Perhentian Islands

Yep, "island paradise" about sums it up. I stayed at a place called D'Lagoon on Pulau Kecil. The 'resort' was all by itself on the northern tip of the island, and the nearest civilization was an hour's trek through the jungle (no roads/cars). I pretty well succeeded in my goal of doing nothing. Lots of beach laying (in the shade), reading, and lounging. I did do a little snorkeling...we followed around some sea turtles until we got bored of following sea turtles, then went and saw some fish.

For my 4 days on the island, I had the following routine: wake up to see sunrise (630), exercise (much to the confusion of the other tourists there who woke up before 8), commence the nothing. I read a 600 page book. One morning I went for a run through the jungle, which was really fun. I felt like Tarzan. Another morning I did an open water swim. That was salty.

Food prices were actually really reasonable, despite that they had us cornered at the resort. Appreciated that. And I had a dorm bed that was $5 a night... so I spent around $20 per day on food, lodging, and snorkel gear. Not bad, for the view.

They had a zip line set up. I insisted on going "spiderman style". Clearly, I was just the image of grace. Also, questioning my choice of wearing a skirt...

There were a couple private beaches you could walk to through trails in the jungle. I spent one morning at one called Adam and Eve beach. It was literally my private beach, no one else was there. Everything was going awesome until I dropped my camera in the sand while entertaining myself with self timer. Got sand particles in my lens mechanism and it wouldn't close, my camera was dead. Luckily, after much blowing and cleaning with a toothpick, I was able to clean it out and bring it back from the dead. Whew!

Spending the night mainland in Kota Bharu. Fly out tomorrow for Thailand, en route to another island, Koh Tao. I plan on doing a week of Muay Thai boxing while I'm there, along with some diving. It's been fun, Malaysia...

Kuching - Borneo Part II

We flew from Kota Kinabalu over to Kuching, which is in the Malysian state of Sarawak. The city of Kuching is small and cute. It's split by a river. We spent most of our time on the more populated side, but I crossed the river and got good and lost for a few hours (walking along a freeway...how'd I get here?). The first few nights, while the whole crew was still around, we stayed at a nice hotel, took taxis, and went on guided tours. Weird. Living it up while it lasts, once everyone left I found myself back in hostel land.

The several hours after landing and checking into the hotel, we headed to the orang utan (turns out there's no "g" at the end of that word) reserve. There were around 20 "semi wild" orang utans living there, and we got to see a few of them during the daily feeding (hence semi wild). I was pretty impressed with the acrobatics of these two:


One night, Laurel and I had a sister night. We did some shopping, got foot and back massages, and then we went out to eat at a nice restaurant. I got wine ($$, muslim country, sin tax on booze), and we had delicious italian food.

We were lucky to be in town during the weekend, to catch the weekend market. Lots of stalls. Lots of crowding and fish smell. Made more difficult by pushing a baby in a stroller. Cool market, though. Lots of weird fruits and veggies.

Laurel and crew left Sunday morning. I hung out at the hotel pool and took a long, hot shower, then checked out at the last possible minute and headed back to reality. The first thing I did with my alone time was to get lost across the river, as mentioned previously. Figures.

Today I went to Bako National Park. Lots of pretty technical trails through the jungle and many monkeys to be seen. I, unfortunately, didn't see any (directly, I saw the trees move as they jumped through them). I didn't mind too much, have already had lots of monkey sightings this trip. I mostly just enjoyed hiking for a few hours. Hiked a couple km out to a beach, caught a boat back to park head quarters. Got sweaty. Good times.

Hermit crabs!

The one on the right looks like a face.
Early flight out tomorrow to Kota Bharu. On my way to the Perhentian Islands. Looks like it's pretty much a tropical paradise. Going to do some diving, beach hanging, snorkeling, and some nothing.

Kota Kinabalu: Beaches and Mountains

Our first order of business in Kota Kinabalu was to head out to a beach resort a couple miles out of town. The beach was beautful, and very secluded. Our guesthouse was the only one around. The surf was big because of the violent storms that rolled through every night, so it was pretty fun.
It was partially overcast for most of our stay there, so sunscreen somewhat slipped my mind. I got a nice reminder how strong equatorial sun is, though...and a nice burn to drive the lesson home.

One evening Tim and Linda and I went on a river trip to go see the monkeys. There were quite a few of them, and we got to see a lot of the famous Borneo Proboscis monkey (the ones with the really big nose and the pot belly).

After a couple days beaching it, Laruel and Linda headed off to another beachside (5 star) resort while Tim, Wally, and I went to climb Mount Kinabalu. The guidebook called Kinabalu the "stairmaster of the East" or something along those lines. I'd say that's pretty accurate. The trail gains over 2000m of elevation in a little over 8km. Nearly a 25% grade. Tim and I spent a decent amount of time hiking doing trig calculations trying to figure out our angle of ascent.

