Tobias travels to South-East Asia and beyond!

Because the ticking you hear is your life passing you by!

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Location: London, United Kingdom

In my thirty's and slowly loosing my misanthropic streak!

Thursday, July 13, 2006

On top of the world (Mount Kinabalo)



One of the last things I had decided to do on my journey in Malaysian Borneo was to climb Mountain Kinanbalo. The mountain itself is 4095 meters high and is the highest one in South East Asia. There really isn’t any real rock climbing involved but instead a hard trek so I was a bit worried how I would measure up to the fitness required.
Got on the bus at six in the morning and got to the bottom of the mountain two hours later. I joined a group of five other people and we were given a guide that would walk us all the way to the top. The climb itself was divided into two parts, first we would walk up to the base camp at 3000 meters and then rest and wake up at two in the morning to do the last 1.2 kilometers and catch the sunrise on the top of the mountain.
So off we went and a Dutch couple that was part of my group immediately disappeared in front of me.
My intention was always to take it easy up to the top and that’s what I did. The area around the mountain is a national park and I wanted to take my time and see as much of the nature as possible while walking up (how is that for an excuse).
The first three kilometers up to base camp was actually quite enjoyable. Even if I felt quite tired at times and a little bit out of breath due to the altitude it was very nice walking up slowly with the guide who highlighted animals and carnivorous plants along the way. And after six hours of pretty good solid walking we arrived at base camp for some well deserved rest.
Got to the room where I was supposed to sleep until we headed off again and it was freezing. Turns out the electricity wasn’t turned on until eight in the evening so I went down to the restaurant and grabbed a big mug of coffee to warm myself. Chatted to some people and we all agreed that it had been pretty tough to get that far and we were all a bit tentative about the last walk up a few hours later.
After getting two hours of sleep I was woken up and put on pretty much everything I had in clothes on. It was freezing outside and talking to the guide he said it would get worse.
I decided to take it quite easy on my way up and started to plod along. Got a headache a couple of times from the altitude but it went away after sitting down and resting for a couple of minutes.
The further up the mountain I got the harder the climb was. At times I was on all fours but slowly but surely I was getting closer to the top. The whole thing was quite funny because it was almost impossible to see anything in the dark apart from the light of the torch in my hand and some dancing lights from the people who were in front of me.
Turns out that strategy of keeping a steady pace paid of. The closer I got to the top the more people I passed along the way and when I finally got up there were only a handful people around.
Even if it’s hard to admit I must say it was absolutely freezing at the top. Since it still was pitch black the wind tore trough the clothes I was wearing but the only thing to do was to wait.
Forty minutes later and the horizon started turning yellow and the temperature slowly turned. The sight was beyond belief. It was such a weird almost surreal landscape that was revealed in front of me and for a moment I had a hard time believing that I actually climbed the beast.
Stay on the top and enjoyed my achievement for another thirty minutes and then started walking down.
To be honest I must say that the walk down was harder than the way up. Don’t know if this was because I had to use muscles that I normally don’t or because I was tired from the walk the previous day but going down hill for seven hours with huge big steps certainly took its toll on me.
Once back down I jumped into a cab with some other people from my hostel and instantly fell asleep, woke up two hours later arriving at the hostel and had a quick shower before heading out with the other ones for a well deserved drink and food.
The next two days I could hardly walk, the infamous “Kinanbalo wobble” had possessed my legs so it was just facing up to it and endure it.
A lifetime experience though.

Orangutan's and burnin' busses!



