I lived in Hong Kong for a year when I was 5 and this was my first time back. The only memories I have are of a counting the round windows on a building by the water, thinking getting ice cream for taking immunization shots seemed like a good deal, going on rides in a playground, and living in a tiny one room apartment in one of the many highrises. Well, the skyscrapers are still there and have expanded to fill all available space. The playgrounds have gotten even better though there doesn't seem to be enough for the population. Prosciutto eased the pain of the Chinese visa office. And there are 315 round windows on one side of that building.
There weren't many touristy things to do other than seeing the peak, shop and eat. We did plenty of that latter one. There was a lack of bicycles, rickshaws, tuk-tuks and scooters. It seems they are all banned in HK and the new territories. Walking is part of daily life here and the streets and subways were pleasantly clean consi
dering the volume of constant traffic they get. It seems that HK has taken a middle ground between the village tainted cities of mainland China and the sterile assimilation of Singapore. We didn't even need to carry our own chopsticks around.We found one new form of entertainment. A crazy Japanese videogame where you throw soft plastic balls at targets on a pair of big screen TVs. It's really competitive and incredibly tiring. We both had sore arms for a couple days.
The better part of it was staying in jungle bungalows near the reserve. We even manged to brave the heat and do a little trek into the forest where we saw fat squirrels and giant killer ants. We said our goodbyes to Peter and John a few days later and headed to see the largest cave system in the world at Mulu.
Seaventure is an oceanic oil rig converted to a dive resort. It certainly isn't the lap of luxury, but it sure is an oil rig! The story goes that it was brought to Brunei to be used as a casino. When that fell through, it was moved here. It still looks like an oil rig and there's more rusted through metal than copious layers of paint can hide. It literally oozes character, but not so fun when it gets on your wetsuit and in your hair.
This was the absolute show stealer for us here. The diving was good, but the resort was just fantastic. Kapalai is a set of bungalows hovering over the water swaying on wooden stilts over a submerged reef. There's not a bit of land in sight until low tide exposes a small beach out back.
Sipadan is a tiny island that is surrounded by sheer walls that drop to a 6000ft underwater trench. It's famous for having loads of sharks and turtles cruising around its walls. Now it's perhaps more famous for the number of divers that flock to it in search of the ultimate dive. So many divers were coming, in fact, that the government shut down the 5 resorts on the island in order to protect it. Now you have to stay at resorts on nearby islands and get one of the 140 daily permits to dive here.
As for the diving: it is good. But we're pretty spoiled after all the great Indonesian dives and can't say our experience lived up to the hype. We did run across loads of whitetip sharks, a few fat grey and even a leopard shark. Lazy turtles were absolutely everywhere and unperturbed by divers. Actually one barreled right into Mary. We were even 'lucky' enough to witness a somewhat disturbing mating scene with the two half-shelled participants surrounded by a group of hecklers who swooped in every so often to bite the female.
Our fingers dug into the sand trying to get enough grip to keep from being pulled away by the current. It felt like we were watching a Discovery channel show live while lounging on a sandy sofa under 50 feet of ocean. All we needed were the chips and dip. I guess we did have sashimi at our fingertips. Then he glided right over us so that his belly was 4 feet above our heads. He hung over us for a while as we stared up in awe from his shadow. Even the snorkelers saw 4 mantas. I thought I'd save you from watching Steve's actual dance by not taking video.We did see some other cool things while diving here like a 7ft leopard shark that let us crawl up to his tail to get a closer look. Also a jawfish with eggs in its mouth, some frogfish, and schooling barracuda. Yeah, even if you didn't include all the typical idealic island attributes like crystalline water, pristine strips of white sand spits (like the ones in brochures), and friendly natives this place was more than worth the effort. Get on the next plane!
It took 20min to walk around it. Here's the count: 1 fishing village, 6 long piers, 3 homestays, 1 resort, 2 dive operators, 2 volleyball courts, and more turtles than people. There is a thriving turtle population that live in these waters and you can see them sticking their heads out of the water from inside your air conditioned room or on any of the piers, even under boats. 
Every night turtles come up onto the sandy shores and nest. They dig craters into the sand to lay their eggs and there's so many that the beach looks like the surface of the moon with turtle tracks leading to the water. We even got the chance to help the conservationists dig up a batch of 100 newly hatched turtles from under a foot of sand in the enclosed hatchery. They're a little dazed when they see the sky for the first time but then they immediately start wriggling their flippers and turn their big black eyes towards the ocean. They crawl past any obstacle, including our feet. Cute baby turtles smaller than my palm were lifted out of the ground by the handfuls. Once dug up they immediately scattered so we chased after them and put them in a basket to deliver to the open beach. It was a frenzy of little flippers as they wriggled their way to the water. The few stragglers needed a little help so we gave them a nudge now and then. It's something special to see them touch water for the first time. They take to the medium like fish and instinctively start swimming in every direction. New batches get released almost everyday here.
If you imagined a city made of a labyrinth of brown, cramp canals lined with people living in timber shacks on stilts just high enough to keep their toes dry and away from the floating trash then give yourself a gold star for the day. The people in southern Borneo thrive off the river system. As we boated to the floating market through the waterways we saw the locals brushing their teeth, bathing, washing dishes, fishing, and answering the call of nature.
Everyone smiled and waved like we were on parade. Guess they don't see many tourists here so we were on display. Of course the kids tried to jump in to splash us, and they succeeded. We got used to that after the first few times so we were able to turn away fast enough to keep our cameras from getting drenched thus foiling their plan. 
The region is largely Christian, but the locals have mixed in much of their animalistic tribal beliefs and such to create a set of rituals and practices around death that are pretty, well, interesting. When someone dies, there is a huge funeral ceremony. Temporary buildings are erected from bamboo to hold all the guests and everyone brings offerings of pigs or highly prized buffalo for the family. 
Each village has some area they've carved out and generation upon generation can be seen pile up. Literally. 
In some places, the coffins were hung from the ceilings of caves to keep them dry and away from preying animals.
