The flight to Kinabalu from London Heathrow would be pretty long: a twelve hour flight to Kuala Lumpur followed by a connecting flight of a further two hours to Kota Kinabalu.
I had my usual luggage of one huge bag and no hand luggage. Jackie had two rucksacks: one huge pack and one smaller day-pack sized bag for use as carry-on.
The flight was with Malayasia Air, who had lost a plane somewhere around the Indian Ocean a week or two previously. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure … what would be the chances of losing two planes?
The flight was very well catered - lots of movies to watch and the food wasn’t too bad. There was a period which was declared ‘bedtime’, when all the lights were out and everyone went to sleep. I didn’t really understand this, being that it was night time in neither UK nor Borneo. Towards the end of the flight, I started getting a bit of a headache from the air-conditioning. I’m not sure Jackie slept at all.
Arriving at Kuala Lumpur, we only had an hour or so to catch the next flight and we rushed across the airport via the aerotrain to the domestic terminals.
On landing in Kota Kinabalu, a member of airport staff approached to tell us one of our bags was not on the flight - it had been mis-directed, but was assured that would be on the next flight and would be forwarded to our hotel. Seems like the way everyone talked about it, it was a common occurrence and would be nothing to worry about.
So, with nothing else we could do, we carried on outside to look for a man with a sign … we met Mr Lai, who would be our local and regular taxi driver. We waited a while for Crystal to arrive from Singapore before we all drove to the Shangri La hotel in town, where we checked in and had a good two hour kip. At which point my bag was awaiting me in the lobby!
We were instructed to head down to the lobby at 6 to meet the guide (Donny) and the other trekkers and was meant to be having our meeting in the restaurant, but a function meant we were to reconvene in Donny’s room instead.
Donny gave us a bit of a talk about Intrepid, Borneo and what to expect from the trip and himself, with the opportunity to ask any questions we had.
Dinner was to be in town at a local seafood restaurant where you got to pick your own, live from the tank! Not seeing anything to my taste, I opted for some fried rice. Jackie was a bit more adventurous and went with a stack of shrimp.
We also took this opportunity to head to the nearby shopping centre (Centre Point) to change a stack of money. I have to admit, I didn’t feel particuarly comfortable with the both of us walking around with so much cash in the middle of a shopping centre, but we were fine - no problems. There were a few money-changers in the shopping centre and the rates seemed reasonable enough.
After dinner, on much insistence from Dr. Andy (from Australia, not to be confused with Officer Andy, also from Australia), Donny took us to a local bar, where we all chatted for a bit as far as our jetlag would allow us. Dave and Jacky had just arrived from Canada and were looking a bit worse for wear - even moreso than myself and Jackie.
Andy, revealing himself to be a bit of a social butterfly, carried on into the night - heading off to another bar (with Fred in tow) after the rest of us returned to the hotel for some much needed sleep. No early start tomorrow - we wouldn’t be heading out till 12.