Our new house

Our new house is amazing. We went for a swim yesterday and it was really nice. The pool is a really good size and you can swim really easily in it. All we need now is some inflatables.


This our new furniture for our patio. The cushions are arriving on Wednesday.
Neil spotted this lizard on the decking. Cool!

Our Dog Molly.


The master bedroom


The attic room

Taipei School Trip

I went to Taipei with 23 students from school. They competed in the FOBISSEA games. They won lots of medals and had a great time.


This is the view from my hotel window. Pretty cool.
This is the 101 which is the tallest building in the world (until the one in Dubai is completed). We went all the way to the top. The lift you use to get to the top is the fastest lift in the world. It makes your ears pop on the way up.
These are all the students we took on the trip. They are just outside the lifts to get to the top of the 101.
This is the view from the top of the 101. It really is a tall building.
This is where the students did their athletics. Great views.


This is the 25 metre swimming pool where the kids won lots of medals.



This is the Chinese University where the swimming pool was. We also had a really nice meal here. The university is up in the mountains so there were excellent views as you can see below.

These pictures are of the night market.

ultimate car auction

Last week, through word-of-mouth we found out there was a car auction in Rimba.

Not your usual type of auction with cut'n'shut escorts or high mileage vectras ! These were pristine ultra-low mileage sports cars - Ferrari's, Bentleys, Mercs, Porsches and Jags. Mostly dated from the early 1990's. One quirky little car was a convertable mini, only a few hundred of these were ever made. The cars previously belonged to the Royal Family.

Check out the pics...... (note $3 =£1)

Identical Black, Blue and White Ferarri Testarossas.

My favourite car in the Auction, a Mercedes 500SL with less than 2000 miles on the clock. Quite affordable if I sold both our current cars, all our furniture and personal possessions.

Not pictured here was a garage containing about 10 Bentleys and a couple of Rolls Royces.

by neil.

Kuala Lumpur

We went to Kuala Lumpur for our half term holiday. KL is in Malaysia and about 1 hour and 45 minute flight from Brunei. As we flew over KL we got a great view of the Petronas Towers.

We arrived pretty late because we took an Air Asia flight and most of their flights are evening flights. When we got to the airport, we took a coach to KL city centre, which is about one hour away. Once we got to the city centre we caught a cab (who of course in Asian style drove like a maniac) to the hotel.

The hotel was lovely; The pacific regency. When we arrived at 12.30 the baggage guy told us that the roof top bar was still open. So we decided to go and check it out. It was quite amazing. The trendiest bar I’ve been to in a long time. Lovely lighting, funky music and swish chairs all centred around the roof top pool. Then if you looked directly up to the left you would see the KL tower and to the right there was the Petronas Towers. It was at that point we realised that the hotel had a pretty good location.

The next day we took in the cultural sites. Went to Medeka square (independence square), which had a kind of Colonial Asian mingled architecture. Then we went to the national history museum which was very interesting. It is incredible how many countries have had control of Malaysia. The British, the Dutch, the Japanese, the Portuguese. In fact it’s only had 50 years of independence and not that long ago was having problems with communism.

We went to the Batu Caves which are very large caves in this kind of large rocky hill in the middle of KL. They are very impressive, but it is soooooo tacky. It is a Hindu shrine and has somehow become incredibly touristy. It’s got nothing on the caves of Borneo. The Monkey’s are pretty scary as well. They are extremely tame and they’ll steal anything from you if you’re not careful.

After the caves we took a taxi to the butterfly museum. The stupid taxi driver tried to charge us 50RM for the 10 minute drive. So of course we told him that he must be f**king joking (in a more polite way), and told him we wouldn’t pay him more than 15RM. In the end he had no choice to take it, he knew we knew that he was trying to rip us off with a rigged metre. You’ve got to be careful in KL , the taxi drivers try to rip you off left right and centre. Afterwards we thought about and realised we probably actually ripped him off a bit for the ride……..serves him right.

Anyway we then relaxed in the butterfly museum and took some nice pics. We also got to see some horrible creepy crawlies. To think that I go hashing every week, running passed these horrible creatures really puts you off.

We also went to see the Petronas towers up close. They look fantastic at night time. It also has a really good shopping centre where I got some new clothes. We also had a nice Japanese meal there.

We found a nice Irish pub where we played pool and ate pie. We also went for a meal at a German pub which was an experience. The food was great. Cooked by this German chef. The interesting part of the night was that one guy from on nearby table got so drunk on Jaagermister that he ended up unconscious half underneath our table. Then there was another lady from the table who spent most of the night being sick in the toilets. The German Chef was also pretty drunk and kept dropping things all over the place. It was such a funny evening.

This is the Neil before he ate the doughnut!

This is the doughnut after Neil applied his traditional eating method (stick it all in your mouth at once and hope you don’t choke).

Mount Kinabalu

Trip to Kota Kinabalu (KK)

Julia, David and I drove from Brunei to KK, climbed the mountain (4100m) and had a short holiday on the way back. We packed up the Pajero having carefully segregated all the clothing we would need for the entire holiday.

Due to the geography of the country you need to go in and out of Malaysia and Brunei a few times. It takes a lot of form filling and passport chopping to finally get to where you need to be.

Day 1 – Brunei to KK

We left the Brunei border at 6:30 am and headed into Malaysia. We met up with 2 friends and drove to Temburong where we rendezvoused with our Tour Leader (Hadi Sham) and 3 more people.

After a short break for breakfast we headed in convoy towards KK. After numerous border crossings and the occasional ferry crossing we arrived on the outskirts of KK town (close to Tanjung Aru 5* hotel) at 12pm.

waiting for lunch

We had a bite to eat and rested for a while before making the final leg of the journey towards our accommodation at Kinabalu National Park.

