Mediterranean Dreams

We said goodbye to Sabah and Borneo and flew back to KL - our Intrepid leader Felix arranged a taxi for us back to the airport (it was the same guy who took us to the Proboscis monkeys the day before!) Smooth flight back, we arrived at KLIA 2 (Air Asia terminal but much better than terminal 1) and picked up our bus tickets to Malacca. Its still not clear to me why the English spelling is more frequently used than the Malay 'Melaka' but I'll use the english spelling as its more common. Easy bus ride in and taxi to our hotel, we freshened up and walked around the historic city centre before retreating to a lovely rooftop bar of another hotel and had some drinks and dinner. The next day we spent wandering around ... read more

The end of the Intrepid trip was nigh – we would return back to Sandakan in a few days to fly out but for now we had a quick over-nighter in Sandakan. After a delicious roti lunch, we explored the small compact city and escaped the afternoon heat in the town’s mall! Later that evening we met the Intrepid crew at a rooftop bar for drinks, dinner and a glorious sunset. After dinner, a few of us hit the town and went to the seaside where there were markets, pumping music and families enjoying the Saturday night. A couple our gang got roped into dancing with a local singing group which was fun. The next day we caught a small ferry to Selingan Island – one of three islands that make up the Turtle islands chain ... read more

The next morning we set out for our next adventure, climbing Mt Kinabalu! Felix had registered all our details (including evidence of a negative Covid test) and we congregated at the park headquarters together our 3 mountain guides Sai, Edwin and Bonny. As we had to take our overnight gear with us, most of us sent a small amount of gear with porters. And with that we set of to the Timpohon gate the start the climb. The gate is already approx 1900m above sea level, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that will make the climb easier! The track to the guest house is 6 km long, at a very steep incline. The track is a combination of steep stairs (in my case, knee-height) large boulders and some flat paths. Each km there ... read more

We had wanted to catch a 3 hour ferry from Langkawi to Penang but unfortunately due to the pandemic and less business the ferry company closed so we took our shortest flight ever (30 mins) to Penang. Our Langkawi taxi driver was very chatty and before we knew it we were at the airport, boarded and landed on time in Penang. We knew Penang was a much bigger, built up island and on the way to our hotel we could really see it. We were staying in the heart of UNESCO world heritage listed Georgetown and opposite Chew Jetty. After check in we took a stroll around Georgetown and took photos of the old Chinese shop houses and small alleyways, and of course the street art! We ended up back at the coastline near Fort Cornwallis, ... read more

After 3 long years the day finally arrived – we're finally off overseas again!! We arrived in Kuala Lumpur via Singapore late in the evening. After we worked out how to catch the airport express train, we made it to our hotel centrally located in the shopping district of Bukit Bintang. The next day we ventured on foot to the Petronas Towers to take photos and to pay for tickets that I had booked online. Kuala Lumpur reminds me of any Asian capital city – but I couldn’t help but compare it to Bangkok. A slightly condensed Bangkok with less traffic but equally as cosmopolitan. We explored the grounds of the Petronas and took photos, and later walked around the Pavilion shopping mall that is near our hotel and treated ourselves to pints of European beer. ... read more