadan dive I needed to organise a local refresher dive and Jo is keen to join me, as she has not dived for about 5 years, so we headed for 'Sabah Divers' and duly arranged refresher dives for Jo and I, together with a 'Discover Scuba Dive' for Harry and 'Bubbles' dive for Fred and Imogen. This meant we could all be together and take a boat over to Sapi Island within the Tunku Adbul Rahman National Park, some 15 minutes by boat from KK. The children were extremely excited at the thought of experiencing REAL scuba diving with all the equipment ...... and in the sea!! ........ in fact they could hardly contain themselves. Imogen, although still not 100%, insisted she was absolutely fine and fit for duty! ....... so, keeping a watchful eye on her, the following morning, we all headed for Sabah Divers, were given our kit and boarded the dive boat to explore the coral reefs of Sapi Island.

The children were excited and equally anxious about this amazing adventure they were about to experience and Sabah Divers had special small Air Tanks and BCD's, wetsuits, masks and fins for them to use. Their first experience on the Island was a beach entry dive where the children had to show their competence at mask clearing and regulator removal, ensuring they were comfortable with the equipment under water ......... quite a task for them as it was their first time, but they all passed succesfully. With the excitement of the experience still in one piece, we all went off for a shallow reef dive in the surrounding waters and the young budding 'Jacques Cousteau's' began their real underwater discovery. Harry with Jo and I and 'Nev' our very calm and knowledgeable Kiwi instructor and Imogen and Fred with their own Malay instructor, Jason, all making our way over this beautiful sea garden of coral and extravagantly colourful fish, with the odd 'sting ray' hiding under rocks or speedily escaping our view, to numurous black sea slugs that resembled underwater cigars, slowly filtering the sand for food and much to the children's fascination, leaving behind amusing rings of sand poo ................. which was ..... just sand really. They eat sand, they poo sand, they eat sand, they poo sand ................ maybe my life is not so bad after all!! I suspect sea slugs frequently dream of having a gourmet sand souflee with a side sand salad, followed by an exquisit sand roulade, with a topping of fresh whipped sand, washed down with a fine glass of 'sand claret' and finsished off with a nice cup of sandaccino and an after eight sand. ............. 'wooh, life's a beach!

We all climbed back on the boat, changed and headed for the Island for a well earned lunch stop, the children excitedly recounting all of the things they had seen. After some basic but welcomed food of chicken fried rice, we rested a while, watching huge Monitor Lizards roaming freely around the Barbecue area hoping to find some easy food for their lunch ....... hopefully not the children!! The children were extremely excited to witness these huge reptiles strutting around with their fork tongues, constantly sniffing the air; there must have been a dozen or more.

Our next dive was to comprise a backward roll off the side of the boat and this created a whole new level of anxious excitement amongst the children. ............... this was real 'Jaques Cousteau' stuff for them!! We boarded the boat and headed off to another coral reef off the Island. Once at the dive site, we donned our dive equipment and prepared for the backward roll, off what was a fairly high drop as boat dives go! .... Harry in, .... Imogen in, Freddie ................ a few double and triple checks of all his equipment as he was contemplating the hight of the drop and whether or not following this huge backward role, he would be gobbled up by a shark!, eventually ..... and succesfully, completed the roll and enterred the water with a confused splash!! With the 'OK' signal from all, they started their second underwater adventure, but Fred was feeling a little uncomfortable as he had been sufferring from a sore throat and the dry oxygen from the dive tanks was not helping, so he climbed back in and decided to sit this dive out in the boat. However, whilst we were underwater, Fred managed to see wild Probuscis Monkeys in the trees and even on the beach ........... which was a pretty amazing sight.

This second reef was even more colourful than the first, with a huge array of beautiful coloured fish and coral, resmebling a summer meadow in full bloom, beneath a turquoise blue sea blanket glistening in the sun. We saw lion fish, moray eals, more sea slugs, beautifully coloured giant clams exposing their intricately decorated velvet lips, more sea slugs, trigger fish, angel fish and hundreds more. All in all, a great introduction to the undersea world and certainly an education for the children on what has been a very privileged day for them. Jo has also rejuvinated the bug for diving and I am sure Fred will come into his own in a few years time.



Back in Kota Kinabalu we finish the day with an easy Pizza and Pasta at the local Italian Restaurant on the ground floor of The Jessleton Hotel, and discuss the days adventure.

Unfortunately we had some great photos of the children on the dive boat in all their gear completing their backward rolls, but we had Jo and Imogen's cameras stolen whilst in storage at the Best Western Hotel.

As we can't fly for 18 hours after diving, we spend the next day roaming the shops of KK as Jo was keen for a little retail therapy and as the limited amount of clothes we had taken with us were now looking a little dishevelled, we stocked up on a few essential items, ready for our next journey to the north west of Sabah, Sandakan.