Day 8 - In Transit - KL and Kuching

The overnight flight was awful, not only was it the worst turbulence I have ever experienced, the lady next to me kept falling asleep on my shoulder, she also had terrible body odour. The man behind me was on the tall side so his knees were constantly digging in when he moved. My back decided to add insult to injury with a sharp shooting pain running down my right side :( Needless to say when I arrived in KL I was a mess, I headed to the gate and set up camp and got an hours kip, to be awoken by screaming children......ahhhhhhhh get me to the peace of the jungle.

Well I arrived safe and sound and collected from from the airport by the lady I will work with at Ketapang. We went back to Basaga (pictured above) which will be base camp over the coming months. I met my room mate Emma who is from Oz, hopefully I will get put with her and the other two oz's in the hut at Matang.

We had a lovely dinner with Leo who runs the whole project, I didn't get to meet him last time as he was in Australia. He is one of the most inspirational people and I could have listened to him all night. Emma and I stayed up for a while chatting until neither of us could keep our eyes open, and we crashed out.

This morning (day 9) we have just finished breakfast and will shortly get picked up by Alvin, the guy who took us into the jungle last time, it will be really good to see him again. This may well be it for the blog until 15th/16th Feb when we next get a day off and can come and seek wifi connection. Adios amigos :) 

Day 7 - Dubai - The Worlds Tallest Building, Aquariums and Ice Rinks

What a day! I woke up late, which concluded in a mad rush to pack, shower and wash my hair before FT with mum and Sue. I decided today to plant myself outside the apartment on the street corner and wait for a taxi, there was no way I was hailing one on the motorway with all my bags. My ingenious idea paid off and one arrived within minutes of me setting up camp.

I travelled straight to Carines work and dumped my bags, took directions for the metro and got lost, so decided to walk to the Burj Khalifa pretty easy you may think being the tallest building in the world. Incorrect! You may be able to see it from the other side of the city but getting there in the maze of motorways is a challenge, I ended up walking through a building site, car wash and Dubai mall.

So let's start with the mall, the third largest mall in the world and the largest in Dubai! It boasts a huge indoor waterfall atrium, full Olympic ice rink and an aquarium that would rival the largest in the UK. I cannot describe to you how enormous this place is, a true shoppers paradise. For those who know me however, this is not exactly my idea of fun, in fact it was more like a nightmare and it soon turned out to be one of the most disorientating experiences of my life. I thought the aquarium was a good place to start, took me nearly an hour to hunt it down through the maze of walks, atriums, levels etc... But when I first glimpsed it the walk was worth the trouble. it housed every fish you can think of plus sharks and two divers furiously scrubbing the fake coral. Shameless photo of me by said aquarium taken by another lone traveller. Not cool ;)

Now it was time to hunt down the entrance to the Burj Khalifa which was located somewhere in this maze, on route I stopped at one of the many food courts and got chatting to an English lady let loose on the mall while her husband attended some business errands. She looked as confused as I was even though she was a self confessed shopaholic, at that point I knew there was no hope for me. After this brief refuel on the most enormous salad known to man I found the entrance, paid my 400 Dirham and headed up the worlds tallest building. The entrance gave a great insight into the construction of the building, with time lapse photography and virtual images. Luckily I managed to enter the lift on my own to ascend the 124 floors to the viewing tower (there are another 40plus floors above) there was a video on the way up and it took about 66seconds, largely due the fact it also holds the world record for the fastest lift.

Upon stepping out the viewing tower you can feel the building swaying, which makes you feel slightly drunk. The weather was slightly hazy but the views were still amazing! Odd as it may sound you don't feel that high, it's just like being in an aircraft looking down on a model village of the city below. Didn't take me long and took a few more selfies for the photo album.

After my return to solid ground it was time for refuel no.2. I found a lovely Lebanese restaurant over looking the fountains opposite where I sat the night before (there is an aerial view of these from the top of verge Kahlifa below) I had a latte and a fruit salad while catching up on today's book which I am finally getting into 150pages in.

It was now time to get back to Carines work for the airport run. I had an hour, plenty of time.......or not! I passed the Ice Rink twice, walked through the same atrium 3 times and after over half an hour nearly admitted defeat and came to the conclusion I may spend the night wandering round this place. Luckily I saw a sign for taxi and marched with the blinkers on following the signs. 