After my excursion to Turtle Island I decided to play it a bit safer and instead headed over to Sepilon and the orangutan rehabilitation centre.
I can’t remember how long it has been running but the purpose of the centre is to take care of orphaned or wounded orangutan’s and then put them back into the wild once they are strong enough to survive by themselves.
There are two feeding times at the centre and I was told that some of the orangutan’s that has been released sometimes comes back to feed if there isn’t enough food around (or maybe they are just plain lazy and want some fast food).
I had met a Swedish couple on Turtle Island who were quite disappointed when they had been there since there only had been one orangutan and lots of monkeys around so it was with certain anticipation that I started walking trough the jungle up to the feeding place.
Pretty much as soon as I got around the corner I knew I was in luck. There were about twelve orangutan’s chilling’ out around the site and there must have been another twenty to twenty five monkeys.
There were already quite a lot of people who had got the before me and they were taking pictures like it was going out of fashion. Apparently orangutan shares something like 98.5% of the same genes as humans and they were just awesome. I always thought monkeys are pretty funny but there is something special about orangutans. They are so chilled out and seemed just to everything in their stride. I don’t know if they top the list of intelligent creatures but the way they behave I’m pretty sure they are up there at the top somewhere.
Tried to take a couple of pictures once the feeding was going on. It was funny to see that the other monkeys waited around until the orangutans had been feed and then jumped for some of the scraps.
Headed back once all the monkeys had disappeared back into the jungle and shared a taxi with a finish couple into Sandakan where I was taking the bus back.
All went pretty well until two kilometers outside of Kota Kinanbalo where the air conditioning system started burning and black smoke came pouring out of the ceiling.
The buss stopped and people ran out coughing and throwing up around me. Luckily I had been sitting in the front so I was pretty much ok apart from some stinging lungs.
The driver walked in with a wet scarf around his head, opened all the windows and the bus started rolling after another five minutes again.
That’s Malaysian efficiency for you!

The tribulations of Turtle Island



After spending a couple of days in Kota Kinanbalo I had my first trip lined up. I was heading over to Turtle Island which is at the north peak of Malaysian Borneo.
I was taking an overnight bus to get there and headed of to the bus station a little bit past eight in the evening. Got to the ticket booth and there was a problem, apparently the bus I was supposed to be on had been cancelled but there was an express bus leaving in thirty minutes. I didn’t think much of it since I had to be in Sandakan to catch the ferry over to Turtle Island the following morning and bought a ticket. Big mistake, five hours later at two o’clock instead of eight I find myself in the middle of Sandakan. So what is a man to do? Well, I walked around the city for a while until I found a twenty four hour open café’ and then sat down and consumed a stupid amount of coffee and chatted to the taxi drivers for the next five hours. When I finally headed of to the office where the ferry was leaving to I could barely keep my eyes open but I stumbled in with my receipt for the ferry and accommodation on the island and said hello to the lady behind the counter. She looked at my receipt then looked at me and then said “You were supposed to have been here yesterday”. In a haze I grabbed the receipt, looked at it and sure enough she was right.
The problem with Turtle Island is that you have to book it quite far in advance and there’s only about twenty five people going each day (you stay overnight) so I was in big trouble. It was time to turn on the charm overdrive to eleven and do my best in my sleepy state so I nicely asked if there were any places available and the answer was no. My next question was if there had been any cancellation and the answer was also no. At this point I was pretty close to giving up but I decided to stay at the ferry terminal in case things changed. What happened, I fell asleep of course.
Two hours later, just as the boat out to the island was about to leave I was woken up by the counter lady shaking me like there's no tomorrow trying to wake me up. As it happens one of the persons who was supposed to be on the boat had not turned up and I was offered his place. Lady luck was smiling my way. Got on the boat and immediately fell asleep again and woke up when we got to shore.
The sight was quite impressive, the island was quite small but there were big tracks that looked like they had been made by a tractor running up and down the beaches. I had landed on Turtle Island.
After having lunch and walking around the island I crashed into bed again and woke up for the evening assembly. The turtles only come in at night time to lay their eggs and we were given instructions on how we should behave when we checked out the turtles.
Fifteen minutes later we stood around this huge turtle with a one point twenty meter long shell which had crawled up on the beach to lay her eggs. It was a great sight to behold, but it got better, after another twenty minutes the rangers of the island brought down a big container with about hundred and fifty small turtles who had been hatched the night before. It was absolutely amazing to see all these little critters trying to make their way into their water and I was scared to move because they were walking all over my sandals and you couldn’t see too well because of the dark.
In all my trip had gone from disaster to amazing and I was very, very happy!

