Gap year & Travel News

The Leap team on a visit to the Buddhist Temple

Well, here we are in Borneo after the 5th week of Leap project work and still going strong! After a week of living in Sepilok jungle experience (see the photo below of their living accommodati0n!), building bio-gas collector and all that, they continued on their journey up to Batu Puteh for 6 days. Here they stayed with local host family which made an amazing cultural experience apart from their contributions in community conservation program and wetland restoration work in the surrounding floodplain forests of Lower Kinabatangan.

Boat ride on the Kinabatangan River

A night in the rainforest sleeping in a hammock

Maurits and Max with their local Host family at Miso Walai Homestay

At the end of the program we treated them to a sightseeing tour of the War Memorial Park, Buddhist Temple and a tour of Sandakan Town, which ended with a Cultural night dance where all volunteers, staff and community participated, dressed in Malay traditional costume.

Rachel and Olivia in their Baju Kurung, a traditional Malay costume for the cultural night

The boys dressed in Traditional Malay costume

We touched base with the Leapers on Feb 4th when they arrived in KK from Batu Puteh.  We had a dinner buffet organised at the waterfront  for them. The Pizza went down pretty well after 5 weeks of rice and noodles! We spent some time with them over the weekend at Mantanani too. They are all well and happy. Mantanani is trully a tropical paradise! Everyone’s loving it but I shall update on Mantanani later part of the week. Stay tuned.

Here are some piccies I could get hold of from Olivia. They all send their regards to you. Maurits would love it if you can send pictures to his mom and to tell them that he’s doing great. They will be out of Mantanani on 3rd March.

Cheers
Mel (Borneo project Leader)