Saturday 17th June
Lazy, relaxing morning sleeping, kids watching TV.
Eventually got ourselves up to head to the beach. We are staying in a nice hotel with 2 interconnected rooms, air con and really tastefully decorated.
Anyway, got to the beach and we are blown away by how remote and gorgeous it is. Totally a surprise. There is literally noone on the beach at all. Miles of golden sand and crystal clear turquoise waters. I mean it is breathtaking.
Kids had a lovely play – C digging sandcastles, H playing ‘shop’ (sadly using some of the washed up plastic bottles) and we all had swims in the shallow warm water of the South China Sea. Lunch in a cafe that was someone’s house (noodles or rice only!).
Some perfunctory home school, then dinner nearby at a place that doesn’t look like a restaurant at all. But produced fresh prawns they had in a bucket and amazing seafood rice and noodles. Like a feast out of nowhere!
It feels so rural here, much more like India than anywhere else we’ve been. It feels like there is more poverty. Like we saw a guy sleeping in barely a hut next to the road, with some shells on display he evidently sells. But there doesn’t seem to be anyone here. I guess it’s really remote, and the roads have only recently been paved. It’s only about 4 hours from KK, so I’m sure it will get developed soon.
When it rains it pours – that was a 20 second walk! 👇
Sunday 18th June
Today we went to a different beach to hang out at a little chilled restaurant/ camping place. It was, again, deserted and beautiful. The owner is really into zero plastic so we especially liked it.
We took the laptop so we did some homeschool over lunch. Just gorgeous there. H made a football pitch in the sand so we had a kick around.
After lunch we went for a snorkel. It was a bit rough for my liking but gave it a go nonetheless. T said there was amazing coral but I wasn’t that impressed. I think C and I didn’t go out far enough though.
For dinner we stopped at the tip of Borneo which is simply stunning. A 300 degree view of the sea. And the most stunning sunset. T took the kids for a clamber in the rocks while I sat to enjoy the view. It is really full on travelling with your family full time but when you get moments like this, you can just breathe. Something about the sea speaks to my soul. It’s my happy place. And in Southwold too. I’ve been going there for 44 years and it is my spiritual place. I take photos of the sunrise and sunset every. Single. Time!
This sunset reminded me of a hill we went up in Vietnam that had the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen in my life.
Monday 19th June
Tried to go to a different beach today but the road was so unpaved and had such massive dips we had to turnaround because if it rained then it would be unpassable. Shame because the cove sounded amazing!
However, we went to another paradise beach. With a small island and a spit to it. Crazy! So beautiful. We spent a lovely couple of hours there. And there was a lady selling coconuts fresh there. She must live there in a little shack.
There was nowhere to eat there. There was literally noone there! We drove around to the 3 local restaurants, everywhere closed apart from the place from the first night.
It was fairly windy so we decided to go home and hang out in the air con. Dinner was takeaway from the lunch place.
Tuesday 20th June
Left 7am to drive back to KK to get a flight to KL. Beautiful views of Mount Kinabalu on the way. Landed in KL about 4ish. Got the train to our apartment. So nice to be back in a big smoke. Our apartment looks at the Petronas towers and is huge. Huge! Very grateful to have a washing machine because we’ve been travelling with our stinky jungle clothes. Not that washing makes a difference nowadays as our clothes just smell!
C has been bitten to pieces – the mossies love her, poor thing, even with extra bug spray on. She’ll be in long trousers and top for the whole of Tanzania!
Team Mossy on the move 