Respected sir/madam,
I was on a Geckos tour which included a homestay, 2 boat rides up the river to see wildlife and tree planting. I paid extra to do one night in the Eco Camp (rather than 2 nights in the homestay). Firstly, the staff stole $500 from my backpack. I have travelled extensively and never had this happen before. It happened either a) when we were tree planting or b) when we did the jungle night walk. During the tree planting I had my bag ready to go but our tour guide, Osman, told us to leave our bags on the boat. I did not feel comfortable about this but did as I was told. My bag was not locked and it was the closest to the boat driver who knew we would be away from the boat while we planted trees. During the jungle night walk I had my bag locked in a silver chest in my room at the Eco Camp. The chest was locked with a padlock the Eco Camp staff had given me so they could have come and opened it while I was doing the jungle walk.\r\n\r\nSecondly, the conditions of the bathroom/toilet/laundry in my homestay was very bad. I have roughed it around third world countries but this was slimey and smelly. There were thongs in the bathroom/toilet/laundry to use on our feet but they were slimey too. When we asked if we could use our own thongs we were told no. And the children did not use the toilet, they just peed on the floor of the bathroom (with some going on the thongs) and then threw a bit of water on it. Not sure if the adults did this too. Plus there was so much rubbish all over the ground in the village. I understand there is rubbish everywhere in Asia but you would think that a small village trying to make money from homestays would try and make the village more appealing to visitors and not have rubbish all around their houses.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately the stolen money incident dampened my whole experience in Borneo, including the way it was handled by my tour guide.\r\n\r\nMore information about this tour can be found at www.mescot.org