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Homecoming

14/7/2007 - 30/7/2007



After I finished my last post I spent the evening chatting to my new found friends - Julie and her brother (whose name I have, once again, forgotten), and we ended up watching a rather appallingly bad film about step dancing meeting street dancing. I've always been a sucker for all things dance, and have watched many a crappy dance/ice-skating film in my time, but this is the first one to be comparably bad to Honey. Afterwards, Julie's brother felt a musical moment coming on and got his

guitar out (I have so much admiration for anyone who can not only play an instrument well, they can actually be bothered to haul it round the world with them). It turns out he's one of those rare people who can do Johnny Cash songs justice - his voice was spot on. Later on they both decided to sing their favourite cowboy songs (from tapes their parents used to play them on long car journeys of their youth - it beats Joseph and the Waterbabies). Brilliant.

The following morning I felt I needed a change of scenery, and ostensibly needed to kill time cheaply in another city other than Kota Kinabulu. Actually, my main reason was that the DVD player in my guest house broke (from overuse?) and I decided that this was a sign that it was time to find a new hotel, with a new dvd player.

I spent most of the 7 hour bus journey to Sandakan feeling sick due to the insanely windy mountain roads, and tried to distract myself by listening to my (thankfully recharged, finally) mp3 player, and by staring at the scenery - sadly it was 99% palm groves (rather than native forests), divided up by mud-filled rivers (due to the resulting soil erosion). When the landscape depressed me too much, I glanced at the TV in utter disbelief - had they actually made a film out of Tekkon? The fight scenes were punctuated by "K.O., Natalie wins", so it looked rather like it. I was a bit baffled that they showed a film that violent, with scantily clad women doing martial arts (with very little support), during the day on public transport in an Islamic country.

Eventually I arrived in Sandakan, found a cheap hotel that actually had a TV and DVD player IN MY ROOM, located a cheap restaurant nearby, and then spent the next 3 days largely watching TV and reading books, for lack of anything else to do for free. The highlight was when I discovered that, not only did the hotel have most of my favourite cheesey dancing films, they also have the DVD of Cirque du Soleil's Drallion. I really must see them live one day. The lowlights were when my fucking cool velcro sandals finally gave up the ghost and broke beyond repair, necessitating spending the rest of the trip wearing either my heavy walking boots (they're not that comfortable this close to the equator) or my deeply impractical but very pretty beaded sandals, and watching my toenails slowly coming off (the ones that had blisters under them from Rinjani and Kinabalu).

By the time I had sat around on my arse and saved money for long enough to justify a couple of treats, I was thoroughly fed up of watching TV (although I might be able to muster enthusiasm again in time to catch up on Lost series 3 and 24 series 6 when I get home). I packed up my things to head off for 3 nights at Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp - a cheap backpacker's safari camp on the lushly forested Kinabatangan river.

The first stop on the way to the camp (after being breakfasted at the head office) was the Sepilok orang utan sanctuary, a place where orphaned and rescued orang utans are raised in semi-wild conditions in order to eventually return them to the wild. The good thing about visiting the sanctuary (as well as helping orang utans who wouldn't otherwise survive) is that you're virtually guatanteed orang utan sightings, something that is rare in the wild. Unfortunately you will be seeing them

with at least 100 other tourists (and their cameras - not that I can talk of course). I got there early, found a good spot from which I had an unobstructed view of the feeding platform, ignored my bladder's pleas to visit the toilet in favour of keeping my prime spot and not losing it to someone much taller than me, and watched the brightly coloured monkeys arses until the orang utans came swinging into view.

They really are the most odd looking creatures - I mean, for starters, they're ginga, and then, there's the ridiculously long arms, the contortionism and the Laurel and Hardy-esque head scratching. The behaviour of the monkeys changed remarkably once the orang utans appeared, they either scattered or became incredibly submissive, and if I didn't know better I'd swear one monkey was sucking the orang

utans' toes, and possibly other anatomical parts too (it was difficult to tell as the orang utan's back was to us, but it wasn't just my dirty mind, there was a lot of giggling from all directions, and several mothers could be heard tutting and shushing their children).

When I'd taken enough photos I gave up my spot (but only after the nasty father and son standing behind me, discussing who to shove out of the way had left), located a toilet, watched a video on orang utan conservation (apparently they're the largest fully-arboreal mammals) and then located the minibus that took me to the Kinabatangan river where I caught the boat to Uncle Tan's.

Along the way, Tony (our guide) would slow the boat and point out animals hiding in the trees - long-tailed macaques (the McDonalds of the primate world - they're found everywhere it seems), proboscis monkeys (endemic to Borneo - a creature that when created it fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down - the female has a little, pointy snub nose, while the male has a long dangly nose that looks, frankly, like male genitalia), stork-billed kingfishers, Asian black hornbills (another odd looking creature with a horn on top of it's beak - thought to be to amplify their braying call), and big beautiful white birds that I thought at first were white herons (which I had already seen in NZ) but were in fact egrits. Apparently they're pretty common, and are seen everywhere, but they were nonetheless enchanting.

We eventually made it to the camp, despite being sidetracked repeatedly by wildlife, we settled into our open sided dorms (with wire mesh to keep the worst of the beasties out, and mosquito nets for the rest). I located a food tin to keep the mokeys and rats away from my biscuits, then we settled down to our introductory briefing (every single member of staff was introduced - all 15 of them, and they shook every single guest's hand - it took a while, but was all terribly polite, friendly and welcoming) and were let loose on the buffet dinner. It was bloody marvellous.

After dinner we were taken out on a night safari by John. Sadly he had only been a guide for 2 months (compared to Tony's 15 years), and it showed. He kept tracking the torch beam across the water and through the trees, but being too busy talking to the people at the front and telling them safari stories that he wouldn't notice if anything moved. He had similar problems holding the torch still when we were trying to take photographs. Nonetheless, we did manage to see various owls (I remember this one was a buffy fish owl), a baby python, a stork-bill kingfisher and a bearded pig.

After the safari we came back to the camp and I spent the evening socialising with Sheila and Laura (two med students on an elective in Sabah whom I'd met in Kota Kinabalu), Neil, Kit and Marion and James (assorted new-found friends). When everyone else crashed, James and I stayed up and tried to spot the various wild cats that frequently prowl the camp at night. We failed and gave up after an hour, deciding to crash as we were getting up at the arse-crack of dawn for another boat trip (believe me, I wasn't complaining).

I woke up after a deep sleep to discover just how badly I'd been bitten in the last 24 hours. I don't know why DEET and mosquito nets always seem to work for everyone else, but I still get bitten.

I grumbled my way over to the boat dock, put my life jacket on and tightened it with an irritated and itchy yank, still muttering under my breath, and then scowled at the early morning light that slowly burned through the dawn mist and glowered at the gnarled trees that were gradually revealing themselves along the banks of the Kinabatangan.

My foul mood didn't last particularly long - we saw an enormous saltwater crocodile on the bank of the river and I forgot to glare at the world in my excitement. After that Tony (our guide again, thank goodness) spotted a white-bellied sea eagle and a brahminy kite eagle.

Someone on our boat spotted a crested serpent eagle on the bank of the river (pictured). I don't know how they do it - Tony can quite easily spot a tiny bird in a tree from 100m away, while zooming at full speed down the river. I have to look for half a minute with the boat still and as close as it can get, with someone else siting right next to me and pointing before I spot something, and I can't see any detail without my camera and zoom lens. I suppose I should have brought my glasses travelling after all.

At one point we stopped to see proboscis monkeys in the canopy of a nearby tree, but they weren't so keen on us, so they jumped to the next tree - they really are capable of astonishingly long leaps.

We saw monitor lizards sunning themselves, stretched out on tree branches, we saw long-tailed macaques and egrits (as always), we saw the smaller blue-eared kingfisher, flocks of pacific swallows and the oriental pied hornbill. It really was incredible. Our hour-long boat safari ended up being 2 hours, because the wildlife was good and it was worth spending a bit longer out there, and by the time we got back for breakfast we were ravenous.

After breakfast the boys located a football and played a bit of 5-a-side. I felt like a bit of exercise, so I joined in. A word of advice for other females who used to play football. If you only played football for a year or two, it's best not to play your first game for 8 years with a bunch of blokes. After a half hour I bowed out (for the good of my team) went to get ready for the mid-morning trek, and said my goodbyes to James who had already been at the camp for 3 nights and was heading back to civilisation for a shower.

