2 Weeks in Paradise, KL, and the Borneo Wildlife Extravaganzzza!!!


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July 5th 2013
Published: July 5th 2013
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The trip route from the last write-up:

BALI: Ubud > Balanagan Beach > Ulu Watu > MALAYSIA: Kuala Lumpur > Kota Bharu > Perhentian Islands > Kuala Lumpur > BORNEO: Sandakan > Kinabatangan River > Sepilok > MALAYSIA: Kuala Lumpur

So a lot has happened since the last blog. We have traveled quite a bit and seen some pretty insane stuff that we wont soon forget. From Ubud, which is an amazing little artsy town in the Bali jungle, surrounded by rice fields and temples, we went in search of beach and ended up in the surfer cove of Balangan beach, which turned out to be amazing! Spent time drinking beers on the beach watching surfers ride hollow tubes and double overheads, insane waves that would no doubt slaughter us if we tried to surf there. This was our base for exploring the Bukit Peninsula and the Ulu Watu area, which we did on scooter. Just spent the day zooming around from beach to beach on our sweet hog.

Now what we really wanted most from this trip to Indo were amazing beaches and orangutans. To see the "red men of the forest" in Indo is a pricey endeavour we cold not afford and the beach locations we wanted to visit most appeared difficult to access as there was significant travel time required to get to the islands, time we could not afford to waste. We ended up slightly deflated by this and went in search of alternative options, and seriously lucked out...

Teri found two tiny little islands just off the eastern coast of Malaysia near the Thailand border that looked insane, and just like that, we were off to Malaysia to visit the Perhentian Islands. The best travel plans are no travel plans!!! So we flew up to Kota Bharu, a snoozer town, and seriously ended up in paradise the next day at Pulau Perhentian Besar. The beaches were hands down top 3 we have ever seen, and we have seen tonnes! Days, which ended up being a lot of them, almost 2 weeks, were spent swimming in the turquoise crystal clear water that felt like a swimming pool, tanning and pre-ear infection, snorkelling every day. the snorkelling yielded some pretty awesome critters and could be accessed off nearly any beach by just swimming out the to reef. Black tip reef sharks, giant clams, hundreds of clownfish (Nemo - and so cute), sea turtles, awesome hard corals and more tropical fish species than we have ever seen. This was all great until Teri got swimmers ear and was in some serious pain, if you have had it you know, it is horrible. So from that point we just spent our days lounging. We stayed the whole time on the big island, and at our little hut at Mama's Place, we would just site and watch the monitor lizards, cute little black monkeys, and coolest of all, every night the flying foxes would come out, by the dozens. Picture a giant bat with 3-4 foot wingspans flying around everywhere, INSANE!!!

Having to eventually leave this place, we headed back down to KL to do some sightseeing, actually a cool city and the Petronas Towers were seriously great to see. But we needed some more shots of wildlife and man did we get it in Borneo, that's where we went next. The wildlife encounters we experienced were perhaps the greatest and most unforgettable wildlife experiences we have either had, rivalling the Galapagos Islands!!! Upon arrival we went straight to the jungle to the Kinabatangan River where we stayed in the jungle for 2 nights. Days spent zooming up and down the river in the hopes of seeing some amazing animals, which are very easy to see here. Unfortunately for them, they are easy to see as the protected Kinabatangan wildlife corridor, is simply that a narrow strip of jungle that has been saved from Palm Oil Plantations, which essentially cover most of Borneo, and have devastated the jungle ecosystem and all its amazing species by wiping it off the map. BAN PALM OIL!!!!!!!!

So we set out in hopes of seeing these animals before they too are exterminated along with their habitat. We got seriously lucky and the pics should be able to explain. We saw two herds of wild Pygmy Elephants (within like 5 feet from them in the boat!!), one wild orangutan, probiscus monkeys, giant hornbill birds, crocodiles, tonnes of cool birds and about 6 other species of monkey. After our jungle excursions we went for a better look at the orangutans at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehab center. All of the orangutans in the pics on this blog are wild, just being rehabbed. They were the most fun to watch and, about the single greatest animal we have ever seen in the wild!!! LOVE THEM. Having left the jungle, we splurged a little in Sandakan on a sweet hotel with rooftop pool, and Shane took a quick morning trip to the Probiscus Monkey sanctuary. These big nosed mokeys are only found in Borneo and were hilarious.

So now having unfortunately left Borneo, we are in Kuala Lumpur, about to head back Bali (Ubud) to kill our last 4 days (BOOOO), with fresh ink in our future!!!

Hope you enjoy the pics as much as I do and see you all in a couple days.



T&S


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5th July 2013

Glad to hear from you and will see you in 5 days
5th July 2013

Pretty special.....
Dammit, that looks like some serious great places to visit, and interestingly enough, I don't notice a lot of tourists with ya...my kinda places. Definitely wouldn't want Lota with ya.......haveta wrap yourself in saran-wrap in case he started 'talking' to the monkeys....LOL
8th July 2013

Sweet!
Very cool pictures you guys!! So cool to follow your blog. I just showed dean your pics Shayne... he loves them, very impressive!!

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