Borneo Day 1 (May 15)

We had planned this trip, with my parents, Aunty Jill and Aunty Sue for July last year.  Aunty Jill and Aunty Sue had been going to Australia via Hong Kong and the timing was right for them to make a side trip to come with us to Sabah together with Mum and Dad.  Then Ben got sick.  Mum, Dad and us all ended up in Bangkok hospital instead of going on the planned wildlife safari.  Not nearly as much fun.  Although the girls remember staying in the nice Amari hotel with a swimming pool on the roof and a buffet breakfast with access to as much smoked salmon as they wanted.  Mum, Dad, and our family managed to get refunds on our tickets however Aunty Jill and Sue could not.  They instead rescheduled their dates to May 15-22 and so we at least has some firm dates for all stick to for another attempt at our Borneo trip.

Mum, Dad and our family arrived in Kota Kinabalu at midnight after flying from Sydney and Phnom Penh directly.  It was a very long day for Ben who started it by driving the 5 or so hours from our home to Phnom Penh first!  So we had an easy first day scheduled or so we thought.  The kids were up first naturally.  We were dragged out of bed and the first order of the day was to go swimming in the apartment pool.  We had rented a nice three bedroom apartment for the two nights that we were to be in Kota Kinabalu city.  It was close to amenities - namely some cheap Indian restaurants and a shopping complex.  It had water views except for the construction going on right in front of a car park or some other such building.  We were also waiting for Aunty Jill, Uncle Vijay and Aunty Sue to arrive that night to complete our intrepid group.

So while the buildings were still shading the pool we went swimming.  It was cold.  The sky was blue but it just wasn't hot like it had been in Cambodia before we left.  But swim we did - and play tag and lie in the sun.  Got out before lunch.  Ben had a short swim and then went back up and we found him napping - actually found him napping for most of the rest of the morning through till three - waking up enough to eat the lunch we brought him of dahl and parathas (or roti as it is called there).

There is an old friend of Mum's who married a man from Sabah and has lived there many years.  Norma and her husband Edwin.  Edwin picked us all up and took us over to their house which is on the way inland a little towards the big mountain (Mount Kinabalu, the tallest in SE Asia).

First view of Mount Kinabalu

They took us around the Adventist Mission and school compound, over a rickety swinging bridge and visited a market where they sold the biggest pineapples I have ever seen - and lots of dried fish!  And then they took us out for dinner and we had a way to big meal at one of the yummy restaurants.  Kind of Chinese style Malay food.  Yum.

At 11 pm the Americans arrived from the airport.  Jarrah had been waiting up to see all the goodies that had been ordered from Amazon to arrive via Aunty Sue's suitcase.  In particular a set of horses and horseriding dolls.  She had been counting down the days to meeting Aunty Sue in order to collect on these items.  Finally they arrived but alas, Jarrah couldn't say up long enough.  So only in the morning was she able to receive her presents.

And that was day 1.