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Published: January 22nd 2009
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Hi friends,
it's been almost three years since my last entry, but after my first trip to Southeast Asia I decided to let you participate in my experiences with some nice impressions. I'm glad if you enjoy them and happy if you make comments and let me also know how you do and where you are right now.
So let's begin...
On 10th of December my Cousin Benni arrived from Stockholm to Munich. Since we both wanted to have an adventurous, but also a relaxed month in Southeast Asia we needed to leave some ballast. Then we headed next morning towards Malaysia, but with a seven hour stop-over in Abu Dhabi. Since I have friends in Dubai, we decided spontaneously to visit them and it became a fun night to remember. After that we almost missed our flight to Kuala Lumpur (KL), but we made it right in time...typical Persians!
Finally we arrived in KL 12th of December. First nice feeling: we can get rid of all our warm clothes and walk around relaxed in t-shirts. It took us one hour to the city center where my mothers place was at that time. KL is a nice and clean
Preparations
Before you start a backpacking tour you should get rid of ballast city, but not very interesting when it comes to sight-seeing. The only remarkable thing were the Hindu temples in the Batu Cave close to the city, which I really enjoyed. We knew that in advance so we stayed in KL only two days, since we wanted to explore the beautiful island of Borneo. So in KL we were more interested in the way of life. People live very relaxed, although there is quite a lot of traffic in the city center you don't see people being stressed. Malaysians are generally very friendly people. You see them mostly smiling. Also I met a very good friend from Germany who lives now in KL and whom I haven't seen for a while, so again nice memories of course.
But let's not stick too long to KL, 14th of December we took a flight to the Malaysian part of the island Borneo, which is divided in the areas Sabah and Sarawak. Unfortunately we just had the time to see Sabah, but it was still a precious experience. My plan was to take a scuba diving course to be able to go diving everywhere in the world. Therefore we went to a small
island called Mabul which is located 25 minutes away from the city Semporna by boat. The Island itself is quite small, you can cross it within half an hour. What was really amazing was the way of life there. The island was overcrowded by poor people living in barracks and having a lot of kids. I was prepared to see a lot of begging of these children, but there was almost nothing like that. When my cousin and I walked around everybody was just curious about us and said hello and smiled. Of course they also know that tourists are almost the only source of income, but still I sensed a natural feeling of friendliness that really impressed me.
Nevertheless I had to focus for my scuba diving course. It took me three days of studying and practice in the sea to receive my certificate. Thanks to my nice Australian diving teacher, who wanted all his students to pass the course, it was more fun than work. My reward at the end was a certificate and - more important - a beautiful diving day at one of the most attractive diving spots in the world... Sipadan Island. The island
is 20 minutes away from Mabul and differs a lot. There is only one small military base and only a limited amount of people is allowed to enter the island per day. The result is that the island keeps its natural beauty and therefore provides a breathtaking scenery above and under sea level. I was so thrilled to see iguanas, sea turtles, sharks, barracudas and a great variety of multi-colored fish. That was really a wonderful experience for me and I look forward to go scuba diving again in other places of the world.
Next day we continued traveling and went to Sandakan. From there we booked a three-day trip straight into the tropical rain forest of Borneo. A boat picked us up to take us on the river Kinabatang to the jungle camp. It was an extreme contrast to my diving experience. Now I was in the middle of the jungle, it was rainy, muddy and full of mosquitos ready to suck my blood - those bastards! But believe it or not, it was a great experience again. You just need the right preparation and then it's fun. Our guides were very well educated. They showed us snakes,
spiders, alligators, leeches and Proboscis monkeys, which can only be found in Borneo. The concept of that company is really nice, because they try to keep everything as simple as possible, so that they don't have such a negative influence on nature. If you ever want to try it check it out on www.uncletan.com
After the jungle we arrived in the biggest city of Sabah - Kota Kinabalu. Not very big, but it had its own charme. We met very nice people there, e.g. two cover bands from the Philippines. They invited us to see their show. It was amazing, such a passion for music, such a variety of different songs and incredibly strong voices. Music was truly in their blood. I found out that Karaoke is originally not from Japan, but from the Philippines, which then really made sense to me.
Next Adventure: My cousin Benni (that ass :-)) made me climb the highest mountain of Southeast Asia - Mount Kinabalu. It was a 24 hour trip. Within that time we had to climb 3,000 m high in a distance of 8 km AND BACK!!! Benni was so ambitious to set a new record in climbing and
we were pretty good in time our guide told us. But the price was, that we arrived very exhausted at the rest house 800 m before the peak. I had a horrible headache at that height and just wanted to sleep. At 02:00 a.m. in the morning we started to climb to the peak again. Again we were very fast and I exceeded my physical limits. My heart was pumping like hell and I was sweating like a pig. Finally we reached the top at 04:30 a.m. It was freezing cold and we had to wait half an hour until sunrise. Exhausted, sweating and freezing: not a good combination I can tell. Therefore we really enjoyed the sunlight, that began to warm us up more more every minute. After one hour we started walking downhill. I thought the worst was over, now it should be easy to go back...I think I was never more WRONG than this! Half way down I suddenly felt muscles that I never know existed - right above the knees. Every 100 m down those muscles felt more painful and tired. The brakes that I had to take became longer and longer and the last kilometer
Traffic in Kuala Lumpur
...nothing compared to Hanoi and Saigon I was wishing and praying for helicopters to pick me up :-)) At the end I was walking like an 80-year old. I could not bend my knees at all. You can imagine how much I cursed my cousin making me do this... Fortunately he felt the same pain. We both felt the worst muscle soreness FIVE FULL DAYS which lasted until the first days of our next destination - Vietnam.
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beniblanco
Ben
pssst,,.,,
nice blog,,,,,and oh! I'm glad I let you discover some muscles in your body that has diminished because of excessive use of alcohol in events like the Octoberfest. Look forward to part 2,,, asshole!