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Arrival in Kuching on Tropical Borneo

Sep 25, 2017

Exactly one week later than planned we finally arrived on the Malaysian side of Borneo at the state Sarawak’s capital named Kuching. Here we will stay for two nights before we head to various national parks to discover the true beauty of Borneo.

About Borneo

Borneo is the third-largest island on the planed (after Greenland and New Guinea) and shares its territory between three countries, from which Indonesia is the largest part and Malaysia and Brunei are the more developed parts. One could easily spend several months on Borneo to discover all the sights, however since we only want to stay two to three weeks on Borneo, we will restrict our travels to the Malaysian side (Sarawak and Sabah) and maybe Brunei.

Why going to Borneo?

For me it was always a dream to explore the rainforests on Borneo. I have seen many pictures and documentaries about these ancient tropical rainforests and I am completely impressed with its richness both in flora and fauna. Also, I am very interested in how the indigenous people in Borneo live and hope we will meet some tribes that have not been affected too much from the outside world. Since we plan to stay six months in this part of the world, I realized my dream. Big thanks also to Ilinca for coming with me, I know she would have preferred dozens of other destinations.

The City of Kuching

Kuching is the capital of the state Sarawak and with more than 600’000 inhabitants also the largest city on Borneo. Despite the large population, it is a calm city with moderate traffic and a historic center. But Kuching is definitely not the reason why someone would fly to Borneo, as the city itself has not much to offer apart from the beautiful river promenade, a few museums and some restaurants and bars. Kuching however is a good starting point for visiting the nearby national parks and preservation areas.

The word Kuching is translated into cat. I don’t know the origin of this as the number of stray cats is not larger than in other cities. However, all over the city there are monuments, wall paintings, and ads with cats, and there is even a cat museum, which we did not feel like visiting. Maybe there we would have found the answer to the name’s origin.

Going to Bako National Park tomorrow

One of those nearby national park is Bako, which is located on a peninsula in the north-east of Kuching and can only be reached by boat. It is fully covered with rainforest and is the home of the endangered proboscis monkeys and lots of other creatures such as huge salt-water crocodiles, stingrays, big lizards, snakes, and other more common inhabitants of rainforests. Due to its proximity to the South Chinese Sea, there is a big diversity of natural landscapes on a very small area. On 16 well-marked trails it will be possible to discover the park without the need of Indiana Jones style adventures.

We will head to Bako National Park tomorrow and stay there for two nights. It is unlikely that we will have good Internet reception there, so the next blog post might follow only in about three days.

Unplanned Stop in Singapore

Sep 23, 2017

After our short trip to Penang we flew last Thursday to Singpore, where we finally received Ilinca’s missing backpack after nine days. As we previously have been to Singapore already, we did not follow a tight sightseeing schedule, but spend some time relaxing and with our friend Chris.

Ilinca’s missing backpack arrived in Singapore

The main reason why we flew to Singapore so early on our trip was because we agreed with SWISS that they send Ilinca’s backpack that was found in Milano directly to Singapore instead of Kuala Lumpur because there is a direct flight.

When arriving in Singapore however, Ilinca received a SMS that her luggage is in Bangkok now (our original flight’s destination), so no backpack when we arrived in Singapore. It is really incredible how incapable some employees at Milano airport must be. Luckily, at Singapore’s and also Bangkok’s airport, the staff cares a bit more about their customers. The backpack went on the next flight from Bangkok to Singapore and has arrived five hours later in Singapore. Ilinca was very happy to finally be in possession of all her belongings again.

Staying in Singapore

Our friend Chris invited us to stay in his apartment, a nice condo in a complex of around 30 buildings. When we arrived, we were really stunned: the whole complex looked like a Bali resort, with dozens of smaller to larger swimming pools around and between the buildings. One of the pools was actually a 50m pool, so good for some sport swimming. Ilinca and I could not resist and take advantage of those pools.

Eating in Singapore

Instead of checking TripAdivsor for restaurants, Chris recommended us some excellent and cheap local eating possibilities. One evening we had tasty food in Chinatown, another evening in a small and hidden Thai restaurant. For the other meals, Ilinca and I explored several small cafés. I let the pictures speak for themselves.

