Sunday, April 2, 2017

Hey, did I ever talk to you about Malaysia?

Ecotourism on the Kinabatangan River, Borneo, Malaysia

(By Chris)

Last spring, when Jen had this brilliant idea to chuck it all and travel the globe, we brainstormed places we would like to go. They ranged from obvious (Greece! Bali! Australia!) to a bit more off the path (Croatia! Sri Lanka! Cambodia!). One country we didn't mention was Malaysia, we didn't think of it, and we never really intended to go there, but it's become one of our favorites. Why?
The family at Batu Caves in KL

Why is Malaysia one of our favorites?

Orangutans

Malaysia comes in two flavors: peninsular Malaysia, which includes Kuala Lumpur and a host of presumptively Thaiesque beach resorts, and Borneo which is a bit of a whole different world. We went to Sabah, Borneo, and in particular to Kota Kinabalu (which is at the foot of the awesome Mt. Kinabalu a popular hike we couldn't do because of my ankle) and Sandakan, which is out on the east coast of the island and near some forest preserves.
Mt. Kinabalu, often wrongly cited as the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia

Much of Sabah has been turned into palm oil plantations, the better to sate the world's hunger for Oreos, so much of the intact forest that remains is only in wildlife sanctuaries. Palm oil plantations are bad for orangutans (though apparently fine for man eating pythons) because they need a variety of fruits consistently ripening or they'll go hungry.
A palm oil plantation - this what about half of this part of the world looks like

The preserved forest does provide habitat for a number of orangutans, and proboscis monkeys for that matter, and tours are organized out of Sandakan so visitors can see wild orangutans in a natural setting. Our two-day-one-night tour, arranged through the Borneo Nature Lodge, was by boat up the Kinabatangan River and allowed the opportunity to see a variety of wildlife ranging from proboscis monkeys to orangutans to pygmy elephants to critically endangered sumatran rhinoceroses in order of most to least likely seen.
We benefitted from a massive camera upgrade at about this time

We saw many proboscis monkeys and a few orangutans (from pretty far away), but no pygmy elephants (which are really not that small, which seems unfair) or sumatran rhinoceroses. All in all, a fair cop.
A long-tailed macaque gives us the eye

Look! An Orangutan!
It looks a lot more impressive through binoculars, I assure you 

Animal Sanctuaries

Say you had bad luck and didn't even see a single proboscis on the river tour: Borneo has you covered. A cab ride from the Sheraton Four Points Sandakan brings you to the Sun Bear Sanctuary, the Orangutan Sanctuary and the (not visited) Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. At these places, from all appearances ethically, one can see the eponymous endangered animals. If only there were a Sumatran Rhinoceros Sanctuary and a Pygmy Elephant Sanctuary.
A sun bear doing sun bear stuff

At the Orangutan Sanctuary, they put out food for wild orangutans and this mamma and her baby swung by

And swung away too

Ease

Malaysia, especially Kuala Lumpur, is very easy for Americans. Like America, Malaysia is a bit of a melting pot, where people of various ethnicities and religions all live in something approaching harmony. Our taxi drivers often told us how well different religions get on in Malaysia and regaled us with tales of cultural sensitivity in between nervous questions about Donald Trump. Because many Malaysians are of recent foreign descent, English is a common second language and is widely spoken. I feel like I saw more signs in English than Malay, and there seemed to be more English radio stations than not.
Jen looks good in Hijab

Kuala Lumpur is a relatively new city and while this means it's not crawling with ancient and authentic seeming cultural heritage, it also means that it is clean, well lit, smells fine and has good mass transportation. Kuala Lumpur seems quite well-to-do, and has a lot of fancy shopping and fancy hotels - too many hotels perhaps, because an over-abundance of five star rooms makes them surprisingly affordable

Kuala Lumpur also benefits from its diverse heritage in its restaurants, offering a range of inexpensive and seemingly authentic choices. If you're feeling tired though, you can walk over to the Petronas Towers Mall, whose food court has everything you can imagine in one place.

Speaking of Petronas Towers, it's not inexpensive to visit the observation deck, but you've got to do it, and they provide a great backdrop for photos in the large and immaculate KLCC Park.
Everyone who goes to KL will take this picture, guaranteed.