Our walking guide, Leo took us out on a short trek to introduce us to some of the creepy crawlies that can be found in the forests of Borneo. He found us an example of the smallest species of frog in Asia (with 3 toes rather than the usual 4), a forest huntsman spider, two brown wood owls, a tractor millipeed and a red-legged millipeed (both very gross), a cotton bug (another oddity that looks like a white

ball of fluff, and then it jumps out of your hand), a brown rough skink, a leech - which he very obligingly put on his own arm in order to show us how to get them off. He offered the leech round so that we could have a go (the medics seemed to find my suggestion that sharing leeches might spread disease, amusing). I declined.

On the way back to the camp (after deciding that it was 12:05pm from the position of the sun and that we should turn around - it turns out that he was wrong, it was 12:10), Leo had a poke around under a rotting log and discovered a scorpion, unfortunately a spitting whip scorpion which landed a spray of venom right in Leo's eye. He wandered off with his eye watering (his small but spicy eye as he called it), hacked up some bamboo with his machete and used the sap as eye drops - I tried it afterwards - optrex has nothing on bamboo sap.

After another delicious lunch I braved a wash, which at Uncle Tan's consists of pouring muddy river water over yourself with a ladle and a bucket. I was dreading it, as the water really was pretty skanky, but apparently I was skankier, because I did feel suprisingly clean afterwards.

I wandered back to my dorm to locate my biscuit tin, only to be informed that a bunch of very clever macaques, who come along at 6:30 every morning when everyone goes on their dawn safaris, managed to unlock the door to our dorm and prise open the tin, making off with MY biscuits. Bastards.

I located the biscuits that the camp staff serve with tea and indulged in some comfort eating, while going through my photos in order to free up some memory card space for the next 2 days.
That's when my camera battery ran out.

I hadn't realised just how much I'd used it in the 36 hours since I'd last charged it. Sadly the camp generator only came on at sunset, so I had to go on the sunset boat trip sans camera. And I missed the bearded pig and her seven bum-fluffed piglets that wandered into camp, followed by a monitor lizard that decided to wallow in the gunge next to the kitchen waste pipe for a while.

Of course, the sunset trek was the best one so far (fucking sod's law), with proboscis monkeys everywhere, hanging nearby from vines in plain view in large family groups. Tony said that it was the best view that they'd had of the proboscis monkeys for two weeks.

The tick in my left eye came back.

We saw more hornbills, more swallows and egrits, another brahminy kite eagle, long tailed and pig-tailed macaques (the latter hang around in gangs with the long-tailed macaques, but are considerably shorter and stouter - the Phil Mitchell's of the primate world) and another saltwater croc. By the time we got back to camp I was twitching and was relieved to see that the power was on, and my battery was charging.

By the time we had pigged out on dinner, my battery was up and running again, and we set off on a night trek with Leo, who was under specific instructions from me to locate a scorpion (ideally one that didn't spit) and a tarantula for me, along with any other gross creepy crawlies and slithery things that he could find).

We didn't have to wait long - Leo located a Bornean Blue Tarantula for us - a fine specimen at 15cm long. The camp manager Lan was the first person to discover this spider - he initially decided it was an Indian Black Tarantula, sent it to a lab to verify and then was told that the Indian Black tarantula only occurs in India, and this was a species that no-one had identified before. It's only been officially in existence for a matter of months. Anyway, it's really, really big and I defy anyone to stand almost underneath one and not whimper for their Mums.

We carried on walking and Leo located a cricket frog (pictured) and a least narrow-mouthed frog, in between poking sticks in various likely scorpion habitats.

Eventually he hit the jackpot and located a Bornean Black scorpion hiding under the roots of a tree WITH HER BABIES, and proceeded to try to poke it out for the next 10 minutes as it got progressively more and more pissed off. One of the girls behind me tentatively attempted to clarify why exactly he felt that this was a good idea in an unusually high-pitched voice (I had a sinking feeling that it was all my fault), and Leo looked up and said with shining eyes "Because it's so BIG" in a tone of voice and manner usually only heard when discussing male attributes with female friends.

Eventually he managed to get the incensed scorpion out of the hole and came over to me with it. Now is probably the time to admit that I had asked him to locate a scorpion as I wanted a photo of one crawling around on my arm. I hadn't, at the time, counted on a big, wrathful, hairy momma scorpion that had been woken up by a stick being repeatedly poked at her babies, I'd been hoping for a nice, pleasantly sleepy scorpion (of course, as it turns out, scorpions are nocturnal, and are rarely pleasant).

For the second time that night I whimpered as I gingerly held out my arm and Leo plonked it unceremoniously on my hand, at which point it ran up my arm while Leo yelled for me not to let it get to my shoulder and then yelled that I was doing it all wrong, grabbed for the scorpion, put it back on my hand and then tried and failed to show me how to stop it and get it onto my other hand before it got near my shoulder, at which point his rather obvious panic would rub off on me again. After several attempts and removing the scorpion from my shoulder repeatedly I eventually got the hang of it, and had the scorpion going from one arm to the other smoothly while poor Laura tried to work out how to use my camera while shrieking with fear (I kept telling her that she had to come closer to get a decent night-time shot with no flash - she should have been thankful that I don't have a macro lens).

It turns out that the reason Leo kept panicking whenever the scorpion got near my shoulder was that it needs flesh in front of it, perpendicular to the length of its body, to grab with its pincers and then sink the sting on its tail into. Rather like my neck. The livid scorpion was repeatedly going for my jugular it would seem. Leo said that he'd never seen a scorpion so obviously enraged. He then told us about the time a Bornean Black scorpion stung him and he spent 24 hours screaming through fever dreams as his body fought to get rid of the venom.

I do feel that he might have mentioned some of this to me beforehand.

On the way back to the camp we spotted the Bornean Blue tarantula again, but this time it was guarding its nest and babies from a dogtoothed cat snake that was waiting to pounce at any wrong move. We waited for about 10 minutes, but neither moved an inch, so we got bored of the stalemate and went back to the camp.

We crashed fairly quickly as it's exhausting watching animals foraging, looking after their young, mating and generally going about their daily business.

I awoke at the crack of dawn, after another astoundingly heavy sleep, and Sheila, Laura and

I decided to get up early on the offchance that there would be space on the boats for another morning safari (you're only supposed to have one). There wasn't but they arranged for another boat to go out to take all the people that were supposed to be in bed out to watch the animals of the Kinabatangan greet the dawn in their own ways. As with most of the guided trips so far, this was supposed to take one hour, but ended up taking two as we were all having so much fun, including the guides. The fact that they're so enthusiastic about their jobs, even after years of doing it is one of the reasons that I would (and have) recommend (ed) Uncle Tan's to anyone.

I found myself feeling oddly calm and at home on the river, while paradoxically excitement bubbled inside me as I wondered what we'd see next - lesser fish eagles and white-bellied eagles (pictured), oriental pied hornbills and wrinkled hornbills, the oriental darter, a.k.a. the snake bird (no it doesn't eat snakes - I asked and got laughed at - it has a long bendy neck that looks a bit like a snake), more long-tailed macaques, proboscis monkeys and egrits (pictured) and another saltwater crocodile, as it turns out. The sun shone on us for the whole journey, to the extent that I was worried that I might be burning at 7am.

We made our way back to camp for breakfast and then I said goodbye to most of my friends, as I was staying on for an extra day. After stalking yet another monitor lizard around the camp with my camera and examining the plethora of new mosquito bites on various inexplicable parts of my anatomy, I

decided to go for a morning walk alone along one of the trails (it's perfectly safe Mum, the trees are marked with different colours for different trails, and I had a whistle, as well as my foghorn voice in case I got lost).

I walked to the nearby lakes and saw otters, another oriental darter/snake bird (pictured) and egrits. I sat beneath a tree and just watched the birds circling overhead in the blazing head of midday, before eventually dragging myself back to camp for lunch.

Along the way I stumbled through a spiders web, and was picking bits of web out of my hair when I felt, at the same instant as I saw out of the corner of my eye, a black and yellow crawly, icky thing in my hair. I threw it (an orb-weaving spider as it turns out, pictured) to the ground, hopped from foot to foot for a while and resisted the temptation to shriek, until I felt something large on my shoulder and discovered a rather large, armour-plated tractor millipeed crawling across my bare shoulder. At that point I think I did squeal a bit.

