Around the world

Tell me a word with q not followed by u!? What about Qatar? It can save you in a scrabble game (ask Sally;) Well, on our way back we decided to have a 20h stop over in Doha, Qatar’s capital and (almost) only city. We arrived from Kuala Lumpur at 6.00 in the morning after […]

Last day in Malaysia, pity the trip is already almost over ahead of us just two nights in the plane , 20 hours in Qatar and then snow. But back to KL, the biggest city in Malaysia, the place of the Petronas towers and shopping malls… a hard day indeed, with a lot of walking, […]

since we hadn’t done much “cultural” (as in humanistic discipline) during the whole month, we though that Melaka would be a good place to stop on the way to KL. Indeed it was, Melaka is a small city on the Melaka straight. This strategic position made of the city a major hub for Asia trading […]

Borneo, the land of the wild, the forest and the oil palm. One month in borneo has reserved us a lot of beautiful surprises but has given us a lot to think about as well.

Our last two days on Borneo, what shall we do? Of course run to a national park for the last bits of nature full immersion. Bako national park is a costal park only half an hour from Kuching but definetly remote enough, in fact

Well, we can’t really say that our trip was a cultural trip, unles you consider seeing plenty of wildlife is a cultural activity. Since we decided to cut the batan rejang side trip to go to bako national park we had lowered the quota of cultural activity to nearly 0. So we decided to go […]

I don’t know if some of you had the chance to see a film called “Shark water” http://www.sharkwater.com but if not we encourage you to watch it! We did it a few days ago… Shark are an endangered species because chinese people (for some kind of crazy believes) eat their fins!!! so millions of sharks […]

We thought that for our first day in kuching we will just spend it walking around. Since we arrived pretty late with the bus the night before, it was a late morning start! Never mind, the town isn’t so big so we will have time! The atmosphere there was unusual, different from Miri or KK! […]

This whole trip has been kind of not super organized, I guess that it’s because we tackled it as a long trip (as the last two we dud in the americas) but 30 days is not that much and you have to plan a bit more… Nothing drammatic of course, just that you might end […]

The night shift! That was definitely one of the 10 RM we spent! Apart from the 3 Germans guys that kept speaking very loud ( the key point when you try to see the wildlife at night is to SHUT UP!) We saw snakes (yes with an s and one of them felt on our […]

The Pinnacles, the one sight I remember most (maybe the paradise bird dance – but that was in Papua New Guinea) from Planet Earth when David Attenbourgh is narrating about Borneo! What he does not tell is that they got there by helicopter and that getting there on foot involves quite a lot sweating and […]

If you have ever seen the best documentaries series ever made (BBC’s Planet Earth, which we super highly recomend) you will feel confortable with this and the next posts since we are starting the main course of our trip. Niah Caves and the Gunung Mulu national park. But first things first, today we took a […]

Ok, let’s do a bit of geo trivia: – which countries share Borneo? (easy) – which one is the richest one? (easy) – what is it’s capital name? (medium) – what is it’s ruler complete name and how much did he invest in a Country club? (hard) Got them? Here the answers: – (ordered by […]

2.am wake up call ( at least for those who slept) and let’s do the highway to the summit with 50 other persons! Good side of waiting in a jam…you are not starting too fast! After overtaking almost all of them, we make it to the top in 2 hours!! Unfortunately it is really cold […]

Well, after seeing wild Orang Utans we are not really shore if we want to go to Sepilog since it is more of a touristy thing, at the end we decide that actually, although many tourists go there, a rehabilitation centre (for injured, house pets, …) is not a zoo, and they try to make […]

Our secret goal was to spot wild orangutans…well mission accomplished! Cruising early morning on the river we even had the chance to see some proboscis monkey, silver-leave monkey, gibbons, and some gorgeous birds while trekking at night time!

Malaysia try to push 5 star resort travellers, which is really sad because lots of things are without reach of backpackers travellers. Danum Valley, Tabin Reserve and further Mont Kinabalu national park are managed by only one company that aims “wealthy” people! Nature and UNESCO world heritage should be “available” for everybody. Furthermore, backpackers allow […]

First day backpacking, but first we go shopping in Semporna, we both need shoes half an hour later Sarah is a proud owner of her first pair of pOma!!! The plan for today was to get a bas mini (mini bus) to Lahad Datu and then go to Danum Valley conservation area, unfortunately they are […]

We were so excited (event without sleep at all) to dive Sipadan and I have to say while trying to get some rest, I was thinking that to compensate this spoiled Mabul island, it must be really really really cool! Well it was…it is crazy to think that we were working only 50 min away […]

Today we left “the island” for good, it was a mix of emotion, on one hand the joy of starting a new trip, on the other the sadness of leaving back some very good persons with which we spent a lot of time while here on the island. It was very touching seeing all the […]

Here Some Great pictureso of the diving around PomPom Island:

So, sitting in the internet room today I was wondering about efficency, It is a well known thing that swiss tend to be on the maniacal side of efficency, but even for me, a laid back ticinese (means from south switzerland -> with all the mediterranean implications) some things just can’t be right… Imagine sitting […]

hello, I’ve been kind of lazy this days, you might think, but I haven’t at allll… In fact I’ve been very very active reparing my laptop wich apparently doesn’t like hot climates at all. Not big news actually since it ran super hot the all winter back home. well, apparently now I got it fixed […]

So,  It has been a week from when Sarah and I were still renewing our (now awesome) apartment in Sagogn and now I’m living on a semi-tiny Island east of Semporna (Sabah, Malaysia). The island is about 30minutes around (that’s what people tell me, I haven’t  done it yet, but tomorrow I will ) and […]

Hello from the island! Finally yesterday I got on the island, after a long day waiting for the boat to get me here, I can now see myself how it looks like. It is actually veeery beautiful! today I got to do my first two dives and to guide a snorkeling trip. Very cool, I […]

Hi all, just a quick note that I Smoothly landed on Borneo after 3 flights and 19 hours of sitting… Right now I’m in Tawau and tomorrow I’ll go to pompom island (2h bus+boat). Tonite I went for chinese food with a chinese-malay guy from pompom and he ordered steamed prawns with sabah vegetables… Yummmmy […]