🎶🎵In The Jungle, The Mighty Jungle, The Lion 🦁Sleeps Tonight🎵🎶

Sabah, part of Borneo, Malaysia: to the jungle with my sister and her boyfriend.

Yes, my first real holiday in 3 years. No laptop, no work for 1 week 😊
And that was… weird. I felt naked, travelling without a laptop. I took my tablet but only touched it while unpacking and packing at the security line 🙈.

Usually, when I am in airports, I open my laptop, work a bit or start writing my journal or a blog. This time, I only had my phone, which is good for social media posts. And to annoy people via WhatsApp 😉.

My holiday started with a delay in Da Nang; this made me miss my connecting flight (I should have known better … flying with Air Asia😜). I needed to book a new ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu. This one-way ticket was almost as expensive as my return ticket Da Nang – Kota Kinabalu 😳. But it was the only option to get there on the same day. More or less; I arrived around 2.00 am at the accommodation.

And what a nice surprise: the room was chilled! In Vietnam, I have my own sweat lodge🥵. Saves a lot of money instead of going to a real one; I only have to turn off the AC and my fan and tadaah: the sweat starts. Every morning I wake up, drenched, although the fan is running (and ruining my sleep so I have to turn it off, as well a the AC).

I hear you asking this question: Why did you meet your sister and her boyfriend in Borneo? They were there to finalize their 6-months world trip. And so I took the chance to meet them before they flew back to Europe. It is almost ‘around the corner’ from Da Nang.

We took it easy. We spent 1 full day in Kota Kinabalu, a nice little city on the northwest side of Sabah, located on the beach. The next day we flew to Sandakan and took a taxi (in Malay: teksi) to Sukau, to the jungle.

The weather was nice, we had barely any rain during our stay, although the forecast predicted thunderstorms and rain.

In Sukau, we took 3 river cruises and 1 jungle trail to the cave. We saw a lot of monkeys (in Dutch we say: aapjes kijken 🐵😉), birds (we saw the hornbill and the Angry Birds birds), a little snake, a King Fisher and some more animals. The night cruise was great: so many stars, and stillness, only jungle sounds and fresh air.

These things are not in my ‘home city’  Da Nang.  I realized suddenly how polluted and unhealthy Da Nang is: it is a real concrete jungle. The sounds I hear are horns and motorbikes, yelling people and kids. And the stars I see are street lanterns or the lights of vehicles. No nice smell; the air quality is bad. Maybe it’s time to search for a healthier place (which I am doing within a couple of days from now 😊, perhaps you can guess where I am going to 😇).

In Sukau, there was no wifi, and mobile internet didn’t work all the time; only then I realized how much time I spent online (or wasted!). This short digital detox was nice.

On Monday, we split up: I went directly to Sandakan; Marleen and Claudio did another river cruise to see the Pigmy elephants and went to another cave. They saw the elephants from a distance! It is exceptional because often the elephants aren’t there.  

The next day we went to my buddies: the Orangutans🦧🦧! And also went to the Sun Bears🐻, the smallest bears in the world. The orangutans, as well as the bears, are harboured in the sanctuaries in Sepilok. They were brought there when they were young, without or split from their mother and often (heavily) traumatized. Only a few go back to the wild.

Twice a day, the orangutans are being fed. Guess they didn’t want to have any breakfast, only the macaques came around. The second time, we saw a lot of orangutans, including a huge male, he was a wild one! Amazing!

We have seen a lot of longtail and shorttail macaques. This type of monkey is active and aggressive. Orangutans are chilled, relaxed and quiet. And as hairy as my arms 🦧😜.

We had local food on the local night market and live music in the evening. They even played English songs for us. Claudio and I were enjoying it, we even danced! We were filmed by many locals; now we are famous in Sandakan 😉.

Then, the moment to say goodbye – not the best part of me🥹. I went back to Da Nang the next day, in the early morning, they were enjoying their last days in Semporna and flying back nowadays.

I am really grateful that I could create the option to travel to see my sister and her boyfriend! I often see them once a year, maybe this year we will see each other twice a year. I can already say: Mission completed ✅👍!

