Hanging round Malaysia and Brunei

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Hello again,

So I left it a bit of a secret of where I was off to after Palau, if you read the title already, you can see that I went to Malaysia with a quick little stop in Brunei (just to say I've been there).

After spending a couple extra days in Manila I flew to Kota Kinabalu, KK as its known as. It was a nice change from manic Manila to come to a place with roughly 200,000 people. It was also my first Muslim country that I visited on this trip, and I think ever.

What can I tell you? Its a nice country, nice people, and lots of pimped out cars.

After a night in KK, I hopped on a night bus to Semporna. Its on the east coast of Borneo Malaysia where theres some nice diving. Now usually on these night buses in Asia the bus company puts on a movie for its customers to pass time. We were treated to Dead Snow, a very gruesome Norwegian Nazi zombie movie. Now while watching one of the main characters dangling over a cliff and holding onto a Nazi zombies intestines, I found it funny that not only was I the only white guy on the bus, but I was pretty sure I was the only one who didn't need to read the subtitles. Ah, the little things in life.

After a nearly sleepless night on the bus I was in Semporna, and like Palau, after a few hours, I was on a boat out to the dive site. Now the diving was good, nice coral, some fun fish, three beautiful spotted eagle rays, and a couple big turtles chomping on some coral. During the surface interval we hung out on an island called Mataking which is inhabited by indigenous people you could say. They build their own houses, a north American style shed houses a family of six, the fish and grow their own food. Three kids, no older than 4, 6, and 8 cut open a coconut and offered it to me. Walking around, coconut in hand, Santi, my dive master from the Philippines, talked to the locals and showed me how they lived. We saw a man carving out an eight foot canoe out of a solid piece of wood; he was nearly done after over a month slowly cutting it down.

On what I thought was to be my last day there was a Muslim holiday. I forget the name but it was described as a Christmas like holiday. Everyone was dressed in beautiful and very colourful silk type clothing and kids were lighting firecrackers all throughout the day. Now I was expecting to catch an afternon bus out of there; however, there was none. So, back I trudged to my hotel with a ticket for an early morning bus to Sandankan for another night. Now I was staying in a hotel called Dragon Hotel which was considered as the #7 nicest hotel over water by some US magazine (I forget if it was Forbes, or Just Men Magazine, or what have you). Now it is quiet a beautiful hotel, its entrance is a 500 meter or so walkway over the water and then the hotel rooms, restaurant, and souvenir shop branch out from there. It's a pretty cool hotel and with it being low season still I was able to get a dorm room. No, not just a bed in it, but the whole room! Well those were the first two nights, my last night I shared my 20 bed room with two Canadians, Ida and Marisa from, where else, Vancouver.

The next day I was on the bus to Sandankan. Sandankan, according to my travel bible (Lonely Planet), used to boast one of the highest concentrations of millionaires. It's a port town; however, the ports have been pushed to the outskirts of the town to make for a decent downtown area. I found my hotel and chilled for the night (what can I say I got a decent sized flat screen and had over 100 DVDs to choose from). The next day I was off to SORC, or Sempilk Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. The Centre takes in orphaned orangutans and abandoned orangutan pets and help them readjust to life in the jungle. After medical testing (for diseases and such) they are steadily led deeper into the sanctuary and waned off human interaction and support until some are able to be released back into the wild. There are four feeding stations which lead deeper into the jungle. The first and closest is open to the public by means of a jungle boardwalk. Feeding times bring most of the monkeys out and so I was there in time for the morning feeding at 10 am. As I was leaning on the railing trying to get a couple of good photos of all the monkeys that were being fed I heard a rustling in the tree above my head. As I'm looking up and taking a step back, in curiosity, a big ol'Orangutan gracefully drops down on to the railing I had just been leaning on! Whats with me and getting almost within arms reach of wild animals? It was very cool, and I tried to get a couple of photos but the monkeys were a bit shy.

Fun fact: Orangutan means Man of the forest and comes from the Malay term Orang, meaning human, and Hutan, meaning forest.

