Brunei & Labuan

There lies a small rich country on the Borneo island ruled by a sultan and his family since 13th century. Very traditional muslim society, for example there is no place in Brunei where alcohol would be sold. That's why there is a “paradise” for those who want to escape to Labuan, duty free island only one hour from Brunei. Over there everything can be found from nice food to cheap alcohol and not that cheap girls - paradise for someone for sure.

Starting from Brunei, there really are not that much see. Main attractios to see are some huge moscques that are well widely decorated, even that we saw them only outside. Especially after Kuala Lumpur this city feels like a ghost town as there was barely ever tourists (or even locals) around.

Labuan has propably has beena a hot spot for tourism like a decade a go and now it has stucked on that time, combined that for import-export industry and oil business has caused a disappearance of tourism. During one hour ferry ride (Brunei-Labuan) I saw tens of oil platforms on the way and trust me, its not the most beautiful view from the seashore either. We just took a bus ride around island to see how is it like and of course to spot one of Labuans main tourist attraction: The chimney

Its middle of nowhere on the top of hill, have never been used as and the best thing is that no one knows for sure why it has been built, but still its unique and protected part of Labuan cultural heritage. So its not just a chimney, its THE chimney -quite sad in my opinion but at the same time hilarious.

We had another day in Brunei after staying two nights in Labuan. Among the mosques,

wildlife and water town were few other things to check out here. Before actual city of Bandar Seri Begawan the town was built ont he water and still these days there live around 1000 people in that watertown, also known “Venice of the East” which I find ironic. We took the boat taxi for small tour along Brunei river to see monkeys. There is specie called “nose monkeys”, only can seen in Borneo island and we did see few!! Plus we also saw some birds and baby crocodile so good wildilfe spotting indeed.

As summarizing, both Labuan and Brunei were interesting stopover visits for two days, but would not spend more time in these places and there is now no need to come back. And I would not to recommend just travel here, these places has to kind of logistically on the way. Its more like tick the box “been there, done that.”  This evening it was last time when seeing sunset before disappearing into the jungle.Wish me luck!
                                                

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Kuala Lumpur - Big City Life

Since I started my South-East Asia trip there has not been any bigger cities since Bangkok, until now when I arrived to Kuala Lumpur. Bangkok was quite chaotic, KL is more organized with a good public transportation systems etc. On the other hand it seemed that here in KL is not as many tourist attraction as in Bangkok. Somehow the accomodation here in KL was located in Chinatown, sameway as in Bangkok or in Georgetown... seems like China is haunting me, but at least food is good for sure and there are cheap markets available in the case if in a need for something, like a new t-shirt, earphones etc.

And that what KL was all about, shopping! Especially when travelling with two girls, on first day I actually made a good shopping wingman: While girls where lookings through, I walked around in a mall (which were not really small ones) located the next shop so they could maximize time to spend in a shop. Second day I was already walking around “mega-mall” (its an actual name of place) by myself and actually found few things I needed

The lifesaver of the second day was the Magnum cafe. Its the place where you could make your own Magnum from various different options, which is actually not an easy task at all. So within a cost of approximately two euros, I could decide what kind of Magnum ice cream I wanted to have, and it definately was the best Magnum I've ever had! Third day I gave up, simply too much shopping in too many shopping malls so I politely did take a step down and spend a day on my own walking and chilling around.

About sights, there is one absolutely must see thing in KL, the twin towers also known as Petronas Towers, completed in 1996. 451,9 meters high towers have an skybridge that connects two towers and an obesrvation deck on 87th floor. While being up in a tower I remebered many movies where scenes have been filmed someone jumping or climping from a tower to tower etc. I would not try that on real life thought...

Enough for the city life until I will find myself in Singapore after few weeks, but first to the part I personally have been waiting most on this trip: The island of Borneo and all adventures that come along there...

Cameron Highlands - Tea and Treks

Spending time in these hot and humid countires on summer season comes exchausting especially for a Finnish guy who enjoyes cooler climate. Cameron Highlands were answer to this problem, located in Malaysia an area which is a way more cooler than other parts of Malaysia and air is more dry. Technically I could say that I was cooling down on Cameron Highlands.