Luckily I made it to Da Nang without any issues. I had 3 flights with tight connections, and I started with a delay on the first flight. Fortunately, the delay was only a few minutes and the immigration line during the transit was short. So I made it to my connected flight. The last one was delayed for 25 minutes but I couldn’t care because that was to my final destination. Sorry for the people who missed their connection🙌.

Once on my way home, I felt that it was nice to be back: the structured chaos, the beach, the concrete jungle… for 1 day only😳. My heat rash returned within 24 hours.

Therefore, changes in directions and destinations are coming up! On to the next adventure💫🤿🌴.

With love 💜 & light✨,
littlemissyoga

P.S.: I got a refund for my delayed flight! Thank you, Air Asia🙏!
P.P.S.: Spent that money already on another flight with Air Asia😝

My first week@Polwaththa Eco-Lodges, Sri Lanka

I got here on January 3, by train from Colombo to Kandy, with the bus from Kandy to Digana and then with a tuktuk to Polwaththa. The sign says ‘steep climb’ when you got to the road and definitely, it is a steep climb! The tuktuk had a hard time to concur the steep climb, but he managed it! A few days later I walked that path, man, it was a hard climb. I think it is just 1 kilometer, it took me 15 minutes! I was even sweating, and I just walked, didn’t even run! A good workout, let’s say that.

I got a bit upset when I heard that I was finally about to teach at the 11th. But now, writing this, I am quite happy with this. I got some more days off, practiced yoga, explored the environment a bit, prepared a bit for the retreat, joined Silvia’s classes, relaxed a bit as well 😉. We first had to share a room, but that didn’t work out. I am an early bird, she slept until late (well… until 6.25am, then she had to hurry up to be in time for the class, 6.45am 😉). The first night in that room was strange, I woke up (actually I had a lucid dream); someone sat on me and was trying to choke me (sleep paralyses, black entities, had it before). It is always a struggle to wake up from that ‘dream’ cause you can’t move, that entity is taking over your body. I finally managed to wake up, fell back asleep after half an hour. Silvia hadn’t noticed a thing, luckily, but I had to tell her. She cleansed the room the next day; I slept like a baby, but she couldn’t sleep anymore. Also the next night. We asked for separate rooms, luckily they had rooms left. She slept better, I slept worse the first night in the new room. But now, everything is ok. I got used to all the sounds and dropping twigs, leaves ore jumping squirrels on the roof 😊.

07/01/2020 Trekking: Dotalugala – 1407meters – leeches!
This day I went on a trekking with Shylo, a lady from the US, she was here with her close friend, who was sick unfortunately, so she couldn’t join us. We left at 9am, lunch box (noodles and veggies) in our rucksack. Namal was our guide, he is a good guide and knows so much about birds, he is more or less a bird spotter! If I had do the tour it would be something like: ‘this is a big tree and this a small tree. This tree has bi leaves, that one has no leaves. And this is a plant with pink flowers, that plant smells good. And there is a big bird, and over there… sat a bird, but now it had flown away…. A terrible guide I would be 😉. Next to birds, plants, trees and mosquitos we saw salamanders, lizards and a big iguana crossing the road on our way back. The tuktuk drive towards this spot took about 45 minutes, good moment to talk. The walk itself was 12 km’s, 4,5km to the top of the mountain and 4,5 back, 3km to see another viewpoint (all over the Knuckels area, a group of mountains more or less in central Sri Lanka). The trekking was a medium one, Shylo and I (and Namal as well) found it very easy. Namal was just wearing flipflops, we had our hiking boots and sexy socks, to prevent us from the leeches (for the Dutchies: bloedzuigertjes). And also a spray with a mixture of water and Dettol to scare these little creepy worms away (it really worked). The funniest thing is the way these little creatures are moving themselves. Like a guenon (stokstaartje), looking up to this victim, then throws himself on your shoe (or herself, I couldn’t see any difference between the sexes 😉) and then it tries to make its way to your leg or feet, to suck your blood. Luckily for us, no leeches had reached our feet or legs, thanks to the sexy socks. The lunch we had was noodles and vegetables and some fresh water from above…it started to rain quite hard just at the moment we were starting our lunch. Another nice experience 😊. The rain lasted for 15 minutes, the sun started to shine afterwards, we dried quickly and continued our trip. On the last part there was a whole crew to shoot some kind of movie, we asked them to join them but they were not amused… so, no 15 minutes of fame for me 😉. On the way back I did some shoppings (local snacks and incense sticks), I took a shower and sat back and relaxed.

