Took it easier today – after a leisurely breakfast, retired to a perfectly-placed sunlounger on the beach and snoozed, did some photo-editing (amazingly could get wireless on the beach!) and updated my blog. Had a refreshing dip in the sea – which was quickly terminated upon spotting an evil looking white jellyfish floating towards me!After lunch of vegetable samosas and freshly squeezed papaya juice, went for a trek in the nearby Santubong jungle. The hotel maintains 2 trails through the forest – one the shorter 2hr trek, the other a 6hr special up to the top of the mountain. I made very very certain i was following the blue (ie shorter!) trail!! Set off around 3pm, after the heat of midday had passed, but i was still dripping in sweat after about a minute!! Even though the trail was maintained by the hotel, it was still pretty hard going in places as you had to be extremely careful to pick your way through the maze of vines and creepers lining the ground. Almost fell a number of times and stubbed my toes more times than i can count, but fortunately no full-on tumbles and potential camera damage! There was one occasion where, after i had sucked my backpack dry of water and couldn’t immediately see where the trail was heading, that i wondered if it was a good idea to be out in the jungle on my own, but the moment passed as soon as i spotted the next blue splodge of paint on the marker tree. All the same, i feel i had a pretty authentic jungle trek experience – two steps away from the path on either side would have taken you some fairly deep forest. Wildlife-wise, I was resigned to not seeing much – saw some heroic sized ants, a couple of butterflies and dragonflies and got bitten on the toe by a red ant (little bugger). But then i heard some crashing in the tree-tops above me – and I caught the quickest glimpse of a silvery-white monkey swinging through the upper branches! Waited a bit to see if it would come closer but was very tough to see it from such a distance – managed to get a couple of photos (Sam – I challenge you to have got any better ones than me!!) but it was just a great experience to have spotted one in the wild. Got back to the hotel just after 6pm and relaxed in room for a bit before going back out to the beach to take pictures of an absolutely incredible sunset. Really, really stunning – very happy with my photos!! Off to Singapore tomorrow for my Epilepsy congress – will be a complete contrast!!
