Miniature World

Tilt-shift is a photographic technique which produces uncannily realistic miniaturised images of a real scene. Historically this was done by physically moving the camera lens relative to the image plane – hence the name ’tilt-shift’.
Nowadays of course we can achieve similar results digitally and I have just bought an iPhone app to do just that…

Beautiful Borneo

We’ve just returned from nearly three weeks in Borneo, in the Malaysian State of Sabah, which was an amazing experience and a wonderful break – it seemed like we were away for months…

Smeeta had visited Borneo on her travels five years ago and so devised an itinerary based on her previous experience:

• fly in to Kota Kinabalu, capital of Sabah [photos here…]
• take an internal flight to Sandakan to visit the nearby Orang Utan sanctuary at Sepilok for a couple of days [photos]
• three-day stay at Uncle Tan’s Rainforest Camp upstream on the Kinabantangan River [photos]
• Taxi / bus to Semporna for a boat-trip out to the Borneo Divers Resort at Mabul Island, from where we would dive at the world-famous Sipadan Island [photos] [more] [and more]

We also invited Smeeta’s Mum, Tara, to come with us as she’d never done anything like this before and she joined us in Sepilok a couple of days into the trip.

After a boring wait in Brunei we flew in to Kota Kinabalu around 6pm on a friday evening. Being close to the equator, it gets light/dark around 6am/pm all through the year, so the days are very regular. I think I would miss our long summer evenings… It was warm though – t-shirts and shorts weather – and after checking in to the hotel we went to a local bar for some food and a couple of holiday beers.

Kota Kinabalu has changed much since Smeeta was here in 2005 – like many emerging Asian cities it is now in the grip of Western-style consumerism: there were many new shopping malls containing chains of shiny, well-lit shops and eateries, mostly over-priced compared to the local food available outside the sanitised malls. Locals could eat well for 5-10 Malaysian Ringits (£1-2), and yet you could pay this much just for a coffee in one of the many shopping malls.

There was plenty of street-life to see though: the food market down by the sea-front was thriving and full of people. Fresh food was always on the go – from barbequed fish to simple snacks and drinks like a whole coconut, with the top chopped off and a straw provided (very refreshing!).

We then flew out to Sandarkan to stay at the Forest Edge Resort, Sepilok for a couple of days, where Tara would join us for the rest of the trip. We had a room in a simple wooden chalet, no aircon, but a decent shower. Beautiful surroundings, with some stunning flowering tropical plants and trees. In the mornings we would walk off to the nearby Orang Utan Sanctuary in time for the 10am feeding session.

It was great to see these beautiful and intelligent creatures – one of man’s closest relatives – most of these animals had been rescued from captivity or separated from their parents when young, so they are partly dependent on the sanctuary staff but are slowly being rehabilitated and then released back to the wild. One cheeky young guy was far too familiar with humans and would walk amongst the watching tourists, flailing his arms and making everyone slightly nervous: he was only little but apparently still very strong and would happily pinch cameras or hats, anything he could do to amuse himself!

After two days we then took a cab to Uncle Tan’s HQ, where we would be bussed and ferried (literally) to the RainForest Camp, up the Kinabantangan River. Whilst it was still warm, the rain had arrived and the hour-long trip up river in the open boat was spent sheltering under a flimsy PVC cape, as driving rain stung my face and gradually soaked through to my clothes. The rain eased as we arrived at camp though, and we were briefed by the staff and shown to our ‘rooms’: open wooden huts with basic mattresses and mosquito nets. We shared a hut with mother and daughter Beth and Adele from Ipswich.

The camp itself consisted of wooden huts joined by walkways raised off the ground: being close to the river, and in the Kinabantangan flood plain, the water level would rise and fall with the rains. There was a mark on a post in the canteen hut, just below the roofline, which indicated the water-level which had been reached back in January this year…!!

Activities for the two days included trips up and down the river: we saw Gibbons, Orang Utan and Monkeys (mostly long-tailed Macaques), birds (various Hornbills, Eagles, Owls, KingFishers), a Leopard Cat, Crocodiles, Monitor Lizards as well as giant Fruitbats migrating from their roosts across the river at dusk.

There were also treks into the rainforest – I skipped the daytime expedition as it was just far too hot and humid. I’d hardly slept at night and was pretty wiped out during the peak heat of the day. We did go on a night-time trek though, finding spider, centipedes, bats and Birds sleeping in the forest.

Two nights was enough in the conditions, but it was a very interesting experience and we had a great time with the very friendly staff and other guests: Erik the New York reptile expert, Simon and Lindsay, on an 8-month back-packing trip, Adele and her mum, Beth.

After more than a week’s intense heat and humidity it was a great joy to arrive at the Borneo Divers Resort on Mabul Island where we had an air-conditioned chalet and beautiful surroundings of tropical gardens, sandy beach-front and crystal clear water. Food was good, the staff very friendly and the diving superb: three days at Sipadan and three days on local reefs around Mabul and Kapalai islands. Even snorkelling from the jetty we saw plenty of fish, turtles and even a big lobster under a rock. We did three or four dives per day, returning to the jetty around 5pm where we would snorkel with Tara until it got dark. Back to the chalet to shower and change before supper and then maybe hanging out at the beach-bar with Yuko and Yoji, Sebastien, Saskia, Jeff, and the dive guides Jimmy (guitar & vocals), Tony, Nexson and others. Great diving and great chilling out – PERFECT!

We finally returned to Kota Kinabalu for a day before flying home and took a Taxi out of the city to the Kinabalu Mountain Park, in the shadow of the magnificent Mount Kinabalu. Bizarrely we bumped into Sebastian and Saskia and had lunch with them before exploring one of the trails and the botanical gardens.