Cheap flights out of Kuala Lumpur

Even if you don't mean to go to Kuala Lumpur, if you're traveling in Southeast Asia you'll probably end up in its airport anyway. Air Asia, the regional low cost airway, is based in Malaysia and it's often cheaper to fly into and out of KLIA than it is to fly through other big airports like Bangkok or Singapore. KLIA is an easy to handle airport - not too big to be unwieldy - but big enough to have every amenity to make a layover tolerable. We have a lot of experience with that; we probably spent 12 full hours over a number of trips at BMS, KLIA's vegan restaurant.
We ate here every time we came to KLIA, EV. ER. EY. TIME.

Otis digs the Okra Sesame

Cheap flights within the country

Want to fly the 1,000 miles from Kuala Lumpur to Kota Kinabalu? That'll be $20. Want to fly 140 miles from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan? You do, it's a six hour drive, but it's only a $12 flight.

Interesting things in Kuala Lumpur

  • Petronas Towers - the view from the 12th tallest building in the world costs about $20 to see, but it's worth it!
    Petronas Towers observation deck
  • Batu Caves - an important Hindu pilgrimage site, a huge cave, a bonkers statute and a monkey gantlet.
    Experiencing the KL heat at Batu Caves
  • Masjid Negara, the National Mosque of Malaysia - It's no Blue Mosque or Hagia Sofia (Istanbul version, not Constantinople), but it is the first Mosque the three of us visited. 
    Masjid Negara
  • Islamic Art Museum Malaysia - The first class I took in college, kind of by happenstance, was Islamic art and architecture, and seeing the treasures in this museum was a cool reminder of what I learned in that dark room with the photo projector in Colorado Springs.
    A hip thing to do was to find a leaf, remove everything but the veins, and then write your name on it in gold ink
  • Perdana Botanical Garden - looks really cool, but unfortunately we ran out of time and energy to go here :(
    Sir Not-appearing-in-this-blog

Unspoiled Unspoilt* Beaches

The last thing we did in Borneo was a bit of a flyer. Neither Kota Kinabalu nor Sandakan, where we had spent all of our time in Borneo, were much for swimming, and Otis and I had ideas of Maldive-class snorkeling. So we rented a car and drove three hours out toward Kudat, a smaller city out toward the northeast tip of Borneo. This was a region of the island known to Jen as the "Middle of Nowhere." We rented the Treetops beach chalet at Hibiscus Beach Retreat, one of only two units on site.
Millon-dollar view
The Treetops Chalet was maybe 50 meters up a path from a basically abandoned sandy bay. There was a bit more surf than normal, big enough to make snorkeling poor, big enough to be fun to swim in, but not big enough for surfing. The sand was soft, white and beautiful. The water was warm enough to be comfortable, and cool enough to be refreshing. The Chalet had a sizable deck from which you could see the water and and night you were close enough to hear the waves.
Million-dollar beach

All by ourselves in hell-and-gone coastal Borneo

If you pick up a bag of trash, they'll give you a free drink

The coast of Middle of Nowhere Borneo turns out to be one of my very favorite places we visited on our whole trip. Not even a savage cat bite that sent me to a Kota Kinabalu E.R. for a tetanus shot could dull my enthusiasm.

Good job Malaysia!


* When in Australia, spell as the Australians do!

3 comments:

  1. The Middle of Nowhere beach would be my favorite spot from all of my travels as well! Maybe next world tour, try a sailboat!? So cool that you stayed at "Treetops"! That was what Gaga & Papa Barrows (Thea's grandparents) called their home on High Ridge Road. I have applied to our home here in VT as well. Our deck is a good thirty feet above the hill that slopes away from our home towards our million dollar view of the Green Mountains, and there are are staghorn sumac directly below and in view... Otis might consider applying for some college credit for this year abroad! What a fabulous experience for the three of you! Be safe and keep going to middle of nowhere beaches whenever possible!

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    1. I *always* want to go to middle of nowhere beaches, but Jen prefers culture and cuisine. Stay tuned for more middle of nowhere beaches because we went to one in Bali, and plenty of them in Australia - unfortunately the Australian ones were off limits to swimming because of marine crocodiles and potentially deadly jellyfish. Australians seem not to much care about sharks, but at least in far north Queensland, they have a VERY healthy respect for marine crocodiles!

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    2. Women are great for providing balance to our impulses, lol! Crocs, deadly jellyfish and sharks, eegads!!!!!!! Stay safe bro!

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