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Published: February 5th 2011
One of the 'crews' in KL...
Just so you know I have managed to make some friends.So to pick up on the complaining that I was doing at the termination of the last blog update, I arrived in Malaysia one whole day later than planned due to a flight cancellation, which was a poor start to proceedings in the South East Asian region, but things soon started to look up! Having arrived at my uber-low budget accommodation, which it has to be said was a dead ringer for the archetypal 'crack den' (it seriously looked like that flat they all get wasted in in 'Trainspotting', just with a colossal extension and a much heavier populace of heroin addicts), I settled in nicely and got chatting away to a few of my fellow bag heads. This was actually quite a relief as communication with other human beings was something for which I had craving, having spent a large proportion of my time in Nepal traveling solo. In addition to that, alcohol was rather pricey in Nepal (and even I'm not sad enough to sit there in a bar getting pissed on my own. Although admittedly, I did briefly experiment with the idea), and so my the majority of my time in Kuala Lumpur, which was my first stop,
The best thing I saw in the many visits to KL
The gospel of Partridge has made it all the way to South East Asia!! was spent drinking and bantering with fellow traveling types of all ages and races. Out of four nights that were spent there, three consisted of drinking heavily and regretting it the day after. Despite this alcohol abuse however, I did manage to get out and get a few things done. Unfortunately this often consisted of traipsing through shopping complexes that looked exactly like the Trafford Centre, something I obviously didn't need to travel this far to see! One activity that was carried out was visiting a cave complex on the outskirts of KL known as 'Batu Caves' but the cave that sounded amazing beyond belief, like something that you would see on 'Planet Earth', you obviously needed a special permit to see! Other than that I got some way to the top of two of the cities tallest buildings, the Petronas Towers and Menara KL in order to get some panoramic views of the city, then decided to move on...
After the traffic and humidity of KL, I headed to the somewhat cooler region of the Cameron Highlands. This particular region was a bit too quiet for me though, and after spending a day there seeing what the region
Properly robed up...
for a visit to Malaysia's National Mosque. had to offer, which was basically a lot of trekking (of which I had had more than enough in Nepal!), and tea plantations, I decided to head further north. Subconsciously however, this swift departure may have been due to the fact that I was the subject of one of the most outrageous slips in human history whilst on the aforementioned tour. Anyone who slips on their arse whilst casually walking through a seemingly harmless woodland area is going to look like a big enough idiot anyway, but I went all out. Instead of simply slipping, I happened to do it next to some enormous chasm at the side of a bridge, so didn't just fall over, I slipped and spun round and to anyone who was stood behind me watching (and much to my dismay there was a fairly sizable audience), it looked as though I was being swallowed by a hole that had just opened in the earth. In all seriousness I must have been falling for a good 4 seconds, the duration of which my life was flashing before my eyes, and when I finally came to a standstill I could see nothing but pairs of feet, one
Security guard at Batu Caves...
probably best not to mess with this guy. of which belonged to a helpful Australian chap I had befriended earlier that day, who rushed in my direction to haul me back towards ground level, and as he did so the fear in his eyes told it's own story. He thought I was done for. So having lost one of my nine lives and skipping round the rest of that day as my feet were burning thanks to their recent meeting with the Earths outer core, I decided to head to the Malaysia's northern islands before I could embarrass myself any further.
The first stop 'up north' was Pulau Penang, which is an island that is famous for being an important British port back in the colonial days, so the first part of my time was spent being a good history student and exploring museums and vital colonial sites such as 'Fort Cornwallis'. Exciting. That kind of thing can only keep you engaged for so long so on the second day me and my cronies (by this point I was doing my part for the harmony of EU relations by traveling with two other guys, one Dutch one French) set out to admire some wildlife at the botanical
gardens, the highlight of which was sitting for about 20 minutes admiring the playfulness of a posse of monkeys, who were much more adorable and agreeable than the macaques that you seem to see everywhere in Asia that try to attack you if you get to close to them in an attempt to give you rabies as punishment! After this we headed to Kek Lok Si temple, which we weren't aware when we set off was a contender for biggest temple in the world, it looked more like a skyscraper!
After a couple of days here we were heading to another island, Pulau Langkawi, and it was on the journey here that I discovered first hand I was a sufferer of sea sickness, the trauma I went through on this journey possibly topping anything that I had the misfortune to endure whilst in India, and that is saying something!! However, once we had arrived on Langkawi this was but a distant memory as the island was gorgeous, and this was the first time in the three months since I had set off that I had actually felt like I was on holiday. The days were spent relaxing on beaches soaking
Menara KL...
at 421 meters in height, surely the world's biggest sex toy? up the perfect weather (not for too long though, and not without a generous lathering of factor 30, for an albino like me cannot hack that quantity of heat and UV rays for too lengthy a period!), and if we got bored with one we just head to a different part of the island to discover a different beach, equally as nice, often even quieter that the last. And the nights were spent taking full and shameless advantage of the fact that Langkawi is one of the cheapest places in the entirety of Malaysia to consume alcohol as there is no tax on any alcoholic beverage of any kind! However I was usually early to flake out on these escapades as we always ultimately ended up in a bar playing nothing but ragga music which is a genre that does nothing for me and frankly gets right on my tits. Still struggling to find any dirty techno dens in this part of Asia...
Once my hair had been well and truly let down, I separated from the rest of my short lived Pan-European triumvirate and headed solo to Melaka in the south of the peninsular, for a day rolling
Petronas Towers at nightime...
Impressive modern architecture. around another vestige of colonialism, this time one vital to Dutch history. Once this was out of the way, sick of touring European colonial sites, I headed back to KL to hop onto a flight over to Malaysian Borneo in order to see what Malaysia's 'wildlife' scene was offering.
