Rendang

I started writing a blog about our most recent holiday almost as soon as we came back from it. Following the multi-year hiatus of this blog, I returned to it and filled in the gaps, it became obvious that the best way to write the blogs was to do it immediately, when the holiday is still fresh and I can recall specific details that otherwise get forgotten.

So, what happened? Why didn't I finish? Sure, I was busy and I needed to prioritise university work when I had time in front of a computer, then time just started to get away from me, weeks had turned into months, the year ended and we drove headfirst into the new year, before I knew it, we were halfway through it and the couple of paragraphs I had written remained in my drafts, looking odd and alien, they didn't appear to be words I had written, but some stranger who had just returned from a holiday.

That's the excuse anyway. I don't think that's the reason for the delay, or at least it's not the only reason for the delay. If I'm being honest with myself (and by writing it down here, you) the reason it never materialised was the holiday itself. How on earth could I write something that lived up to the holiday?

But I hear you say 2 things. First of all, you went to Costa Rica the previous year, it was the greatest place you had ever been and that appeared online within weeks. Second of all, this entire blog is total shit, so what makes you so up yourself that you think any of your writings could "live up" to a holiday? Wanker.

I would respond asking you to mind your language and point out that that is a very subjective matter, please stop shaking your head and tutting at me, no-ones asking you to read it. Oh, I did? Never mind then. With regards to Costa Rica, yes I agree, but I was around 18 months younger and 18 months stupider back then, I was more cavalier in my attitude towards sharing an experience. Plus, I was able to do that whole bit about the name of the blog, which gave me a good intro.

Following a career change, I had found myself working away from home during the week, only arriving home on a Friday evening, before leaving again on a Sunday evening. Obviously, we're not living in the past, due to video calling services like Skype, those weekends weren't the only times we spoke, but quality time had been compressed into those 48 hours. This had also impacted upon Rachael's ability to take time away from work, many months had passed since Romania.

The holiday had to be good. Really good. Plus 2018 saw our 10 year anniversary, so something needed to mark that too.

So where could we go to:

• Make up for a prolonged loss of quality time
• Celebrate 10 years together
• That at least matched Costa Rica in terms of quality?

Piece of cake.

Costa Rica was originally inspired by a television advert, this holiday was also inspired by TV. On new years day on a slightly obscure channel somewhere in the deeper recesses of Freeview, there was a show about Sloths in Costa Rica. We had absolutely loved Costa Rica and we had seen sloths, so we watched with great interest. Right after the sloths, was a similar show, this one was about an orangutan sanctuary. There were so many of them, being looked after, being mischievous and being released released into the wild.  It turned out to be the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Borneo.

The show stuck with us, we decided to go to Borneo to try and see some Orangutans. As a matter of fact, we went to the very same place we had seen on the TV.

Following the longest flight we had ever been on and a change in Kuala Lumpar airport, we arrived at Sandakan Airport in the Sabah region of the Malaysian part of Borneo where we were met by our tour operator and taken to the Sepilok Nature resort to begin our holiday.

In the resort, we had a Chalet right in the jungle, where on our first morning, we were treated to an Orangutan climbing over our roof and off into the trees. We also got it on video, but that's just for us.

You could see them much closer if you actually went to the Rehabilitation Centre, but that isn't quite as special.

We were in Sepilok for 2 nights, during which time, we walked around a Rainforest, we visited the Orangutan Sanctuary and before moving onto the next part of the holiday, the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre.

The Bornean Sun Bear is unsurprisingly from its name, only found in Borneo, so these were somewhat special. Plus, a lady showed me how to take a photograph through the telescope things that they have.

Yes, pretty much all of the photos in this blog are going to be of animals, we were in a jungle, that's what you see in the jungle.

The Orangutan Sanctuary and the Sun Bears were on the second day of our trip, after we had already checked out of our Chalet, now we were part of a tour group and following the timetable of our tour group.

We don't normally go for "activity holidays" or even usually visit places with a tour-guide, but we wanted to see as much as we could while we were there, so it was an interesting change to spend almost every moment of the next few days with the same group of people, there was us, a couple from the Netherlands with their young son and a couple from Portugal. We set off up the kinabatangan river for the next part of the journey, the river lodge.

We did everything together, we would awake first thing in the morning for boat rides and we would eat every meal together. During evening meals it was compulsory to wear the traditional Malayan Sarong, as you can see, I could not pull it off.

While out on the river, the main objective was to see as much wildlife as we could, our tour guide seeming to have an incredible knack for spotting animals almost completely hidden from view.

On the way, we were able to see some Pygmy Elephants (Surprisingly, by their name, not actually small), we saw birds, snakes, crocodiles and a lot of Monkeys, the most interesting of which is probably the Proboscis Monkey.

Around this river, the Proboscis Monkey is very common, so we saw a lot of them, but they are interesting for a couple of reasons. For one, however common they are in Borneo, that is the only place in the world they can be found. But also, they are interesting because of their large noses.

It's not completely clear in this image, but they have large protruding noses, Males tend to be larger, with the largest noses being the most attractive to the females, but the monkeys having large noses like they do, gives them a sort of human quality, it makes them look like little old men climbing around in the trees.

After 2 nights on the river, it was time to return to dry land and separate from our tour group for the final part of our trip. We flew from Sandakan airport over to Kota Kinabalu.

The whole trip was booked in one go through a travel agency, we didn't pay a huge amount of attention to the specifics, we just wanted the Jungle bit at the start, then a resort bit afterwards to have a relaxing summer break, so it was something of a surprise that the resort bit was a little bit different to what we're used to.

We're used to an apartment, somewhere to sleep, relax and a base from which to visit the places we want to go. This place was pure luxury, it had everything you could need on site, restaurants, shops and the like, as well as everything you absolutely don't want on holiday (a gym).

And the food. Now there were a couple of different restaurants, for instance, on our first night, we ate at a Teppanyaki restaurant, where you can watch in fascination as someone cooks your food in-front of you. Have you ever watched someone make egg-fried rice? It's amazing.

But the most amazing place was the buffet restaurant, which also happened to be where breakfast was served. This is the seafood section. If I remember correctly, after that is sushi, carry on around and there are different meats waiting to be carved for you, different currys (plus the Rendang, oh my god, Beef Rendang) a desert section and almost anything you can think of.

It's a little different for breakfast, they take away the chocolate fountains and add omelette chefs and beef bacon. You may not think you want to eat curry for breakfast, but believe me. You do.

Now that I've finished salivating, I should probably talk about some of the things we could do there, despite the comfort and luxury, we managed to fill lots of time on activities on this part of the island too, there was a night time walk, where I saw what turned out to be a deadly python and we went canoeing, which was hard work.

And we played Jenga and ended up with a stupidly large tower, look at that, the bottom is ridiculous and there is maybe one possible move left. Unsurprisingly, this fell on the next turn.

And then we came home (Malaysian airlines helpfully providing a visual representation of the journey there for me) with only our memories, our photographs, and a real hankering for more Beef Rendang.