Safety Tips in State of Sabah

There are a lot of Macaque monkeys around on the trails so watch out for all of your belongings. Keep everything out of reach of these guys. They can grab your valuables and be off with them in a flash.
One morning when we were staying at Gayana Resort, we could see contents of a womens purse thrown all along the beach.The tissues were torn in shreads.
We also saw them drinking from a box of juice.

This 50 pounds of muscles, fangs and fur threatens hikers on the path is Sepilok's Orangutan sanctuary. I don't know what's the best way to deal with this, but I stood my ground and made noise as I waved a stick at him. He eventually left.

If you trek in lowland jungle, it seems inevitable that you’ll encounter leeches. These heat-seeking creatures can “flick” themselves off leaves or ground to land mostly on the foot to knee region. The cure is to get gaiters that are impervious to the blood suckers. Even hiking boots and long socks are no preventive. One fellow trekker ended up bleeding out from a leech bite for about a half hour after its anticoagulant had taken effect.

These are basically harmless encounters. After drinking their fill, the critters go away, but it is eerie to see them waving like tentacles toward your blood. And the tiger leeches (like the one pictured here) have bites that actually hurt. They can also crawl to surprising places. I had one on my belly and my friend had one that crawled up from long pants cuff to knee…

The macaques at Sepilok can be very aggressive. We watched from afar as these smart cookies tried the zips on peoples bags when their backs were turned. I also saw a very tiny baby climb from his mothers back to hit out at a tourist. He was so small the tourist didn't even notice. The little one defiantly had a case of monkey see monkey do.
One day after watching the orangutans we started to make our way along the boardwalk. The macaques were lying in wait. It was a little scary as they hissed and bared teeth at us.

When we arrived in Sabah we took a taxi to a bus station then on again to another bus station, that would take us to the National Park. When we arrived at the bus station I suddenly found myself surrounded be about 10 men all yelling, as they pulled at me, "Where you want to go lady!". I was scared and unsure what to do. I ignored them hoping if I said nothing they would leave me alone. As this is happening my husband who was in front of me is getting further away. I started to yell out "Don't leave me!" when all of a suddenly that exactly what he did! He takes off running! Two minutes later he was back at my side, with a firm grip, explaining to me that one of the men had stolen our luggage from the bus to put in another bus. His bus was going the totally opposite way to where we wanted to go but this did not deter him. We eventually found the right bus and sat down in our seats only to be rudely told we had read our tickets wrong. We were shown to the back of the bus. Once we settled in I took another look at the tickets. We had in fact been sitting in the correct seats according to the ticket. Just happy to be left alone we didn't argue. It was once the bus started to head off it became clear why we were moved. Two of the annoying men sat themselves in our seats. Just above their heads was a movie playing. The volume was just loud enough so they could hear it. I didn't really want to watch the movie as I was happy looking out the window but it still annoyed the crap out of me anyway!!

Orangutans, just like us, are prone to diseases such as malaria. Don't take things into their area that might hurt them. Water bottles spread all sorts of germs, insecticides are hazardous, and constant ringing of mobiles stressful. Although the orangutans keep their distance macaques don't. These feisty monkeys will think nothing of running of with you bag.

Whilst we were in Sandakan we were lucky enough to see snakes. One in particular was sleeping on the hand rail of a boardwalk. I spotted it just in time. Although this one pictured is a harmless python they can give a painful bite. A few days later we saw another at the entrance to a restaurant. A local told us that this one was deadly. After that I made sure to check handrails!

While I was in a hut in Manukan island (which was comparatively expensive considering I had paid one third of the amount to stay in a suite in a 4 star hotel in KK) I once left my money in the hut and went for a walk. The money was divided in 2 wallets and each well hidden at the bottom of rucksacks.

That night I went to sleep and was looking for my mobile to use it as an alarm the day after. I had left the mobile in a drawer near the bed. It was gone ... I got a sick feeling and went to check on the wallets - all the money (some $800) was gone as well!

So please NEVER LEAVE ANYTHING VALUABLE IN YOUR ROOMS! LEAVE THEM IN A SAFE IF THE HOTEL IS REPUTABLE OR ELSE TAKE THEM WITH YOU.