Malaysia

We woke up around 6:00 for our departure at 7:00. we had breakfast and got on the boat, leaving Selingaan in our wake.

The boat ride back was pretty calm and not too hot; just the way we like it.

When we got back, there were a cople of taxis waiting for people. We got in a taxi and asked him if he know of a place we could leave our packs, because we didn't want to lug them around all day. He took us to the Sabah Hotel and it was no problem for us to leave them there for the day. Grateful for that, our next destination was a clinic to get more medication for Andrew's ear. We paid a visit to Dr. Raja, but we had to wait for a little while before he arrived. Andrew was the first patient of the day. He went in to see the good doctor, and the doctor took on look at his ear and said "Oh no. That's not good. Oh s*%t." We thought this was pretty funny. He was prescribed more pills and we were on our way. The staff at the clinic called our driver for us, and he took us down to the market, and we made arrangements for him to pick us up at the hotel at 14:30.

This market was cleaner than the one we went to in Ho Chi Minh City, but it had that same old market smell. We looked at all the fresh produce and the ridiculous fresh fish. More types of fish for sale than you'd ever see at a grocery store. We saw a cat wandering around; no better place to be a cat, I think. I also had some success in my quest for spices. I bought some turmeric, coriander seed, cinnamon sticks, star anise, nutmeg, and some tamarind. There were a few youngsters following us around, and they looked like trouble, so Andrew kept a vigilant eye on them while I shopped. We left the market and went to a nearby souvenir shop. I scouted a few things I wanted to buy, and then we went to the nearby 'mall', which was really a lot like small-scale Walmart, on multiple floors. We poked around looking for a novel for Andrew, but we had no luck there, so we just bought snacks. And by snacks, I mean chocolate and root beer (you can't get root beer in Japan, so I was stoked). We finished up there and went to find an internet cafe. We had a little trouble with that, so we stopped instead to have some lunch. The restaurant had a staggering array of dishes. I settled on a clay pot lamb dish, and Andrew had some type of noodle. We decided against ordering this one, though:

After an incredibly satisfying lunch, we had to exchange some money. Luckily on our way to do that, we found an internet cafe. We internetted for a little while, listening to the same crappy song at the cafe over and over and over again (I think the final count was 7). We then went back to the souvenir shop where I picked up a field guide to mammals of Borneo and some postcards. We caught a cab out to the hotel to get our bags and wait for our other driver. He showed up shortly thereafter, and we were on our way to the airport. We read a newspaper before checking in to our flight. We made sure we were one of the first through security because there appeared to be a lot of people who opted for the express boarding option on this flight. I was not giving up my seat at the front of the plane. As soon as they allowed us through the the doors, I was off. We ended up in the front again.We had intended to get some sleep on the plane, but there was a chatty lady sitting next to us, so we chin-wagged with her a bit about Malaysia and other stuff until we arrived in KL. We quickly got off the plane and grabbed our bags. Then we boarded the shuttle to the main terminal building. When we got to the main terminal, we saw that our flight was delayed, but it didn't say for how long, and they weren't checking people in yet. We went to get some food and then Andrew went shopping for novels and I scouted a shower before we got in line to check in. We were waiting a long time in line, and getting more frustrated. Thirty minutes passed and they had only checked in three people. When we reached the front, we realized the problem: our 00:50 departure time was now 04:30. Oh, we were too tired to really care, but we did try to sort some things out, as we were definitely going to miss our connection to Osaka. They told us to find the ground crew when we got to Beijing and they could tell us what to do. So we trusted that, checked our bags in, got our meal voucher for Burger King (because I really want to eat BK at midnight...some compensation), and went off to find the airport hotel. We decided RM160 for a few hours of sleep in a bed and a shower was a good investment in our sanity. We got to our room and crashed, waiting for the 03:30 wake up call we arranged.

We checked out of our room and went to the reception desk to wait for our transfer to the jetty, where a boat would take us out to Selingaan Island. The transfer was 15 minutes later than I had expected so I was getting antsy and cantankerous waiting for it. But the van arrived and it only took about 30 minutes to get to where we were going. We entered the tour office and went in to the office to pay. This went smoothly until we found out that they only accepted cash, and we had just used all ours to pay for our hotel room. A little frustrated because we could have put the hotel on Visa, Andrew went of in a taxi to find a bank machine while I waited with the bags. He returned shortly, and then we loaded into the boat and were off to Pulau Selingaan, part of Turtle Islands National Park. Click the park name for more information about it.

It was a very smooth ride as there were only tiny waves. We passed quite a large village of stilt houses over the water as we were leaving. All in all, the boat ride was an hour long. Along the way, we saw a couple of islands we though we should buy.

When we arrived on the island, we grabbed our key and were told about meal times, and that we had a lot of time to kill until the evening came. We went to our room and laid down for a few minutes before grabbing our cameras and going out to explore a little. We walked along the beach where the turtles come up to lay their eggs. This time of year, green turtles were nesting (July - October); hawksbill turtles nest from February to April. Click the names of the individual turtles for more information. We picked up some garbage, and I tried to get some pictures of the birds, paparazzi-style. After we walked around for a while, we talked to some people, and the someone semi-official looking came up to us and asked what tour group we were with. We told them, thinking this was a stupid question because there is only one organization that takes groups to the island. Well, apparently we gave them the wrong answer, because we had to move to a different table. I figured if we had assigned tables, maybe they should label them.

After we ate lunch, we walked around the side of the island and saw some people snorkeling, swimming and relaxing. Andrew didn't want to go snorkeling because of his ear, and I didn't really want to go because I know my back would get a nasty burn. It was getting pretty hot, so we decided to go back to our room and chill out for a bit. Andrew napped, as you might have guessed. After he got up, we went outside and Scrabbled and relaxed before dinner. Before we ate, though, we walked around the information centre and then they played a film about the park and the projects that they do. After dinner, we had to stay in the cafeteria area until someone came to get us to tell us there was a turtle. While we were waiting, we chatted with some people about travel, music, TV, etc, etc. Then around 23:00, a guide came in and told us "Let's go". Luckily we were in group 1, so we got to go first. There were about 20 of us who went out to see the turtle laying her eggs. I sort of took off running without Andrew, because I was not going to miss any of this. Apparently when she's laying eggs, the turtle goes into a sort of trance or something,so I guess maybe we weren't disturbing her that much. There was only one flashlight allowed, and we had to be very quiet so as not to disturb other turtles that might come ashore. As soon as the eggs were laid, the ranger took them out of the nest and put them into a bucket to move them to a nursery nest. This particular turtle laid 88 eggs that night (we were told she might lay more clutches this season).

Once she finished laying eggs, she was measured, and her tag number was checked. We then quietly followed the ranger to the nursery where the eggs were placed in a nest designed to keep out predators.

After this, we then went to watch the release of that evening's hatchlings, maybe 30-40 of them. They released them close to the water's edge, and their flippers went like little propellers trying to get to the water. One little turtle started heading away from the water. I figure he might not make it in the big bad world if he can't find the ocean when he's a metre away from it. He did eventually get turned around by the ranger. Overall the survival rates for sea turtles are incredible low. Note: unfortunately I can't take credit for the following three shots. I bought these ones at the gift shop on the island.

This was the end of the program for the evening. Thank goodness, as we were both pretty tired by this point. We went back to our room and packed for our early departure the next day. Our impression of "Turtle Island": it was really amazing to see, but it was overly packaged and touristy for us. I think next time we'll try to do a volunteer stint rather than a package tour.