After Work Party in Rooftop Bar

Singapore can be very expensive. We discovered that yesterday evening when joining Chris for an after work party in a fancy rooftop bar in downtown Singapore. Half a liter of beer cost incredible SGD 17, which corresponds to CHF 12. And as we stayed there the whole evening, we spend way more than CHFF 100 just for drinks and some simple snacks. It was a nice experience being on such a rooftop bar in tropical temperatures and wonderful weather, but definitely not something I would do every week.

Sightseeing in Singapore

We could not resist to go at least a little bit sightseeing. Chris could also show us some nice places off the main tourist track. Today we went for a walk to the seaside at East Cost Park and to the Pinnacles @ Duxton, a complex of seven 50-story apartment buildings that are all connected via a sky bridge on the 26th and 50th floor. From the 50th floor, there was an excellent panorama. And best of all: we only paid SGD 6 (= CHF 4.25) admission, a fraction of what you pay at the famous tourist observation deck at Marina Bay.

Cat Café in Singapore

Singapore is a crazy city. When walking around yesterday, we discovered that there is a cat café, which is basically a café where there are several cats roaming around and waiting to be fed. The human guests at the same time pay entrance fee that includes the consumption of drinks and cakes. Being cat lovers both of us and because we miss our cat Ranja, we decided to go in there. It was cute being among all those cats. How much the cats enjoy that kind of business we don’t know, but some of them seemed completely uninterested in us humans and did not even show up for the feeding. Typical for cats…

Off to Borneo Tomorrow

As we now have finally have all the equipment for Borneo’s rainforest, we will continue tomorrow our planned trip to Borneo with a few days delay. Let’s hope this time everything goes fine with our luggage, but not flying through Milano makes me feel positive.

Visiting Kek Lok Si Temple on Penang Island

Sep 20, 2017

After yesterday’s jungle trekking, we wanted to spend our last full day here in Georgetown a bit calmer. In the morning we planned our next few days on our trip and booked the flight ticket for Singapore tomorrow. In the afternoon, we visited the Kek Lok Si Temple nearby during a thunderstorm.

Kek Lok Si Temple

Upon recommendation from one of Ilinca’s friends, we could motivate ourselves to get a 30 minute ride to the city limits where the Kek Lok Si temple is situated. We left Georgetown in sunny weather, but we were basically driving towards a black wall of clouds. When we arrived at the temple, there was heavy rain. Luckily, most of the temple is covered, so the thunderstorm was not a big problem at all, rather the opposite as the temperatures were more bearable and there were almost no other visitors around.

I like visiting temples and other religious buildings mainly because of the architecture, so I will not comment much about Buddhism, and what Buddha stands for what in their belief. If you are interested in these kinds of things, feel free to visit the Wikipedia page.

I was really surprised by the dimensions of the whole temple, consisting of several buildings, a pagoda (tower), and a giant statue of the Goddess of Mercy. And because the temple is situated at the city limit on the hillside, it was bordering directly the jungle. I let the pictures speak for themselves.

Travel plans for the next week

Tomorrow we will fly to Singapore with the flight we booked earlier today. Singapore because we decided to have Ilinca’s backpack sent on the shortest possible path to South East Asia. And this is Singapore, where there is also a direct flight with SWISS. And as we wanted to visit our friend Chris anyway in the next few months of our trip, it was a good occasion.

After Singapore we will the finally fly on to Borneo where we should have arrived already a few days ago according to our initial plan. But jungle trekking without Ilinca’s equipment did not make much sense to us. The flights and accommodation in the jungle we have not booked yet, but we will most likely do this tomorrow.

Jungle Trekking in Penang National Park

Sep 19, 2017

After a rather eventless day yesterday in shopping malls where the only achievement was that Ilinca bought a replacement backpack and some other items, today we went trekking in Penang National Park. In up to 33°C and lots of humidity, this was a physical challenges, but the experience of the dense jungle and the beautiful remote beaches were worth the physical effort.

