By the time you are reading this we will (hopefully) be on the plane to Japan then Chicago for the start of our epic adventure around the world. Since our last post we’ve had to add one small bag to our luggage as we couldn’t fit our winter coats in our main suitcase or our carry on bags and we’re sure we’ll need them in Chicago. After all, we’ll be coming from the tropics to a city in the middle of winter and it might take a bit for our bodies to adjust to the cold.
We’ll leave you with a video of us in tropical Borneo. We filmed this when snorkeling off a coral reef on Mamutik Island near Kota Kinabalu. Coral reef’s are extremely fragile and most of the coral in the reef we saw had already died. This reef was just off the beach and some parts were so shallow we had to be careful not to step on them or rub our body against it as the coral is also very sharp and produces nasty cuts.
This Clownfish led us to its Sea Anemone home
Luckily for the animals in this coral reef it is a protected area where tourists are not allowed to take anything and care is taken to make sure that the coral isn’t further damaged. Of course with boats pulling in and out of the beach and tourists swimming around the coral it is hard to completely protect it, but at least they are trying.
Yesterday we blogged about a bad experience we had with customer service at Furnished Quarters, and today we’ll blog about one of the best customer service experiences we had in a hotel. It was at Le Meridien in Kota Kinabalu.
We arrived in Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, on a short 45-min flight from Sandakan, Borneo, but we had gotten up before 6am to make the flight. It was probably about 10:30am when we got to the hotel, which is way before check-in time, but we were tired and wanted to get something to eat so we really wanted to try to get our room before the check-in time at 2pm. The front-desk clerk was very friendly but said that right now none of the free rooms had been cleaned yet but he would get one cleaned asap. Since we were hungry, we left our luggage with the bellman after many assurances that everything would be kept safely locked up including our laptop, and were about to head out for lunch when the front-desk clerk called us and said he had managed to get us a room and it would be a free upgrade to a bigger sea-facing room, something we hadn’t even asked for.
Needless to say, with that initial service, we were pretty confident we would have a great stay. And throughout our entire stay, the staff did everything necessary to make sure we had a great time!
Beautiful view from our window!
And the service wasn’t the only thing we liked about Le Meridien: the room was beautiful, with a lovely view of the South China Sea and of the many fishing boats going in and out of the small local pier. There was also free internet access in the room and by the pool (which had wonderful views as well), and we were able to get our work done in such a great environment that it almost didn’t feel like work!
The food at the hotel was also great, although we usually went across the street to a nice little Italian restaurant for food.
All in all, our experience was so good that when it was time to go, we just didn’t want to leave!
As night fell on our river cruise we switched our camera to night vision mode, and our guide got a spotlight out to search for crocs. It seems they are easier to spot at night since their eyes glow red when a spotlight reflects on them. Another thing that can be found in the rainforest by the river at night are fireflies, thousands of them. All of them are flashing their little tail lights trying to find a mate. Flash a light at them and they’ll flash back. Watch the video to see how one kept trying to get our camera to mate by flashing its light at the light on the camera.
We had just flown into Kota Kinabalu, Borneo from Sandakan at 6am that morning, and needless to say we were wiped. However, the person who picked us up at the airport told us that there was a Proboscis Monkey sighting river-cruise down the rainforest that afternoon and asked if we wanted to go. It was a tough decision: on the one hand we were exhausted, on the other we wanted to see wildlife. It took us all of 20 seconds to decide that we could sleep later and that we didn’t want to miss the wildlife
Fancy a house with a view? And the rent is cheap! Just look out for the crocs in high-tide or they might give you a nip
Our first thought when we piled into the van with the other “fresh off the plane” tourists who wanted to see “monkeys” was that this was a bit more touristy than just the two of us going down the Kinabatangan river in Sandakan with 1 guide and 1 boatman. This was all confirmed as around 15 of us were piled onto a motorboat with a roof and nice tourist seats. The roof helped against the rain but obstructed our visibility so I spent most of my time outside in the rain in a flimsy raincoat. All in all it was fun and we got soaked And we’ll show you more in our next episode of this river cruise!
Oh yeah, we’re flying to Chicago on the 9th on the first leg of our round-the-world adventure and we’re very excited!!!
And we’ll show you more in our next episode of this river cruise!