After arriving in Singapore, we immediately flew to Borneo to revisit the wildlife we had seen before in our independent travel on a budget days. This time it was part of an organised tour with a greater level of comfort and with seamless transfers. We arrived two nights before the tour started to relax and explore Kota Kinabalu. It’s low key and relaxed with a pretty waterfront board walk lined with bars and restaurants.

In contrast with tour 1 (see last blog entry), our tour group this time consisted of just one other couple, Gail & Alan. The tour began with a very long day of sightseeing including a visit to Mt Kinabalu, Hot Springs and a dinner show in the evening.

Day 2 Tour took us to the city sights in KK, Mosques, Temples & Traditional long houses.

Day 3 and we flew to Sandakan to begin the wildlife part of the tour, starting with the Orangutan sanctuary and the nearby sun bears.

Finally we transferred to a boat for the journey to Abi Lodge on the Kinabatangan River where we had the first of our sunset river cruises and a night walk to spot wildlife in its natural setting.

Day 4 started with a sunrise boat cruise to experience the sights and sounds as the jungle woke up. Breakfast back at the Lodge followed by a boat ride to our next base, Kinabatangan River Lodge. The sunset river cruise was a real highlight as the guides had reports of pygmy elephants feeding along the riverbank

Day 5 early cruise to an Oxbow lake followed by breakfast then a trip to Gomantong Caves where birds nests are harvested for the famous soup. Good news for you is that this blog does not capture the smells – there were a lot of bats, and a lot of smelly bat poo. Added to this the eagle eyed amongst you will spot the zillions cockroaches happily feeding on the poo! Gail was not impressed………but we thought the whole place was amazing and we had it all to ourselves.

The final river sunset cruise also brought a close encounter with a small group of macaques who really were not bothered in the slightest by our presence as they munched on their supper.

Day 6 Time to say goodbye to the river as we headed back to Sandakan and the flight back to KK for dinner by the waterfront.

We really enjoyed the tour and the company of Gail and Alan. Wildlife rarely disappoints, and this time was no exception. Orangutans, proboscis monkeys, pygmy elephants, sun bears, more monkeys than you can imagine and birds of all sizes and colours. It was superb. Next morning we all headed for the airport and the flight to Singapore where we had a few nights before joining the cruise.

Our included hotel for the 2 nights in Singapore, The Holiday Inn Atrium, was charmless but in an extremely good location as we could easily walk to the river which was lined with bars and restaurants and was a pleasant way to walk towards the centre of town. We soon got used to the weather pattern of generally dry first thing followed by showers and hammering rain by the late afternoon.

Cruise 2 – Celebrity Eclipse

First impressions were good, slick onboarding process, the ships decor was tasteful, facilities were good, plenty of public space although it lacked the expanse of shade cover on the open deck dining area. Now, Neil is not known for his attention span and we were faced with 3, yes 3 whole days at sea before our first port in Bali. We wanted to revisit Bali so we felt the sea days would be worth it. Finally Neil was set free as we arrived in Benoa, Bali where we took a tour to Uluwatu Temple & GWK Cultural Park

Next Port Celukan Bawang in the North, and a part of Bali we had not visited on our previous travels. However, the weather really was against us, which turned out to be funny as everyone on the tour we booked found the stop at the viewpoint where all we could see was thick cloud was hilarious, everyone that was, apart from the guide who even asked if we wanted to get off the bus and take photos!

Two more days at sea followed…..but this did include crossing the equator and as we had experienced crossing the equator last November there was a fish kissing ceremony featuring Neptune and his crew.

This cruise then headed to Port Klang and this time we planned to meet up with our friend and former gym instructor Helena, however an incident on board meant the ship had to change course and the port was cancelled. Another sea day for Neil……….

Good weather returned in Penang, Malaysia. The ship docked in Georgetown and there was a Treetop Canopy walk using the Penang Funicular Railway.

Last port stop was a return visit to Phuket and as we had already done the island tour we opted for a leisurely walk along the seafront followed by some shopping for Cheryl. One more sea day to go…..

This trip hadn’t gone to plan, first the shocking weather, then the missed port stop. Now there was another little drama looming. Our return to Singapore and a flight home was booked for 3rd March, however this fact was not known to a certain individual on the other side of the world, and he went ahead with his plans to cause chaos in the Middle East which meant all flights, including our return via Abu Dhabi were not going to happen.

It soon became the topic of conversation on board and a WhatsApp group ‘Stranded’ was created which proved extremely useful as the actions taken by insurance companies and booking agents was very different. As we had bolted together two packages and wanted some time before each one started we had opted to book our flights independently so we knew we were on our own. What we didn’t know was what the flight operator, Ethihad, would do.

After a wasted day with 2 trips to the airport before realisation dawned that the only reliable way out was to rebook with an airline routing away from the Middle East. Neil found flights with China Air via Shanghai for 3 days later, booked a serviced apartment near the river location we had before and we were back in a Taxi heading for down town Singapore. Well there could be worse places to be stranded in the world.

Before we go here’s the usual nonsense and a word from our cheapskate sponsors….