After my close and unintentional encounters with nature, I felt that I badly needed to calm down, so clearly a large lunch and a session in the nearest hammock with a book and Deep Forest (it seemed appropriate) on my mp3 player was called for, interrupted only by a brief photo shoot with a flying, colour changing lizard that one of the guides found on a random wander.

Eventually I felt I had calmed down enough to go and raid the biscuit tin again. I was wandering back to my dorm, munching on my last biscuit when I caught a blur of fur hurtling towards me at great speed out of the corner of my eye. I didn't even have time to resolve the blur into the shape of a long-tailed macaque before it had flown past me, deftly teefing my biscuit straight out of my hand without even touching me on the way, and it had landed under the dorm and was eating MY biscuit with a look of insolent defiance (am I anthropomorphising now?) under my hut. I was still staring in open-mouthed disbelief at the gap between my thumb and forefinger when I became aware that the entire campsite full of people that I hadn't yet met were pissing themselves laughing at me. Although a couple of them had seen the monkey coming, sadly none of them had had their cameras to hand. The upside to losing your biscuit (AGAIN) to an upstart primate is that it gives you instant fame. Integrating myself with the new group was quite easy after that point as everyone knew who I was. I made friends with a group of people from Denmark, a group from Sweden, an American family (all of whose names I've forgotten), and a lovely Dutch couple (both teachers too) - Katleen and Ben.

At sunset I headed out for another sunset boat trip (again, I wasn't supposed to have a second one, but everyone seemed quite happy to shift up so that the girl who had lost her biscuit to a simian could squeeze on, especially since the guides all new I was nuts about my camera and had missed out on taking photographs on the sunset boat trip the day before). Thank fuck they did - we saw more Proboscis monkeys, Silver Leafed monkeys (the ones that have a silhouette like one of Beckham's more bizarre haircuts) and, at last, an orang utan.

Lan, the camp manager saw it first and pulled his boat in. The rest of the boats followed and word was passed around quietly that there was an orang utan in the trees. We caught glimpses of it as it moved around, foraging for fruit before it made it's nest and went to bed. It disappeared from view from the bank, so Lan decided to take us on a trek through the jungle, beating a path as we went along, as quietly as possible, through grasses and shrubs twice our height. We reached the trees where we had seen him, and were just about giving up all hope when Lan came back from a wander and led us off to a nearby clump of trees, telling us to be as quick and quiet as possible. It turns out I'm pretty good

at running (read hurdling) quietly through jungles. Every time the orang utan moved from tree to tree, we stayed with it. It looked directly at me and Martin, my orang utan photography buddy, repeatedly (we had the biggest, most interesting cameras I think) until it became so fed up of our collective presence that it started throwing fruit, then whole branches at us, and then doing several carefully aimed turds in our general direction. We took this to mean that it wanted us to bugger off now, so we obliged. Oddly enough, although it looked directly at Martin and myself several times, it never aimed at us. Maybe it was because it didn't perceive us to be as big a threat as the larger group of people.

Or perhaps it was ginger sympathy. Who knows.

As we walked back to the boats Lan told us some useless facts about orang utans - unsurprisingly the one that eclipsed the rest and the only one that I retained was that orang-utans are the only other apes to engage in oral sex (this throws a whole new light on the inter-primate orgy at the Sepilok orang utan sanctuary - possibly the simians are the orang utans bitches after all), although when I asked, I was disappointed to hear that it's only the males who get it.

After an experience that left us all buzzing and chatting excitedly, the guides apologised for our having missed out on a boat cruise, as we had spent most of the time in the forest, tracking the orang utan, and they promised us an extra boat trip in the morning to make up for it (my second extra morning cruise, to make up for the afternoon cruise that I wasn't supposed to be on anyway). There were snorts of disbelief from all directions, as I don't think anyone regretted the decision to head into the jungle, but we didn't argue!

I had spent quite some time debating over whether to go on another night cruise or trek for my last night in the camp, but because I had spent quite some time socialising with Tony and Lan, two of the longest serving members of staff, they quietly told me that there was a wedding that evening between two of their friends in a village downriver, and did I want to come? Of course I bloody did. I just had to keep it quiet from my other friends at the camp sadly.

Some members of staff took groups out that evening, and once the camp had emptied, the rest of them, including Lan and Tony, got dressed up into clothes that weren't covered in mud. I, being a mucky pup, couldn't manage that, so I went for my least muddy clothes, and then had to change my top, as my wide strapped, no-cleavage, sensible vest top was deemed "too sexy". I found a clean, long-sleeved, baggy, shapeless tunic, confirmed that the village was Muslim, and that there would be no rice wine there (thank fuck after previous run-ins with the stuff).

As a result, when we got in the boat and Tony hauled in the vast majority of the supply of beer from the entire campsite, I was a little surprised. The first round of cans were passed around, and I said cheers to everyone in Malay (it was my latest word, but now I've forgotten it). The guys behind me mimed clinking and explained that they didn't drink. I said that I was surprised that there were only 2 Muslims that worked at the camp, but they laughed and said that they were all Muslims. I turned to Lan and looked confused and Lan leaned towards me, just as I was taking a sip, and said "I'll tell you why we drink beer Cat, it's because we're fucking bad Muslims".

I sprayed my beer over the crocodiles.

We arrived at the wedding too late for the ceremony and live music, but we did get there in time for the obligatory karaoke section of the evening. Thankfully they didn't have any western music, so I didn't make an arse of myself, but divided my time between sneaking down to the boat dock for a cheeky beer with the boys from the camp, taking photographs of the happy couple and being dragged to the dancefloor by the guys from the camp, and an uncle of the bride. I'd already decided that if my sensible vest top was deemed "too sexy", then the way I normally dance would be tantamount to doing a striptease on the dancefloor, so I tried to imitate the dance moves of other people on the dancefloor. I'm not very good at Malay dancing, as it turns out, but it was a giggle trying.

Eventually we headed home, thankfully with the tee-totaller Muslims steering, and crashed out far too late considering we would, once again, be getting up at the crack of dawn.

The following morning, on our final boat safari, we saw a whole bunch of animals that I was far too tired and slightly hung-over to appreciate, including (apparently) black squirrels, blue-throated bee-catchers, common sandpipers, Kukals, Dollar birds and more crocodiles, monkeys and another oriental pied hornbill (pictured). I couldn't tell you what any of the first 5 on that list looked like, and I half suspect the guides and other guests were making it all up (they were adamant that they weren't).

Thankfully breakfast back at the camp brought me back to life, so much so that I decided to join in the football again before I left the camp for the last time. Once again I was the weakest link on the pitch, but this time I didn't suck nearly as much. I managed a decent header, I had a couple of shots on goal that passed within mere inches, rather than yards, of the goal, and I managed to get the ball off Lan, who's played footie every morning for the last 11 years. I was quite pleased actually.

I threw my belongings (the ones that hadn't been stolen by monkeys) into my bag, said my goodbyes and we left the camp to make the long journey back to the head office just outside Sandakan, where I gobbled down some food and left quickly as I'd been thinking of nothing but showers with clean, running hot and cold water for the last 3 hours and couldn't wait any longer.

On the bus into town I came across this method of transporting food in unperishable form. The live chicken was sharing a small plastic bag with, amongst other things, a pineapple and a coconut.

I spent one more night in Sandakan, where I tried and failed to locate a bookshop that had a copy of Harry Potter (it was 23rd July by now - I had barely thought about the book while I was in the jungle, but now that I was back in Sandakan and bored, I was suddenly aware that most of my friends had probably finished it by now). The highlight of my day there was watching Flight Plan - it was actually surprisingly good.

Eventually, the clock ticked to 5pm on 23rd and I boarded the plane to Kuala Lumpur, watching the clock the whole way and wondering if I would make it into the city centre before the bookshop in KLCC shut at 10pm. The answer was no, and I was forced to spend another night twitching while everyone else found out what happened to Harry and you-know-who, except me.

The following day I got up early, located a copy of the Deathly Hallows (hallelujah!) and made my way to the other side of Malaysia in order to spend the next 4 days lying on a beach on the Perhentian islands.

