Monkeying Around In Borneo & Bali

Having experienced the serene, sterile, surreal scene of Japan, it seemed quite appropriate to make Malaysia the next stop on my Asian adventure, as it is Japan's opposite in many ways. Malaysia is an exotic jungle of chaotic cities and wildlife compared to the cookie cutter streets of Japan. Malaysia, with its Strait of Malacca, has a history rife with piracy, adventure, and Islam, while Japan comes from a more streamlined tradition of feudalism and Buddhism. In Malaysia, we spent two days climbing up Mt Kinabulu, one of the tallest mountains in SE Asia; in Japan we caught a glimpse of Mt Fuji out of the stylish window of our Shinkansen Bullet Train. You get the idea.

Our first stop was Kota Kinabulu, the capital of the region of Sabah on the Malaysian side of the island of Borneo. As you may or may not know, Borneo is the fourth largest island in the world, and is host to three countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. KK, as most people refer to it, is a rather unassuming city of many backgrounds--Malay, Indonesian, Filipino and Chinese. This makes for some very interesting markets, and we had some fun at the Filipino Market:

Odd sweet tasting local fruit


Fish Market & Sunset






Ironically, having never seen them in China, we got a chance to witness Sabah's Chinese Society's Annual Dragonboat Races:



Come to think of it, China seemed to follow us around--our tour guides to the Western Mangrove Wetlands were Chinese Malay! They showed us the indigenous Proboscis Monkey and glittering fireflies by sunset on a riverboat:







After a few days rest we headed down to the Hindu island of Bali, Indonesia, for a sunny respite from our wildlife adventures. I can think of worse things than frolicking amongst Aussie surfers on vacation...:)







We got back to nature upon our return to Malaysia, and climbed Mt Kinabulu with the help of an indigenous man who was our tour guide. We walked more than 6 km, we somehow we made it!