Borneo!

On Thursday Ric, myself, a world challenge leader called Debbie, & 13 kids arrived in Borneo for the start of our 4 week adventure. We had a very good flight to KL with Malaysian airlines, then had a couple of hours in transit before the 2 hour flight to Kuching, which is the main town in the Sarawak region of Borneo. We stayed 1 night in Kuching, then headed for Baku National Park which is a 1 hour bus trip , followed by a 40 minute boat trip away. It was a lovely place right on the coast, with some very nice beaches. We had 2 nights & managed to get a bit of walking in. My highlight so far has been seeing a bright green viper which was very very cool!

We slept in our jungle hammocks for the first time, which was an interesting experience, especially considering we had some full on thunder & lightning storms & it absolutely teemed down!!! We were going to do another walk this morning before heading back to Kuching, but had to abort because the rain was far too heavy, the lightning was really close, & we had to go up (& down) a hill that some of the girls found quite slippery & tricky in the dry! It meant we got back to Kuching earlier, giving a chance to do a bit of laundry & use the internet. It might be the last chance for a while as tomorrow we fly to Miri, then the next day we get a little 10-seater plane to a remote village in the jungle called Bario. We do our one week community project here, which is building a 30ft foot bridge over a river. We then do our full-on 5 day jungle trek, before flying back to Miri. There may/may not be internet in Miri, I'm not sure how big a place it is.

The kids are doing well so far, although they are a bit rubbish when it comes to speaking to the locals & trying the local food. We have had rice for nearly every single meal, including breakfast, & some of them are sick of it already. Only 3 & a bit weeks of it to go! Meals are incredibly cheap, dinner in a local restaurant is about 60p per head.