Kota Kinabalo



After much deliberation I decided to head over to Borneo and the Malaysian city of Kota Kinanbalu.
The choice was quite easy to make really since it looked like there was so much going on that I liked (trekking, wildlife and so on) so I got myself some cheap tickets with Air Asia and got myself on the flight at nine in the evening. Two hours later I stepped into the airport at Kota Kinanbalo and headed for one of the hostels. Walking up the stairs I was greeted by this crazy lady who had the loudest and worst voice I’ve ever heard. She was very nice though so me ears forgave her pretty quickly. Talked to her for a while and then booked myself if for quite a trips and treks and then headed straight to bed.
Woke up the following morning and checked out the town. Kota Kinanbalo is one of the largest cities in Malaysian Borneo and pretty much works like a hub to the other cities in the Sabah region.
After walking around for a while I found the local harbor and decided to do a day trip to two of the island outside. Ticket system was a bit funny, basically you bought a ticket and then you had to wait until there were enough people on the boat before it departed. Luckily enough I had purchased a trip where lots of Chinese people were going on as well so I was on my way fifteen minutes later. The fist island was Sipi and was pretty small, there were about two hundred Koreans on the beach trying desperately to snorkel so there was no point trying to have a bath so I pretty much walked around the island (took about thirty minutes), took some pictures and had some fresh pineapple juice in the shade. The next island on the list was Manukan and that was a lot bigger. There was a good path all around the island which took me two hours to walk around and it was filled with birds and huge monitor lizards. Must admit that I got pretty scared a couple of times when I heard this rustle and then seeing a meter long reptile legging it into the woods.
Headed back to Kota Kinanbalo and decided that I should attempt to find a hairdresser to chop of some of the golden locks I had acquired during the last three months.
Eventually found one which appeared to speak reasonable English but I was soon to find out I was mistaken. I started of by saying that I needed a trim on top and a bit taken off the sides. Forty minutes later it looked nothing like I had told them and I was at this point trying to show gestures and chopping fingers what I needed done. The lady then bursts out “Ahhhh….like Sting”. At this point I was pretty worked up and went” No not like Sting, not like Danny Osmond or Liberace, same as before but less.” An hour later I got a reasonable result that I probably would have done in shorter time with nail clippers but I guess that’s part of the game. It was quite interesting to say the least though.
Went back out to a local bar to watch some world cup and then headed for bed. Woke up the following day by a strange drumming outside the window. Took me while to figure out that the local sunday market was on the same street as the hostel I was stayin gin and some guy was sitting right beneath my window trying to sell some funny looking drums.
Went out on the market and it was quite a sight to behold, there were everything puppies and kittens in cages to "Jesus loves you" stickers. I stayed away from most of it but bought some fruit and a couple of bits and pieces.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Melaka



Took a two hour buss ride from KL to Melaka and checked into a great little hostel which was run by a family. Sitting in their in their living room watching television felt a bit weird at first but I got over it pretty quickly (had to body slam the dad for the remote later in the evening). Melaka is sort of the cultural centre of Malaysia and walking around I had to agree. The town itself resembled Georgtown (see below) apart from the fact that it was more modern and had a lot of museums and a plenty ( I mean a lot) of temples.
Met two really nice guys from England (Nick and Raj) and we ended up exploring the town together. One of the best things was the old catholic church in the middle of the city where all the tuck-tuck drivers hung out. Don't really know what was going on but there seemed to be a competition between them of who could pimp out their cycle the most. Some of them were so over the top that they just looked amazing.
One of the evenings we decided to go bowling and were amazed by the fact that they had archery in the same hall. There was no protection or any particular safety messures at all. Pretty much along the lines of "get 10 arrows and try not to shot at the guys bowling". Couldn't seen that happening in London that's for sure.
Spent most of the evenings in this massive food court where they a huge variety of Malaysian food. No meal was more than 4 ringhi ( about 70p) so we usually ended up eating one meal before the football started in the evening and then another afterwards. There is no point denying yourself good food when it's that cheap.
Spent another day in Melaka and then took a bus down to Johor Bahru (south of Malaysia, borders to Singapore. Since I had cut my trip in Thailand short due to the rain I had decided to fly over to eastern Malaysian Borneo. Stay tuned!

