Kuala Lumpur

I finally left Kota Kinabalu and Borneo in the late morning on a flight over to Kuala Lumpur.

When I had booked my flight home, I did include a 10 hours layover in KL – to give me the opportunity to get into town and have a look at the Petronas Towers – Kuala Lumpur’s biggest and best known attraction.

I first took the train from the airport to the central station, here I changed to the monorail and made my way to the KL Tower (a communication tower with observation platform) to get a view of town and the Petronas Towers. Afterward I took the subway over to the shopping center in the towers … also had a look around there.

Tunku Abdul Raman NP

My last complete day on Borneo … which I spent going diving in Tunku Abdul Raman Marine Park.

Three dives gave me a nice view of the underwater wonderworld … unfortunately without photos. In the evening I went for grilled seafood again and enjoyed another fabulous sunset.

Tour Conclusion

In the afternoon we arrived at the finishing point of the trip (at least for my trip).

Sepilok Jungle Discovery

We were scheduled to leave Sepilok in the late morning; enough time for a visit to the rainforest discovery center – and actually for me the last time getting close to the Borneo rainforest on this trip.

Sandakan

Next destination was Sandakan – a coastal town at Borneo’s east coast. Activity-wise there was not too much to do here … also town is explored in about 1 to 2 hours.

Some of us decided to get a taxi up to the English tea house for some afternoon tea – also to celebrate Manne’s birthday. In the end the day turned as English as it could on Borneo – with scones, afternoon tea, G&Ts, Pimm’s No.1 and croquet.

We then had dinner in a restaurant at the sea. Food was good, bear cheap and we were still in birthday celebration mode. Manne even got half a birthday cake from the people sitting next to us … where – incidentailly – a guy also celebrated his birthday and shared the cake. After cake many of us fancied some stronger drinks, so we ended up in the tea house again … though the tea turned out according to a recipe from Long Island.

Fun at Night

After we got back to the community center and after we got changed (we were drenched) – everything was already prepared for a cooking lesson.

We were now to prepare our own dinner. I joined the ‘pumpkin’ group. We prepared a simple (really simple!) pumpkin dish with just few ingredients: garlic (fry in palmoil), pumpkin (add to garlic in palmoil), add some water from time to time, when the pumpkin is good add small pieces of tomato and egg – and done. Simple, but mouth-watering and delicious.

After dinner we changed into traditional clothing (provided by our hosts) for another cultural performance with music, dancing and other performances. Again we were invited to join in.