About Penang National Park

With only 2300 hectares, Penang National Park is the smallest national park in Malaysia. And it only achieved National Park status in 2003. Nevertheless, it offers quite a lot on this small areas: dense jungle, waterfalls, various animals, remote beaches, and most important on Penang Island: a retreat from the busy streets of George Town. There are not a lot of trails in this national park, but the ones we used were in good conditions and marked well.

Trekking in Penang National Park

Because it often rains in the afternoons here in the tropics, we decided to head out early. After a 45 minute ride by car we reached the entrance to the Penang National Park at Teluk Bahang. The admission is free, we only had to register at the entrance.

The beginning of the trail was flat and in perfect conditions, so not really a jungle trek, but after roughly 500m the path split. We were going uphill to reach Turtle Beach on the other side of the hill. In the steamy hot temperatures, we were really glad that we could walk in the shadows of the forest. Nevertheless, we were both sweating a lot.

On the way we met some monkeys in the trees, birds, tiny spiders and an unidentified rodent. Unfortunately we did not get to see any lizard for the whole day.

Turtle Beach at Penang National Park

As the name suggests, turtles lay their eggs on this beach at night. To protect the species, there is a Turtle Sanctuary located at this beach in Penang National Park. Apart from that however, the beach was very calm, amazingly beautiful and remote. We met around 15 people on that beach today. It is a picturesque tropical beach how you usually see it in travel magazines! Only problem with this beach (and others in the national park): they are overrun (overswam?) by venomous jellyfish, so swimming is strictly forbidden. What a shame, especially after the 2 hour hike through the jungle.

On the beach I continued looking for lizards, but I could not find any. However, I met a much cooler creature that I had no idea it exists: A Hermit Crab. These are crabs that borrow shells of snails and hide inside them for protection and carry them around as if it were their own shells. It seems we humans are not the only ones who use other animals’ skins to feel more comfortable and safe.

Back to George Town

From Turtle Beach we took a tourist boat that was stopping at turtle beach back to the park entrance. Once back in George town, I rewarded myself with a massage, and when I got back, got news arrived to Ilinca: They found her backpack at Milano airport! It took them 7 days to do that. And of course we bought yesterday a replacement backpack, so now after they deliver the backpack to her, she will have two backpacks. But we have a good friend in Singapore… Maybe we could deposit one of the backpacks there for a while? (Chris, are you reading? ;))

So a fantastic days comes to an end. Tomorrow we will enjoy a bit more George Town before flying the day after tomorrow directly to Singapore to meet Ilinca’s luggage and maybe Chris…

Travelling by Train to George Town

Sep 17, 2017

After four nights in Kuala Lumpur, we took this morning the train towards Penang, a state in northern Malaysia and home to George Town, a multicultural colonial city on Penang Island. After a beautiful but cold train ride through green Malaysia as well as a ferry trip to Penang Island, we arrived five hours later in George Town.

Trains in Malaysia

I have to admit, I really underestimated the railway infrastructure here in Malaysia. Not only was it possible to buy the train tickets incl. seat reservation online, but the train was also very modern and cruised at speeds above 100 km/h. The fact that the trains are also air conditioned is nice in a country with hot temperatures and humidity, but as expected, they turned the whole train into a fridge. We were glad when we finally could exit the train in Butterworth and could change to the ferry which took us to George Town.

Multicultural George Town

Do you feel like some Chinese dinner? Some Indian lunch? Some western café or even a Swiss restaurant? Or do you prefer Malaysian cuisine? It does not matter, George Town has it all. It is not by coincidence that Lonely Planet calls the city the food capital of Malaysia.

When walking through the historical center of George Town, a lot of different cultures meet each other. As a former colonial town, the architecture of some buildings is typical for that period, however, the Chinese with their temples, the Muslims with their mosques, and the Indians with their spices and clothes shops contribute a lot to the multicultural atmosphere in George Town. I am quite confident that in the next two days that we will be staying here there are plenty of things to discover.

George Town also has some interesting street art to offer:

Situated on Penang Island, George Town is also the starting point for going to some white sand beaches outside of town or go trekking in the rainforest in the hills, so it is not just about a city, but also about nature here.