Yes, they had fine white sand beaches lined with palm trees, yes the food was very nice, yes there was good snorkelling and yes the people were friendly, but once I had read the last page of Harry Potter, I found myself utterly bored again, and desperate to go home (which I'm told I will find ironic in a few days when the buzz of being home wears off and I wish I was travelling again). I'm not very good at sitting still and doing nothing, and became more and more fed up as time went on (which was rather unfortunate, as a friend of mine, Mike, had come to join me for the last few days). My foul mood was not helped by my having the dodgiest tummy I've had on the entire trip.

Yesterday I left the Perhentian islands, caught a boat back to the mainland and then found a couple to share a taxi to the nearest train station with. Ina and Las were lovely, friendly people from Kazakhstan - Ina spoke heavily accented English, but Las could only just about follow what we were saying, but couldn't really contribute in English. Apparently neither of them had heard of Borat, and therefore had no opinion on the film (oh come on, like you wouldn't have been tempted to ask).

Sadly when we got to the train station there were no tickets left, so I said my goodbyes to Ina and Las (who went off to find the nearest McDonalds - I tried not to judge them) and located an overnight bus to KL instead, sadly at a bus station rimmed with open sewers and with factory chimneys nearby. It did not smell of roses.

I'm now in Kuala Lumpur to finish off my blog (which has been hampered by an adorable small boy called Alif-Sem who caught sight of the photos I was putting on my blog this morning before he went to school, and came back this afternoon to gape at the particularly gross ones and ask me lots of questions, largely in mime as his English is limited, about how many eyes spiders have and how many toes frogs have, to look at all the photos on my entire blog, and to correct my spelling - apparently there's no hyphen in orang utan) before I head to Singapore tomorrow morning for my flight home. Unless something out of the ordinary happens on the flight home tomorrow (i.e. other than the usual banal conversations with neighbours, crappy flight food and array of films to pass the time), this is probably going to be my last posting. I haven't sorted out the photos from the last few days yet (there aren't many - I lacked the enthusiasm to get my camera out). I'll add them to this posting at a later date.

It feels strange to be coming to the end of my travels and coming home after sich a long time away.

I'm going to miss being a normal height in a crowd, but not an abnormal weight. I'm going to miss being a celebrity everywhere I go, and people running out of buildings to wave and yell "Hello" at me, but I won't miss being told "I love you" by complete strangers on the street, or people I've just met (I feel it makes a mockery of my love life, or lack thereof). I'm going to miss the cheap, beautifully flavoured food, but I shan't miss rice, and I can't wait to be able to cook for myself again. I'm going to miss the fleeting connections I've made with the strangers whose paths I've crossed, and who've allowed me into their lives, their homes and their families, albeit briefly, but I won't miss being on the other side of the world from the people that I love the most (except obviously for Maz), and I can't wait to see everyone again (see previous bracket). I'm going to miss hawkers and touts everywhere saying "Aaah, Eeengleeesh - lovely jubbly/Rodney you plonker/Beckham, Beckham/Manchester United. I'm going to miss haggling through smiles for everything I buy, the stifling heat and humidity, the exercise I actually have the time to get regularly, my tan (as it inevitably fades and I revert to being pale and interesting), strangers being eager to talk to me (I'm unlikely to get that back in London) and the excitement of being in an alien land where nothing makes sense every time I cross a border.

On the other hand I won't miss carrying my whole life on my back, watching every penny, being constantly bitten by mosquitos, sandflies, bedbugs and God only knows what else, cockroaches running across my feet as I cross the street at night, and appearing in my room out of the blue, making me wonder how long they've been there, and how close to me they've come.

I can't wait to see everyone again and to catch up on their lives. It will be a relief to see other people who knew my brother regularly, and who know who he was and what he meant to us all. I can't wait to sit in the pub til closing time getting sozzled on wine, to have an income and be based in one place, to not have to pack up my belongings every other day and carry them from place to place, to be able to dress and dance as I wish, not as is appropriate, to lie in candlelit baths with a nice glass of wine and copious quantities of chocolate and to listen to music without rationing the remaining battery time on my mp3 player. I can't wait to be back in the country where summer means the precipitation is no longer frozen, where burgh is pronounced borough and where nobody says lovely jubbly, no matter what hawkers the world over think.

I'm coming home.

I dedicate this blog to my big brother Steve, who had the grace to tell me in no uncertain terms in his last few days that he expected me to continue my travels, and without whose blessing I doubt I would have done.

There truly is no-one, in this world or the next, who I enjoyed swapping past travel stories and discussing possible future trips with, more than Steve.

Peak Bagging

27/6/2007 - 14/7/2007

I spent the flight to Mataram, Lombok chatting to my neighbour - a sweet Indonesian lady who had married two weeks ago, and was now moving the last of her belongings to her new husband's home on Lombok. As we were waiting at baggage reclaim she assured me very earnestly how horrible most Indonesians thought the Bali bombings were, and how she's worried that the tourist numbers will never recover.

When my bags finally appeared I got a taxi into the city centre and headed straight for the Perama office - the transport company with the most safe, reliable boats, only to discover that the Komodo tour that I had hoped to do had left the previous day, and another wouldn't be leaving for 6 days, too late for me to get back in time for my flight to Borneo. Perama told me that there were a couple of companies based in Sengiggi that did similar tours safely, but that they were more expensive.

I got a taxi to Sengiggi, found myself a relatively cheap place to stay (Sengiggi is very upmarket touristy, and cheap accomodation is rare) that conveniently had a communal dvd player at the bar. I managed to find one office still open (it was 9pm), and after trying to sell the tour to me at length and avoiding the question of cost as long as he could without me walking out, the manager eventually told me that the cost for his 5 day tour to Komodo would be 420 pounds. I laughed and left. Another tour agent told me that the cost would go down to about 180 pounds per person if there were 3 or 4 of us.

I decided that my best bet was to rearrange my plans and to set off the following day to climb Rinjani, and to ask everyone I meet on the mountain if they're interested in doing a tour to Komodo immediately afterwards.

I asked around about the costs of a guided trip up Rinjani, but the prices I was being quoted were 3 times what they were in the Lonely Planet, so I decided to get myself to Senaru the following morning for the park office and the starting point for the 3 day walk to the peak. I then retired to my guest house and spent the rest of the evening with my eyes glued to the TV watching the end of series 2 of Prison Break.

The next morning I got up at the crack of dawn to pack my things, and was then told by the driver that I had arranged that he needed to postpone by two hours. I went back to bed.

Two hours later I was all packed, I'd done my food shopping for the next 3 days, and I was ready to go. My driver for the next 3 hours (for two pounds fifty) was an amiable chap with a surprisingly good cd collection, so I spent the morning chatting away and listening to some pretty good indie compilatin cds. This was much appreciated as my mp3 player had been out of battery for a while, and I'd been unable to find a computer that the temperamental fucker would charge on (why oh why didn't I buy a wall adaptor?).

Eventually I arrived at the park office, only to be quoted the same inflated prices that I'd heard the night before. I explained that I didn't want a package deal, that I had bought my own food, I had already arranged my own transport, and that I already had half of the equipment necessary. After lengthy debating, haggling, arm-waving, walking away and then renogotiating, we reached a price that was only just over 2 times the price in the lonely planet, that the park office guy seemed happy with, and that I was only moderately pissed-off with.

I was somehow persuaded into letting my porter use my rucksack, repacked everything that I wasn't bringing up the mountain and left it all in bin liners at the park office. I was also convinced to bring my sleeping bag, as well as the four season one I had hired, so that I could have 2 sleeping bags to keep me warm in the freezing conditions near the peak. The porter and guide sorted their stuff out, and we left. It's funny how the first hour or so is often the hardest as you realise just what you're letting yourself in for, for most of the waking hours of the next 3 days. After 2km and a couple of hundred metres climbed my legs were already killing, I was out of breath, and desperately thirsty. I realised just how much less in shape I was than I had thought, and the thought that this practice run for Kinabalu was definitely a good thing did little to comfort me as I was trying not to think about the fact that less than a week after finishing this climb, I would be embarking on a harder one.

Just when I thought my spirits couldn't get any lower, the heavens opened and it started to rain in a way that was almost biblical. I put my poncho on - not because it's any good at keeping me dry, but because I was worried about my camera in my rucksack. I hate ponchos. They don't breathe, you get all hot and sweaty underneath them, and you end up walking much slower because of it.

We started passing people walking down the mountain, most of whom had turned back on the first day of their trek because of the crappy weather. My guide started suggesting we turn back. I asked if I would be getting a refund for the two days walking I wouldn't be doing, and he said no. So I said no.

