KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIAN BORNEO

Borneo Fun Fact:

• Borneo isn't a country; it's an island. Actually, it's the third-largest island in the world. And it's divided up among three countries: The southern two-thirds is the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, while most of the northern third is split between the Malaysian provinces of Sarawak and Sabah. (The rest belongs to the tiny kingdom of Brunei.) I had no idea about any of this before I came here, so I figured you might not know, either. Especially if you're American. :-)

After more fun yesterday with buses, traffic jams, taxis, and getting dropped off at the wrong airport (don't ask), we finally made it onto the plane for our 1:10 flight from KL to KK. That's Kota Kinabalu, in the Malaysian province of Sabah, in northern Borneo, a surprisingly large, modern city of about 200,000. Not much to look at, as almost all of the old city was destroyed by Allied bombing in WWII, but a good place to get our act together before heading off into the jungle.

For some help with this, we met today with Peggy at Sabah Divers, recommended to us by Henrik in Flores (thanks, Henrik!). She's a really chatty, funny, tell-it-like-it-is woman who's also really knowledgeable about the area and things to do here. After discussing a whole range of options with her, we ended up booking a trip to Uncle Tan's Wildlife Camp to see some jungle creatures, followed by several days of diving at Sipadan Island, ranked as one of the world's top ten dive locations.

Actually, there was a bit of drama with the Sipidan booking, as the island is kind of a political football right now--long story, but basically the Malaysian government has put some severe restrictions on dive operators, and is considering closing the island to divers altogether! At one point today we were told we wouldn't be able to obtain permits to dive at Sipadan on the days we wanted, but I think we finally got that sorted. I hope so, at least!