The accommodation was basic dormitory style. 4 bunk beds in a room with no air-conditioning. Air con was not really needed due to the alitiude we were already at.

the accommodation

somewhere, way up there is the summit!

Day 2 – climb to laban rata

After breakfast we met up with the others and arranged for a porter/sherpa to take one of our bags up to the top. This bag contained our winter gear - coats, hats, gloves, etc. Porterage costs MYR7 per kilo. The bag weighed 10kgs. We then met up with our guide and we got on the bus to the start of the climb up the mountain. The bus was rather ancient and had to negotiate the twisty road to the Pondok Timpohon Gate.

the start of the climb

We started walking at 0845 and arrived at Laban Rata (mid way overnight rest stop) at 1345. The scenery changes dramatically as you ascend the mountain – the vegetation becomes thinner until it disappears altogether.

The last hour of walking before reaching Laban Rata was difficult. My legs were extremely tired at this point and I was worried they might not recover for the tough walk the following day. I took it slowly and steadily to conserve some strength. It was raining lightly but it was still possible to climb up to Laban Rata in shorts and a T-shirt. David was showing some early signs of altitude sickness (nausea) so we made him rest and drink plenty of water.

laban rata

Laban Rata contains dormitory / Bunk Bed style accommodation. Our guide was unable to secure us a room but we were fortunate to get some accommodation on the cafeteria floor.

Day 3 - "the longest day"

We slept as well as could be expected and then woke up at 1am to get some breakfast. We left Laban Rata at 3am for the climb to the Summit !

geared up for the climb to the summit

The walk to the top is challenging. It is pitch black so you can’t see beyond the range of your torch light. It’s cold and steep. For a large part of the walk you need to hold on to rope for support up the mountain.

Again, slow and steady is the best way to reach the summit. David was battling with strong feelings of nausea but luckily had no headache as this may have meant descending back down the mountain. The climb was made much easier due to the fact there was barely any wind. It is approximately 0 degrees at the top.

The views were spectacular on the climb to the summit:

nearly there !

We reached the summit at approximately 6am:

the summit !

We climbed back down and arrived at Laban Rata at about 0800. We rested, drank some tea and ate some noodles. At 11am we started the descent back down the mountain. The drop in altitude from the summit to laban rata immediately made David feel much better.

All food, equipment and supplies have to be carried up/down by hand. Local men and women are paid by how many kilos they carry up the mountain.

carrying a gas cylinder down the mountain.

carrying planks up the mountain. Each plank weighed 20.8 kg!

It's something of a humbling experience when these people come past you. The massive effort it takes to provide all the food and facilities that we had at laban rata was much appreciated.

The descent was tough. I found it more difficult than going up the mountain. A combination of the 5 hour walk already completed that day, uneven ground and heavy rain made it hard going.

weary & wet at the bottom

We took the bus back to the National Park headquarters and changed into some dry clothes. We followed Hadi in the car down the mountain and into KK town for an overnight stay at the Beverly Hotel. A hot shower was much appreciated !

It was a monumental effort but we managed to drag ourselves out of our hotel room and we drove a short distance to the Waterfront part of town – here there are numerous bars and restaurants. We had a nice Italian meal and a beer to celebrate our achievement. We returned to our hotel and slept soundly until the morning.

Day 4 - check out of Beverly and drive to our resort.

Walking on the flat is an effort, but walking down steps is simply painful ! With weary legs we head down to breakfast (taking the lift of course). We ate well then checked out and headed to Lanka Syabas beach resort about 20 minutes drive out of KK town.

The resort is small and picturesque. It is run by an Australian couple and is popular with expats in the region. It has a nice beach, a good bar and good food. Roaming around in the grounds are two sheep, a mini horse, a dog and a cat. Close to the resort is an adventure park with rock climbing (hmm…), crazy golf, death slide, quad biking and dune buggies. There is also a horse riding centre nearby.

On the day we arrived we took it easy. Went for a beach walk, had a jug of tiger beer and generally relaxed around the pool. For some reason David and I thought it would be a good idea to have a sprint down the beach – a true test of manliness when your legs ache like buggery.

We enjoyed a leisurely walk on the beach and watched the sunset.

a double rainbow (if you look carefully)

the view from the balcony at the resort

Our night's sleep was interrupted by a loud banging noise, the mini horse rammed it's head against David's door. It then proceeded to eat the contents of the bin on our patio. I got up to shoo it away but it just looked at me and wondered what a man standing in his pants was doing staring at him.

Day 5 - more relaxation

On the second day we played a game of crazy golf and amazingly we all scored the same. Lucky really as Julia is a sore loser.

In the afternoon we drove back into KK to have a look around the shopping malls. My company called me and said there was some urgent business I had to attend to. We found an internet café and sorted out the problem. We returned to the resort, David and I played darts in the bar and we had a couple of beers. Julia went on a horse riding trek down the beach with some others from the resort.

Day 6 – Quad Biking and Journey home

We got up quite early ate breakfast and then headed to the adventure park 5 minutes down the road. David and I geared up for some quad biking. Fantastic muddy fun !

other people would look silly in hairnets but we can pull it off !

learning the controls

We showered and then headed back to the resort to pack up the car and check out. The journey back to Brunei was very easy and we only went slightly wrong in Limbang before finding the correct road to the Brunei border. We stopped in Kuala Lurah – the border between Brunei and Malaysia and had some food and drinks. We arrived home about 1 hour later safe and sound.

The organised trip up and down the mountain together with all accommodation cost B$290 each. The holiday after the mountain climb cost MYR220 per night for the accommodation (approx £35)