Last Stop: Borneo

Okay guys, this is my last blog post! Can't believe two months are almost over... Now that William and Kate are starting their Asia tour and make the news the spotlight is moving fast and my best time is over. Ended my adventurous time with some really intense days in Borneo. I cancelled my plans of going to Sabah in the northeast of Borneo due to the earthquake with tsunami warning that took place just a few days earlier and flew into Kuching in the southeast region called Sarawak instead, West-Borneo. You won't believe it, but they had a bakery called "Baeckerei" opposite to my hotel, so I sneaked out a couple of times to get some pastry, so perfect decision to go there :-).

As everytime on my trip I was a lucky traveller again, meeting a Chinese-Malaysian Mr. Lim on my first taxi ride to the Kuching waterfront on my first night. We had a great conversation and some chemistry right away and it turned out that Mr. Lim, who is also Laksa-Paste entrepreneur (Laksa is a traditional Malaysian dish), is a big jungle fan himself. He is taking part in a pretty popular new sport around Asia called jungle hashing, where people run right through the jungle to follow pieces of paper showing them which way to go. That can take for hours, sometimes even getting lost in the jungle at night. What better jungle guide can you get?

So Mr. Lim joined me for two days using his taxi for our transport and leaving business behind for one whole day (well there was some business to do, but happily mobile phones also work in the jungle here :-)). After seeing some Chinese friends and having a big breakfast we visited Bako National Park on the first day. No cars go there, so we had to use a fisherboat from a village to reach the Peninsula. We spent all day walking the green jungle, seeing unspoilt jungle nature, animals and untouched waterfalls. Although Mr. Lim is thirty years older than I am, I had some problems following his runs and jumps through the jungle and we made quite some track in five hours, but still taking our time to enjoy the unspoilt nature, sometimes :-). Until a typical tropical afternoon rain- and thunderstorm hit us, my first one... I can tell you, I never saw so much rain pouring down in such a short time, turning jungle paths into rivers. A bit nervous about the weather conditions and although exhausted from our long day we hurried up to get back to the beach, where our fisherboat should meet us again. We didn't know then, that the real adventure was still before us.

To make it back to the little fishervillage before dawn we had to depart with the boat, although there was a big thunderstorm coming up and already on the open sea we figured out we couldn't drive around it. Riding through a thunderstorm with heavy rain, lightning and thunder around you on a fisherboat on the open sea is an adventure, but no fun. I really don't remember much, only lightning hitting the sea right next to us, thunder right above us, just closing my eyes and saying my prayers, hoping for god's guidance and shelter to bring us home. I was really scared and after we finally made it, laughter just broke out between us! Now I know why I never joined the navy...

That was definitely enough adventure and probably perfect, to end my trip! So the next day I just drove down to places with Mr. Lim, where orang-utans live wildly in the jungle, but are guarded by a wildlife center, that also provides food and medicine if needed. Also we visited a crocodile farm. It is fascinating to see the orang-utans living their life in the jungle there, watching the humans from the trees, not needing any assistance, because at the moment the jungle is full of fruit and other delicious food. As I'm still shocked by mankind's treatment of our oceans I was even more shocked to learn about how we threaten the survival of this species so close to our own existence. So after this trip one of the first things I will do is look into possibilities of supporting an organisation, that fights for the preservation of our world's treasures.

I'm already writing this from the beaches of the island of Langkawi, where I will spend the last days of my two months just relaxing and thinking about all my adventures the last weeks.  Spending my last days at Langkawi Lagoon Resort, a very quiet and nice place with great service and food, with 80 percent arabic people around. Perfect for me to learn more about their fascinating culture and religion while enjoying the sun, my book and the memories of the last weeks. It definitely was a lifetime experience, learning a lot about different cultures, the asian continent and myself and meeting so much nice and interesting people I hope to stay in touch with. It was fun writing this blog and a pleasure having you reading it and the thousands of clicks show me that you enjoyed it also.

I'm looking forward to come home!

Singapore: The fine city

How do you make a community with millions of people crunched together on a small peninsula hardly as big as Hamburg work? Establish rules for everything, have video cameras and loudspeakers everywhere and take fines up to thousands of dollars for daily "crimes", like spitting on the street or chewing gum, that isn't even allowed to import because of the dirt it can cause on the streets when left there. Even waste of food can be fined and clumsy Eike almost got caught at McDonalds at the airport, spilling the milk for my coffee on the counter. Not that the mess was an issue, no, the waste of food was...

