Biologist in Borneo

Well, there were some neat sights...

The water was so clear, well, you could get photos of the fish from the dock! The top photo has some coral and a school of small fish, the other photo has a parrotfish in it (yep, the bright colored one). I had to take a photo of the flower on the trail, the moss and associated plants in the shade, the orchids on the tree (not in flower). The shells were at the market, and we were upset to see them thinking they may be live harvested (we didn't inquire and certainly didn't buy). The picture of the valley with the grass, well, that grass was as high as the van we were travelling in. Doug was dwarfed by the bamboo at the hotsprings, and the last photo was these really cool blue berries (I admit they're hard to see in the photo). Those were the highlights this trip!

 

Our last day in Borneo, for awhile...

Here we are, back in K.K. We had a lovely lunch of wonderful seafood, Miranda claims the best meal she's had since she came to Malaysia! Then it was off to the Sabah Museum and then the airport...
  
We really thought the blowpipes were neat, and scary looking! The examples of the tribal huts were also cool, along with the skulls hanging from the roof of one (supposedly good luck, I guess good luck it wasn't you!). We were hoping for shrunken heads, but maybe we'll see those in Kuching during the summer. Well, Summer in Canada. The weather is the same here... Anyways, that was the trip!

Manukan Island, Day 3

Well, it was another trip to an island paradise... I'm sure you'd like to hear that it gets boring, old, etc., but the truth is we're still stunned by the tropical beauty and the ocean never fails to amaze us!

We had a lovely time, but unfortunately all was not perfect - the jellyfish were around and they were big ones! It REALLY hurt and lasts a fair while, many of us ended up with lash marks across our bodies. Even knowing how the little devil's work doesn't help the pain...
It was very relaxing though and I can't say enough good things about our travelling companions, they helped keep the trip enjoyable.

 

Mount Kinabalu, Day 2

We had a great, although exhausting hike 2 km along the trail to the top of the highest mountain in Southeast asia. I was glad we were only doing 2 of the 6 km up, but I felt very out of shape when one of the locals went by Miranda with a full pack and a tank of cooking gas on his sholder!

We took the trip with two wonderful couples from Doug's work and Barton and Liz, Doug's superisor and his wife who are also Canadian. The company was wonderful, and natives guides made everything so much easier by translating and organizing for us. The success of the trip was certainly through their efforts! A big thrill for me was finding Pitcher plants on the trail... There was more interesting things botanically speaking, but that was the highlight (for me). There may be a biologist on Borneo post coming...

 

Kota Kinabalu, Borneo Malaysia

Well, Easter in Borneo was lovely even though we lost the Easter Bunny during our travels (We learned from Christmas to be very careful with chocolate in this climate!).

Our first day was a heavy duty relax at the hotel pool (I thought you all have seen enough pool pictures so I spared you that from this trip, although the palm in the background was our shade while we lounged). We found the sign at the mall washroom, or as Clarissa now calls it "Tandas", which is Malay for toliet. The rest of the pictures are from the great market they have in K.K., it was incredably big and varied, and the people were very polite. I was impressed to see the tailors working with treadle sewing machines, and the booths with the old fashioned cast iron ice shavers. It was really friendly and exotic at the same time...