Temperature drop

Yesterday I started to have a sore throat.
This morning I woke up with fever.
My body didn't like the temperature drop between Malaysia and Belgium. 15C in one go was too much.
Let me go make some tea and get an extra sweater.

16C

5:30am, we've just landed in Amsterdam. It's raining and 16C degrees. I'm already depressed and wished I could have stayed longer in Malaysia.

This is it. Back to normal life (and work in a few hours) :(

Going back home. Vacation is over :(

Today is the last day of this trip for me. While Alice will spend the coming week with orang utans and exploring more the jungle I will fly home tonight.

As usual I started the day by swimming. I really wish I could do the same back home, outdoor swimming pool of course :)
I had breakfast with Alice and she left at 10am as she had an earlier flight.

I spent my last 3 hours on the beach reading, watching the waves, resting, the usual :) (yes 3 days is enough to get into a new routine)

At 1pm I took the shuttle to KK airport. The manager to whom we complained 2 days ago waved me good bye. Ah service in Asia ...

I arrived early at KLIA for my flight. Thanks to my Elite Plus status, I managed to get a seat at the emergency row, this time I even got the window and access to the lounge, where I waited chatting with Wolfram.

10:45pm, time to get into the plane and fly home. Bye bye Malaysia!

The day when Alice nearly died

Today there was bad weather, i.e. clouds and heavy winds. It was not cold just very cloudy. We still enjoyed the beach for a while and when it became too windy we moved to the swimming pool.
That's when it happened. We were nicely chatting in the water when something green fell in the water. One of the umbrellas taken by the wind had fallen in the pool, nearly killing Alice (well she might have been hurt if it had fallen on her but it was scary enough).

After a long walk on the beach and watching crabs running around, busy digging holes, we went for a massage.

Have you ever seen how fast those little crabs can be? They come in and out of their holes in fractions of a second!

But thanks to their effort the beach becomes a piece of art, covered with the patterns they create.

The last massage of this vacation revealed something. Based on the foot reflexology something wrong with my brain... ah ah, I guess we knew that already :)

Not so rosy even in paradise

Today was a complaining day.

First woke up we were woken up by some hammering. Did they really have to be hammering at 8am next to our room? After telling the reception, hammering stopped and Alice slept nicely while I was swimming.

Last night we had found out that the movie channel was not working. Why would we need one? maybe because at night there is not much to do and BBC International is not entertaining enough.
To entertain us they lent us some board games: scrabble, master mind and dominoes (yes, like when there was no TV). PS: never play dominoes with Alice, she is a killer. Even before you realize, the game is over.

The worse part came when there was a water outage. No water, right at the time of the shower at the end of the day... We called, we waited, and finally one hour later, the water was back. But cold :( I had a very cold shower.
To apologize the next day we received a fruit basket. Not quite the fruit basket we would have imagined. Apples, orange, pear and grapes... these are everyday fruits for us but exotic for them. We would have been very happy with mangoes, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, exotic fruits for us, but everyday fruits for them. Once again it all depends of your reference.

Flowers and Geckos

Early morning, when everybody is still asleep, is the best moment to take pictures of flowers, especially when they are still opening.

At night, however it's geckos' time. Those guys are everywhere at night, singing their song.

I really start to like them, even more since I found out they eat mosquitoes :)

Tuaran Beach resort

Last night we flew from Mulu to KK (Kota Kinabalu) and took a shuttle to Tuaran Beach Resort.
After KL, Bintulu and Mulu, this is our last stop. The plan is now very simple: beach (and swimming pool) for 3 days!
This morning I woke up at 8am and by 8:15 I was in the swimming pool. It's good to swim again and even more when the swimming pool is all yours.
After swimming I picked up Alice and we had breakfast. Then beach and swimming pool for the whole day, that's vacation !!!

The beach:

The hotel is nearly empty which is both good and weird. Having the beach and the swimming pool just for you (or almost) is REALLY nice.
Not a single noise to disturb your rest. Just the waves....

People collecting shells:

The swimming pool:

Mulu - Top tree tower

Before leaving Mulu National Park we decided to climb to the Top tree tower, and maybe see some birds. So far we haven't seen any and everybody claims they did.
We asked for the key and took off.
Once last walk in the forest and one last chance to see some more bugs and co.

Almost at the tower we discovered that the path was flooded. Now what do we do? Walk back? No. We just walked through.
Water was quite nice and fresh... until we felt something on our legs and decided to speed up. Who knows what swims in those waters?

Mulu - The Canopy

One more day waking up 6:30am. Are we really on vacation? But as Senior guide said, if you want to see the animals you have to get out early. They are hungry at sunrise and not at noon. At noon, they sleep.

Today's program was the canopy sky walk, 480m long at 15-20m above the forest floor (the longest tree-based walkway in the world, so they claim).
So here we go again for more trees, more bugs... but this time from the top :)

And even a squirrel and a relative of Alien.

Mulu - Paku Waterfall

After a well deserved lunch, we left the village for the Paku waterfall. That's one of the 2 walks you can do without a guide. We walked at our pace enjoying the trees and other plants. The game is to spot bugs or animals on your way. Thus a pretty slow pace as you don't want to miss any.
So get ready for lot's of green, trees, bugs and... even more trees!

You may not see them at first, but the creatures of the rain forest are right there, watching you, blended in...

After 1 easy km on the wooden pathway, we took a left turn to enter the jungle even more.

No wood to walk on meant we had to walk in the mud. This slowed us down significantly as we tried to avoid stepping into 15cm deep mud. Well this lasted for a while until we couldn't avoid it by stepping on the side too afraid of what we could find on these branches.
3km of muds back and forth... excellent exercise for your legs :)

Waterfall was so so but the trek in the rain forest wad really worth it.

I would have never believed that I could walk in a place with so many insects everywhere and even enjoy it. Everything can happen, right :)

Special for Halloween: the bat skeleton

Mulu - Clearwater Cave & Cave of the Winds

Once  again, it's a big wow once in the cave. The particularity of this cave is that there is one spot where you can feel the wind (thus its name).
It turned out this little wind was really nice given that it's not cold nor cool in the cave. It's not as warm as outside, but not enough to cool you down. Somehow it contradicted everything I knew about a cave: cold, wet and gloomy.

Once done with the Cave of the Winds we walked back down to the river and thenup again (400 steps or so...) to reach the Clearwater Cave.

Like its name indicates, the Clearwater cave has a river (of very clear water) that runs through it. This sign helped us understand how this works.

A lesson of the beginning of earth as we know it (with oxygen) when looking at cyanobacteria.