Blogs from Sarawak, Malaysia, Asia - page 56

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Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Bario April 25th 2006

I already typed this out once but some sort of error with the website meant that it didn't all get saved and I lost it all. I now don't have the time/inclination to write it all out again for my records but for those at home here's a quick summary. As previously mentioned all food here with the exception of rice and a few other tit bits tends to come from the Jungle and so Harris makes a trip out hunting everynow and then to try and get some meat together. I was invited along for a couple of days and jumped at the opportunity. Two other people joined us - Rafel, Harris's brother and Gilbert a friend of Harris. It was actually them who would be doing the shooting and Harris took a back seat ... read more
River Scenery
Just before we got off the beaten track - literally
Shelter

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Bario April 20th 2006

I loved this place sooooo much! I saw and did so many things that it's very hard to know where to start so it's quite likely that this will be a very disjointed blog. As a rough outline though: Bario is set in the middle of primary rainforest close to the border with Kalimantan and home to the Kelabit people. I stayed with a friendly family who I became very attached to by the end. They fed me constantly with unlimited amounts of Milo and copious amounts of food - including wild boar, deer, porcupine and python! Without road access things become very expensive and the community seems to be living mostly off food from the jungle - both meat and veg. There is heaps to do in Bario if you don't mind rain mud and ... read more
Bario
Pa'Lungan
Me and the Trekforce peeps

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Miri April 19th 2006

After taking an overnight bus from Kuching I arrived in Miri, a largish city/town next to the border with Brunei. The place itself seemed incredibly uninteresting to me but I didn't look around all that much so I'm perhaps not in the best position to comment on it. The only thing of any real interest that happened to me in Miri was that I stayed in a place called Tae Tong Lodging or something which was the cheaplest place reccommended by the tourist office nearby. I took one of the beds that is out in the reception hall (it was only for one night after all) and only two other beds were occupied. My two neighbours were both nuts, one was a fat indian bloke who spent a lot of time dribbling down his front and ... read more

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak April 15th 2006

By the time I came back from Bako I was now travelling with two new people I met there - Fran and Emma. I was also finally feeling like I could cope with the ridiculous heat and humidity here. While I'm on the subject of weather - thunderstorms are awesome. I spent three days 2 nights at this national park which is normally only visited by day trippers who come to see the giant rafflesia flowers (the largest flowers in the world). The flowers are a parasite - the flower, which is the whole plant, grows off the roots of other plants on the ground. They grow up to a meter in diameter, stink of rotting flesh to attract flies, flower at unpredictable times and only last for 4/5days. We just missed one when we turned ... read more
High flyer
Open sesamy?
Preying mantis

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak April 10th 2006

My first day in Kuching (the 9th) I had met Kelly - an Australian girl travelling for a while before heading to Japan to teach English on the JET program, and later Graeme - an English guy just graduated from Uni. I met Kelly in the tourist information centre and ended up booking a nights accomodation at Bako national park the next day with her and Graeme was my room mate. I tried recruiting them both for the rafting competition (I went on to try and recruit every tourist who had the misfortune to cross my path) and was suprised to find that Graeme having known me for around 15seconds at the time was easily convinced into joining me. Kelly on the other hand was leaving before it was due to start and this turned out ... read more
mother and baby
big daddy
Poker night

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak April 9th 2006

The nightmare of not getting the 2month visa for Indonesia turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it's brought me here to Sarawak! The people are friendly and helpful. No one tries to rip you off. The place is clean, people drive well, bus services are efficient and the food is great. National parks are all over the place and well set up to recieve visitors with good transport connections and a wide range of accomodation provided. Trails are well set up and clearly marked, though there is also plenty of opportunity to go marching through the bush if you want. Tourist information centres seem to know everything you could possibly want to know. In short the place is just great and I love it. Since being here (I arrived on the 9th of ... read more

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Kuching April 8th 2006

Efter 16 timmars skumpig bussfard med mycket bristfalliga somnmojligheter anlander vi till Kuching. Staden ar troligen namngiven efter det Malaysiska ordet for katt, och saledes ar kattprydnader en av de souvenirer man kan inhandla har. Kuching ligger vackert vid en flodbadd och ar mycket trevligare an Miri som stad betraktat. Narheten till nationalparker ar dock vad som foranlett vart besok och vi beger oss snart vidare till Bako National Park. Vi anlander med var chartrade lilla bat vid femtiden pa kvallen, checkar in pa hostelet och gar sedan ut for att leta efter vilda djur. Fem meter utanfor dorren hor vi hur det prasslar till i traden och vander oss om. Dar sitter ett antal nasapor i tradet bakom huset vi bor i. De ser jatteroliga ut med gigantiska magar och tunna stickor till armar och ... read more

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Bako National Park April 6th 2006

Hello! What a brilliant time we have had in Borneo! After the longhouse trip we decided that as one of the 'World's largest flower species' was still blooming in Gurung Gading national park we would make a dash down there to see it. We woke up on Tuesday morning and the weather was awful! It rained, and rained, and rained! Nevertheless we braved our waterproofs and battled down to the bus stop to get the first in a series of buses to the national park. After 5 minutes walking we were wet from head to toe and quite an amusement to the locals! Damp, we arrived at the park at about 12.30. Unfortunately there were no guides around to take us to see the flower and then around the park (I suspect because none else was ... read more
Beautiful Bako
Monkey!
Birthday Beach

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Kuching April 1st 2006

me and 3 girl friends when to Malaysia for a week we had the best time... read more
Photo 33
Photo 34
Photo 35

Asia » Malaysia » Sarawak » Kuching April 1st 2006

Hello everyone!! This will be the last lot of anecdotes from Borneo as, after much agonising, we have decided that a week is not long enough to do justice to Sabah. We have moved our flight to Australia forward a few days. We're now flying back to Singapore tomorrow and head to Darwin on Wednesday. We know absolutely nothing about Australia, so any tips on what not to miss between Darwin and Sydney would be much appreciated. Since my last post, we seem to have spent most of our time wading through the jungle. The day after our return from the longhouse, we dragged ourselves out of bed with limited enthusiasm in search of the elusive world's largest flower, the Rafflesia. These big, red, slightly plastic-looking flowers are real symbols of Borneo. They take 9 months ... read more
Bloomin' Rafflesia
Melon man, Kuching
Bako




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