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Dave Says:

We went into the Borneo jungle for a 3 day safari. Normally we don’t do “this is what we did” type postings but it was really cool so we’re going to do one now.

The Kinabatangan river runs through the east of Sabah in the Malaysian Borneo. It represents the lifeline to the rapidly disappearing jungle and rapidly disappearing wildlife. The Malaysians have discovered great money can be made from growing palm trees for palm tree oil and gladly destroy their own jungle to make a quick buck.

We signed on for a 3 day trek by boat into the jungle staying in a basic camp with the excellent Uncle Tan’s tour company. We had great luck spying wildlife. Monkey’s, orang utan, elephants, crocodiles, frog, scorpions….

Hey enough of my blathering, check out the gallery: http://www.davethegrinch.net/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4069

Sarah says:
Perhaps some of you know that I’m not a very good swimmer. So the story goes, my parents hired me a swimming teacher when I was about 5 but I was such a brat that she quit. Funny enough, I spent all of my summers growing up at the beach playing in the ocean but could always either reach the bottom or wore my trusty innertube with cute pictures of seashells and fishies. If I could have an adult version of that innertube, I would. I decided enough was enough and took a swimming class when I was 19 and actually did learn to swim properly but something happened and I’ve blocked out everything I learned and now I get all choked up when I try to “do the breathing thing”. I also really, really don’t like deep water, dark water, I don’t like to think about, imagine or worse yet see the underside of boats in the water and I can’t think of anything more terrifying that seeing with my own eyes a shipwreck lying on the sea floor. I have a very hard time snorkeling and always panic a little for the first 5 minutes and don’t generally ever let go of the piece of the snorkel that is in my mouth allowing me to breath. (more…)

Sarah says:

We didn’t plan to go to Malaysia. We didn’t really lend it any advance thought and didn’t have much of a look at the Malaysia section of our SE Asia guidebook. But we found ourselves a bit bored of the Thailand tourist scene, saw there was an overnight train to the Thai/Malaysian border and decided to check out what we’d heard was a beautiful and much less tourist-trampled country. Early on our arrival morning we watched out the train window as the landscape grew thicker and thicker with lush green rainforest. Upon disembarking from the train we literally walked right across the border, past child-soldiers wielding massive Russian automatic riffles which led us to wonder what exactly they felt they had to arm themselves against so fiercely. We made our way in the sweltering heat to a grotty little bus station and boarded a chug of a bus to take us to a town called Kota Bharu from where, the next morning, we would catch a ferry to magical paradise islands for a few days of relaxation after this harrowing few days of travel (directly prior to this we had stayed in the Thai town that spawned the Accidental Tourist entry and served as inspiration for my Ode to the Squat Toilet poem). (more…)

“Now, the world don’t move to the beat of just one drum, what might be right for you may not be right for some”

Dave Says:
Malaysia is not exactly a melting pot of their only three cultures, rather its a jello mold into which is poured the population and out slurps a soft goo of rainbow stripes comprising 60% Malay (including a few indigenous ethnic groups), 25% Chinese and 15% Indian. Fear not, this rather laborious metaphor will make complete sense further down this posting.These three groups couldn’t be more separate although they all appear to interact quite harmoniously. So, what does this mean for the traveler’s everyday needs? Here’s the breakdown: (more…)