We arrived early afternoon at the mountain lodge, 3200m elevation. We began referring to it as our Negative Star Resort, in light of Laurel and Linda's accomodation. After dinner we went to bed early in preparation for the pre-dawn summit. Woke up at 2am for breakfast, and found driving wind and rain. Crap. We didn't know if they'd allow us to summit, and the official "Do Not Climb" sign was up. However, after signing a waiver that basically said once we started climbing we were on our own (don't expect a rescue party), Tim, Wally, our guide, and I were the first group to head up. Maybe 10 minutes into the climb the sky cleared and the beautiful full moon came out. Awesome! In the clear. ...Until 3 minutes later when it started pouring rain and gusting at 30-40mph. Turns out Kinabalu has two types of weather: beautiful, or god awful. I basically crawled the first .5km (horrible balance in the dark, I was using all 4 limbs) until we got to the scramble. The last 2km of ascent were up the bare face of the mountain, while holding onto a rope. It was still raining really hard, and my hands were starting to numb in the 40 degree wetness. Wally decided the scramble wasn't for him and turned back. Tim and I kept on. After nearly falling off the mountain several times, my guide took my hand and I stopped using the rope. Things went much faster this way, and we trudged upwards for a while. It was pretty miserable, and when we were about 1 hour (and 1km) from the top, we decided that we weren't going to see a beautiful sunrise up there through the rain anyway, and to wait for light in a little hut along the side and then head back down.

Soon quite a few other groups joined us in the little hut and it got crowded. We headed back down at the first sign of brightness. On the way back down it cleared up for a few moments (literally about 10). Luckily we were in a good vantage point to get some pictures. After breakfast round 2, the hike back down was a quick 3.5 hours. Rope along the first part of the scramble. Got more shear after this.

Going down. Cold.

My guide Azme. Held my hand for about 2km. Saved me from falling off the mountain....several times.

Penang: Family Time

Most of my time in Penang has been spent chasing around this clown:
It's been good to hang out with my nephew and sister, as well as Tim and his parents (Linda and Wally) who are also in town. I've been on a wake up at 530am, go to sleep at 9pm schedule (more in line with the flow of the household).

One afternoon I went out and walked through Georgetown with Linda and Wally. It was weird, there'd be temples interspersed between normal buildings.

Yesterday I went out to Penang National Park and did a little jungle hike. I was sweating buckets, and couldn't tell if I was more wet from the sweat or from the condensating humidity. the hike ended at a pretty beach. I got a pretty awesome walking in the jungle tan/burn on my shoulders...

After the national psrk I headed to the Spice Garden.

Where I had lunch. Nice view, for a $2 meal.

Sorry for the short post, heading to Borneo in 15 minutes. I've been slacking on the updates, but I'll get better, I promise. ...After this next week, when I don't think I'll have a computer.

Singapore - Touchdown

I landed in Singapore around 230am, "2 days" after I left. Unfortunately, the train that runs from the airport into the city doesn't start running until 6am. Since I'm cheap and didn't want to pay the $40 for a taxi (the train was $2!), I made myself comfortable on a row of hard benches and snuggled in with my kindle.

Finally made it into town a little before 7, and wandered around until I found the hostel I had picked. I spent the next day half zombied out but awake, going for the Sleep Deprive My Circadian Clock Into Submission method of getting over jet lag. I did some wandering around the Muslim quarter of town while pricing out bus tickets to Malaysia. I grabbed lunch at a hawker stand in the area, and asked for a "not spicy noodle". My lips started burning on the first bite. I asked if they had a even less spicy not spicy noodle, and the lady insisted that this was sweet, not spicy. I was going to ask what all those little red chilis were doing diced up in the broth of my not spicy noodle, but I held my tongue and muscled through at least half of it.

The next day I went to the zoo! Singapore Zoo is an "open concept" zoo, so there aren't cages, per se. There was a glass encased viewing area for most of the big cats, but the rest of the enclosure was pretty much a ditch and a shallow moat. The orangutans were free range, but didn't seem to interested in getting up close and personal with the people. They probably understood that the children would tear them apart if they got too close. An hour after the zoo closed, the Night Safari opened up. Night safari was pretty much the zoo for nocturnal animals, and it was really cool. Took a tram ride around the grounds, and did a few walking trails. All of it was in the jungle (Singapore was all jungle before it became just about all concrete), so walking alone on the narrow trails at night kind of made you feel hunted. I liked it.

Left the next morning for Penang, to go see Laurel. 1.5 hours to cross the border, and then another 10 hour bus ride up peninsular Malaysia and here I am. Tim and I did a practice hike this morning up Penang Hill for our Mt. Kinabalu ascent. I hope it's less humid at altitude...