6 hours after we set off, after some of the steepest, wetest, most miserable walking I had ever done, and after climbing 1500m, we set up our tents next to one of the shelters where some Czech people were camping. Unfortunately their friendliness and inclusivity matched the weather, and after several attempts to engage them in conversation I gave up and just concentrated on eating my food and doing my best to dry my socks and boots (or at least turn them from sopping wet to damp) on the fire without actually making them a part of the fire. I went to bed in a foul mood after being told that actually the porter needed my sleeping bag because he had no sleeping bag of his own. I could have said no, but didn't have the heart, despite the fact that I'd been duped into letting him bring it, and despite the fact that I was paying to hire a warm sleeping bag, but no-one was paying me to let the porter use my sleeping bag. I wouldn't normally mind someone else using my rucksack and sleeping bag, but we weren't going to see a shower for 3 days and my porter was carrying a heavy load up a steep mountain, and clearly he, my rucksack and my sleeping bag were going to smell by the end of it (they bloody did too).

The following morning I woke up cold, needing the toilet and with a stiff neck. I located a convenient bush and was just stumbling back to my tent, cursing the world under my breath when I realised that I was not alone. There were monkeys everywhere - hiding in bushes, hanging from trees and huddling into their mummies fur - waiting for us to leave the camp so that they could scavenge the spoils of last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast.

I located my camera and my guide located me a half hour later, still rooted to the same spot, to tell me that my breakfast was ready, and was I nearly ready to leave yet? I threw my stuff together and threw a banana pancake down my neck, and then we set off for the crater rim, with my guide telling me repeatedly that we should turn back after the crater rim, as it would be too hard for me to climb down to the lake and back up again, that we wouldn't have time before sunset, and that no, I wouldn't get a refund. I began to form the opinion that my guide was very lazy and was just trying to get 3 day's pay for 2 day's work.

We made it to the crater rim, but sadly most of the crater was obscured by cloud, with the odd bit of lush green forest, or astonishingly blue lake peeking through. After a quick water and rest break we (after much persuasion) headed steeply down into the crater on a path that was so precarious in places, that I'm amazed that we didn't have ropes to clip onto, or at least hold onto.

After 2 hours of descending in rain (at least it was more of a drizzle than the torrential downpour of the previous day) we reached the edge of the lake, had a break and some food, and after speaking to a nice Belgian lady, I went in search of the nearby hot springs (my guide didn't tell me about them, and when the nice lady told me, he said that I couldn't go, and we didn't have time - fortunately the guide had already told me that we had 3 more hours walking ahead of us, and I knew perfectly well that it was over 5 hours until sunset, so I ignored him). The lady assured me that it was perfectly OK to go into the hot springs in a bikini or underwear, as she had, but unfortunately when I got there, the pools were filled with locals (it's a bit of a pilgrimage spot apparently), and when I got in in my bikini, I was greeted by cheers and a round of applause.

At least they didn't throw rocks at me.

They were actually quite friendly and people kept showing me the hot streams to put my head under, and which pools were the best ones.

Sadly I eventually had to drag myself out, get dressed and start the long climb up to the crater rim again. At this stage the blisters on my heels and toes were trapped in a continuous cycle of slowly inflating and then suddenly popping, and I had grown accustomed to the fact that my feet, my legs and my back hurt, were going to for quite some time, and there was very little I could do about it. Once you accept this, they start to hurt less for some reason.

After 2 and a half hours of climbing (yup, I'm well-'ard), during which I used my hands as much as my feet, we reached the crater rim and we pitched the tents in a cluster with the many other people who were doing the same walk as me in reverse. We discussed whether the weather was likely to be suitable to attempt the summit for dawn the next morning, ate some food, and crashed.

The next morning my alarm woke me to the sound of the wind howling outside the tent at 2:30am. My guide appeared and informed me that it was very windy and we shouldn't attempt the summit. Now at any time of day other than 2:30am I would have questioned this opinion, and wondered whether this was just another example of my

guide being a lazy fucker, but at 2:30 in the morning I need someone to not just encourage me, but flat out drag me kicking and screaming from my sleeping bag and throw cold water at my face to wake me up and convince me to climb a mountain, otherwise teddy gets it. As it was I reacted to my guide's defeatist attitude by mumbling "OK", rolling over and going back to sleep.

I awoke again at dawn to discover that every other tourist at the campsite had left to attempt the summit several hours ago in a big group, and was told by someone else's guide that the wind always howls at 2:30am and then calms down by dawn. I restrained myself from shouting at my guide and calmed myself down by taking pictures of dawn breaking over the crater and in the

opposite direction over the sea. Then I spotted the monkeys. They were grooming each other, feeding their babies, fighting, scratching, foraging, climbing and mating. They had a busy morning, and so did my camera.

By the time I was done I'd taken over 100 photos and was no longer determined to shout threats at my guide to sue him. I told myself that this was the practice run, and there was no way I would make the same mistake twice with Kinabalu, and this would make me more determined than ever to reach the summit.

I was about to set off on the long climb down the mountain after having breakfast and packing up, just as the first people started to return from the summit. One of them had got ahead of the rest of the group, had taken a wrong turning down the mountain and was heading straight for a precipice.

The guides started shouting to him to turn back, but he couldn't hear what they were saying because of a combination of the distance, and their accents. I took a deep breath and bellowed as clearly as I could in my best Queen's English accent, the guides covered their ears and looked pained, and the guy turned around.

I tried to explain to the guides that I teach in London, but having never been to london, and having never met satan's little minions that reside there, this meant very little to them.

For the next five hours I cultivated the blisters on my toes and under my toenails and worked on my limp (which was, by now, pretty impressive). My guide did not make it easy for me to keep my irritation to myself as he had run into a guide friend of his and kept dragging out the breaks to half an hour or longer. I tried to explain that every time we stopped for longer than 5 minutes my muscles seized up, it was harder to walk afterwards, I was getting cold, and I had to get back to Senaru to collect my bags, and then Sengiggi that night, so could we get going please, but my guide didn't really listen and kept telling me "It's no steep now", as if that answered my concerns. During the second break of over half an hour, when my guide was showing no signs of leaving, I finally snapped, said he could catch up when he felt like it and left without him.

After half an hour they caught up with me and we made it down to Sembalun Lawang at the end of the track.

Thank fuck. I was in agony at that stage.

I arranged a motorbike to take me to Senaru for my bags, and then sorted a car back to Sengiggi with the father of the guy who had brought me to the mountain, conveniently in the same souped up 4-wheel drive with the excellent cd collection. His son came along for the ride too. Unfortunately the father fancied himself a bit of a formula 1 driver and was so insane in the risks he took driving that other Indonesian people were beeping at him to drive more carefully. After yet another near collision, some more horn honking and me almost ripping the inside handle off the door in terror, I requested that the son drive the car, saying that in England we have a phrase - better late than never. Thankfully both father and son found this funny, and they swapped places in the car. We progressed towards Senaru, rather more slowly now, and made it before nightfall. I went back to my old hotel, had a blissful shower, located some rather good food, and then collapsed.

The next morning I decided to head out to the Gili islands, as I hadn't found anyone to share the prohibitive cost of a trip to Komodo. I boarded a boat heading for Gili Trawangan as my best friend Emma's cousin Antony lives there with his family, and I had been instructed to drop by his dive shop and say "Hi".

The boat crossing was just stunning - beautiful tropical island paradises dotted the horizon, Rinjani on Lombok was visible between clouds and the shade of blue of the water varied from pastels to vibrant turquoise as the depth of the water changed with distance from the shore, but it was invariably crystal clear. I made the decision there and then to do a dive, as I still hadn't experienced diving with good visibility.

After a couple of hours of nattering with the other passengers on the boat, I arrived on Gili Trawangan and headed straight for Manta Dive to see if Antony was there, and to get advice on the best places to stay for about 4 pounds a night (I'd decided to splash out as I felt I'd earned it). Antony wasn't in yet, so a woman that worked there told me where to look for accomodation, and offered to look after my bags while I hunted down a nice room. I returned a half hour later with a big smile on my face - the place was gorgeous, the rooms were built around a statue and fountain filled courtyard, my room had a double bed, photos of dolphins on the walls, statues, rugs and a lovely tiled bathroom.

