It WAS my birthday

I've tried to write this blog post two times now on my phone. Each time, I was 90% finished and it got erased from my phone. So... hopefully 3rd times the charm!

I'm am going to take you back a few days.

Post the Oran Yatang day Sam and I decided we would head out to Bako National Park. famous for the Proboscis Monkey. We thought if we locked ourselves on an island with a rare species we would surely see them, right? Well... "sort of" (to quote Dmitri Martin)

Sam and I arrived at Bako at 8:30 a.m. in order to get to the island you have to take a local bus from Kuching for 1 hr and then a 20 min boat ride. The tide goes so far out that at low tide the boats cannot reach the island. We made sure to know before-hand when low tide would be, that way we could actually enjoy a full day on the island.

Upon arrival we decided to go for a hike. I was having one of my over achiever days and after looking at the map I had made up my mind that we were going to do the most extreme path. Sam wasn't on board, yet.

We started off heading out toward the beach looking for this monkey. We saw the monkey, in a tree really far away. But we didn't get to observe it playing or doing monkey things. I don't even think we got photos of it. We continued on, thinking we might see more. But evidently these rare monkeys are much smarter than the small grey ones (the ones we see all the time).

Post monkey/beach walk (2 km) we decided (together) to continue onto the waterfall (3.5 km). The trek to the waterfall was beautiful! One of the best hikes I have ever been on--I of course went on about it the entire hike, Sam was like "yeah, yeah, I get it...". The waterfall was nice, nothing mind blowing. The cool water felt good to tread in. The water was whiskey colored, and Sam and I had fun thinking of what liquids the water could be... coffee, tea, Bourbon...?

At the waterfall we sat down and discussed the path home. Sam wanted to go back the way we came... "boring!" I thought. Lets be overly ambitious and hike the 10 km long path home! Sam was hesitant, but agreed in the end.

Almost immediately the trail went from well maintained and manicured, to a giant spider web infested, tree eroded, swamp-land. I knew I was the one that got us into this mess, so I had to be as upbeat and positive as possible. I could hear Sam cursing my name behind me as we slipped off of logs into swamps and grabbed monster thorn trees.

Eventually we made it back. A total of 14.7 km hike (about 10 miles). We were both happy to have a nice cold soda and stretch. Oh, and we saw a bearded pig at the end (which sweetened the deal).

We had made arrangements to stay on the island that evening, the park has lodges they rent. The next morning was Dec 18th, when we woke up we decided we would make our way back to Kuching, neither of us were in the "trekking mood!". We raced down to the beach to flag down a boat taxi, realizing that low tide was fast approaching. Fortunately we made it back to main land just in time. I was thrilled to not be stuck on the island for my BDay.

We took a bus into Kuching. By 11:00 we were back, and our hotel let us check in early (thus far my favorite hotel on the trip, despite the lackluster Internet connection.) We did laundry, which made us both very happy, had lunch next to the river, went to a foot reflexologist, and saw Avatar (the new James Cameron movie, for those of you who don't know). Overall I could not have asked for a better day. Sam was so supportive, and put up with my indecisiveness all day.

Dec 19th we decided to skip town in hopes of making our way up to Kota Kinabalu. Kuching is in the far south of Malay Borneo, and KK (as the locals call it) is in the far north. We knew we couldn't make it there in one day... it has taken us three days!! We took a boat from Kuching to Sibu, and then a bus to Miri (that was a 14 hr travel day). The morning we woke up in Miri we realized we couldn't get to KK, because we had missed the one and only bus. However, we were at the station, packed and ready to go... so we just hopped a bus to wherever we could get that was in the right direction. Seven hrs later--to Limbang. FINALLY today we traveled from Limbang to KK. Mind you we had to exit Malaysia and go into Brunei not once, but TWICE. Now we have been in and out of Malaysia a total of 4 times. In less than 3 weeks. I think it's time for some open boarders Brunei!

Tonight we are in KK City and tomorrow we hope to make our way to KK National Park.. aiming to climb Kota Kinabalu. 4,500 meters (12,000 feet). Not super high, but considering we are on the beach right now... it's pretty impressive for the landscape to change that much in such a small amount of space.

We are finally posting photos. So keep and eye out for those.

Sam and I are headed to Bali next. We will spend Christmas in Borneo, Fly to Indonesia, and we'll be volunteering in Bali over New Years. We are a little concerned about the Philippines. If anyone has any advice/tips on the volcano and if we should/should not go please feel free to email us.