Region has several smaller ciities or towns, but the main place is Tanah Rata. I found an excellent hostel named DeNative Guesthouse. Located around 1km outside of town in the forest the place offered authentic but still awesome environment to stay in. Because there are not much to in Tanah Rata hostel guests gathered around a fire every evening to share their stories. I met great people and had so many interesting conversations on various topics every evening. It's definately people that makes the place and a huge thanks goes to the hostel staff as they were the most friendliest and helpful people ever.

Like I said, there are not that many things to do in Tanah Rata or Cameron Highland in general, two major reason why people travel there: first one is outdoors treks in jungle and second one is different farms that Highlands have, especially strawberr farms and tea plantations - we checked them both.

The best thing still was the jungle trek, first around three hour trek to Gunung Brinchang summit (2 023 m) through the jungle. Climb was relatively challenging once in a while as we needed to climb few times almost vertical wall grabbing on roots to pull us up on a muddy trail. But the feeling at the end was awesome when sitting on tea plantation enjoying a local special tea blend!

Tea plantation were huge, and built on a hilly ground so I can just imagine how hard work is picking the tea leaves as its all manual work there. Also the smell of fresh tea leaves were really pleasant. Now I can surely give respect for the future moments when enjoying a cup of tea. We also visited on a honey bee farm, butterly garden and strawberry farm. Picking strawberries were relatively expensive so I ended up just buying a fresh made strawberry juice, it was the moment that tasted like a Finnish summer.

It was really enjoyable visit on Highlands and also treks were a good practise for 5 days jungle trek in Borneo that is coming up. Before that it is still time to enjoy some so called big city life where is some good shopping option to fill up gears with things that will come handy, i.e. sunblock and do some laundry before I run out of clothes. Kuala Lumpur it is then next destination.

Batu Ferringhi

Another town in Pulau Pinang island at the Malaysian cost, or instead of a town I would call this a holiday resort village. There is only one main road, few kilometres long filled with restaurants and mini markets. But I dont complain because of low season in this place accommodation turned out to be really nice and cheap: 2-bedroom holiday apartment on 30th floor and view over the sea. First time on my backpack journey I had a double bed to sleep in so I could actually turn, twist and strech myself without fear of falling off the bed.

There are really n that much thing to do in here unless travelling some other parts of island, then there would have been tiny national park, durian farm etc., but we did choose to chill out instead. There was anyways a pool in our apartment complex and then the beach was also like 5-min walk. Shore was quite deep so it wasn't a good place for swimming, besides it was mainly focused on various kind of watersport activities like banana boat rides, jet ski rental etc. I didnt try any and focused on walking along the shore which was enjoyable enough.

One thing that was really weird is that this town really felt empty, especially during day times. There were plenty of place with closed doors, empty restaurants and cafes. Street food stalls were all closed during day and we literally almost struggled to find a place for lunch. My thought is that there are two major reasons influencing on that: firstly is low season and secondly its ramadan month. At evening time main street became slightly more life as the sides of whole two mile long street turned into night market: Small stalls selling whatever (maybe) cheap fake stuff you can imagine for. There was only one problem: customers (=tourists) were missing.

After all nice place to visit, chill out and as there was a good internet, we managed to plan quite well our next month because we realised that its a holiday season and many places were almost already fully booked. So now we are ready and well prepared to move forward! 

Georgetown -The Heritage Town

After travelling in a local bus from Krabi to Haadyai, taking a train onwards to Buttersworth felt like a heaven. I dont mean that bus ride would have been bad but it's just Im much more a train traveller than a bus traveller. Although for a moment it felt like that there will be no train as it was delayed, first two hours and after always when we asked “10-20 more minutes only” (few times at least), but when around three hours were gone the train finally arrived and journey to Malaysia could begin.

Georgetown is an old British colonny, 15min by ferry from continent, and the town has granted an UNESCO World Heritage status. Main reason is the history and remaining architechture from colonial times and multi-cultural environment created from that, i.e. town has parts like Little India or China Town. And it also seems like that inhabitants of town really love the status UNESCO has granted as half of the things are called “heritage something (i.e. cafe, hotel...)”

