Advertisement
Published: March 19th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Chinese tempel
Nice swastika, huh? We are right now sitting in an internet cafe by the central market in Chinatown, Kuala Lumpur. We are both very happy to have escaped Sandakan, though not without costs.
On the 14th of march Hannes went to the optician to collect his glasses. Irritatingly enough, they had completely forgot about them and asked him to come back three hours later. Hannes pretended to be very angry and pushed them for a dicount. He actually made them so scared that they ran to another optician and bought lenses from them and made the glasses on the spot. Hannes walked out satisfied from the store. The rest of the day was a blur of (probably) card-playing and juice drinking.
The following day we went to Sandakan's greatest attraction, a Chinese tempel. It was in Tao-Bhuddist style and the walls were covered with swastikas. Another interesting thing were the gifts, presumably for their ancestors, that many people had brought. Mainly bowls of fruit and glasses of water. The view from the tempel was fantastic and we could see all of Sandakan and the surrounding isles. A lovely garden enclosed the tempel. Even in the garden there were bushes shaped like large
swastikas.
On the way to the tempel we were amazed by the road, which must have had the smallest, most vicious up-mountain S-curves in the world.
We also noted that people didn't grow any useful stuff in their gardens. No fruit trees or vegetables at all, which is peculiar because of their living situation.
When we got back to the hostel we were informed that we could get a really cheap flight to Kuala Lumpur that monday. Thinking that thing might finally be going our way we happily went to bed.
That sunday we walked about 3 km to a cinema we had spotted on the way to the tempel and saw Horton hears a who, which was very funny. On the way back we ate the worst lunch since the one with the flies in the Philippines. Back at the hostel they told us they hadn't been able to contact the travel agency about the cheap tickets but there shouldn't be any problems.
It was at this time that Hannes really started to appreciate cold afternoon showers. Walking back and forth to the cinema in the worst heat was quite sweaty.
In the morning we slept late
and packed our bags. Hannes really enjoyed his breakfast which consisted of toast with the best papaya he'd ever eaten and his own fruit salad. Yum!
When we went down to the reception to pick up our tickets we got to know that they hadn't been able to get some for Monday but would get some for Tuesday instead. The travel agency would pay for food and lodgings for Monday.
Very helpful Polly in the reception managed to get us on a minibus to Sukau were we could take rivercruises. We left at 1 o'clock and spent the next 2,5 hours in the bus on an extremely bad road. We were a bit disappointed when we arrived since we were the only ones there, ergo had none to share a boat with. We ended up paying 80 RM for an afternoon cruise. It was well worth it though. At first we were not so impressed since we only got to see an orang-utan and some other monkeys. But then we saw the reeds shaking and then suddenly disappear. Elephants! And not any old African/Indian elephant. These were extremely friendly Bornean pygmy elephants, recently discovered to be their own species. We
were so close to them that if we had extended our arms we could have touched them. They were totally unafraid, barely noticing us before proceeding to eat the river raw of reeds. It was by far the coolest experience as yet. Not only were they so close, there were also so many of them, at least twenty. We were told that we were very lucky because they only pass this part of the river three times a year. And oh boy did we feel lucky!
On a less interesting note we saw some long-tailed macaques, regular macaques, probiscus monkeys, hornbills and an eagle. Unfortunately no crocodiles.
Yesterday we woke early to catch the minibus back to Sandakan where we took a shower in the hostel, got our tickets and took a bus to the airport. After spending a few hours playing cards on the airport, we finally went to the check-in counter. There we got the next shock. The travel agency had booked our ticket for the 18th of
Mai! %!$(MISSING)#&!!!
After some time spent at the phone we got a hold of the travel agent who said "My God, my God" and immediately came to the airport.
With only minutes left to check in we were pushed to pay two hundred of the additional 689 RM for ticket since it wasn't possible to take another plane until March 20, and we just couldn't wait longer to get to Kuala Lumpur. Otherwise we would never had paid for that bitch's mistake.
We arrived safely in Kuala Lumpur and went to McDonald's where we met a very peculiar Canadian man. He collected energy stones which was quite evident since he was covered in them; rings, necklaces and bracelets. He was writing a book about them and was currently researching the health aspects of the stones' energies.
Today we changed hostels to "Le Village", a very bohemian, laid-back hostel with walls covered with art and wooden genitales on the table. Needless to say most of the people there seem quite stoned though we haven't seen or smelled anything yet.
Later we went out hunting for a new camera and mobile for Erik. After a lot of searching, mostly since we didn't bring our guide book, we found a whole mall selling phones and cameras. Since we're lacking the money on the account he's going to buy them tomorrow. Hannes
almost ended up buying a towel saying IVERPOOL but noticed the defect and managed to avoid it.
During our search Erik bumped in to a fortune-teller who only by looking at him directly knew he was in for some great luck; would get rich and live to at least 95. Then he said: because you're so lucky you should give a contribution to some children in India, some give 100 and some 50... You can guess what he got.
Tomorrow we'll go somewhere as yet undecided, perhaps maybe. If we feel like it.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.026s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
annapanna
non-member comment
bara två månader kvar nu pojkar...
hejsa hoppsan! en liten svensk lägesrapport: Charlott Perelli vann melodifestivalen med låten Hero, Marie Serneholt och Måns Zelmerlöv har fått ihop det..., bröderna Schulman har fått sparken från värmlands folkblad...det har varit snöstorm i stockholm i tre dagar, jag har fått påsklov men annika den tönten får det imorgon, Helena(Annikas kompis) har skadat sig allvarligt när hon spill¨de te på sig. puss och kram Anna