Around the world » Malaysia

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

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

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!

Mulu act 2

sarah — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:31:51 +0000

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 guide head…), a moon rat which was pretty cool (all white with fur), walking sticks, frog, cockroaches (beuh) and lots a insects!

The next morning we went for a canopy walk at 7 am, supposedly the best time to see some mammals! The canopy are actually bridges at 20-30 ms high between trees. . And that was really nice. We weren’t that lucky regarding the animal side…that all right, once again this is part of the game. In the late morning, we went for a self guided walk to another cave! On the way we saw quite a lot of crazy insects! Mantis, dragon flies and lots of colourful macro things..

The Pinnacles

Bérna — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:27:54 +0000

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 a 3 days trip (well it could be done in 2). The First day we left Mulu HQ by boat and stopped to visit Wind Cave and Clearwater cave 170km

Mulu

Bérna — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:27:33 +0000