Besides architechtural side, Georgetown, or actually the whole Pulay Pinang island, is famous of its food. That was really true, it was delicious and only the number of various smells coming out from restaurants or food stalls made me feel hungry. But as one portion of street food costs 1-2 euros there is no need to feel hunger and I could just eat all the time. I have to give a special note for the coffee: There is local cafe place which has been wotking 50 years and they do prepare their coffee using charcoal boiler so the taste of the coffee was strong and aromatic.

Third thing what I personally liked a lot in Georgetown is a street art. Whole city is full of different kind of street art, two main things were mural paintings and another one kind of statue which were located around town in different areas telling the history of that specific area with a brief text and humorous set. Duringt these three full days spent in Georgetown, weather was interesing, first felt like rain was following us from Thailand because there was rain and thunder storms, but after seemed like it was just temporarily and sun came out again.

Krabi & Haadyai - Road to Malaysia

Leaving Koh Samui was a welcoming change as it started to get slightly boring. First milestone was a small town name Krabi. Getting there was extremely easy as we had ferry+bus combination ticket. Mini Van came 10:30 for pick up at the hotel driving us to ferry terminal. Checking in and boarding on ferry (or a boat), after an hour long ride bus was waiting at the pier and its destination mini vans drove us to the hotel so literally door to door service.

Krabi town is a small place and works as a good pit stop because it has relatively cheaper prices than main tourist destination in Thailand. To be honest, I have no idea for what is town famous for (or is it even?), i just know that there were few night markets where the food was really good! And the best thing ist that you coulds ee yourself when a person is preparing and frying food for you from fresh ingredients. Street food is the best food! Then of course therew as a big statue of crab - I guess that is the thing. Besides that townw as full of nice small details, like traffic lights where men statues are holding traffic lights or street lamps where the an elephant was carrying the lamp itself etc...

July is not high season because monsuns easons, but of course people aware of that and know how to prepare. It is amazing how rain can start within in a seconds, last minutes and ends in seconds so timing is everything.. and believe or not, when it rains here it really rains hard. I even woke up during the night because of rain.

Beause of rain season in Western part of Thailand made us change plans a little bit not to stay in Thailand for long and head to Malaysia instead. Thats why after two nights in Krabi we took local bus to Haadyai which is bigger city considered as transfer hub to Malaysia or a popular weekend tourist destination for Malaysiana and Singaporean men because its active sex tourism. I rely on first option so we looked up train on next day to take us to Malaysia... only train leaves 7am so wake up will be around 05:30... I think now is time to go sleep because its nrearly midnigt. Goodbye Thailand and welcome Malaysia.

Koh Samui - Tourists Paradise

From Bangkok I had a bit less than an hour long fligth to Koh Samui, an island located at East coast of Thailand. Flight was by Bangkok Airlines, and what a service! First of all I could wait departure in domestic lounge where was free soft drinks and some snacks available, and during that short flight crew served a meal and coffee/tea. At evening I landed to Koh Samui airport and there I met my friends Heidi and Tiina who I planned to travel with in South-East Asia. Immediatly I noticed  the difference in heat and humidity, nice and warm I guess  should say especially after reading on news that in Finland heat days are gone and temperature dropping 10 degrees...

Here we stayed five nights and the purpose of it was just to relax, do nothing and plan little bit further plans for coming months. So the normal daily routine became quite clear quickly: waking up and going for breakfast, taking breakfast nap, going to beach and swim for a while, maybe have some light lunch and afternoon nap for sure, at evening go for dinner hunting and then come back to hotel to sleep. Second day we found a nice food market area where was 10-20 food stalls serving various dishes with reasonable price (and good mojitos) so that became our usual dinner place. Except there was a one evening when we decided to check nightlife of Koh Samui, so next day we ended up eating in Burger King...

To be honest, Koh Samui didn't really impress me that much. It has become very touristic place which influence on prices also, beach was not that good either (especially because during daytime tide was very low). Unless you don't want to book those overly prized tourist group activities, there are not much to do so for a packbacker not a dream place... But like I said at beginning, it was more for just relaxing, planning and catching up that what has been going for past 6 months in everyones lives so the island surved its purpose. Now is time to move on by ferry to Krabi and from there further South towards Malaysia.