Brought to you by the letter "S"

In case any of you think we are particularly athletic and brave after reading Tim's post, I should probably mention that on our way up the mountain we passed a group of Japanese senior citizens on their way back down. They were sprightly, relaxed and as fresh as daisies. They assured us it was an easy climb! Also, the youngest person ever to climb was 5 years old and the oldest was 96, so that should help put things in perspective.

This does not diminish the incredible physical pain we suffered afterwards - in fact, it only made us feel worse! We recuperated in Sandakan, which was the perfect spot since there's not much else to do there. We were in our room, completely engrossed in the movie "Guess Who" (when you haven't had a TV for a month you will watch anything) when the channel suddenly changed to the Chinese news. We knew we hadn't accidentally changed the channel since we were completely immobile and the TV had no remote. I called down to the guesthouse desk, where the man explained that the TV would now show only Chinese channels for the next three hours. I gathered that he had some kind of master switch which determined the feed for all the TV's. I asked him if we could switch back to English, since we were in the middle of watching something, and he unapologetically refused. I was tired, grumpy and in pain so I persisted. He claimed that another guest had requested to watch something on the Chinese channel. This was hard to believe since we hadn't seen evidence of any other guests, with the exception of two American hippies. The desk man himself was of Chinese heritage and had a TV at his desk. Suspicious! If you've seen the movie - don't be shy, I won't judge you - can you send us a synopsis of the last half?

Our muscles hadn't quite recovered but we headed off to Selingaan (or Turtle Island) for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It's a protected National marine park where thousands of Hawksbill and Green turtles return to mate and lay eggs. Only 50 people are allowed on the island at a time and it's usually booked up for months but we were lucky and got a cancellation. On the boat ride out we saw two turtles mating in the water. It's a pretty complicated affair and the male sometimes drowns the female in the process! Anyway, we spent the afternoon chilling out on the beach of the little island. There are so many turtles that the whole beach is just a mass of craters where they have dug holes! After dinner we all waited at the lodge for the ranger to call us. The turtles usually appear any time between 7pm and 2am. We were really hoping for some early birds! At 9:30 we got the call via walkie-talkie and raced (okay, Tim and I hobbled) to the beach where the huge Green turtle had already dug her hole. She didn't seem to mind us ogling as she laid 82 eggs, which the ranger collected into a bucket before she started filling up the hole with sand. We followed him to the hatchery and watched him re-bury them where they will hatch in a about 7 weeks. We then got to watch him release that day's hatchlings into the ocean. To make sure we don't disturb the turtles we weren't allowed to stay on the beach, but we found out the next morning that 7 more turtles came ashore to lay eggs. It was amazing to witness the whole event, and even more incredible to think that these turtles have travelled hundreds of miles to return to the place where they were born. The whole process is so fragile and if the beach has been developed with buildings, or if there are lights around, the turtle won't come ashore and will lose her eggs in the ocean.

Anyway, we headed back to Sandakan for a few more days of rest. This time checked into a guesthouse with a DVD player and a huge DVD library at our disposal - it was great! I think we watched about 4 movies in a row before struggling down the stairs in search of food.

Next stop was Semporna, where our marine adventures continued. We did a scuba dive trip to Sipidan Island, one of the 5 best dive sights in the world. It lived up to it's reputation - we did 3 dives and saw tons of Barracuda, reef sharks, turtles and a hammerhead shark. We've never seen anything like that before!

A group of tourists were kidnapped on the island a few years ago by some Philippine organization, and afterward the one hotel was closed down and turned into an army post. It was a hilarious sight - the most relaxed soldiers you have ever seen, sitting around the picnic bench and checking out the girls in bikinis. They didn't exactly look ready to spring into action. We are guessing it's the most popular assignment they've got.

We sadly bid goodbye to Borneo and returned to Kuala Lumpur for our last few days in Asia. We checked into a gorgeous Novotel for some much needed luxury, visited the Petronas Towers, experienced our first Dim Sum for brunch (thank you Leonard!) and watched Dreamgirls. (A few funny differences in movie theatres over there; you select a specific seat when you purchase your tickets, they only have caramel popcorn and the drink and food portions are tiny!)

On March 14 we returned to KL (not KT) airport and took off for our African adventures.