A mountain to climb

Tomorrow, I start moving East. First stop: Mount Kinabablu. It's a shorter climb than Kili (only 2 days, possible in 1) so it needs minimal gear. I'll spend a day walking around the park and then climb on Monday.

After the mountain, it's usually Pouring Hot Springs. From there, I go to Sepiloch to meet a few semi-wild Orangutans. From there, I intend to go out to Turtle Island. This isn't the best time of the year to see the turtles come ashore but I'm told there are always a few.

After the Turtles, I'm going to spend a few days at Uncle Tan's little hideaway on the Kinabatangan river. Should be a good place to see all sorts of wildlife, perhaps even Asian elephants and Sumatran rhinos.

Rhinos are very rare so I doubt I will see one but I will try. If I don't see them at Uncle's, I will try again at Danum Valley Nature Reserve.

After Danum Valley, it gets a little unclear. I may go to Maliau Basin and/or Tabin Wildlife reserve. Right now, both seem very expensive but there might be a way to make it work. Danum Valley looked very expensive, too, until I leaned of the little publicized cheap accommodation at the Danum Valley Field Center.

Finally, I hope to do a little diving at Sipadan. I see "little" because the accommodation is frightfully expensive. Probably no more that three days because it costs about $115/day. At least that's the best deal I have seen so far. When I get into the vicinity, I will be looking hard at alternative deals. I know there are day trips from Semporna but I have also been told you don't save much that way. I'm also going to be looking for inexpensive diving short of Sipadan. At $115/day, I don't want to be fumbleing with gear, I would prefer to have fresh experience in cheaper locales. fumblingfumbling All these locations are at or near the East coast of Saba, so I won't be returning to KK any time soon.

I may not return at all. I'm seriously considering a major course alteration. When I started looking closely at places to visit in Saba, I realized that more were on the East Coast. And the East Coast of Borneo is tantelizingly close to Suliwesi. Suliwesi is one of those rare islands of the truly weird. With wildlife that is part asian placental and part Australian marsupial, it contains many creatures found nowhere else. tantalizinglyAsiantantalizingly Travel could be a bit tricky. Suliwesi is part of Indonesia and quite remote. The plan would be dip briefly into Kalimintan just far enough to catch a ferry to Suliwesi. After Suliwesi, take another ferry to somewhere in the vicinity of Flores and Kamodo. I will only have 60 days so I will not be ablte to do all of Indonesia. ableable Not that I would want to anyway. Some parts of Indonesia are pretty dodgey. Suliwesi and Flores are reasonably stable these days but Kalimintan is less so. The plan would be to reach Bali and then quickly skip through or maybe even fly over Java to reach Sumatra. Sumatra is ok but I probably won't have much time do do more than catch a boat back to Malaysia.

At least that's the plan. And all plans are subject to change.