Adventures begin

Woke early after a good sleep (V less good again) and went down for breakfast before meeting our cab at 8.15am. Not sure where all the expected traffic jams were!…we arrived at the airport in 15mins.
Lovely spacious airport and although we were at a smaller terminal (2) there were still spectacular features such as an AI generated waterfall plunging over the left and vast swathes of gorgeous orchids along the walkways.
We sat and wrote journals, then boarded the short flight to KL. vV sat next to a young woman travelling home after a week on business who was very chatty and gave us lots of ideas for things to do and places to go when we return to KL. We soon arrived and transferred to the gate for our next flight to Sandakan. Very excited to be arriving in Borneo itself after our days in the somewhat western Singapore city…Malaysia definitely feels different and more South East Asian.
The flight was fine.. a lot of people sleeping (and snoring!), probably fasting, but we made the most of the chicken or fish curry lunch (but weren’t very keen on the dry cake dessert). V dozed and I read my camera manual and tried out various aspects.
We were doing a lot of people watching of the other obvious tourists on the plane, wondering who might be in our group. We were delighted to find none of them were in our group and we were met by Remi our guide for the next two days who led us out to our minibus. HE was anxious to get my name right but never asked V for hers!!
Only half an hour’s ride to our lodge hotel…passed some very fancy spacious modern houses but also quite a sprawling shanty town near the airport, and also lots of beautifully displayed fruit stalls and some grilling something inside bamboo sticks over small fires (wonder what?!). Lots of traffic so it took half an hour to go only about 7km. All the way, Remi was telling us information about the island, its population, conservation, history, geography and lots of facts. Kept saying “I must tell you…..” and was so helpful and lovely.
We arrived at the Sepilok forest edge lodge hotel and they checked us in then walked us a long winding path to our lodge…how will we find our way back?! He welcomed us to our lodge by pointing out the nesting bats above the front door….Eek!
Lovely inside…old colonial wooden style in the bedroom, polished concrete in the bathroom with an extra outside bath!
We unpacked a bit then headed out in pitch dark to supper in the fairy light encircled restaurant area. Managed to find it ok…walking around the lake under so many bright stars and with all sorts of bird and other noises in the trees around us.
We decided to treat ourselves to watermelon margaritas with dinner (extra) and I had delicious fish in red Thai curry with rice then fried chocolate wantons. V had Asian flavour bruschetta then grilled pineapple with coconut sauce. All very flavoursome and light.
Talked about other adventure holidays we’d had and how the children reacted to them, since there were some people here with quite young children.
Had a wander to look at the plunge pool and the gamelan, sat and explored the stars, then headed up the hill to bed…so excited to be here!!