Blogs from Sabah, Malaysia, Asia

It is time for another small update from our experiences in Asia. After fantastic experiences in the nature of Borneo, we finished off with two days in Kota Kinabalu. Once again we found the fantastic roti canai in the Indian restaurants. We had nice shopping centers, where we enjoyed a nice trip to the cinema in air condition. The movie “Side effect” is highly recommended. As an end to our Borneo chapter we had to make a visit to the Tunku Abdul Rahman Nationalpark which consists of a few idyllic islands with some decent snorkeling opportunities. On the beach we briefly gave a thought to the harsh Danish winter, but fortunately we soon came back to the reality. After Borneo we had two days in Singapore. We find Singapore a great city. We enjoy walking around ... read more

Als wir in Semporna ankommen wird uns sehr schnell klar, dass es hier ausser Tauchen, nicht viel zu sehen gibt...wir haben das Pech und kommen ausgerechnet in der Zeit eines „Wasserzigeunerfestes“! Die Strassen sind vollgestopft mit Leuten, die eigentlich auf dem Wasser vor der Küste Sempornas leben. Das Fest wurde früher dazu genutzt, den jungen Männern eine passende Frau zu finden...es ist jedenfalls die Hölle los und man kommt kaum vorwärts noch rückwärts...der Müll stapelt sich in jeder Ecke und im allgeinen stinkt es einfach überall...kein Wunder, wenn man bei der Hitze einfach alles in ne Ecke pfeffert...aber wie auch immer! Wir sind ja nicht hier wegen Semporna, sondern wegen den kleinen Inseln vor Küste. An den ersten beiden Tagen werden wir jeweils auf die kleine Insel Mabul gefahren und starten von dort aus unsere Tauchgänge. ... read more

It was a couple more hours by bus and share taxi in a bit of a large U-turn, before I arrived at Kampong Sukau. And this really was a kampong (village). I mean, I've been in some small towns in the course of my travels, but you could almost count the number of huts here, and of course, just one (narrow) road running through the place. There are a few lodges/ B&Bs here for tourists like me, but in the main town area, there was one restaurant (which was empty), a school, and two provision shops. Remarkably, there's an internet cafe too though, jam-packed with school-kids playing LAN games. Can you blame them? So why was I here? Situated along the River Kinabatangan, Sukau is one of the natural places from which to explore the wildlife ... read more

So farewell Philippines, and hello again Malaysia! Despite having spent so much time on the Peninsular side of the country, this was in fact my first step on Malaysian Borneo soil, and I am intrigued to see what the differences are compared to the mainland. I'd read much about the sweltering jungles, diverse wildlife and indigenous tribes, so I'm looking forward to exploring those the next month of so. And my first stop was Kota Kinabalu, the capital of the state of Sabah, one of just two Malaysian Borneo states. This state was somewhat in the news recently, being historically part of the Sulu sultanate. The current claimant to the throne currently lives in the Mindanao in Southern Philippines, and his loyal subjects recently launched an armed take-over attempt in Lahad Datu, a city in the ... read more

For us, uninformed and unprepaired, Borneo was one big surprise. The first thing you notice about Borneo is the most amazing sky you have ever seen. It is the most beautiful mixture of all shades of blue with different types of clouds in different layers and everytime you look up you think wow this is really something special. The second thing we realized pretty quickly was that Borneo is much more developed that we would expect and very modern and very very expensive (although the public transport between cities and touristic places is an absolute disaster that would deserve some improvement). The only two things we have planned for Borneo was to climb the famous Mount Kinabalu in the northern Sabah and to visit the Bako national park in the sourthern Sarawak state of Malaysian Borneo. ... read more