08/01/2020: Another day off
A good day to walk around and explore the area. Well, yeah, I got lost. I walked a long way up, not to steep and after almost 1 hour I discovered that there was no T-junction or intersection where I could go left or right to create a loop. I checked Google maps, and it says: 7.3 kms… 1 hour and 45 minutes… that means: uphill and downhill roads. Ok… well, challenge accepted! It was a nice walk! I saw a lot of the beautiful environment.  Walking in the jungle is nice as well, but you see only trees,  plants and spiderwebs (do you know that feeling that you got them in your face all the time? Welcome to the jungle😉). The view of the rice paddies, hills and some small villages was therefore extra nice. Sometimes Google is not really reliable… I almost got to my ‘home’ and suddenly it says: 3 kms, go back. Go back? No way, I was almost there, just another 1 km… but I didn’t know wether I had to left or right at that T-junction. And suddenly I heard: Hi hi, you need tuktuk? Oh no, another tuktuk driver… the man repeated: you need tuktuk? You yogateacher Polwaththa. What?? Yes, that’s me! It was VJ, one of the employees who was on his way to Polwaththa! My life saver! Also because that last part is so steep to climb up! Man, I felt so happy! I was also lucky that I wore my hiking boots, if I had to do this all on flipflops… I would have taken a tuktuk from the moment Google said: 7.3kms 😉

09/01/2020: A short trip to civilisation!?
Today, after my self-practice Nella asked us to join her to walk to Digana, the small city close by. Silvia, Nella and I, we walked down through the jungle (short cut) to the bus station. We had plans to walk all the way, but time was ticking, so we decided to take the bus. I asked to buy some candles and also some muesli, to put over the fruits. Even though the breakfast is great, it is a bit boring already. The pancakes and milk rice are too sweet (which I like sometimes, but not all the time), the typical Sri Lankan breakfast is not my type of breakfast (it is a curry with stringhoppers (a kind of noodles), quite savory, I prefer a bit sweet in the morning), I don’t want to eat eggs (but I think I have to, because I feel less energized, because there are barely vegan replacements here such as legumes, tofu, nuts), so I thought: muesli on top of my fruit gives me some fibres and stuffing. I didn’t expect that muesli and rolled oats were that expensive and it is not even the real muesli, it looks more like cornflakes. Anyway, it is a bit more bite in the morning 😊. Silvia and I didn’t want to go in the first place, but there was no electricity, so no Wifi. We both needed Wifi to work on our laptops… then shopping is a good alternative. Normally, the powercut is just a few hours, this one lasted the whole day. It was because they were cutting the branches of the trees and it is a policy to switch off the electricity so no one gets electrocuted. The power was back around 6pm, the time that it becomes dark here.

Before we jumped on the bus to Digana, we went to the weaving ladies. They are making sarongs and saris, completely handwoven. 3,300 rupees for a sari (circa €16,50) and 1,600 rupees for a sarong (almost € 8). Really cheap it you think about how many hours it takes to makes these clothes. If someone is interested, I can take some pictues of the sarongs and saris and send it to you (my backpack is too full to take it with me all the time).

The shopping in Digana was just for 1 hour, it was enough, this trip to civilisation (I don’t know if it is more civilised than the life in the jungle 😉). We found what we needed, and we were just waiting in the bus back home, when Nella called her son; he was in Digana by car, he picked us up and we drove back altogether. Yeah, no uphill climb for us (woohoo!!).

Oopsie… again quite a long blog. That’s my problem, once I start writing, I keep on going. Maybe I can start writing a book 😉. Or creating an E-book, you just have to listen while you continue your other things 😉. The next blog will be posted soon 😊. And feel free to comment on the blog, I really appreciate that 😊😊!

💜💚 With love 💜💚   
littlemissyoga