Mum and Dad Visit

Last week saw the return of my parents, John and Carol, back to New Zealand after a 1 ½ week stay with us. This time I had a fairly packed itinerary organized and if they thought that their stay would be relaxing after a month long cruise around the Mediterranean, they had another thing coming.

First stop was Melaka, the southern coastal city, a couple of hours drive from KL. It’s a nice place for a day or two, although I was disappointed to find no drinking establishment that was playing the All Black VS France Rugby test on Saturday afternoon, Malaysia time. It was fun doing the rounds when looking however, with Dad and I ending at the Equitorial Hotel for afternoon refreshments while Mum, Lina, and Isaac had a nap.

Our hotel was Hereem House, on the edge of the Melaka River. This is a quaint, colonial style, boutique hotel which is not to everyone’s taste. I was pretty satisfied though, particularly as the location is very central. A craft shop was attached so Lina was very satisfied with the place. She is accumulating quite a collection of household ornaments and pictures from various parts of Asia, which deserve a blog entry for themselves. Pictured below are those items from Melaka.

It was then back to KL and the next day we flew to Sandakan in the state of Sabah in East Malaysia, which is on the Borneo side. Dad has always been a nature lover and Mum was very much looking forward to seeing the orangutan,s so I arranged a 3 day river camp/safari along the River Kinabatangan (www.uncletan.com). To be honest, I was somewhat concerned as the website for the tour company makes it clear that conditions are Spartan. In fact, this is used as a selling point for the tour. Zero comfort but see plenty of wildlife. This boast did not prove unfounded with multiple exotic bird, croc, proboscis monkey, orangutan, and gibbon sightings, along the banks of the river.

Things went well on Mums first taste of camping/roughing it at aged 63. Great effort mum and you put a few of the young girls to shame.

See my poem on the 19 June entry for more details of our trip.

A few days were left in KL where Mum and Dad joined us for outings with friends. The end of over 5 weeks of traveling for them and they were ready for their beds back home by the end.

The jungle camp site

Mirror wall hanging

Very silver fern like

Intrepid journeys

On the banks of the River Kinabatangan

Its not often you come across a labrador in the tropics