End of the Malaysia Leg and Off to Australia!

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I was still feeling a bit groggy from yesterday's illness but definitely much better, although frequent toilet trips had kept me up over night.

I had breakfast then hung about at the hostel for a while, then at 11:30 I called a Grab. It was earlier than necessary, three hours before departure and only a 20 minute drive to the airport, but there wasn't really anything better for me to do.

There is a bus to the airport, but that costs 5 ringgit and a Grab was only 10 ringgit and right from the accommodation rather than down the street. Grab in KK really is almost too easy and cheap, I haven't bothered a with a local city bus at all while here.

It was all very easy going through the airport, especially compared to budget airlines in Europe like Ryanair and Wizz, AirAsia check in was perfectly good. The self-print baggage tag machine was rather running out of ink which concerns me, but is apparently no problem. So I was through quickly and was actually at the gate two hours before scheduled departure.

There's a nice view across the runway out to sea and all the islands just off the coast. There was also one of AirAsia's relatively new (less than half a year I think since first delivery) A320NEOs although they look like same as the old A320s, NEO standing for New Engine Option.

There were all sorts of shops selling overpriced tourist tat which in the past is the sort of thing I would have bought, but it occurs to me that I haven't bought any tourist tat of that nature at all on this trip, all those lifers being the best souvenir of course!

It's a bit sad that the Malaysian leg of the trip is over, and although there are a few places that I didn't get to, I visited lots of cool places and saw loads of stuff. More than I thought I would manage. Six weeks is a long time to travel on your own though, and although there is another solo travel leg at the end of the trip, most of the next month-ish that I'm in Australia will be with various family and relatives.

So I'm off to Darwin now. When I just searched flights from Kota Kinabalu to Darwin I got all sorts of rubbish connections like going via Singapore then Perth then Darwin or even stranger things like going via the South East of Australia. All terrible routes and very expensive. There just aren't that many airlines that fly to Darwin. And those that do are generally excessively expensive. But I noticed that Jetstar Asia has a flight from Singapore to Darwin four times a week and I got that for a really good price by Darwin standards ($230 Singaporean for a one way 4hour+ flight I think it was) which is very high for that length of time on a budget airline but by far the best option to fly into Darwin. Rather conveniently, AirAsia had a flight from Kota Kinabalu to Singapore that lands 4hours and 50minutes before the Jetstar flight takes off, which is pretty good. However being two separate budget airlines that are not in any sort of alliance of course means the purchase of two entirely separate tickets so they won't check your luggage through like a normal connection and you have to go through immigration, pick up the bags, then go back through immigration and security again. It also turns out that AirAsia lands at Terminal 4 in Singapore and Jetstar goes from Terminal 1. And Terminal 4 apparently doesn't have a SkyTrain connection but it's a bus instead. And there was me thinking that AirAsia and Jetstar, two budget airlines so they'd put them around the same bit of the airport to keep the poor cattle class scum away from the proper airlines. Ah well. Assuming no delays I've easily got long enough, it's just a hassle.

So then, now that I'm done with Malaysia, here are some stats. I don't yet have my list of lifers properly sorted yet, but here's some other things based on my yearlist of mammals and birds.

The trip so far, Malaysia and a couple of days in Thailand has added 407 species new for the year and the overall species list will just be a couple higher with Tree Sparrows and Feral Pigeons and things. The mammal front though is where things really are excellent and way better than expected. So far on this trip, I've seen 93 species of mammals. 92 in Malaysia. I'm absolutely stoked with that! Some really good mammals too!

Let's see how Australia compares... I've not got as long but I will be visiting three states with a nice range of possible species.

Now the other interesting thing, my costs here in Malaysia. Because I've been travelling solo and keeping track of all my money, especially without bank cards most of the time, I know exactly how much I've spent.

Over 41 days in Malaysia, both West and East Malaysia, I have spent, to the nearest 50 ringgit RM6800. That’s approximately 1440 euros, £1270, AU$2260, or US$1680.



Divided by the 41 days, that’s an average daily spend of RM166 or 35 euros, £31, AU$55, US$41. That does not include any flights and also does not include my one domestic flight from KL to Sandakan which was a bit over RM400 if I remember correctly although I can’t find the receipt email thing. I haven’t included flights because they tend to be super variable. But those prices are absolutely everything apart from flights – all accommodation, food, activities, land transport.



I really think that’s really cheap for almost six weeks! You could probably do it for 2/3rds of the price if you were really doing everything as absolutely cheaply as possible, but I did everything fairly comfortably and paid for expensive things when I needed to. And a £31 per day cost for all accommodation, food, activities and transport is really very good considering everything I’ve done.



That’s a cost of £13.80 per mammal species or £3.12 per bird species which is of course a really dumb way to measure it and even for me with my list-heavy focus, the list is just one part of the adventure that is a solo, backpacking, wildlife-watching expedition.



I’ve got about and hour until take off now, for my journey that seems ideal for making sure I get zero sleep tonight. I land in Singapore at 5PM and take off at 11:05 and land in Darwin at 5:10 (Darwin is an hour and a half ahead. A half hour time zone, seriously Northern Territories? Just pick a side and go with it). A relatively short stay in the Northern Territories by the standards of this trip so far, just ten days, but I’m going to be packing in quite a bit.



Australia next! Of course as I will be with relatives most of the time in Australia, I won’t be able to do quite as excessive ‘I will see that animal no matter what it takes even if it damn well near kills me’ style of wildlife watching, as much as I will try, I will have a private vehicle and I will be on a considerably higher per-day budget especially in terms of the quality of accommodation.



The trip is certainly no where near over though, and the wildlife sightings are most definitely not either.

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