Welcome to Singapore! Although the introduction might seem weird to a westerner, I really like this city and enjoyed the couple of days I spent there. The strict rules have their benefit. If you want Asia light with a western city and all its amenities around you, go to Singapore. Everything is clean, convenient and efficient. No lines at immigration, no dirt on the streets, no crime, no offenses or even people who try to betray you, but all this has a price: a very expensive city and people crunched together in small apartments, space being a major issue with all the skycrapers using the space above us to live and work. If you want to figure out how efficient Singapore really is, have a meal at a food court as Ellen and I did. We had the famous dim sum in a restaurant recommended by the New York Times. While you are still in line waiting for your table you are handed a paper to place your order. Coming to your table it doesn't take a minute until your drinks and your appetizer arrive. The food comes perfectly timed after, so comes the bill. While eating, there are always people walking around for refilling your drinks. All in all you are done after 15-20 minutes...Another spectacular thing to watch is the build up of their formula one track right through the city. I'm definitely gonna watch this year's race, although I'm not a big fan of formula one!

After exploring the city on the ground including our neighborhood Little India and having high tea at the Raffles Hotel, we set off to the sky with the Singapore flyer, with 165 metres the highest ferris wheel in the world, quite an interesting experience for two people who are not the best with height. I topped the experience by visiting the top floor of Marina Bay Sands the next day, a ship on the top of skyscrapers, where they have a bar and a rooftop pool ending at the edge of the building. Singapore as Kuala Lumpur is definitely worse a trip, especially at the beginning or at the end of a trip before flying home, which Ellen unfortunately did :-(, leaving me back alone, having to make plans on my own for the next couple of days, the last days of my trip after six weeks Asia for me already...

Paradise

Although we were longing to stay for another day in Kuala Lumpur to see more of the city and the sorroundings we had to go to the beaches again, everything was already set up, what a hard life :-). Forget everything I wrote earlier about beautiful beaches. The real paradise lies east of the Malaysian mainland on the Perhentian islands. No ferries or airplanes go there. The trip via Kota Bharu, then to a small jetty in Kuala Besut and an one hour adventurous and bouncy trip with a small fisherboat following is pretty long and strenuous. In addition there are not many resorts on the islands and the ones there are pretty simple. A good combination for not many people going there and for enjoying a lonely, beautiful and unspoilt place. Ellen and I saw the most beautiful beaches and clearest water we have ever seen. Let the pictures talk for theirselves! Once lying at that beach you forget everything and just enjoy the atmosphere and the moment.

Seeing the countryside on the east coast during our trip to the coast confirmed my first opinions on Malaysia. Although poorer there also pretty clean, friendly and more modern and the best: no dogs, Heaven! And from day to day I find it more and more fascinating, how all the cultures and religions live together peacefully in this country with so much tolerance and understanding for each other. A great example for the world, that has to be talked of more often!

I also had the greatest experience under water on this trip snorkeling in our private house reef just in front of our beach. Stingrays, Nemos, plenty of small and big reef sharks and all kinds of exotic fish all around you enjoying the unspoilt great corals. At night we enjoyed our restaurant with astonishingly good food, especially fresh sea food and barbecue. Maybe it helps keeping the islands unspoilt that no alcoholic beverages are allowed on the islands, not even during meals. Eating during sunset right at the beach, the monster dracula bats flying out to hunt and hearing the imam praying across the sea from a mosque in the village on the smaller Perhentian island will for a very long time not be forgotten! We have to thank the little travel agency Anjung Holidays at Kuala Besut for their great support, setting things up for us for some wonderful days in paradise!



 

Welcome to Malaysia

The beach in these tropical places really makes you lazy and abandons all modern devices...it has been a week since my last post, so its time to open the computer again and give an update I guess :-). Relaxed from the beach Ellen and I flew into Kuala Lumpur at night to start the Malaysian part of our trip. If you can, fly into this amazing city at night! We had a spectacular view of the enlightened skyline with the Petronas tower from the airplane. Going through immigration and baggage check we discovered soon that Malaysia is very different to Thailand. After travelling Thailand for a month with all its charming places and friendly people I have to admit instead of missing it I fell in love right away with Malaysia. I've never been greated and treated so friendly and polite with everyone dealing with you welcoming you to his country. It is so clean, modern and convenient and still affordable here, the trip into town with the cab was like a ride on the German Autobahn. Riding into downtown at night leaves you stunned in the backseat staring outside the window into this amazing city.

From our luxurious hotel (for affordable price as everything else) we had an amazing view of the Petronas towers right opposite. Exploring the city at daytime I fell in love even more with Malaysia's capital. Modern and colonial architecture next to each other, the world's religions coexisting peacefully together with their mosques, temples and churches right next to each other and overall a slight british influence from the colonial time with an international cuisine that lets nobody's mouth unwatery. A great place to be! Unfortunately we just had a day...

