Blogs from Sarawak, Malaysia, Asia

As we begin to wind down another trip, I thought i would post some pics from our last National Park in Borneo - Gunung Mulu in Sarawak. What has been most impressive with all of the parks we visited, besides all the natural beauty is the amazing infrastructure, that has attempted to preserve the beauty without destroying it - the extensive boardwalks, tree canopies, accommodations and guide services were fantastic! Mulu is known for their caves, and bats. Watching 2-3 million bats do their orchestrated dance as they exit the cave for their evening feeding was truly an amazing site to see. The display lasted at least 30 minutes and included seeing some of the bat hawks waiting for their dinner. Deer cave where the bats exit is one of largest caves in the world and ... read more

Thirty percent of Sarawak's population belong to various indigenous groups known collectively as 'Orang Asli' (meaning 'Upriver People'). Customs, traditions, spiritual beliefs, language and way of life vary from one group to the next, though there are common threads that connect some (or all) of them to each other in different ways. The people who have traditionally lived a nomadic existence in the vicinity of what is now Gunung Mulu National Park identify themselves as the Penan. Interestingly, while the Penan have words for every kind of animal or plant that occurs within the rainforest, they have no specific word for the forest itself: they refer to it simply as 'Tongtana', which roughly translates as 'the world in which we live'. This makes sense given that traditionally the Penan spent their entire lives here, finding everything ... read more

After two weeks on the 'mainland' of the Malay Peninsula, Linda and I took a flight two hours east from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching – the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, and, if the guidebooks were to be believed, the most cosmopolitan city on the world's third-largest island: Borneo. With Linda still putting her insides back together after suffering some serious anxiety during the flight (and in particular the descent) we hopped in a taxi and headed into town, where thankfully our hostel was not only located smack bang in the centre of the city, just one block from the Sarawak River; but also a significant step up in comfort from our two previous hostels in Penang and Melaka. (It took the air conditioner in our room mere minutes to cool the room down ... read more

Saturday, 10th August 2019 The highlight of the day was not the visit to the Bako National Park even though I did enjoy the speedboat ride (without our life vests on) and the steep hiking trail that came with it. The weather was humid today and some of us were getting a bit restless during the guided walk. Thankfully, we were back to Kuching sometime after lunch. It was free and easy until dinner at Topspot Foodcourt, a congregation of seafood restaurants in the city centre. Prior to dinner, a few of them headed to the Kuching Waterfront for some nice sunset views while I headed for a much-needed body massage to soothe the nerves from the climb in the morning. I remembered that I had went to Topspot too during my last trip to the ... read more

Tuesday, 21st May 2019 Breakfast was spot on as the eating place that we were planning to go was closed this morning. The Grab driver was kind enough to bring us to a private house instead which operated as a daytime eatery within the neighborhood. We probably tasted the best roasted Char Siew, Kolo Mee and Sarawak Laksa at this unassuming place. And it seemed that only the locals knew about this hidden gem. Sitting on top of Canada Hill overlooking the city is the Petroleum Museum which is a short ride away from our hotel. Next to it is the Grand Old Lady where the first oil well was drilled in Malaysia in August 1910. The near-empty indoor gallery contained a lot of information related to the Oil and Gas Industry which we took our ... read more