Visiting the Petronas Towers

Sep 16, 2017

Today we planned a lot of sightseeing to catch up because we spent the first day shopping. But things came differently. The only sightseeing we did was visiting the Petronas Towers, one of Malaysia’s top attractions.

Filing Baggage Claim Reports

As we have no received any news from SWISS regarding Ilinca’s missing luggage, Ilinca made her daily call to Bangkok airport to check the status. Since the luggage has not appeared within 3 days, Ilinca had to list all lost items that were in the backpack, with the exact purchase date, the price, and a precise description in order to make any compensation claims later on. After a long brainstorming session together a list of around fifty items was created that we had to manually add item by item to the lousy web page for the baggage tracing. It took us at least four hours to fill out all the required information and a lot of frustration was around. There went our extended sightseeing session.

In and around the Petronas Towers

With 452m of height, the Petronas Towers are the highest twin towers in the world and are for sure one of the top sights in Kuala Lumpur and the whole region. If we had not already been on the KL tower the day before, I would say that the views from the observation deck on the 86th floor are amazing, especially on a beautiful day like today. However, one of the disadvantages of twin towers is that the other tower blocks the view, so basically you don’t have a 360° panorama from up there. Also, as opposed to the KL tower, you unfortunately cannot go outside and hence have to take all your pictures through dirty windows. On the whole, after having visited KL tower, a visit to the observation deck of the Petronas Towers is not absolutely necessary.

But the whole area around the Petronas Towers and the convention center is very modern and attractive, and especially at night when everything is illuminated, this part of the city is very inviting.

Leaving Kuala Lumpur tomorrow

As our Airbnb apartment is occupied by someone else starting tomorrow, we will leave Kuala Lumpur temporarily and take the train north to Georgetown, a beautiful colonial town in Penang state. But we will come back to Kuala Lumpur once we decide to fly to Borneo as planned or in the by now unlikely event that Ilinca’s lost backpack still shows up somewhere.

Temple Cave and Scenic Views

Sep 15, 2017

After a full day of shopping yesterday, today we decided to finally visit some of the sights of Kuala Lumpur. One of these sights are the Batu Temple Caves, and another one is the Menara KL, a TV Tower with a fantastic observation deck in the middle of the city. More details below.

Batu Caves

Located around 15 km north of the city center, the Batu Caves are advertised as one of the top attractions of Malaysia. Under a big lime stone rock, there is a network of caves that contains several historic hindu temples. Being a fan of caves and temples, for me it was a must to go there.

Once arrived, we were greeted by an impressive golden Buddha statue and some long, steep stairs up to the cave. In the tropical heat of Kuala Lumpur, we climbed the 272 steps up to the cave and arrived quite exhausted at the top. Along the stairs and also inside the caves, we were welcomed by curious and hungry monkeys, which however were not aggressive at all.

The cave itself was very impressive from the dimensions, however, the place was poorly maintained and there was no spiritual ambience at all in or around the temples. Noisy groups of tourists and garbage made the place much less attractive. Around and also inside the caves were tourist shops selling useless stuff. All-in-all it was still worth going out there, but for a top sight a bit disappointing.

Menara KL / KL Tower

After returning to Kuala Lumpur and a short snack, we were heading for the KL Tower. The view from the Sky Deck, located around 400m above the city, was fantastic. Also, due to the higher elevation, the climate was a bit better up there than down in the streets, and the wind also helped feeling more comfortable. As we went up in the early evening, we could view at Kuala Lumpur and the surroundings before, during and after sunset.

Gourmet Dinner at Manja Restaurant

In the evening we tried TripAdvisor’s #1 restaurant in Kuala Lumpur. For around $80 we had three excellent dishes and drinks. Not cheap for Kuala Lumpur, but back in Zurich you would maybe get two pizzas with salads and drinks for the same price.

Shopping in Kuala Lumpur

Sep 14, 2017

As SWISS airlines is showing no efforts and hence no success in finding Ilinca’s missing luggage, we will have to rebuy things here in Kuala Lumpur. Luckily, there is a mall basically at every street corner, the closest one just across the street from our room, and a huge one just about 2 km away. We took an Uber ride to get there easily.

