I bet you all think we're just lazing on a beach, but....

...no chance! Plus my tan is fading!! I'm wearing more clothes here than I would on a hot day in Europe. Dress code is stricter here. You can spot the tourists by their dress - shorts and strppy tops - the locals get a little offended.

ok, quick round up of recent activities:

Tues 8th July
Went with Fe to meet her fiend Mary (they were both at same teacher training college), and Marys sister Margaret..
Stopped off at roadside chinese restaurant where Rene and Fe had large bowls of Fried Tom yam and Prawn Mee Sup. Mmm yummy - if you can manage that for brekkers?! Me, I stuck to a mug of Kopi (Thick black Chinese coffee floating on half an inch of condensed milk!) The two of them took pity on me and called in to a chinese coffee shop so I could grab 'Pau' (steamed bread with black bean gooey stuff inside)

Arriving at Mary's we were offered the dreaded Durian fruit. We've seen (and smelt) this weird fruit many times and managed til now to avoid actaully putting it in our mouths. Rene says it smells like drains and I'd agree, adding 'putrid' to the description. It's a very spiny fruit anything from 8" to 2 feet long and it exudes a very dodgy odour. A Seasonal fruit, people say you either love it or hate it (bit like Marmite I suppose!) Fe's daughter wont allow it in the house, so Fe and her granddaughter eat it at the market! One of the lads at the backpackers lodge told us how he used to jelp his grandfather collect his durian. they had to wear hard hats as it's dangerous if they fall on your head! Much ought after, they would stay in the forest to protect the ripened fruits from local robbers!

This is one strange fruit, and now we're backed into a corner.... we have to try it! Ignoring the smell I picked up a slimy piece of fruit and bit off a piece. OMG it was re volting - handd the rest to Rene who downed it and managed a second one!

Durian experience over amid peals of laughter from Fe and Mary (the latter said she was relieved we didn't like it - there was more left for her) we were then invited to feed the deer....

Mary joined us on our onward journey to Margarets... over the Tamperuli bridge built in colonial times.... upwards to a house on a hill with 360 degree views across to the sea, the mountain of Mt Kinabalu (hidden in the clouds) and the forests of Sabah - beautiful, breathtaking.... I was tld I'd need to be up early next morning to catch the mountain before the clouds hid it again...