August 15, 2009 - Filed under Stuff to do
Since Mike finds monkeys creepy and had no desire to see Orang-Utans while we were in Asia, we didn’t bother making the trip to Sandakan, eastern Borneo, to visit Sepilok Rehabilitation Center. Luckily, however, there is a smaller Orang-Utan sanctuary, not too far from where we were staying. I took a day out from motor-biking and went to see the Orang-Utans by myself.
Posted by: Kelly
August 10, 2009 - Filed under Bikes, Trikes, and Automobiles, Stuff to do, Travel, Weekly Report
Back in 2007 I picked up an issue of Bike magazine with an idyllic inside cover shot of a motorcycle traveling up a pristine, empty road through lush jungle valleys shrouded in mist. “Like a trackday paradise” read the title, and I was pretty much sold. Reading the actual article did little to dissuade me. Government funded and maintained highways, little to no traffic, and you get to stay in a beautifully architected house overlooking a valley of rainforest below? This was undoubtedly motorcycle paradise. The article was ear marked, often re-read, and each time I swore that if I had a chance to visit Borneo, I’d be tearing through the S-curves on an Aprilia Pegaso, wind in my face, tires to tarmac. Who knew at the time that Borneo also housed a little diving gem called Sipadan? When planning our trip through southeast Asia, my sales pitch to Kelly lasted all of 30 seconds before we were arranging itineraries in Sabah.
Posted by: Shim
August 7, 2009 - Filed under Scuba Diving, Underwater Photography
Here’s just a taste of the what we saw diving at Sipadan. David, one of the guys from our 2nd day of diving had a Canon Mark II 5D in an underwater housing and was shooting video in HD. He was nice enough to give us the footage and I’ve edited together a little piece from the day. Check out all the turtles, sharks, and the barracuda tornado!
Posted by: Shim
August 7, 2009 - Filed under Weekly Report
We spent this week in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, quite content, doing practically nothing. After a couple of weeks of budget living (single beds, shared bathrooms and cold water) we couldn’t wait for a hot shower, and the prospect of whiling away the hours with a good book and a hot bath was something I’d been looking forward to for months. Those of you that have traveled in Asia understand how rare it can be to find a bathtub, and we were quite intent on making the most of it.
Our grand plan of taking the last few weeks off, kind of backfired on us, and we both ended up putting in a few days of work. I also spent a big chunk of time going through all the pictures from our 5 days of diving in Sipadan & Mabul, and Mike has been busy editing together a video with some of the footage we got from one of the guys we dove with our last day in Sipadan.
In-between working and wasting away in the bathtub, we enjoyed several beers along the waterfront, and had a couple of really good meals. KK is definitely the place to get some fantastic seafood. There are several good restaurants, and the night market has some really great BBQ stalls.
All-in-all it’s been a pretty chilled out week, but exactly what we needed.
Posted by: Kelly
August 3, 2009 - Filed under Scuba Diving, Underwater Photography
Just wanted to let everyone know that the rest of the Sipadan & Mabul pictures have been uploaded! You can check them all out here.
Posted by: Kelly
