Another fabulous breakfast. I have eaten lots during this trip and it's not over yet. I hope my now two year weight loss has not suffered much. Personally, I feel as if I've sweated off several pounds since I've arrived at this lodge a couple of days ago.
The morning mist was pretty. This was the morning breakfast view.
We get suited up for our last jungle walk. We start out on the road and ran into another group. The guide has a spotting scope trained on "Mike" one of the male orangutans that hangs around in the general area.
In the same tree was a civet, but I missed seeing it before it disappeared.
On our walks we've learned a bit about the flora. There are many magnificent sized trees that grow in the rainforest and most eventually die from having vines grow around them and constricting them. It takes a while. This tree has a couple of vines circling it.
I think the fig trees are also interesting. Apparently there are two main types of fig trees. There is a variety that grows from the bottom up, like you would expect from a regular tree and these fig trees have a solid trunk. There is another variety that establishes vines that first climb up and then sends vines down to establish roots. These trees establish a group of thick vines as their "trunk". You can see light shining in between the trunk vines. Where else but the jungle could this plant grow?. The guide also says that the trees here don't have tree rings. Rings are found in trees that are subject to seasons and in the jungle there isn't one. It's pretty constant temperature throughout the year.
We walk down to the river to try and catch a glimpse of other animals but come up empty. The lodge provides a tubing excursion on this river, but the water level is too low at the moment to be any fun.
We return to the lodge and I spray off the muck from my boots one last time. They've taken a beating this trip and will need a good cleaning when I get home. We take advantage of Adrian's boot drying offer again. The boots will be travelling back in my bag and they will smell less when dry.
It's about 11:00 and we return to our room to pack our bags for the next leg of our trip. As we take our bags out of the room there is a housekeeping person who radios for someone to come take our bags to the lobby area. They insist that we go and have our last meal at the lodge. They don't need to ask us more than once.
As I walk the boardwalk to the main building from our room for the last time, I finally stop to take a picture of the flowering trees. They produce a cluster of bulbs before they bloom that reminds me of a flower at home (peony?)
We get seated in the far corner and I go to the grilling area to order the ingredients for my stir fry veggies. At this point I see Oliver who is waiting on table on the other side of the room. Somehow between then and the time it takes to make up my stir fry, he's magically waiting on our table. I can only assume he switched with his colleague. I'm not sure how long he's worked at BRL but I'm guessing that he's figured out who's more likely to tip and that the likelihood is increased if you wait on the same people and if they engage you in conversation. Tipping has become more and more prevalent in Malaysia, particularly with more and more western tourists coming to visit. But it's still relatively new and recipients are often very surprised to receive any gratuity. Or maybe they're good at pretending...
I snap a picture of Oliver. He does what I call the classic Asian pose. I have seen loads of people here in Malaysia posing with the late 1960's era piece symbol.
At lunch there was a giant moth on one of the posts. I get someone to put their hand up so you could see just how large this thing was. It was easily 5 inches across.
We got assigned new seat passengers for our ride to the airport at Lahad Datu. The people we came with we're also headed there but were heading to a different destination after that. Our new seat passengers, Roger and Jill ate staying at the same hotel in Kota Kinabalu, so I think that's how the organizers made up the grouping.
On the way we went through a huge thunderstorm. We were glad that we dodged this amount of rain at BRL. It did rain during the nights but we stayed dry during the day.
By the time we reached the airport there was a lot of flooding. The drop off area was under 6 inches of water. Fortunately, the driver was able to find a place further up and skillfully backed up between a double line of parked cars and stopped under the passenger walkway overhang so we wouldn't get wet. Bravo I thought. Probably not what he was permitted to do, but it worked for us.
Inside was a single gate airport. It can accommodate planes up to 60 passengers. No amenities. The runway is situated so that the terminal is about midway. The plane enters the runway in about the middle of it, then taxis out to the end and turns around before it takes off.
The flight is fine enough and we meet our driver and head over to the Jesselton Hotel where we had stayed a few nights ago. This is an upgraded room. It's larger and overlooks the front of the hotel. There's so much activity on this street including an establishment named "Pang's Coffee".
We meet up with Roger and Jill for dinner and head out. We left the decision to them and Roger decides on a a restaurant that serves western food. They opt for fish and chips, Judith has a pizza and I had to think hard and remember that i had a rice bowl with an egg, veggies and chicken. Although It was really good, maybe that part of the meal wasn't so important to me. I do remember a lovely wide ranging conversation about travel, family, the printing industry, banking, music, cycling, pets and a smattering of politics. I like it a lot when conversation is the best part of my meals.
We returned back to the hotel to get ready for the next day's activity - cycling.
No comments:
Post a Comment