After the Orangutans and lunch back in Sandankan, I headed to the Sandankan Memorial Park. The park is the location where the infamous death marches started. Both English and Australian troops were held under excruciating circumstances in this Japanese POW camp. With the Allies quickly advancing late in the war, the Japanese decided to use their, much malnourished, sick, and dying prisoners as pack dogs and march them 250 km to Ranau. Of the 1577 prisoners, only 6 survived. All were Aussies who escaped the marches and survived for weeks in the jungle before being rescued by locals who summoned the Allies. It was a very interesting and very peaceful place. This whole trip has been very interesting in a historical aspect since what we learn in school is so focused on Europe and not as much on Asia.

After another night in Sandankan I traveled back to KK for I had my sights set on my next stop....Brunei.

Brunei is a small country that has dwindled down to two chunks out of Borneo Malaysia. It received full independence from Britain not too long ago (1984 to be exact). It's a stricter, more Muslim country than Malaysia; for example, no alcohol is sold in the country and if you bring some in and don't declare it, oh boy are you in trouble. But it is also a nice little country with friendly and helpful people. It is also very wealthy country, money from its oil (its oil fields are apparently dwindling in size though). A 3 1/2 ferry ride to Paluan Labuan (Malaysian Island off of KK) and another hour by boat and you're in Brunei!

I was lucky enough to be sharing this adventure with 3 others: Brian from Brisbane, Emma from England, and Beth from somewhere in England (I forget). But we got to Brunei and like I said, it's a nice country. It's a lot cleaner than any of the ones I've been to on this trip, it is also a lot more stricter and follows the Muslim faith more strongly than Malaysia. Though it was not overbearing or anything by any means, it was more interesting if anything. Mosques ruled the spiritual buildings and you couldn't find beer if your life depended on it, but other than that, it was like most places. People, buildings, museums, places to see, people to meet. Its capital is Bandar Seri Begawan, BSB for short, and due to my short time here I didn't venture far from it.

First night we took it easy, had dinner and checked out the Omar Saifuddien Mosque ($5 million USD). Truly beautiful at night as it has a man made lagoon surrounding part of it. As you can tell from the picture, on a clear night its beautiful. We stayed in a cheap $35/night hotel. Yeah, Brunei is expensive. Brian left early the next morning to carry on to Miri, in the Sarawak part of Malaysia. So me and the Brits went on a ferry run up to some town I don't remember the name of, now this town didn't really have anything. We just went for a cup of coffee and then back down, but the boat ride through the vein like rivers were cool. After that we lost Emma who also went on with her travels but Beth and I had a couple of sights still to see.

The first was the Royal Regalia Museum. Simply put, it was a museum featuring all the gifts the Sultan has received over the years. Canada was represented by good ol Jean Chretien. He gave the Sultan an Inuit Walrus statue, which was nice. Bit more unique than all the knives, plaques, paintings, pots, and silverware he got from other nations. The museum also had uniforms and chariots used during his coronation. After the museum we hopped on a bus and headed to the Empire hotel and Country Club.

Now why would we be going to a hotel when sightseeing? Well, it was the Sultans younger brothers creation if I have my facts straight and rumoured to have cost $1 billion (with a B) USD to build.
So it's worth a look I figured, but the bus dropped us off at the highway exit before the hotel, so after a 25 mins trek on the side of the highway we made it to the hotel. Now two backpackers walking into a plush hotel? We figured we were going to be denied at the gate... but nope, we were welcomed in and even had a golf cart come and pick us up! Yeah, it's that big. Lets go through some of the details of this place besides the price tag, it has: a convention a centre, a cinema, theatre, an 18 hole Jack Nicklaus Golf Course (with country club attached), five restaurants, a couple of beaches and a giant pool. We quickly understood how the price tag got so high after exploring the place. We decided to splurge on dinner there and had a five course all you could eat buffet. Stuffed, happy, and tired, we went back and crashed (after getting a Mercedes taxi ride back since the buses stopped running).

The next day I parted ways with the last of my Brunei travel buddies and headed back to KK since I was on my way to KL. A short flight the next night to KL and I realized my trip is nearing its end of sorts. After my short stop in KL Im off to visit the sis in Australia and celebrate Christmas there. Nothing too exciting so this might be the last blog.

