Up at 6.30am ready for breakfast at 7am. The hotel over looked some amazing scenery and we enjoyed a light breakfast before being taken to the start point of our first challenge. I had woken up feeling just as terrible as the day before and it suddenly dawned on me, and some other challengers, that it might just be a reaction to the malaria drugs I had taken so I stopped taking them, however as I had the ones that you take once a week, the drugs would take sometime to leave my system.
Nevertheless, I got stuck in with challenge one.
We were taken first to a small market, where we tried on fins for our snorkaling later in the day, then were taken to a beach-side park. From the park we could see the islands which we would be kayaking to. My initial thoughts were "Ok, that doesn't look too bad" until I was told that the island I was looking at was the final island we would visit and is the one closest to shore! I was a little less confident when I realised that the first island we would kayak to, I couldn't actually see yet as it was hidden behind other islands!!
Anyway, we paired up, pulled our kayaks down the beach and started our challenge.
My poor partner Girish had to put up with me feeling terribly sick all the way and about 4km into the challenge,
I proceeded to vomit over the side of the kayak! Lovely! But, I didn't train this hard, and come this far to be beaten by some stupid tablets, so we carried on, kayaking our hearts out, stopping intermittently for me to throw up! The support boat came to get me and I swapped places with Evan, our trusty guide for the journey, so I could have some shade and take on some water.
I then swapped back into someone elses Kayak when Vijay had to take a break due to his back hurting him. So then it was me and Ross. Ross was our G4G leader for the trip, as well as a personal trainer by trade. His "Come on, let's do 10 strong strokes then rest" comments got me motivated and we picked up some good speed (inbetween sick breaks!).
we landed on our first island (approx 2 and a half hours later), with people looking at us like we were crazy, with some looking rather confused as to where these kayakers had actually come from! There were people learning to dive and chilling out on the beach.
I wanted to join in, however after a short rest stop and some fresh watermelon, we were on our way to Island 2!
after another hour and a half we reached the island. We were shown some enornmous lizards. They call them dragons!
They don't go after people apparently, but we were warned not to get too close as they can whip you with their tails and can hurt you pretty badly. I certainly wasn't going to get close enough to try to find out!!
Especially after watching one particularly bullyish dragon who tried his hardest to mate with every other dragon he saw!!
Back on the kayak and we made excellent time! Just over 1 hour to the third and final island. We had some much needed lunch and did some snorkalling! It was amazing, I've never had so many tropical fish swimming around my body, so close they were coming past my goggles, we fed them little bits of fruit and got some amazing under water photos.
It was a beautiful moment and one I'll always remember.
Arpana, one of the G4G challengers, suggested that maybe I should try taking travel sickness pills to help with the sickness. Well, she's a genius! Within 10 minutes of taking dizzynil I was right as rain and paddling for Britain!
I took one of those tablets every morning when I woke up and felt fine then for the rest of the day!
The kayak back was great, we sped along quite happily back to the coast and with very few issues (some random patchy sunburn was had by all where bits got missed with the sunscreen and my poor kayaking partner hurt his hand, but overall a very successful day!).
We got changed, (us girls scared some local ladies in the wash rooms by standing there in just our pants while we dried off, but I'm sure the mental scars aren't too bad!) and then boarded the bus to head to the Sabah Tea Plantation where we would be spending the next 2 nights.
We went straight to the base and had a local dinner of rice and chicken and were told about the Death Marches which took place in Borneo a few decades ago.
Ross then announced that there was a Hat! The Hat was to be awarded each night to someone who did something good, was inspirational or overcame personal barriers.
On the first night the hat was awarded to me!! For carrying on, trooping through and not complaining whilst kayaking and vomitting at the same time. I actually think that he found it kind of comical!!
The accommodation was a bamboo longhouse. It is exactly that. A wooden hut, made from bamboo, on stilts. The floors walls and ceilings were all bamboo and there were giant gaps in the floors. Mosquito nets were over every bed, but over all, it was a lovely place to stay. Then there was the lizard...
As soon as we all switched out the lights, there was this noise. I thought it was a bird at first, but it sounded very strange. It was kind of like trying to sleep when there is an alarm clock going off. There were a few comments about finding the "bloody thing" and "has anyone got a shot gun" before we all fell asleep. Lets just say that lizard mating season must be in full swing! I found out the next day that the couple in the next dorm actually had "the damn thing" poo on them in the night!!! I must admit I found that funny!!!
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