Around the world » Borneo 2009

Doha

Bérna — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:43:03 +0000

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 having spent the whole day before walking around KL. Pretty tired we decided to take a cab and go downtown. Doha is a 400.000 city and it’s business district stretches along the coast of a small gulf for about 9 km. Since it was so early we decided to stop half way and then walk on the “corniche” to the “center”. Walking along the sea at 6.30 in the morning breeze was pretty enjoyable and it was interesting to see a mix of expats and typically dressed peoples making their mornings sport…
Around 8 we were getting cold (this was the first temperature shock 31->18) and went into a huge shopping mall with ice skating rink… Imagine the temperature
After some coffee and window shopping had a look around the ultra modern buildings that they are building everywhere, in fact, the feeling you get walking around the business district is that you are doing something wrong, the roads have 6 lanes, everybody moves by car and the whole thing is in construction.
A short nap on the corniche and we take a cab to the camel market. Getting there gets us through the city outskirts wich are very different to the center, here you feel that you actually are in the middle of a desert. Everything is pale yellow/gray and covered in sanddust. The market itself was cool, nothing to do with a lively asian market (probably because we’re more likely to buy a fake Billabong tshirt than a camel), foremost since the traders where not interested at all in selling us anything and happily tried to give us some information using handsigns just in case you are interested, a work/meat camel goes for 1000 to 3000 USD, racing camels for much more!
As the evening approached we tried to visit the islamic art museum wich was closed and then moved on to the impossible quest of finding the number 1 attraction of Doha, the old Bazaar. I say impossible because the map we had had a kind of bizarre variable scale. As we had almost given up we tried one last little road, and there we were, a beautifully restored city in the city with spices shops, falcons shops, restaurants, lots of locals and, yes, tourists!
After a huge iraki dinner we went back to the airport with the feeling that Doha is definetly interesting enough for a stop over, but not a 20h one
Cheers

Kuala Lumpur

Bérna — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:41:35 +0000

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, we got there around noon and started walking to china town where we wanted to buy some last original T-shirts and stuffs ;). A super veggie lunch and we’re ready for more walking, back to the bags dealer where we forgot our lonely planet… typical! Then off to little India where we buy some curry powder to take home.

Getting really tired, we decide to take the metro to go to the Petronas towers and we get there as it starts to get dark and they light the towers. Actually kitsch but pretty amazing!

A “quick” trip to the golden triangle, KL’s lively business and mall district, a Thai dinner, a last walk back to the bus station and we’re off to the airport. Mean of transport: a taxi with a driver which has no clue where the airport is… cool!

Melaka

Bérna — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:39:40 +0000

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 companies during many years. Obviously, the city was very important to European countries which successively ruled the city leaving their architectural and cultural marks. The result is a very interesting mix of Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial architecture and cuisine topped with modern day’s Chino-Malay way of living.

The centre of the town, which has been declared UNESCO world heritage site last year, boasts a gorgeous red brick complex, build between a hill and the riverside, which served as governor housing, church and city-hall.

Being the Sunday at the end of the Hari Raya Haj (?), one of the biggest Muslim festivity, the city was dressed up for a big festival with open air performances all around the old centre. After a dodgy performance by a NZ movement researcher we moved across the river, on jalan carpenter, the road where the Chinese have settled their Chinatown.

Jalan Carpenter is a bustling little road with a night market and touristy shops. As we got there the night market was being set up forcing all the people into close proximity and obligation to watch the stands, a mix of tourist gifts, food stalls and magic cleansing products sellers. And then THE highlight of the day, a real, original, straight-to-your-heart open air Chinese karaoke where elder peoples brought their favourite midi bases and sang on a huge stage!

Definitely a nice place Melaka

Singapore

Bérna — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:55:59 +0000

Leaving Borneo

Bérna — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 08:05:12 +0000

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.

Bako

Bérna — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:00:42 +0000

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

Sarawak cultural village

Bérna — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:37:36 +0000

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 for the emergency/touristy solution: the Sarawak cultural village. This is a sort of living museum (like Ballenberg in Switzerland) depicting all the indigenous etnies traditional houses, uses and costumes. Going there we were a bit skepitcal about the whole thing, but once there we were very pleased to see that the place was very tourisy but actually very interesting. we got plenty of informations about the history of Sarawak and about how people lived in the past and live nowadays in longhouses.
Further more Sarah got to see Otters for the first time!!!
So, all in all touristy but interesting

Stop shark finning

sarah — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:36:53 +0000

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 are killed every day just for their fins and then thrown dead back in the ocean. This is intolerable!

We unfortunately saw a few chinese shops selling sharks fins in Kuching! I can tell you: this feels not right! At all!

(In a slightly American way of doing things: “while you read this post (2’30”) 500 Sharks have been killed“ http://www.savingsharks.com)

Kuching

sarah — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:30:49 +0000

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! That might be because it is old… there were even a few 200 years old Chinese temples!!!! it was really pleasant (specially the chocolate waffle followed by Lebanon food).

Mulu – Miri – Bintulu – Kuching -> indecision costs time

Bérna — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:45:34 +0000

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 up doing a lot of unforseen bus travelling instead of short (and almost at same price) flights.
On the other hand, cheap flights are very restrictive regarding last minutes changements, like our Mulu-Miri flight which we would have loved to anticipate of half day so that we would make it in one day to Belaga the following day. It didn’t happen, a change would have cost more than the actual flight, so we flew to Miri as planned, spent some time at the airport and then took a bus to Bintulu. By the time we arrived, Sarah was very sick for she ate something wrong in Mulu. The day After Sarah was feeling better and we had a very though task ahead of us: plan the last 10 days of our trip. The original plan was to go to Belaga, a small comunity 150km upstream the Batang Rejang (a very large river) and then boat down to Kapit, Sibu and finally Kuching. From there fly to Singapore, then Melakka and finally Kuala Lumpur. But as I said only 10 days left and we don’t like to rush too much so we decided (after a very very mathematically complex analysis involving some 5th degree differential equations) to skip the Batang Rejang part and to leave by bus to Kuching and stay there 4 days and then fly to Singapore.
Moral of the story, sometimes if you don’t plan you end up doing 15 h of bus over 2 days instead of a 45 minutes fly
Cheers!