But first I had to see what KL is all about. I arrived at 1:30 am, checked into Green Hut Hostel at 2:30 am, and this time there was no diving in the morning so I slept in, it was nice. Now, Kuala Lumpur (or KL as its known as) reminds me a bit of Bangkok but way, way, waaay nicer. Cleaner, smaller (1.5 million people), and kinder (less hassling to make you buy stuff), KL is a mixing pot of Asian ethnicities; Indian, Chinese, Thai, Filipino, Japanese, Indonesian, African, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, everyone seems to be represented in KL. As you're walking through the markets of Little India, Chinatown, or the malls in the Golden Triangle you can see the full variety of the people and where they're from.

My first tourist stop was the Kuala Lumpur Tower, a 335 meter tall radio tower with amazing panoramic views of the city, I made sure to snap a few photos. It was a bit pricey at 38 Ringits ($1cdn = ~3 Ringits) but I did get to try out an F1 simulator and a small (and a bit depressing) zoo with the tower ticket. Later that night I walked down to Little India for its night market. Stalls lined the streets with vendors selling sunglasses, watches, wallets, handbags, food, dvds, jeans, t-shirts, souvenirs, small trinkets, food, and more food. The crazy sight of hundreds of stalls and hundreds more people bustling around was quiet fun and the smells enticing so I had dinner there.

The next day I went to the limestone hills a few clicks away from downtown to Batu Caves which is a Hindu shrine. Millions of Hindus make a yearly pilgrimage to these caves during Thaipusam. Its a steep 272 step climb but the caves are pretty interesting and have a lot of information about the Hindu religion. There were also a lot of Cynomolgus monkeys hanging around (luckily not the biting ones)! After heading back to the city I was dropped off in Chinatown where I explored their markets. Like Little India, it was crowded, same variety of stuff for sale, and good food.

My final full day in KL I played true tourist and went on the citys hop-on, hop-off bus. A nice way to see the city and not have to worry about commuting as buses come around to each of the 22 stops every half hour. I saw the Colonial part of KL (from the days of British rule, Malaysia received full independence 1957). I also went to a butterfly ... place, I can really call it a sanctuary or zoo. It was alright, but not too exciting. I also stopped by KLs famous Petronas Twin Towers. The twin 452 meter tall towers have a famous skybridge, no, I did not get to walk across it. Free tickets are released every morning and its on a first come, first serve basis. I was not up for the required 6 am wake up call to get the tickets. I justified it by having already seen the city landscape from the KL tower (which is taller and has a panoramic view). So I carried on to the Golden Triangle and saw their business district.

That night I met a Dutch couple and shot the breeze over some beers. Roger and Annika were very cool people and before we knew it it was 3 am and we were sitting outside with a Malaysian guy and 2 Syrian guys with a hooka. Very nice guys and through their photos, videos (on their cellphone), and stories, I am now intrigued to visit Syria.

My last day was spent lulling around not doing much but waiting for my flight to be honest. Hey, I'm on vacation it's ok to do nothing! Now, Australia, and a happy sister (who has her little brother come and visit her over the holidays), await me and I'm looking forward to the adventures that will find me there.

I might add another random blog sometime, somewhere but thanks for reading my SE Asia blog!

Kristoffer

What I learned in Malaysia and Brunei:
- The best public buses in Malaysia have sound systems that rival cars back home
- When you are the Sultan of a small, oil rich country, why not make a museum of all the gifts other countries have given you?
- When you are the younger brother of a Sultan of a small, oil rich country, why not build a $1 billion (with a B), hotel and country club?
- Fact: Orangutans are cooler than proboscis monkeys
- KL has the kindest taxi drivers

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Photos

Picture of a picture...
... but it's pretty darn cool.

'Floating' Hotel
Dragon Inn, Semporna

Fishing boats of KK
Last night in KK and I was treated to a nice sunset.

Doors in Sandankan Memorial
Built on the location of a Japanese POW Camp.

Omar Saifuddien Mosque
... at night

Billion dollar view
with a B

Little India
Much like Chinatown

Monkey Patrol
Keeping a watch over Batu Caves

Petronas Towers
One of thee sights in KL