Pavilion Mall

I have seen many malls on my trips so far, but Pavilion Mall is one of the largest ones I have ever visited. Apart from the usual brands, there was also a Marché restaurant, which is a Swiss chain owned by Mövenpick. It was somehow weird to see the same kind of food and interior design as back home, but everything is operated by Asians.

As Ilinca needed everything from underwear to shoes, Pavilion Mall came in very handy as there is basically everything available under one roof, and after a few hours, Ilinca had found everything so she can live more or less comfortably for the next few days.

IT Mall

One thing that also got lost with Ilinca’s luggage was her power supply for the MacBook. Luckily, the MacBook itself was in the hand luggage. In the Pavilion mall that we visited before we found an Apple store that sold the correct power supply, but it cost around $90! Apple really rips off everybody with their replacement parts. This is one more reason I would never buy an Apple product again. Luckily however, here in Kuala Lumpur there is a so called IT mall, a concept that I have not encountered before. It’s basically like a regular mall, but only with small to medium sized electronics stores, and there were hundreds of them. For me as a tech geek a true paradise! Also, there were many repair stores, so a broken screen of a phone can be fixed in no time here. And, in our situation, a cheap replacement power supply for Ilinca’s MacBook could also be bought for less than $30 (after a lot of bargaining). Of course it is not a genuine Apple product, but power supplies are not rocket science and the imitation we bought worked just fine.

A Long Journey to Kuala Lumpur

Sep 13, 2017

Our first destination is Kuala Lumpur, which is located less than an hour away from Singapore by plane. Unfortunately, there is no direct flight from Zurich to Kuala Lumpur, so we chose to fly via Bangkok. And then, in order to save some money, we booked the flight from Milano via Zurich to Bangkok instead of flying directly from Zurich. A ridiculous concept from Swiss Airlines, I am going to explain this below. While Ilinca and I arrived well in Bangkok and later on in Kuala Lumpur, unfortunately Ilinca’s backpack did not even make it to Bangkok, and hence also not to Kuala Lumpur.

Saving money by flying from Milano

As mentioned in the introduction, it can be a lot cheaper to start a long distance flight with Swiss Airlines in Milano and then use a Swiss connecting flight and fly from Milano to Zurich in order to catch the very same plane that I would also have caught in Zurich. In our case, the flight tickets were around 30% cheaper than if we had flown directly from Zurich. While for Economy Class, the savings are not so big because of the additional transport to Milano, for Business and First Travels it really makes a difference.

One thing I don’t get is that these practices are allowed. Everybody is speaking about reducing CO2 emissions and governments are making laws in order to enforce these goals, at the same time airlines like Swiss are allowed to encourage people to cause even more CO2 emissions. I understand the economical aspect of this as Swiss wants to get more Italian customers to fly via Zurich instead of flying overseas directly from Milano, and the only way of doing so is by being cheaper, but I still think this practice should be forbidden.

Nevertheless, we took advantage of this discount and therefore were flying from Milano to Zurich prior to boarding our plane to Bangkok. And in order to get to the Milano airport in time, we spent a night in Como, close to the Swiss border and the airport and celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.

Stretching the legs in business class

Every now and then, Swiss offers special deals on business class flights, and combined with the discount by flying from Milano, we allowed ourselves to fly business class for a very low price. Of course economy class would still have been cheaper, but flying business class is always an experience and being able to lie flat on your seat increases the chances for arriving relaxed at the destination.

In addition, the quality and choice of food is a huge difference compared to economy class. It is however a bit ironic that I started having stomach problems during the flight to Bangkok. I don’t know if it was from the Sashimi I had as an appetizer or from the lounges in Milano or Zurich, but I know that it prevented me from sleeping well on the plane, despite the possibility of lying flat in the seat.

