Good first impressions of Malaysia, clean, organised and easy to get around...but HOT! very hot! and humid! urgh! Spent a couple of days exploring Kuala Lumpur, spending a lot of time in Chinatown and Little India (cheapest areas with good food and lots of hustle and bustle!) as well as the obligatory trips to the expensive areas around the Petronas Towers - at least the trip up them is free!! Couldn't stay here too long though - too expensive! meaning we actally had to stay in a backpackers' hostel for the first time, rather than the surprisingly good cheap hotels we've been used to in Vietnam! Tried to do some shopping, but since neither us are any good at it, and since we weren't looking for Asian "fashion" (aka anything shiny), we didn't do too well!
Got our first taste of the rainforest just a few km outside KL, amazingly jungle-like considering how close we were to the city...though even more hot and humid! There was a cool canopy walkway suspended about 30m up in the trees allowing you to see the jungle from above, and also views back to the skyline of KL in the distance.
Managed to get a bit off the tourist trail by getting a random, unmarked, rickety local bus from a pretty much non-existent bus stop to a small town a couple of hours away on the coast. Stayed in a very basic A-frame "shed" in a forestry park surrounded by silvered-leaf monkeys, cheeky and tame, throwing things at the roof of our hut and trying to steal our food...and mosquitoes! The evening we arrived we went on a boat ride on the river to view some natural fairy lights...tree after tree full of tiny fireflies flashing about 3 times a second, all in time with each other...amazing, looked fake but when one flew into our boat we had to be convinced it wasn't a clever set-up! From our hut, was a series of trails through the rainforest and mangrove swamps...saw an amazing amount of wildlife in a relatively small area - loads of birdlife including egrets, herons, kingfishers, eagles and kites, 1.5m-long monitor lizards...(mating in the lake...seemed to be enjoying it - were oblivious to our presence!), loads of weird and wonderful crabs and mudskippers, a giant otter and an array of monkeys and macaques.
Next headed out to Borneo, oh my god - even hotter and more humid than KL! Convinced we were getting sunburnt even just on the 20 second walk from the plane to the terminal building! Made Kota Kinabalu (the capital of the Sabah region) our base for our visit, staying in a cool little hostel with very helpful staff. Another reason to keep returning here was to eat at the Filipino market - the day's catch barbecued fresh for you, smothered in chilli marinade and really cheap! Over the numerous visits have tried blue crab, prawns the size of lobsters, blue-spotted ray wing, whole baby squid and red snapper so fresh it still looked alive when he put it on the coals! All eaten in a sticky mess with your fingers (makes it even tastier!) on long tables on the seafront with the locals.
Spent a night on an island just off the coast of KK, it's a popular tourist spot during the day, but we hired a tent for the night and were the only people there, other than 19 locals who live at the other side of the island...and the wild bearded pigs and even bigger monitor lizards than on the peninsular! Fantastic to have a deserted beach to ourselves for the night with a bonfire and G&T! Woke up for sunrise (well, after having also woken up about 2am to move the tent cos it was raining too hard! heavy rain really is heavy here!) to enjoy the beach and some snorkelling with the pretty corals and fish before the crowds arrived.
Next went inland to Sepilok where there is an orang-utan rehabilitation centre. Tourists get to watch released orang-utans (and some of their wild-born offspring) return to an area near the centre for extra fruit and milk. Incredible to see them so close, they're so human-like, one of them has a 2month old baby who she plays with like human mothers would - apart from she could hold the baby's hands in her feet! Other young orang-utans were showing off their new-fond swinging skills to the visitors (and their parents!) and chasing away the wild macaques that come and try and steal the free food! And now Ben understands where his cousins come from...! Also visited a rainforest discovery centre near here where they have a botanical garden full of all sorts of plants endemic to Borneo, and with another canopy walkway from which we saw (and heard!) four enormous rhinoceros hornbill birds squabbling over the ladies!
From here we went further into the rainforest to the Kinbatangan River to try and find the wild version of the cuddly orange things! Sadly, we didn't spot any, but we did see a herd of rare pygmy elephants (not very pygmy - still about 8ft tall!), a crocodile, many different species of hornbills, loads of proboscis monkeys - weirdest looking animal ever - huge noses and beer bellies! All they need is a can of Stella and we understand how evolution made English football louts! Saw most of these from boats along the river, but also had jungle walks (day and night) where we saw some beautiful brightly-coloured birds (especially close at night when they were roosting, apparently not bothered by torchlight), a baby python (where was it's mother...?!), a tortoise and a scorpion - that our guide decided he should pick up and then put on Ben's arm - made him even sweatier than normal in the jungle! Thought the rain in KK came in severe downpours, but here is even worse! No chance of boat rides on a couple of occasions, and the jungle walks were mostly through mudbaths/under a foot of standing water! Sadly Kerry's camera died half way through the three day trip here, meant an exciting morning's camera shopping when we got back to KK.
Most recently have been to Mt Kinabalu National Park where happily, it's not so hot!!! Met another English couple on the bus, so shared the cost of climbing the mountain with them (one company has a monopoly on all things Kinabalu-related and charges you the earth....managed to do it cheaper than most but seems silly to have to pay so much to climb a mountain! Was definitely worth it though, was amazing and were very lucky with the weather. A pretty unrelentlessly steep climb up to a hut at 3300m from where you leave again at about 2.30am to be at the summit (4095m) for sunrise. Beautiful views over the lowlands and covering clouds made red by the sun. Was like looking out of the window of an aeroplane but with other subsidiary peaks around you. Thankfully had no problems with th altitude, or the bitterly cold winds at the top (who knew you'd want hat and gloves so close to the equator?!)...Nepal must have prepared us well! Didn't seem too bad when we got back down after a 2500m descent, so decided we'd explore some of the other trails in the park the next day - bad plan....made our legs 10 times worse!! And rained a lot too that day, have been getting used to walking with an umbrella - far too hot for waterproofs even though it's cool in comparison up there.
Now back in KK, flying out to Brisbane this evening, fingers crossed for less rain there...though have heard it may be rather hot...!
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