Day 75: Goodbye Mulu, Hello Sandekan

We had another good sleep. By the time I got into the cabin after the late finish of the tour, the family was dead to the world.

We got up in the morning and the adults quickly packed and headed out for a 15 minute walk to the treetop tower. The tower was a metal structure rising 6 or 7 stories out of a dense section of jungle, and it was set up primarily for bird watching.... We did spot a couple of birds there.... One middle aged Dutch lady and a small reddish bird perched inside the canopy, but it was just nice being immersed in the rainforest once again.

I read a cool graphic on how the water works in the rainforest. Each tree drinks about 1000 litres of water a day, which is transferred to the leaves, which then evaporates in the heat of the day. With all of the moisture rising into the air, by late afternoon or evening, it has to come back to earth, in the form of a down pouring of rain. We've witnessed this cycle for three days now, and it really makes you feel like they've done something right with protecting this area. With the bats at work throughout the night, there are very few insects that bother us (Beth, yes Beth Tyndall, has not worn bug spray the last two days..... No, I'm not kidding. Yes. Beth). I think we will be back here some day.

Breakfast was predictably good, but the girls were not - perhaps it was a little leaving day bickering, but it only lasted until they saw the Versly boys, then everything was back to "normal".

(Probir.... I caught Alex making use of your boot clips.....)

The adults opted to go on another river tour, while the kids opted to hang out on their own in the jungle. This time, we went down river for about 30 minutes until we joined in to a larger river system. The current was quite strong, and it wasn't even rainy season. I loved seeing the life of the river - the occasional long house, some derelict boats, the trees towering over the river's edge, and sometimes sharp limestone cliffs bursting out of nowhere to rise up at the bank of the river.

We turned the boat around in the larger, tributary fed river and chilled out in an eddy for five minutes, taking in the sight of the river, the jungle, and the two peaks of Mt Api and Mt Mulu in the clouds behind. Ahh.... On the river again.

When we got back, the kids were just arriving from the jungle - the four of them looked like they were little jungle explorers, with their day packs and the easy way they loped down the walkway between the trees. They are having so much fun.

Alex finally found the pitcher plants he'd been looking for. Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants that eat insects by trapping them in their little bowls... Most are quite large, but these ones are thumb sized....

We got picked up by our trustworthy "Kathleen" at 11:45 as promised and two quick round trips later we got to the airport and were checked in for our flight to Sandekan.

We actually had two flights, one to Kota Kinabalu (the capital of Sabah State) and then over to Sandekan. Although it was sad to leave Sandakan, we have a ton of adventure coming up over the next week and a half in Borneo. I can't wait.

When we got to our hotel, it was time to go check out the town before dinner. We walked down to the waterfront which is kind of nice. There is a large square and one street blocked off to pedestrians which always makes for some more street life. As it was Sunday, most stores were closed.

We strolled through the nearby mall, where Matt was accosted by two twenty year old girls who loved his white blond hair. It was pretty funny to see Matts reaction - he had no idea what to do or what was going on.... He may want to come back here in a few years.

Upstairs, the kids found a ping pong table in an arcade, then tried their hand at Segway-like "steps with wheels" where you control the motion by leaning back and forth. We drew quite the crowd in the mall. A couple of teenaged boys even said to Beth "Hello. Would you like to play tennis?". She took at as a compliment... though she was wearing a headband, tank top and athletic type shorts.... Ok, we'll chalk it up to a compliment!