Missing luggage in Bangkok

After a bit more than 10 hours of flight, we landed on time in Bangkok and proceeded quickly through immigration to get our luggage in order to check it in again for our connecting flight with Malaysian Airlines. Because that flight is on a separate ticket, we could not simply forward to luggage to Kuala Lumpur and had to go through immigration twice in Bangkok.

Bad surprise when we arrived at the luggage claim in Bangkok: No sign of Ilinca’s backpack. It seemed to not have made it to Bangkok, but none of the staff at the airport could figure out where the luggage is. This is especially bad as we continued the same day to Kuala Lumpur, and with a different airline. After filling out the paperwork, we received $200 of compensation in order to buy some emergency clothes and toiletries, and we also received a reference number with which we can check the status of the luggage and they promised us to forward the luggage to Kuala Lumpur… If it ever gets found… I will keep you updated.

Arrival in Kuala Lumpur

After a not so comfortable flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur and a bit more than half an hour of queuing at the immigration, we took a bus to the city of Kuala Lumpur and were happy to reach our Airbnb-room. Tomorrow will be about buying the most important things for Ilinca so she can at least enjoy the first few days here in Kuala Lumpur, but tonight we only went for a quick dinner and then to sleep after a very exhausting trip after all.

Off to New Adventures

Sep 12, 2017

Two months after my bicycle tour through Central Asia, I started travelling again. This time with my backpack instead of my bicycle, and this time together with Ilinca, who quit her job end of August to join me on a six month trip through Asia and Australia. It is for the first time that Ilinca and I travel for more than three weeks in a row, and I think it will be good for both of us to disconnect a bit from our life in Switzerland.

Planned destinations

One key to an adventurous trip is that we plan as little as possible in advance. Like this we will have lots of flexibility to adapt our travelling plans depending on our mood. So far, we only booked three flights and our accommodation in Kuala Lumpur for the first four nights, everything else is still open. Of course, we already have some ideas which places we would like to visit, so here is a list of our current favorite destinations:

Malaysia

In 2013, Ilinca and I have already been on Malaysia for four days as part of our trip to Singapore. In these days we visited the island of Langkawi, a beautiful tropical paradise located at the west cost of Malaysia. I was really fascinated by the nature there, so I always wanted to come back to Malaysia. Also, Kuala Lumpur was always on the list of cities I wanted to visit once in my lifetime.

Borneo

I have never been to Borneo before, but from what I have seen in documentaries on TV, this is the place to go to experience the full beauty of tropical rainforests and get an idea of how the indigenous peoples adapt to the environment in order to survive. Borneo is split between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. The largest part of the island belongs to Indonesia, but at the same time this is also the least developed part and probably the most difficult to travel. If we go to Borneo, we will most likely visit the Malaysian side and Brunei.

Bali

Having visited Bali already in 2014, we both knew that we will come back there one day, as we only stayed there for one week and we could not explore the full beauty of this island. Also, Bali is conveniently located between Borneo and Australia.

Australia

I always wanted to visit Australia. I always postponed it however because I thought I can also do that when I am sixty. Well, since we have enough time now, we most likely will spend several weeks there to explore this huge country.

New Zealand

At the latest after having seen The Lord of the Rings with its beautiful sceneries, I knew that I want to see New Zealand with my own eyes one day. Why not on this trip?

Thailand

I love Thai food, I have heard wonderful stories and seen beautiful images of this rather touristic country from friends, so I definitely want to visit this country on this trip.

Cambodia

I honestly don’t know much about Cambodia yet, except the famous Angkor Wat temple complex.

Laos

A country which I only know from friend’s recommendations.

Vietnam

Another country that I only know from friend’s recommendations.

Travel Style

Having traveled as a nomad on bicycle for three months, I know what it means to carry everything you need to survive always with you and to be responsible for any kind of transport. While this was very exciting for me, I think when travelling with Ilinca, a bit more comfort is appreciated. Instead of sleeping in a tent in the desert, we prefer staying at homestays, Airbnb, Couchsurfing, or sometimes also hotels if necessary and enjoy the local cuisine instead of cooking cup noodles in a storm along the road. Nevertheless, we will travel with our backpacks and are looking forward to staying at rather simple accommodations and to meeting local people.