[Kota Kinabalu, Malaysian Borneo] Today saw the end of a very, very long leg of our journey. 7 months of traveling over land and sea by boats, trains and buses has passed. I almost feel sad about it, having crossed from the UK to Kuala Lumpur without a flight (okay we cheated once from Lhasa to Kunming but only because we did not want to repeat the train ride). The original plan was to keep going south through Indonesia but this morning we grabbed a taxi to KLIA and boarded a plane for Kota Kinabalu. So no crossing the Equator on foot and I was looking forward to that. Maybe next time.

We have to admit that Asia Air was brilliant (besides incredibly cheap eg: KL to London one way £170 if booked 1 month in advance). We landed on time in KK just ahead of a brewing thunderstorm. The runway is very near the sea so from our viewpoint it looked like we were about to experience an emergency water landing. We found good (if expensive) accommodation at Kinabalu Backpackers Lodge near the ‘city centre’ and headed out to find food and our bearings. We are here for a full day tomorrow and will be gearing up (that means shopping) before heading out to mount Kinabalu. We make our summit attempt on the 9th but are both feeling so lazy at the moment, better rest up for the climb, I think we’ll have an afternoon nap 🙂

[Pictures: I’ll update the gallery very soon. Maybe even tonight]

– Posted from my iPhone via WiFi