I spent quite some time sprawled across the bed, taking up as much space as I could, because I could, and soaking up the general niceness of the room. Once I felt I could cope with walking again I took a stroll over to Manta Dive, located Antony, and tried to explain why I'd come to see him, having never met him before in his life. He seemed quite happy with my explanation of "Because my best friend Emma seemed to think it was a good idea", and we sat around chatting about pregnancy (his fiance is, as is his cousin and my best friend), diving, and life on a tropical island paradise in Indonesia (apparently it's not bad).

After a couple of hours of loafing around in the sun, I made arrangements to meet up with Antony and his fiancee Anna later, and went back to my hotel with the number of a nearby masseuse that cost half the price of the masseuses along the touristy strip, and was apparently twice as good. Other than the fact that she does home visits, and this meant that her aromatherapy oils were all over my bed for the next 2 days, it was wonderfully, exquisitely painful. When she attacked my calves and quads, I almost screamed, but I could definitely walk more normally afterwards, so I presume it was a good thing.

After some more quality lazing time, I strolled over to the Irish pub, ordered a veg lasagne (say what you want about touristy hotspots, but they're excellent every so often for vege food that isn't veg fried rice AGAIN), got my book out and waited for Antony and Anna. Bloody good thing I got some food in my stomach first, because the dive instructors were all on the Bintang beers and were difficult to keep up with. It was a good night.

The following morning I was awoken by the crack-of-dawn call-to-prayer (something that many tourists in Indonesia and Malaysia complain about, but a sound that I love waking up to - in that first second of consciousness I know instantly that I'm in some far-off, exotic place and a slow, sleepy smile spreads across my face) and got up early, gobbled some breakfast and headed over to Manta dive to get geared up and go diving. It was fantastic - the first time I've had decent visibility for a dive. We saw baby sharks asleep under coral, sting rays, bumpheaded parrotfish (who only appear just after the full moon) and a giant trevelley.

I was feeling a bit dodge after the dive, so I went for a walk down to the south of the island to check out the surf, and then headed back to my room for a lazy afternoon read and siesta. I managed to drag myself out in the evening for food, but that's about it for the rest of the day.

The next day, after a failed attempt at surfing as the waves weren't up to much, Antony (who was insisting I only pay half price for my dives, bless him) convinced me I should go out again, if only to see the turtles. He sent me out with his best dive leader, Herman, under strict instructions to find me some turtles. When after about 10 minutes I still hadn't seen any turtles, I started doing the sign for turtles at him hopefully, and for the rest of the dive he was on a mission to find turtles for me. His mission was very successful - I think we saw 7 altogether. I floated about a metre above one huge one. They really are awesome creatures, particularly when they swim off and you see their wierd, chunky, tapered-the-wrong-way-round-limbs flapping up and down like wings in slow-motion. Absolutely brilliant.

The water was filled with beautiful blue and orange fish, and schools of tuna. The coral was vivid and we kept spotting creatures hiding underneath it. We saw a sea snake swimming through the water. In short it was just amazing. Towards the end of the dive I spotted a wierd anemone like thing with thin tentacles that were almost see-through. I pointed it out to my dive instructor who touched it, and the creature retracted it's tentacles under the sand at the speed of light. Despite the fact that I'd been completely wired throughout the dive, and so excitable that I must have been almost hyperventilating, we managed to make our air last 50 minutes underwater. It was bloody great to see just how amazing diving can be. My dive buddy told me on the boat just how relaxing he found diving, just floating along with the current. For me that dive was the opposite - I was constantly darting off to examine something (with the "What's this? What's this?" song from the Nightmare before Christmas going through my head).

When I came back to Manta Dive, Antony was waiting to come and take me back to his house to meet Lara, his adorable toddler. She appeared to take to me quite well, and repeatedly brought me all of her toys to play with (she was very good at sharing for an only child). She especially seemed to like the way I made the cuddly crocodile that was three times her size attack her. I'm not sure that I was helping her develop a healthy phobia of the predators at the top of the food chain as she giggled constantly when I did it, but I did my best. I also tried to get some decent pictures of Lara, but it appears that my baby photography skills aren't up to scratch. I can take decent photos of butterflies, but this kid just had too much energy and moved around too fast for me and my camera to cope.

Eventually, after Lara had drained every last bit of energy that I had, I staggered off back to my hotel and packed in order to leave my island paradise the next day.

The following morning I got up BEFORE the crack of dawn (why, why, why do I keep doing this? I'm on holiday for fuck's sake) to make the boat across to Lombok that connected with the bus across to Sengiggi from where the boat left for Bali. Most of the day would have been lost to exceedingly dull travel if it wasn't for the one saving grace - that the boat to Bali had a sun deck with fake sand and towels to lie on. Ingenious.

When I finally made it to Bali, I hopped on a bus to Ubud and then located myself a lovely little place with gorgeous rooms built around an overgrown wilderness filled with shrines, statues and fountains, and then went for a wander. In Bali, every building has a fancy shrine, and is an art shop. Or so it seems to someone who is rapidly depleting her remaining travel funds and has vowed to do no more shopping. In fact, Ubud had the best shopping I have ever seen on my travels - it has a huge arts and crafts scene, and if I had money in my bank account still, I would have done my birthday and Christmas shopping for the next 10 years in one go. It was torture.

After a rather masochistic window shop, I went back to my guest house and got chatting to a young couple lounging around in chairs outside their room. It runed out that the girl had been on an ERASMUS scheme in Singapore. I asked her if she knew Jesse and Joel (my friends from Mt Bromo) and she squealed "No way" loudly. Jesse had told me to watch out for a girl called Heather with long blond hair when I went to Borneo so, as she had long blond hair, for my next trick, I asked if her name was Heather and if she was by any chance heading to Borneo. Her eyes were like saucers by this stage. We sat around chatting for a while and I mentioned that I intended to climb Kinabalu. They warned me that it was all booked up until the end of July at this stage. I shrieked "What?" rather loudly, and then explained that it was imperative that I reached the peak, as I had already collected over 300 pounds in sponsorship, and rushed off to e-mail the agency that book the mountain huts a rather undignified begging letter, after which I crashed with a good book and some peanuts for my evening meal (as I said - I was very skint), and when I discovered that my tummy problems had cleared up, I did my traditional soliod poo dance.

The next morning I rose early, had my free breakfast and located the bus to Kuta, hoping for some decent waves for a day of surfing. When I arrived I persuaded the bus company to look after my bags for the day (I wasn't going to complain out loud, but frankly I was a little surprised that they agreed to this so readily. Granted, I don't look like an Islamic fundamentalist, but they have had two major bombings within a kilometre of the bus company in the last 5 years, so I'd have thought they'd be a bit more cautious), located the beach and somewhere to hire a surfboard (at a reasonable price after some serious haggling), changed into my bikini and went to hit the waves.

Or rather they hit me. It turns out that I needn't have worried about the waves. They were somewhat bigger than I was used to, and they were making short work of me, and my bikini. I went back to the surfboard hire place and they lent me some boardies and a surfing top. I looked like a proper surfing dudette now. Well, except for the fact that I couldn't stand up on my board - the waves were seriously punishing and gnarly. After a couple of hours of being duffed up by mother nature, I headed back to shore, paid for my board, and was told by the hire guy to come back in the afternoon when the waves would be far kinder.

I went for a long lunch and reappeared in the afternoon for a second attempt. I fared much better and actually managed to stand up a couple of times. It's great when you actually manage it again and remember why you enjoy surfing so much and that it's worth all the hard work (and it bloody is hard work).

After another couple of hours of riding the waves, rather than being ridden by them, I got changed and headed to the airport. I was the only person to take the minibus at 6pm, so I spent the entire journey chatting to the two teenage Perama travel trainees. They were so excited about their shiny new jobs and were dead keen to please the tourists and improve their Eengleesh. Bless their cotton socks.

I got on the flight and found a seat next to a fellow Brit - Andria. We chatted for most of the flight, and when I expressed concern about making my way through KL late at night to try to find a hostel bed with no public transport running, she offered her sofa (she's been working in KL for the last 6 months through the company she works for in England) for the night, conveniently located a stone's throw from the train station where the airport bus arrives. I could have kissed her.

We reclaimed our luggage, got on the bus and promptly slept for most of the journey into town. When we arrived I stumbled after her in the direction of the skyscraper that she lives in, on the 23rd floor of a 26 floor building. I believed her when she said that the view in the morning really was something else. We got to the rather lovely, sparklingly clean and spacious apartment, I was introduced to the flatmate and his friend, and then we raided the kitchen and made camembert omelettes (aaaaaah, non-processed cheese) and we sat around playing computer games and chatting until the early hours, when we crashed.

