Just returned from a horse riding girls weekend in Malaysia. My thighs are screaming and there are scratches and bruises up and down my legs (I got some strange looks at work today...) However, it was so worth it to have 2 full days of riding horses through the Malaysian jungle.
My friend Victoria is riding Super Force, I'm on Buster Brown both were racing horses in Singapore but have now retired to the simple life of trail rides in Malaysia. It was funny because we had to be careful not to put the horses side by side as were trotting or cantering because the racing instinct would kick in.
There were tons of monkeys in the jungle which was no problem since the horses were used to them, but when a huge komodo dragon popped out of the bushes it was pure chaos. Thankfully everyone stayed on their horse...
Riders Lodge, is owned by an American and is about a 45 minute drive from the Singapore border so very easy to get to.
On our way back to Singapore we had a 6 hour layover in Kota Kinabalu so we decided to check out the real Shangri-La hotel for a little breakfast and a swim in the pool.
Kingsley has a new obsession with coconut water, so he was pretty excited to see this!
Best of all was we arrived just in time to watch the water aerobics class which provided almost an entire hour of live entertainment! I think Kingsley and I may have found our "couples sport"!
There were a few fishing villages that shared the island with us. However there is pretty obvious tensions between the resorts and villagers. The resorts have complained because the fishermen are using cyanide and dynamite to fish which is incredibly harmful to the reefs and all life that depends on it. There is also a lot of shark fining (for shark fin soup a specialty dish in Singapore) that occurs in these waters. So much so that 10 years ago there were tons of sharks all around the islands and today there are virtually none.
Its hard to know where to start...there is no running water, electricity or schools in the village. I watched a sweet little girl play dress up with her dolls that she had drawn in the sand. The doll, house, clothes everything was drawn into the sand with her fingers...
And yet as you so often see in these situations the kids seem happy. The older kids watch the younger ones and things like shells and sticks and (sadly) empty bottles and cans become toys.
We had an awesome Instructor Yas who worked with us through all 5 of our Advanced dives:
Peak Performance Buoyancy Dive
Drift Dive
Deep Dive
Navigation Dive
Night Dive - I made Kingsley hold my hand the entire time! I think I may have watched too much Shark Week on the Discovery channel to be a good night diver. (I also blame watching the movie Open Water with Amy)
Thanks to the holiday Hari Rasa, (marking the end of Ramadan) Kingsley and I just had a long weekend which we took full advantage of by getting our Advanced PADI diving certification in Borneo.
Borneo is the 3rd largest island in the world and is located 2 hours (flight) east of Singapore. The island is divided between 3 countries, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The rain forests in Borneo are one of the oldest in the world, even older than the Amazon rain forests! And the diving in Borneo is world renowned.
Sadly on this trip I lost my (self-appointed) black belt travel agent rating. Once in Borneo we had to take an internal flight across the island and I somehow managed to mis-judge the amount of time needed to get through immigration in a country with minimal infrastructure. You think I would have learned by now...but for the record 35 minutes is NOT enough time to exit the plane, walk across the tarmac, get through immigration, collect checked luggage and re-check into the next flight! So Kingsley and I missed our first flight ever (at least since I have been running the show!). This substantial error required finding last minute overnight accommodation in the capital city Kota Kinabalu during a major holiday weekend.
No problem I thought, within moments I had my hands on a tourist travel map with all the hotels listed on it and looked for a name I recognized. The first one that popped out was the Shangri-La hotel. I then very efficiently borrowed a strangers cell phone, called the hotel, booked a room and before anyone had a chance to panic we were in a taxi on our way to the hotel. This would have been a near perfect recovery of my earlier blunder except we didn't end up at the Shangri-La hotel we ended up at Hotel Shangri-La...two VERY different places!! Lets just say, its a good thing Kingsley and I are adventurous and that I am very thankful for our silk sheet sleeping sak.
We were on Standby the next morning for the 7am, 10am and 1pm flights and fortunately made it onto the 7am flight. Which again was amazing considering that it was a holiday weekend. I credit Kingsley being a Rat in the year of the Rabbit for our good fortune!
Mabul island is beautiful but a tiny speck on the map. You can walk/amble around the entire thing in about 20 min. Because it is so small most resorts choose to build their rooms out over the water.
We dove at Mabul and Kapali islands which are part of Malaysia.
My friend Victoria is riding Super Force, I'm on Buster Brown both were racing horses in Singapore but have now retired to the simple life of trail rides in Malaysia. It was funny because we had to be careful not to put the horses side by side as were trotting or cantering because the racing instinct would kick in.
There were tons of monkeys in the jungle which was no problem since the horses were used to them, but when a huge komodo dragon popped out of the bushes it was pure chaos. Thankfully everyone stayed on their horse...