I initially headed over to the east side of the island in order to visit the world famous orangutan sanctuary at Sepilok. This was a tad disappointing however as you basically just go to watch them at feeding time and the platform where all the action happens is a bit too far away to properly be able to see what is going on, but as you shall see this disappointment would be canceled out within a few days anyway, so no need to dwell on that particular sore point...
After the Sepilok venture had been completed, I began to head back west down the island in order to get to the border crossing with Indonesia at Entikong on the far west side of Borneo, my first stop being Kota Kinabalu where I boarded a ferry to get to one of the lesser visited countries on my itinerary, Brunei Darussalam.
This
Woodland in the Cameron Highlands...
looks like something out of the film 'Legend'. was a place that I was advised by other people not to waste my time going to, so my arrogant, think-I-know-best attitude obviously led me there in blissful ignorance of their recommendations! It has to be admitted that there isn't as much there to keep people engaged as in most of the other places I have visited, but I am glad I went just for a couple of days of social surrealism. This is a country where it is illegal for couples who are madly in love to show any kind of affection for each other whatsoever in public, and that includes holding hands! When walking around the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, if I got bored I would simply keep my eyes peeled for people holding hands, then see how long it took for them to realise that they were breaking the law and watch whoever realised first throw the other persons hand back towards them for fear of being rounded upon by undercover police and shamefully marched 'down the station', or simply handed a severe beating!! Such a simple form of entertainment, but it passed the time. You have to feel sorry for the people in that respect though,
judging by the number of people I saw 'forget' that rule, it must be difficult for them to constantly obey said regulation. Another bit of social weirdness was the fact that the capital city wasn't really comparable to any other that I've been to. When you think of capitals, many of them such as London, New York, Bangkok, Tokyo, are 24 hour cities that never sleep. In comparison, this place and seemingly 99% of it's population was safely tucked up in bed by 10 p.m. The only people who stayed out beyond this point were those who wanted to watch that weekends Premiership action (obviously including me), and you had to do that at a food court near the river, the only place I could find still open with a TV at 10 o'clock! In addition to that, as well as hand holding, alcohol is illegal there as well! So I sat there with a handful of Bruneian football addicts, not drinking just chomping on satay, then kicked my way through the tumbleweeds stone cold sober at 12:30 a.m. And this is in the capital city. After this, I opted against heading out to the provinces as for some reason,
Look at this guy...
Too bone-idle to even 'Monkey Around'! Unbelievable. I had a funny feeling not much would be going on out there. In the daytime however I visited some seriously impressive mosques that the Sultan has had erected with the ample cash reserves at his disposal, and let me tell you he has gone to town on those badboys, the one he had built to celebrate his 25 year jubilee in particular is seriously impressive. I also spent some time exploring the water villages where a large proportion of the city's population reside, then it was time to head off, back onto Malaysian soil. One thing to note about Brunei however is that the people are incredibly nice, particularly to tourists, and I personally feel that is because they know there is very little there to warrant visiting, so they appreciate you coming to see exactly what their country has to offer.
Once back in Malaysia, I had two more things that I wanted to see before heading into Indonesia. First of all I headed to Niah caves, a limestone cave complex in which was found the oldest evidence of human occupation of South East Asia. This in itself was one of the most dangerous experiences of my
Super cute monkey...
Look at his little face!! trip so far, as you are left to your own devices without a guide and just a torch for company, to navigate your way through more than 2 kilometers of jagged rocks made slippy by rainfall and natural waterfalls. I went arse-over-tit at least twice and it was painful on both occasions, but as I said there was no-one there with me so whilst being a total disregard for health and safety, it at least saved my blushes! The danger element actually made it more exciting, as you had to navigate you're way through some fairly small caves and crevasses, plus doing it by nothing more than torchlight made it feel very 'Indiana Jones', such was the layout of the caves! Once this was taken care of I headed down to Kuching, to visit another orangutan sanctuary. This more than made up for the mild disappointment of Sepilok, as entry to this sanctuary was around 1/15th of the price, and it was miles better!! Information that would have been much more useful to me before I headed all the way over to Sepilok! The orangutan sanctuary at Kuching allowed you to get much better views of what the animals were
Proper weird tree...
at the botanical gardens on Pulau Penang. actually doing, one of the viewing platforms, luckily where most of them chose to congregate, was only 10 to 5 yards away from where we were stood, and there seemed to be a heavier volume of orangutans within this compound as well, so all in all it was much more enjoyable, and cost a fraction of the price of Sepilok!
So, once that was out of the way, all that was left for me to do was to get on board a coach and head for the Indonesian side of Borneo with the intention of skipping across several islands of the world's largest archipelago, and that is from whence the next installment of this rapidly unfolding epic will be coming at you from....
Until that time comes, take care my friends!!!
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Envious of Horwich
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knowing macaques knowing you ah aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
how do Ryan, Another great blog entry, informative as ever and it's always good to have a large pictorial section to supplement the script. it's a fact that macaques are the anti social tearaways of monkey society and best avoided wherever possible, I vaguely remember David Attenborough making a comment along those lines, (or he might have just said that they were nasty little buggers) same difference really i suppose. Orangutans however are a totally different cup o tea, the old man of the forest! chilled out and laid back, a real gent of the animal kingdom, bit lazy mind but you cant have everything. It's good to see that you are spending time travelling with other people, and that you are striving to promote pan European cooperation wherever possible, it seems that you are still really enjoying your travels, so keep the blog going so that we can keep up with whats going on. In closing remember stay safe, keep well, and never forget to keep your feet on the ground! particularly when walking next to enormous chasm's at the side of bridges. Look forward to the next instalment take care!!!!!!!! Love Dad x