In the morning it transpired that the view of KL really was pretty special with a side on view of the petronas towers and the KL tower. After a quick shower in the nicest bathroom I've seen since I stayed with friends in Australia, I left the luxurious apartment, headed back to the airport bus and said my goodbyes to Andria - my saviour.

I had a thoroughly boring flight to Kota Kinabalu on Borneo but got chatting to a lovely couple - Rob and Leila - at baggage reclaim. We managed to locate the bus into town, scrambled on with our bags and then managed to find quite a nice, cheap (by Malay standards) hotel for the night - 3 pounds for a dorm bed, but with free internet and a communal TV and DVD player.

It transpired that Leila and Rob were also planning to climb Kinabalu (the tallest trekkable mountain in SE Asia), so I warned them about it being booked up, and as I'd heard nothing from the agency that I'd e-mailed, I went over to the office and spent the afternoon sorting out accomodation on the mountain and the various costs of the expedition (at a fraction of the price of Rinjani) for the three of us (miraculously there had been a cancellation for 3 people and I arrived just in time to bagsy it as a couple arrived 20 minutes after me asking about Kinabalu).

We spent that night preparing ourselves psychologically for Kinabalu (I had a sense of dread at the pit of my stomach - partly of the effort that would be involved, and partly because I was terrified that I'd have to turn back because of altitude sickness), and in my case, watching Veronica Mars. The following day we packed up our things, headed to the base of the mountain and found a hostel. I should say Rob and Leila found the hostel. I left on the bus 3 hours after them as I spent most of the afternoon ignoring my nerves and distracting myself with yet more Veronica Mars, and then located them at the hostel with the aid of a note that they left at the park office for me.

After dinner at the cheapest restaurant in the village, I wandered around for about an hour in a desperate search for a bar that sold anything other than beer (for reasons that will become clear in time). I didn't have any luck. I should have known to come prepared in the arse-end-of-mowhere in an Islamic country.

We spent the evening playing a rather ingenius card game called arsehole, and packing our bags in preparation for an early start the next morning.

We checked out, I left most of my bags at the hostel, and we gobbled down a hurried breakfast the next morning, and then went to find our guide, Dominic. We got our passes and got a lift to the start of the trail at Timpohon Gate, got checked off at the checkpoint, and started the trail, going downhill annoyingly for the first couple of hundred metres - annoyingly because it meant we'd just have to climb that height again. As usual, the first hour or so was hell, both psychologically as I began to realise just what an undertaking this would be, that I was obligated to do this and go through hell in the process for the next 2 days because of the sponsorship money and more than anything else, because I was doing it in Steve's name, and that Rob and Leila who I would be walking with were far more experienced, stronger and faster than me, and physically because the path was insanely steep, especially the staircase from hell right near the beginning, and composed of steps that were twice the size they should be in a country of short people like Malaysia. It didn't help that we were being overtaken by porters carrying 30kg loads up the mountain for the hostel and the restaurant.

After an hour Rob stopped to put compeet blister things on his heel and Leila told me if you put them on before you do the walk they stop you from actually getting blisters in the first place. I've had hellish blisters on every walk that I've done this trip, so I gave it a go - no blisters on my heels this time, but my toes have been shredded.

We had lots of quick stops for water and snack food, but it was bloody cold, and became colder still with every stop as we reached higher and higher altitudes. I began to feel that I was trapped in some eternal esher-esque nightmare, travelling endlessly upwards. The only thing that made it easier was the camaraderie between the climbers. We met many people on their way down - some of whom had made the summit, some of whom hadn't. They were unfailingly encouraging, especially some middle aged Malaysian ladies who'd made the top. I decided that if they could, I could and high-fived them all.

About halfway through the day's walking I decided my lungs could cope with talking while walking and Leila and I chatted about her childhood ambition to be the first woman to climb Everest, and what she's heard about it since from climbing friends. Apparently, once you get about 3/4 of the way to the peak, you reach such high altitudes that your organs start to shut down, and it's a race against time to get to the peak and back down before you die. People have to pay 50,000 pounds to attempt the summit and as a result they just step over other people who are dying and begging for help, because they've paid a small fortune and won't turn back to save someone from death. It sounds like a horrible place. Rob told me about one case of a British para who was attempting the west ridge of Everest, having climbed it once before. His group came across a man who was dying and he actually did abandon his summit attempt and carried the man back to base camp on his back. You can say what you like about the military (and I frequently do) but sometimes it does bring out the best in people.

The last km to Laban Rata, where we would be staying that night, was hellish. We had climbed 1400m that day altogether, were at an altitude of 3200m, and I was battling to draw breath - one step meant that I had to pause and gasp three times before I moved the other foot forward. It didn't help that I knew the following day's climb would be much more difficult, and with 900m altitude to go, I would be well into the altitude sickness zone, and my struggle to get enough oxygen out of the thin air was only going to get worse at 3am the next day. My spirits really were quite low.

After an interminable length of time I managed to stagger to the hostel, located my room, and gladly removed my boots and bag. I went to have a shower, but the hot water that was supposed to have come on half an hour ago hadn't appeared, and ice water rained on my blue feet. After 5 minutes without any sign of hot water magically appearing through the pipes, I put my clothes back on and went to shiver indignantly in front of the receptionist, who put the hot water on after I gave her my fiercest glare. A half hour later I was slowly rotating under steaming water, and struggling to convince myself that it was only fair to get out and leave some hot water for everyone else.

Leila, Rob and I played a couple of half-hearted games of cards, had some severely overpriced food (about 5 pounds for an all-you-can-eat-buffet - I wouldn't mind if the extortionately priced food was because the money was going to the porters who struggled up to Laban Rata twice a day carrying insane loads, but they get paid an absolute pittance - I think about a 20th of the mark up on the goods goes to them), took some photos of the view from the freezing cold balcony, then ran inside shivering, and had an early night as we were knackered and wanted to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the morning's climb.

Fat chance - there was a school group of inconsiderate little shits who giggled late into the night and kept half the hostel awake (I didn't see them anywhere near the summit, so my guess is they paid for it the next day).

We woke at 2:30am, and after my failing to summit on Rinjani, I jumped out of bed with determination and purpose, then wimpered as the cold hit me and threw all my clothes on (I had no warm windbreaker, or fleece as I'd sent all my warm clothes home after NZ, so my only option was to wear every layer I had, plus a plastic bag poncho, and look like the michelin man, or a complete tit, depending on how you look at it. See the picture below) hastily, shivering the whole time.

By 3am we were ready to leave, we gobbled some chocolate, filled up our water bottles and set off. The first few hundred metres were seriously slow progress as the traffic at the start of the path was unbelievable. We were towards the back of a queue of at least a hundred people crawling up the mountain as some of the slower walkers had decided to have an earlier start in order to make the summit for sunrise. We'd walk forward 3 or 4 steps and then pause for half a minute. Rob and Leila were getting seriously fed up, and so was I, but to be honest I was finding it reassuring that there were people attempting the summit who were much slower than me. Eventually the people at the front relented and started letting the faster people behind them slowly filter through when they stopped, and slowly the pace picked up as the crowd rearranged itself into speed order and spread out. I made the mistake of stopping and attempting to get a photo of the long line of headlamps going down the mountain, but unfortunately a ton of people overtook me, so I had to hurry and overtake like mad for the next 20 minutes to catch up with Rob and Leila. To my surprise I managed it, and while people all around me were panting like dogs on heat, I was able to storm up the mountain. I couldn't understand it after I'd had problems with the altitude the previous afternoon. About 400m up we came to the last checkpoint and were given whistles for the last 500m of altitude. It soon became clear why - the rest of the track was up a sheer granite rock face. You climbed by hauling yourself up a rope, stopping at the side when you needed to catch your breath. I actually found this to be quite a relief. After all the poiing, carrying insanely heavy rucksacks and paddling out through the waves that I'd done in the last few months, my arms are relatively strong, and it was a relief to do the work with something other than my leg muscles. I stormed up the first few ropes, stopping to catch my breath occasionally.

