First of all, thank you for the nice comments on my posts! They are very much appreciated. I'm enjoying writing/blogging much more than I thought and reading your comments makes it even more fun! Thank you all for visiting and enjoy!
Ok, Marlies and I will be wrapping up Malaysia soon, to be precise we are leaving for the Philippines on the 2nd of February. I've never been to Malaysia, heck, I've never been to any of the countries I'm going to visit in this trip except for the Philippines, which I've only visited once since 1985, but it was full of surprises. We kind of rushed our stay on the mainland of Malaysia to spend more time on the Borneo part of it, in hind sight a choice well made. Check out our route found on the map link to the right.
Kuching is the capital of Sarawak an it's weird, it has half a million inhabitants, but where were they?! Anyway, Borneo is known for it's flora and fauna so we stayed over night in Baku National Park. It has some great walking trails through pristine jungle, we spotted the proboscis monkey with it's weird nose in it's natural and only habitat! Yey!
An other worthwhile 'activity' was a stay at a longhouse, there we got to get a feel of how the 'natives' live. To get to the longhouse we had to take a boat upriver over the Amazon of Borneo, the Rejang River. No, we didn't need to row, nowadays all transport over the river is motorized, but the trip was interesting none the less: rough currents, green lush jungle to the left and right and the occasional longhouse all made the the boat trip worthwhile, but the stay at our longhouse was the icing on the cake. The family we visited, one of about 30 under one long roof, was reserved but warm and our local guides were very kind and knowledgeable, their lack of proper English only adding to the joy of the experience.
The next destination which brought us nearer to the capital of Sabah, was Miri. Not so far from Miri lies Niah National Park. One of the caves in the park is the second largest cave in Borneo, apptly named 'The Great Cave'. All the caves together were huge, big enough to house half a million bats and half a million swiflets. Swiflets are birds that make nests from their spittle, the nest are then collected by collectors, get processed and in shops in the city we could buy 48 grams of the processed birds nest for the equivalent of 250 euro! That's 5000 euro for a kilo of dried bird spit!
Kota Kinabalu is our final destination before departing for the Philippines. We got to snorkel in the waters of a nearby island and we ate some fresh seafood from the local market. Speaking of food, the food in Malaysia stays interesting, it's not always to my taste, but then again, I've only scratched it's culinary surface. The food alone would make me come back!
That's two weeks of parts of Malaysia in one post. I'll do my best to post in shorter intervals, but connection kind of sucks. As always, comments are welcome! Dutch or English, both are just fine.
You and Marlies made a two-week journey to the "roads less traveled" in Malaysia. It was a wise decision to go to Borneo and stay there longer.
ReplyDeleteI hope you tasted genuine real bird's nest soup.
Oops, what happened to my last sentence?
ReplyDeleteIt should be, "I hope you tasted genuine bird's nest soup," without the word "real".
Chun!
ReplyDeleteOuwe wereldreiziger vamme! Leuk om je verhalen te lezen, klinkt alsof het erg bevalt allemaal!
Hier gaat het gewone leventje zijn gangetje, het is nog steeds hartstikke aan met Moskou (Anna, wist je toch?) dus dat geeft superveel goeie energie. Verder veel aan het spelen, ook veel in het buitenland, maar allemaal leuk om te doen en lekker voor de spaarrekening (ben op zoek naar nieuwe auto en nieuw huis dus dat is ook wel nodig!)
Ook in de dojo is alles goed, gemoederen zijn rustig en er wordt meestal lekker doorgetraint dus das mooi!
Geniet van je tijd daar, bouw lekker seik(!) en ik verheug me op je volgende report ;-)
Groetjes,
Robbert.
Heee Chung,
ReplyDeleteleuk om te lezen! Je mist hier niets alleen heel veel sneeuw en regen! geniet ervan
Liefs Marthe
Hoi Chung,
ReplyDeleteMooie beelden, een boottocht met aan beide zijden jungle, snorkelen, vis zien en eten. Met mensen van daar contact meken en elkaar ontmoeten. Het brengt je vast dicht bij jezelf en elkaar. Het maakt de wereld een beetje kleiner wellicht. Geniet ervan en van elkaar! Groetjes, Jeanette
my relatives on my mom's side of the family tried to make me eat it. i think i had the same problem at the time i heard it was bird spit. but for the sake of health, I am now taking it regularly.
ReplyDeletebtw, i don't buy the super-expensive kind like old people do. the ready-to-drink kind at the stores are pretty affordable. (e.g. www.geocities.jp/hongkong_bird_nest/index_e.htm)