The two towers of KL



After three days in George Town I took a two hour bus to Singapore and got there safe and sound despite the heavy traffic on the motor way.
I had looked trough the guide and made my mind up that I would treat myself to a good hotel in a central location and got of the bus terminal and started walking.
Got to the hotel thirty minutes later (I only got lost once) and walked up to the counter. The portiere looked me up as I was standing there with my rucksack and clothes that needed a wash and when I asked if they had any available rooms he instantly replied “No, but there’s a cheap place around the corner”. I looked at him a bit stunned because I always been told that money sees no color but apparently they had higher standards in this particular hotel.
Walked out and the cheap place was indeed around the corner. The good thing was that it was really clean and nice and had a very friendly staff. Turned out all the rooms were full but they had an air conditioned dorm for a tenth of the price I had intended to pay at the hotel so I happily went for it.
After tucking my stuff under the bunk bed I headed out to one of the malls near by to check out the local shopping and it was the most insane thing I’ve ever seen. Not only were the place massive, had ten floors and probably hundreds of shops. This mall even had its own roller coaster inside and I kid you not, it was a big one.
Coming from a pretty sleepy place like George Town this couldn’t be more of the opposite side of the coin and I stood there in awe watching it all. Walked around the mall for three hours but still didn’t get further that level seven and decided that I would make a braver attempt at the top the following morning when I had some more energy.
Went out, got some food and then watched football at the hostel with some really nice people from Switzerland.
The following morning I woke up early and headed for the Singapore towers. I was told that they were the currently tallest buildings in the world and getting closer to them I had to admit that it looked really impressive. All that steel and glass reaching towards the sky certainly makes you thing about how they manage to get it happening with safety and everything else in mind. Walked in and it was equally impressive inside. The main difference from the mall I had been to the previous day was that this one pretty much only stocked designer shops. Gucci, Prada, Rolex, you name it and they had it there.
Must admit that I wasn’t too interested in most of the stuff being a backpacker and all but it did look fantastic.
Walked out and was approached by a lot of dodgy guys showing me fake Rolexes telling me “I got it from inside, buy now for good price”. Don’t know why they think anyone would go for it but they certainly were unsuccessful with me, mama didn’t raise no fool.
Walked around the city and china town for a while until the rain started at which point I decided to have dinner. Sat down in a little tiny place but they served the most beautiful dim sum (still doesn’t match Lido’s because the taste is so different but it was good).
The next day was spent in the BB plaza, another mall where I was checking out prices for camera equipment. Turns out they had very decent prices and I decided to upgrade my camera since I’ve got into the whole photography thing a whole lot more since starting this trip. Decided to go for a manual lens Panasonic FZ30 and they threw in a tripod, bag and two gigabyte memory for 280 pounds in total.
Spent the next day trying to get to grips with my new camera and then sobbed like a baby when Sweden lost against those stupid krauts.
I had met a lot of people that said they found Kuala Lumpur too imposing but I had a great time. Go there and enjoy!