I arrived with 15mins to spare, so sat and wrote most of today's instalment. I am now sat at the airport waiting for a delayed flight that is overbooked, wish me luck for an upgrade!

This may be the last instalment for a few days/weeks! But I will be sure to keep writing down my adventures and will upload as soon as the jungle permits ;) 

Day 6 - Dubai - Bus, Souks and Spices

 Well today has been somewhat eventful but where do I start. Boringly it started with washing clothes, a shower and maybe a little boogie to some newly downloaded music whilst the washing machine finished and I uploaded yesterday's blog. I then headed out for taxi hailing time and caught a cab to the Emirates Mall where I picked up the 'Big Bus Tour'. Yes the open top ones you get in London. 

I met a lovely English family from Brighton and their daughter was a travel writer, so I tagged along with them for a few stops, passing the Burj Khalifa which I can tell you is near on impossible to fit into frame at close distance. It joins one of those sites that a photo will never give credit to. After a few stops we arrived for our Dhow cruise. Whilst on the cruise I managed to squeeze myself in a small space up on the top deck! The people either side of me were not impressed but equally they didn't move me ;) My triumph was short lived as being vaguely vertically challenged left me with a view of the wooden pillar and not much else, oopsie.

I then boarded the bus and onto the next stop where there was a free tour of the various Souks, in the spice one I purchased some cashews and camel milk chocolate! For those of you that know me and my aversion to chocolate I think I have found one I actually like! After what seemed like hours we finished and headed for the 'heritage tour' with the same guide, whilst waiting for it to start I got chatting to a nice couple who are, in their words 'totally down with the kids taking selfies' and didn't require a couple photograph. Hilarious! But we talked a lot about my onward travels and the gap year their son has just done :)

The heritage tour was very cultural. I am wondering what effect the years of holidaying with my mum and dad have had. I am going with a positive one it seems I can skim read most things as I seem to have a basic knowledge of it already. Credit where credit is due to my dad I think my brain has listened over the years and better yet retained information!

By about 5.30 though my brain was the consistency of condensed milk full of information, my feet were crying and my back was grumbling like an old man. Time for hail a taxi rush hour style! Getting pretty damn good at this now ;) as you may have guessed writing up to here in the taxi which has seemed to have cured my car sickness, which is a miracle considering the way people drive in Dubai!

So now I am off to dinner......and now I am doing a tour of Dubai in search of a petrol station, but dinner was utterly superb! We opted for all out starters, main and dessert. Calamari and Duck Rolls, followed by yellow Thai curry and chicken with cashews. All of which has got to be the best I have ever tasted but odd as it may sound the carrots in the Thai curry were exquisite, firm between the chop stick but literally melted in your mouth. The dessert was a white chocolate shell with raspberry sorbet, the waiter then poured green tea syrup over it and the shell dissolved! Tasted incredible.

As if this meal could not get better we had a perfect view of the half hourly water fountain show with the Burj Khalifa as a back drop! We saw 5 shows and everyone single one was utterly breathtaking, one of those life moments where you appreciate how lucky you are.

Anyways we have found fuel and are now lost so I will get back to helping Carine find our way back and try and upload this upon my return to Wifi  

Day 5 - Dubai - Rain, Snow and Cocktails

Today started with me doing Carines hair for work, but tiredness prevailed and I was back in bed the moment she walked out the door! I awoke at about 10 had my coffee and headed for the beach! I know have the taxi hailing knack down to a tea, at the right place that costs me the least in this maze of roads that seem to wind back and forth past your destination.

The beach was short lives as the sun went in and the sky started to dribble, so I made my way to a lovely beach front restaurant and had dim sum, delicious! I then headed back to the apartment for some FT with mother and Georgie, did some banking and other admin and promptly fell asleep!

Carine arrived back around 6.30 and we headed out to the Emirates Mall. What greeted me inside was bizarre! Although I had heard of a snow dome inside a mall in this crazy city, I did not expect the scale of this thing! Think MK snow dome and triple it! It had toboggan tracks, zorbing, a practice slope, two main slopes, a cafe half way up and penguins, yes real actual live penguins! We went to a restaurant called Après with a table that had the view of the whole slope. Carine and I ate enough to feed an army, I had one to many cocktails (they were free it was ladies night) so we decided to get an earlish night.

So a rather short blog today people but tomorrow's (well today's as I am late updating) should be fairly long.