Mulu to Sepilok

Breakfast is enjoyed in splendid isolation as we have the dining room to ourselves again; I find some intriguing items on the buffet but the turn out to be less than a total success, especially as the small round one squirts brown goo all over the table!

We have the morning at leisure so we take full advantage of the facilities provided by the Marriott. We have the entire pool area to ourselves, and very luxurious it is, too. We swim and sunbathe and then hurriedly pack for our departure.

Our flight is at 1pm but with the airport just 5 minutes’ drive away we don’t leave until noon. There’s a brief altercation about our baggage allowance – having booked with Malaysia Airlines all the way, with a 30kg limit, they’ve put us on flights with MASWings which has a 20Kg limit. We’re not over by much but it makes no sense and we manage to convince them that no excess baggage needs to be paid.

It’s a 50 minute flight from Mulu to Kota Kinabalu, where we connect with a flight to Sandakan. We’ve not had lunch so we stop at a Merry Brown for lunch before boarding our 3pm flight.There are two flights scheduled to leave at the same time and the situation at the gate is quite confusing, but at last they call us forward and we board – Alex is first on board. 

Arriving at Sandakan we are met by Basri who helps Simon find a cashpoint before accompanying us to our new lodgings. We’re saying at the Sepilok Nature Resort, literally just outside the Orang Utan rehabilitation centre. It’s a picturesque spot, with chalets on stilts round around a pond and the public areas are imaginatively laid out with some lovely touches.

We arrive about 5, get settled in, switch Alex’s double room for a twin so that he can use his mozzie net and then relax in the bar until  dinner. My beef rendang is delicious.