Over to Malaysia and Georgtown



It was time to head for Malaysia. I had been having it far too comfortable the last couple of days and decided to go for an eight hour and slow torture busses from Krabi.
Set off, crammed up with ten other people in a little mini buss and got to the Malaysian border five hours later.
I had expected the customs to be really hard (drugs and such are penalized by death) but they pretty much stamped the passport and sent us trough without checking a thing. Even when the car was stopped the customs guy was really funny and just opened the door said “Everybody be cool” and then closed it and sent us off again.
Another five hours later I arrived in Penang and Georgetown. I had chatted to a really nice guy called Mark from Leeds and we decided to share a room to cut the costs. Jumped of the bus and went of to find somewhere to sleep. Turns out that most places were full for some reason and nobody we asked could explain why. The hours dragged by and we started to become desperate. We were told there were would be hotels at “Love Lane” (yes it’s the actual the name of the street and also is what’s goes on there in the evening ) and we did check out on of the rooms but after seeing the most run down room ever we headed back to the main street again. Luck came our way, a couple had just checked out to take an overnight bus and we gladly paid the 30 Ringi to take the room of their hands.
George Town was a nice introduction to Malaysia. There are so many peoples and cultures living side by side to each other. You have Muslims, Christians, Hindu and Buddhist all sharing the same country and it certainly showed in George Town as I was walking around. One minute there were Indian music blaring out and then suddenly a huge Chinese temple or a mosque around the corner. It all felt really confusing at first but I got in to it after a couple of days and really started enjoying it. It was great being able to go for a great Indian curry for lunch and then have an excellent Chinese or Malaysian dinner in the evening.
I spent most of the days in George Town just walking around mesmerized by the whole thing and then spent the evenings at some pub watching the football with the mixed people that the town represented. Football is a funny thing in Asia, they all seem to be so into it and I always wonder what makes them decide to root for a particular team. There doesn’t seem to be any particular logic to it but I guess it’s just one of those things.

Mr. Monsoon visits Phi Phi



Jumped on a ferry from Krabi that took an hour and a half and then jumped ashore on Phi Phi Island.
The first thing I see walking off the pier is this really tall Thai guy with long dread locks and big Rasta beanie on his head. On top of that he’s also holding a sign that had my name on it (I had pre-booked my hotel in Krabi).
I half expected him to say something along the lines of “Hello blood, welcome to Jamaica…I mean Phi Phi” but instead he was a really soft spoken and one of the nicest Thai people I’ve met so far.
Walking to the hotel I realized that there had been a lot of rain. It was almost impossible to walk some of the streets because of the huge big puddles that the rain had created everywhere.
I asked my favorite Rasta Thai if there had been a lot of rain and he just looked up and said “A little, maybe more lately”.
Checked into my room and fell asleep for a couple of hours but was woken up by an awful noise. It was the rain coming and it sounded like someone was dropping a bucket of nails on the roof of my cabin.
Went outside and the sight was just incredible, no drizzle here my friends. Instead it was more like the producers of Evian had decided to drop their whole early supply all at once.
It continued for another two hours and then let up a bit and I decided to take the opportunity to go down to check out the beach.
Phi Phi was one of the islands that were hit really badly by the 2005 tsunami and there still were signs everywhere. I had seen photographs at the hotel and pretty much the whole west side of the island was torn to pieces by the wave and the devastation was horrific.
Walking on the beach and seeing all the rubble that still laid around made me think a lot about the terror such a disaster must have caused on such a small place. A lot of people died and I can only imagine what it must have been like with no where to go at such a small place (Phi Phi is about the size of Hyde Park I think).
The rain pretty much continued constantly for the following four days. I chilled out, read a lot of books and took the opportunity to walk around whenever I could despite having to navigate around the ever increasing puddles. Watched football in the evenings and laughed at the excitement of the male tourists enjoying their free “wet t-shirt” competition every night when the soaked girls were walking past.
It was time to leave after four nights since Mr. Monsoon had decided to up his game and made the rain start at eight in the morning and finished at four at night.
I did enjoy my stay even if the weather was poor. There was so much construction and rebuilding going on at the island that I can only imaging what it’s going to look like when I go back there in a couple of years.