Day 3 Friday

Another day starts with us hanging around  Kuala Lumpur airport.  Mr Nasser of Royal Brunei Airlines has apologised profusely for the problems we have encountered, promised us that our luggage will definitely be put on a plane to Kota Kinabalu as soon as it arrives from Dubai and sent directly to the hotel and also that we shall all have 120 rinngits (£60) to buy essentials while we wait for our cases.  The plane takes off at 10.30am, 30 minutes late.  When we arrive in Kota Kinabalu and are met by Will, she tells us that we are not going to the hotel after all but that we have couple of hours to kill before catching another plane to Sandarkan on the east coast of Borneo.  We are a bit vexed as we will miss the all inclusive day at the 5 star hotel in Kota Kinabalu but we are all like the walking dead by now.  Our feet and ankles are like elephant's legs and we have been wearing the same underwear for 3 days.  Flies are starting to circle round us.  We go down to a small shopping mall to kill time and find a Clark's shoe shop, a Mango, Body Shop, Starbucks, you could have been at Westfield.

Back at the airport and Lynn has become like a professional airport checker.  She is giving points for cleanliness of loos, customer service and quality of free meals from the vouchers we keep getting.  Nul point for Delice de France for allowing us just a cup of coffee for our breakfast voucher.  But we did find an interesting shop selling Birds' Nests and big black things, both great delicacies.

The flight is due to depart at 6.35pm.  Lynn shoots off for a quick comfort break but forgets the time and pops into a shop selling Swarovski jewellery. I am left with all our hand luggage at the desk, everyone else has boarded.  The man at the desk is flapping and asks if my friend is coming, then dashes out to speak to the crew.  Lynn strolls up oblivious and we board at 6.34pm

So here we are, on a small plane with propellers, flying over the rainforest in the dark.  Cynthia, who looks like a jolly Buddha, meets us at the airport and takes us to the hotel.  It is fantastic, so is the outdoor buffet, the rooms, the pool, the Tiger beer, well, everything.  It's all going to be ok.

Day 2 Thursday

I don't know what happened to this day.  It's just a blur of departure lounges, planing and de-planing, trying to sleep, eating to relieve the boredom.  I do remember buying a deodorant at  Body Shop which cost me one week's pension.

Our journey begins

Day 1. Wednesday 12th March 2014

I thought to myself, don't make the same mistake as last time when I left bringing  my case downstairs until 30 minutes before the taxi arrived and the handle fell off when I did.  So I had it ready the night before.  In fact I was congratulating myself on being so proactive and having just a few last minute jobs to do this morning.  I went to set the boiler on to low and saw that the pressure had gone down.  Why?  Well never mind I will just top it up for the time being.  Couldn't remember how though, so I spent some precious time googling and you tubing until I found out how.  Sorted, so now I will just pop up to the bathroom to put my face on, a big job.  What's all that water on the floor?  The radiator had just decided to leak.  x*!*x*!  or words to that effect.  Luckily I do know how to tighten a nut but I could have done without the stress of a last minute plumbing job at this moment in time.

Still, I am ready when Lynn arrives.  As I lock the front door I think, " Right well I'm out of the front door, the holiday starts here".  Lynn is all of a dither.  They've just telephoned the driver to say that our flight has been cancelled and we are flying an hour earlier, from a different terminal on a different airline to Dubai.  What?  We assume that we will be met at Heathrow by a courier with replacement tickets but that's all we know.  My shoulders and neck start seizing up again.

At Heathrow we are indeed met by Ernie who met me on my trip to Nepal.  He was useless then and had not changed much except that he now looked more like 91.  We were told to wait here, sit there, queue there and still no tickets.  So we went to the Emirates desk to find out why we weren't on the passenger list.  There were quite a few passengers in the same situation as us, equally baffled but a nice gentleman took our passports to a desk to sort it out for us. That was good until a small foreign person with a bag bigger than him and a large flat screen TV set on his trolley went straight to the front of the queue.  I was hoping it was a brief query as I don't like to lose my rag too quickly but he started semi shouting about the cost of extra luggage charges,  I proceeded calmly to the front of the queue myself, apologising as I went and explained the situation to the person.  We and many others have been waiting for some time for attention and it was a tad unfair of him to push in.  He gave me a baleful stare and said he needed to sort out his luggage urgently.  My riposte was, that  in   this   country   we   queue, it's what we do in these situations.  He then went off into his own language so I couldn't compete, other than slap him .  So I glared as hard as I could.

Eventually we got our passports back and went to pick up our tickets at the check in, went through security and found a coffee shop.  30 minutes later we were heading for the departure gate hoping that we didn't have a seat next to queue jumping person with large TV set.  Amazingly we are now seated in the middle block of four seats with the other 2 seats empty.  So we shall be sprawling out later on.  Good selection of the latest films and a gin and tonic in front of me so I will sign off for now while I enjoy..

4am local time in Dubai and after a long walk to another terminal, we finally find the Royal Brunei desk where we are supposed to collect our onward flight tickets.  Unfortunately, this Royal Brunei flight has also been cancelled and they are trying to find other airlines to take all the onward bound passengers who are going to various final destinations.  It seems that there are no other direct flights to Brunei so we may get put on a flight going via Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.  We are not happy as we have no idea where our luggage is and the queue is not moving.  Just been told to go to the Food Court and order what you like on the house.  Will do.  Back now after huge disappointment.  We could only go to McDonalds or aTaste of India. I have not had a McDonald for at least 20 years and have no intention of starting now,  Now sitting on the floor at the deserted check in desk 5.30am.

Now 7am and we have trekked back through the airport to the original terminal where we arrived and are queuing at a new check in desk.  There is a rumour going round that we will be put on a Malaysia flight to Singapore but no one really knows.  There is no information at all and we are seriously ticked off.  Luckily there is a charming and entertaining Bruneian man next to us in the queue but even he is getting a bit fed up.

Now 8.30am and we have tickets to Kuala Lumpur but no further.  We are told to ask at the Royal Brunei desk when we get there.  Heard that somewhere before.

Another 6 hour flight which was delayed for the Malaysian Minister of Finance and his entourage to arrive, so when we arrive in Kuala Lumpur, there is basically no point in going on to Brunei as all the onward flights to Kota Kinabalu, our final destination, are overbooked.  So we are in a hotel on the airport complex for the night and flying out direct to Kota Kinabalu tomorrow.  We have been travelling for 26 hours now and are very tired and don't know how this will affect our itinerary as the first day. Should have been the visit to the Orang-utan Sanctuary.