At one point with about 300m to go, the altitude, my shortness of breath and my exhaustion suddenly all hit me in one go, and I suddenly became worried that I wasn't going to make it and would have to turn back. I burst into tears at the thought of letting Steve down, and then slowly pulled myself together, caught my breath, thought of how brave Steve had been through everything, kissed the bracelet that I had made for Steve and carried on. Dominic, our guide, saw that I was slowing down and came to give me a hand - literally. My fingers were numb from grasping the rope soaked in ice-cold rainwater, so he wrapped one hand in his spare woolly hat which he tucked under the sleeves of my jumper, and took the other hand to warm it up, and held it up so that I could use him to help balance. I didn't lean on him and he didn't pull or push me up the mountain in any way, but it gave me the confidence to speed up again, and with my guide holding my hand, and Steve's bracelet keeping him near me I battled my way up the mountain.

Just when we could see the summit appearing through the clouds, the sun started to come up and we started to meet people coming down, saying we were only 5-10 minutes from the top, but that it was so cold and windy that they had only stayed up there for a minute as they couldn't see anything through the cloud anyway.

We hauled ourselves up over rocks and past people who were now vomiting with altitude sickness (thank fuck I wasn't one of them, the poor sods), and we made the summit. I was the 31st person who made it that morning, out of 200 or so people who tried. I was quite proud of myself actually (some might say annoyingly smug). I got the plastic bottle from my bag that I had filled from a can of beer that morning (there was no rum and coke, and certainly no white russians to be had in Kinabalu park), raised the bottle to the sky to toast my brave big brother and took a couple of gulps (but not too much - alcohol at high altitudes is inadvisable).

Rob took a few awful photos of me screaming "Yeah baby" and "Idunnit" (a la Vicky Pollard) at the summit, and I managed to get a picture of a nearby peak peeking through the clouds briefly (despite my fingers which were back to being completely numb - I've had bare-handed snowball fights that have made my fingers feel warmer), but there really wasn't much to see from the top, just clouds and shivering people, so we started to make our way down. I stopped to hold one girl (who was suffering from altitude sickness)'s hair out of her face as her stomach made it's feelings about the altitude known, and I convinced her that she needed to start making her way down, and she'd feel better once she'd descended a bit. I then carried on my way, doing my best to buoy the spirits of the people still trudging upwards by telling them that it really wasn't far now, and that they could do it. There was also some more high-fiving of complete strangers, if memory serves.

On the way down the clouds thinned and suddenly we could see the glorious vistas that we had missed out on at the top (normally at this time of year, the top would be cloud free in the morning, but there'd just been a freak typhoon in China, and the whole of SE Asia was getting unpleasant weather because of it). My camera came out and stayed out for quite some time.

Climbing back down the granite faces was absolutely terrifying, as we had been spared the views of the precipitous drops because it was pitch black beyond the reach of our torches. On the way down we could see just how high up we were. Some of the time I held my guide's hand for balance and reassurance (he was as sure-footed as a mountain goat in his FUCKING FLIP-FLOPS, no I don't know how either), and some of the time I held the ice water rope because it was just too steep.

Trying to step backwards while clinging onto the rope, and looking down at your feet, but not at the perilously steep slope that just kept going down for thousands of metres, was not easy. Eventually we reached the steps going downhill and I cautiously stepped down, holding onto the handrail. Eventually, 5 hours after we had left, we reached Laban Rata again and stopped to gobble a breakfast of peanuts, dried banana and chocolate, and to grab the things we'd left in our dorms. I started up the flight of stairs to our dorm and almost fell when my knees buckled underneath me. I was not expecting that. Apparently 2 hours of going downhill had allowed my climbing muscles to relax to the extent that they no longer worked. I hurriedly packed my things so that the same didn't happen to the muscles I use to go downhill.

For the next 3 hours we relentlessly descended. After an hour or so, we started meeting people on their way up. We cheered them on, did our best to convince them it was worth it, high-fived them and generally did the things that had cheered us up on the way up the previous day. After another hour or so, my legs mutinied completely and stopped responding to my instructions. They no longer landed where I wanted them to and my quads were absolutely killing. I smacked my knee into a rock face that I knew was there and was trying to avoid. At around about that time, the insanely large steps appeared. Leila and I stood side by side and attempted the first one, pausing and looking down in horror with one leg out over the next step, slooowwwlllllllyyyy easing ourselves down until our foot touched the next step and our screaming muscles could relax, while Rob wet himself laughing at our synchronised agony. Until he took the first step.

I've never experienced such agony doing any kind of physical challenge before. Going downhill was becoming more and more painful, and more and more jarring as my steps became less controlled, and my knees (usually my right knee) buckled roughly every fifth step, but going uphill was just excrutiating. It's pretty rare that I find myself missing the flat landscapes of Boston, but this was one of those rare occasions.

I started using my hands and bum a lot more, which made me feel more stable, but meant I lagged behind Rob and Leila more and more as time went on. I gave up cheering the people I met coming the other way on - they were looking at me with fear and worry that they would be walking like me in 24 hours. I could think of little to say to reassure them.

Just after the 1km to go sign, when I was starting to feel like I couldn't go on, and just before I reached the staircase of beelzebub again, Dominic caught up, having spent most of the morning chatting to his other guide friends. He took my hand again, and once again I sped up by a factor of about 3. It made such a huge difference. He didn't offer to take my bag, or pull me up through the tough bits, he did exactly what I needed him to do, without pissing me off and making me feel like he thought I couldn't do it. Clearly fate is making up for my guide on Rinjani now.

We reached the end of the devil's staircase and saw the steps going uphill ahead. I almost cried. Every step felt like my muscles were tearing apart. If I hadn't had Dominic there, I honestly think I would have crawled. I saw Leila up ahead taking photos of me and made some rude finger signs at her (it later transpired that she took a video of me, which I have been warned will be appearing on facebook in a month or so when they get back to the UK, it's absolutely awful, watch it with popcorn). Finally I reached the end, completely breathless, red faced and sweaty. I dumped my bags, sat down to wait for the bus and discovered just how many wholly different whimpering noises I'm capable of producing.

The trek was one of the most difficult (certainly the most physically difficult) thing I've ever done, but I actually found I enjoyed most of it (not the last couple of km, obviously) because of the people I was with, and the people I met on the way. I had a real laugh at times, and I'm glad I did, otherwise it wouldn't be an appropriate tribute to Steve.

The bus took us back down to the park office, Leila and Rob gave Dominic a tip (because he clearly deserved one, mainly from me, and they knew I couldn't afford one, bless them). We went to the cheap restaurant, I dumped my trekking bag and hobbled back to the hostel to fetch my main rucksack, and then had the best mushroom omelette sandwich EVER.

Much as I knew my aching muscles would love Poring Hot Springs, the trip would involve two seperate buses and some searching around for my hostel, so I decided I just couldn't be bothered, and took the one bus back to Kinabalu with Rob and Leila (about 5 minutes into the journey I remembered that I'd left my towel hanging on the end of my bed at Laban Rata - I considered climbing the 1400m up to fetch it and then down again for all of about a nanosecond, so I'm now drip drying in the shared bathrooms as quickly as possible so as not to create a queue), to the hotel near the bus station, a known and short distance. Sadly it was full, so I had to go back downstairs and find another hostel - one that put me on the 4th floor. Even though it was clear to anyone with fully functioning eyes and half a brain that I had just climbed Kinabalu and was in pain. Oh, and they lost my trousers when they did my laundry.

Bastards.

Since then I have been lazing around in Kota Kinabalu, allowing my muscles to recover (it was only 5 days after I finished the climb that the agony changed to a dull ache - Rob and Leila - who as I mentioned, have climbed many, many mountains before - took just as long to recover. I haven't been able to afford a massage this time, but I did discover a shop that sells massage chairs in a local mall - obviously I had to try them out) laying low and subsisting on a budget of less than 5 pounds a day (I did manage to treat myself to the new Harry Potter film the other day - it was brilliant), in order to save my money so that I can afford a couple of treats before I go home. I've had to give up on the idea of diving at Sipadan - one of the best dive sites in the world, and the rainforest world music festival (which could have been invented for me), as both are just too expensive. I have managed to just about scrape the money together for a 4 day stay on Sungai Kinabatangan - one of the rare places in the world where it's possible to see Orang-utans (and a whole host of other creatures) in the wild, and for the seventh Harry Potter book when I get back from the wilderness. After that I plan to locate a gorgeous tropical island with a beautiful beach for me to lie on and snorkel from for a week before I come home.

I really can't wait.

XXX