But in this day we almost made it all: We went to Merdeka square and saw how the Malaysians built their capital after achieving sovereignity around the old colonial buildings and the Cricket Club the British have left behind. Every nationality has its own little part of the city making it to their own with their lifestyle and food and you really feel like beeing in that country when you are in Chinatown or Little India. And still, everyone is standing together as Malaysian and we could observe how proud the Malaysians are of their country, preparing the national day on August 31, a big celebration every year on Merdeka square. The day couldn't end better as with an english high tea at the restaurant of the KL Tower with an amazing view above the city in 421 meters height. What a city!

Beach Time

Thinking hard what to report from some relaxing days at the beach just sleeping, eating, swimming and sunbathing on the island of Koh Samui. Well, some big news: I ended my book ban and started reading a book again besides reading into Malaysia, where we will go tomorrow. We are staying at the so called virgin coast of Koh Samui, where there still is lots of silence and loneliness on this very touristic island with all the amenities westerners like on vacation. From our beachfront bungalow we not only overlook the quiet bay of Ao Santi with its great beach, we also see the awesome sunsets with the Angthong Marine National Park and its green islands in the background. While people come here from all parts of the islands for the sunsets and the great view we enjoy living here for a couple of days.

It is great to walk this wide bay for hours, well, until we found out, that the dogs down here are even crazier than in other places. After a crazy puppy accompanied us back from a beach walk we thought it would be a good idea to instead walk on the road to the near village, which has some nice little restaurant spots, even a small pizzeria. But we couldn't know about JAWS!!! Jaws is the mean village dog who chases people on motorbikes and people walking by, so on the second night going out to the village we took one of our umbrellas, to be prepared for a fight. We ended up in that little pizzeria and were happy not to have encountered Jaws when he suddenly was lying there a couple of tables next to us on the floor. We figured out that Jaws is okay, when you are eating at the restaurant and even sat next to us at our table, so our umbrella came home unused. The dogs are both on the beach and on the street, switching sides whenever and wherever something is going on. Thailand really changes a dog lovers perspective...

Because lying at the beach and thinking only about Jaws can be too much after a while we decided to rent a motorbike to explore the south and west coast of the island. It was a beautiful trip around pretty original spots on Koh Samui without any resorts around and beautiful views. We saw some Wats with mumified monks, village life and hiked or better climbed up a waterfall to have a wonderful view over the island. It will be hard to leave this paradise for Malaysia tomorrow, but life and the trip has to go on...

Beautiful Chiang Mai

On our last day in Bangkok Ellen and I of course had to visit the grand palace and the Wat Pho. It is a very crowded place and reading the restrictions before visiting we thought we would be dressed properly, but then sent back by the fashion police to the long line in front of the fashion mall to get a skirt for Ellen. It was a very hot day and all the noise of the mass of tourists made it an exhausting couple of hours, but it was all worth it. We never saw such nice ornate buildings before, it was amazing! After a break at the cafe of the Navy Wives Association we headed off for Bangkok Airport to arrive in Chiang Mai late afternoon.

I've been to a couple of Thai towns in the last couple of weeks, but Chiang Mai is definitely the nicest spot yet. We are staying in a beautiful old traditional Thai teak house called Baan Hanibah right in the middle of old Chiang Mai. Besides all the temples and Wats the city is just full of friendliness and hospitality, lots of great craft and food shops, very clean and it is just nice wandering the cute small streets. Which is what we actually did here all the time and cancelled our plan to go to one of the elephant camps. Anyways we found out, that in most camps elephants are not treated well and we don't want to support the bad treatment. If you want to visit a nice one you have to write them some in advance. So we enjoyed our time in the Chiang Mai streets, having some nice food, chatting with monks at the temple (they also offer official "Monk Chats" here), getting Thai massage and wandering the night markets. There are lots of westerners here, which is the reason for a very nice cuisine selection, so we had some very good smoothies and Italian food here.

After deciding against elephant camp and a cooking course we used the next day to drive into Doi Pui Suthep National Park, where we visited Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep. We shared the taxi with a nice Australian and a Japanese guy, having some nice chats about Thailand and travel experiences. The trip up to the 1600 meter high wat through the rain forest of the national park was great and after we went up the 309 steps to the Wat and dressed up properly we were greeted by a very nice temple and a great view over the city. They also had a nice little market around the Wat, so we had a little lunch snack with grilled corn, coconut cookies and banana waffels. Our driver, who waited for us the whole time, took us back to the city, where we will have a nice dinner at the Ping river before flying to Koh Samui tomorrow for some beachtime.