August 19,

Jeff awakened at 0300 due to being hot. Our AC had turned off! He fixed it, he thought it must be on a timing mechanism. Anyway, he was able to go back to sleep. We got up around 0700, went out on the beach and walked it. Lovely! Then went back to our place and had our Javas. We contemplated making oatmeal, but decided to go out instead. We were too warm already for oatmeal.

We got into our little Axia and went to the little “Mom & Pop” place we saw last night. It is called Cafe Santai. We parked and asked if they were open. It is a seventy year old couple . They both beamed a smile and he welcomed us to a table. He left and came back with a menu. She went into the kitchen. We looked it over and pointed to our choices. He then handed me a paper, saying he broke his glasses and couldn’t see which we wanted. I wrote down mine and Jeff wrote down his. The man took the order in and we could hear the scurrying and clatter of dishes. It probably took the lady 15-20 minutes to make our orders, but the man entertained us by feeding his lone chicken- “the other one died,” he said. Anyway, the lady brought them out together, surprising us. I had Chicken Fried Noodles and Jeff had Pattaya Rice, which is chicken fried rice covered with an omelette. Both were good, and fresh. We shared a large bottle of water, finished and paid 28 RM ($6.63).

We loaded up into our car and went a little distance to the Northern-most tip of Borneo Island. We parked and got out exploring the area. A couple had just left so we had it all to ourselves. There was a large globe-like marker proclaiming the spot. There was also a photo op spot, and a bit further there was a placard, differentiating the water to the east to be the Sulu Sea and the west to be the South China Sea. After we took some pictures we left and went back to our car. We drove to the only local grocery store, and bought some ice.

Back at our place we talked with Jeff’s sister and her husband. Then we ate some carrots and tomatoes with some salad dressing; and went for our first swim in the ocean. It was low tide and we were out quite a ways, but it was nice. It was very cloud covered and cooler than yesterday. Afternoon turned to evening.

About 1730 we went for supper, deciding on Tommy’s Place. It is like the only restaurant open in our immediate vicinity, besides a seafood one. I thought I ordered Chicken, Ginger, and Onions with rice. Jeff ordered BBQ Chicken. We got our meals at the same time, but no utensils, sauces or napkins… and no rice. We looked around but no staff members were coming, looking at us, or acknowledging us. Jeff went and found service ware for us. I went and found someone to ask about the rice – or lack thereof. A different lady than the one who took our order, looked at a computer and said, “No rice. You ordered ‘American’ style.” I didn’t, but that was okay. We ate our meals with some Lemon Iced Tea. My dish was good tasting but the chopped up chicken bones were very splintered, hard to eat, and there was a lot of bones to meat ratio. We paid 64 RM, which is $15.15. We will try the seafood place tomorrow. As we finished the sunset started. It did not seem that it would be much, so we went back to our place. As we arrived the sky began to open up with a most gorgeous sunset! This really surprised us due to all the clouds all day long. After the sunset it evolved even more spectacularly! So much color and practically half of the sky!! I thought of the song… the heavens God’s glory do declare. We sipped wine and had a few crackers as we took it in. We attempted to go out to see if we could see the stars again, but it literally started raining as we stepped out. The clouds from all day, finally fulfilled their promise. Another good day we’ve had at the Northern-most Tip of Borneo.