A morning of organisation! (11th March 2010)

Last night I was in the huge longhouse all on my own, now I don’t mind a room to myself, sometimes I love it, but a 12 person very large, very dark, very quiet longhouse room? That I didn’t love. What I loved even less was the cockroach that got in bed before me! Unfortunately for him but fortunately for me he came to a very swift end under my LP guide. I didn’t sleep very well at all in the end, It wasn’t the bugs that kept me awake it was more the being alone in the huge room that did it and perhaps the fact that I know for the next two nights I probably wont sleep so well as apparently we’re in door less and window less shacks in the jungle, so I wanted to make the most of a nice bed while I could.

Anyway, before the jungle this mornings activity is doing my best to get a permit for the mountain and the diving.

A few people have said that if you can’t get a permit in advance for the mountain if you just turn up on the morning they probably will have some cancellations, I think again the tour operators buy up a load of permits and if they don’t sell them they let the park know the night before, so I decided the first thing I needed to get sorted was the diving. I don’t know how many places I called up but no-one seemed to have permits, one place, where the cool kids go (!), said they could get a permit for April, that’s very kind of them! :-(

I managed to find one place, Uncle Changs, who said they could get a permit for the 17th March for three dives, YAY! Or perhaps not. I said I’d call them back and did a bit of research on them on the internet and on Thorn Tree and found them to be a bit of a party place and a real budget place, unfortunately budget with diving could be pretty dangerous and with the nearest decompression tank several hundred KM away I wasn’t sure, they did assure me they could get a permit so effectively task one done and dusted.

Next on the list was climbing the mountain, I called the number the Dutch couple gave me and sure enough they had room any day I wanted to go, they told me everything that was included and the price, it was the same as the Dutch couple at around £180, this was to climb up the mountain, have a couple of meals stay the night and climb down again! Rather steep I thought, the price not the mountain, although that is as well. :-)

It was rather steep until they then told me that if I was doing it on my own I would need to pay for two people, that made it ridiculously steep and obviously a real no no, I wanted to do it but not that much and especially if I didn’t actually make it to the top, a huge waste of money. My next plan was to call the Parks Office again although this time I pressed a different selection from the recorded message and was put through to someone who said there were two permits left for 19th and two for the 21st, Saturday climbing is always very busy for some reason. I don’t know why but again I said I would call them back while I worked out a vague plan with regard to travel between places, diving and climbing. I was going to finish the jungle tour on 13th then would need to make it down to Semporna to dive 16th and 17th then get back somehow, probably flying, to the get to the mountain to climb on 19th. Are you following so far? Of course the next problem was how long after multiple day diving could I fly and then because the mountain is pretty high was this going to be a further problem with regard to the bends?! Oh the problems there are when you have limited time and zero plans made.
I had got the bus from KK to Sepilok taking 5 and half hours and then the bus from Sandakan to Semporna is meant to be 5 and half hours so by my reckoning the journey from Semporna to Kinabalu Park should take around 10 hours! Yet for £20 I could fly. Guess what I preferred? My only problem was the diving and flying thing and of course to get to the airport near Semporna is an hours drive and to get from the airport in KK to the park is 2 hours drive. Thats something I need to work out for sure but at the mo I’m thinking fly.

Time was ticking by and we needed to get to Uncle Tans for the jungle tour, there was another couple at the hostel who are also going there so we shared a ride and got to know each other on the way.

Once at Uncle Tans I still hadn’t booked either event and was still trying to work out plans. I decided a bite to eat might make it all make more sense. I’m not sure if it did but the result was that just before we’re about to leave for the jungle I booked both the diving with Uncle Changs and the mountain through some woman on the phone, considerably less than the Dutch couple paid :-) and the only thing different is that I have to make my own way to the park an back.

So on with Uncle Tans jungle experience.............