It’s been a little while since I last posted so i owe you all an update, what a whirlwind couple of months it has been and I have a smile on my face for Valentines Day, which is nice.

Our trip to Malaysia and Borneo was incredible as anyone who follows on FB will already know. We started with a couple of nights in Kuala Lumpur which was vibrant and spectacular right from the very start. Celebrating Caroline’s birthday sitting on the roof terrace of our hotel watching the light shows from the buildings and then the thunderstorm was very special. We walked a lot of miles and sweated off a good few pounds cramming as many sights and sounds into our 2 days as was possible.

Then it was another short flight across to Borneo, specifically the Malaysian region of Sabah, with our first stop being close to the orangutan rescue centre at Sepilok. Of course the baby orangutans were very cute but the spectacle of seeing the adults roaming free within a protected reserve of primary rainforest was something else. They are free to roam within the entire Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve which stretches to over 10,000 acres but those most recently rehabilitated, and a few long-timers, stick around close to the feeding stations by the rescue centre and can be seen at very close quarters twice per day.

We also visited the sun bear centre and tried to do a night safari in the rainforest discovery centre but my guts had other ideas about the wisdom of that thanks to some dodgy noodles earlier in the day.

The trip then took in 5 days of river safaris on the Kinabantangan River where we celebrated perhaps the strangest Christmas of our lives. We saw a long list of wildlife including lots of macaques and 4 of the so-called Big-5 namely Proboscis Monkey, Rhinoceros Hornbill, Estuarine Crocodile and on Christmas Day a truly wild Orangutan. Our days were spent following a rigid itinerary of river safaris and meal times and then hiding in our little air conditioned hut to escape the heat and humidity.

I’m running out of writing time and want to get this published today so will shortcut the rest of the holiday but we continued our travels around Sabah and finished the holiday with 5 days of beach time at the wonderful Gaya Island Resort where we celebrated the end of 2023, a year that has seen us make a wonderful start to our lives together and with so much to look forward to in 2024.

We celebrate our first ever valentines day together today and look forward to some amazing highlights to come this year including our first anniversary in March and weddings in April and August for family and friends. Time to get another holiday booked.