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!
