Riyad and Sarah's Travels

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The hotel receptionist in Kuala Lumpur marked up the map, detailing the optimal route for us to see the city’s myriad temples, mosques, markets, and architecture.  We had arrived in Malaysia’s capital that afternoon after what felt like a full day traveling, having lost a few hours with the time change from Sri Lanka.

“You can see everything in one day,” she said, “but you’ll have to start early.”

The next morning our alarm went off at 6 and I turned it off and went back to bed. 

We woke up refreshed much later, and ended up spending the day like Americans by hanging out at the mall.  Next door to our hotel was largest one I had ever seen.  Times Square, as it was named, was ten stories high with each floor the size of a typical suburban American shopping center.  We sipped coffee at Starbucks, saw the marginally entertaining film Super 8, but passed on riding the indoor theme park’s roller coaster.

Despite our anti-touristy behavior, I did insist on us seeing the Petronas Towers. 

These identical round towers connected by a two story bridge displaced Chicago’s Sears Tower as the tallest building in the world when completed in 1998.  I was living in Chicago at the time and remember that no one there was too happy.  “The Sears Tower still has the tallest occupied floor!” or “If the Petronas Tower’s spires weren’t counted Sears would still be the highest!” they would exclaim.  (All rendered moot just six years later when Taiwan’s Taipei 101 took the title.)

We watched Towers as the sun set from the 33rd floor of the Trader Hotel’s SkyBar lounge.

Afterward we walked to the base and crowded among the other spectators to see the Towers floodlit and shining at night.

Kinabatangan River, Malaysia

As Bornean jungle is lost to deforestation, wildlife has been forced to congregate in smaller areas around water sources.   Lodges of varying quality have been built up along the Kinabatangan River of Eastern Borneo offering visitors the chance to live among the non-human residents of the jungle.  We decided to take this opportunity and spend time at the Nature Lodge Kinabatangan, our last stop in the jungle. 

 
We checked into this small cabin with two twin beds, a bathroom with a shower, and (best of all) free wi-fi.  Our stay at the lodge was jam packed with activities including motorboat rides along the river front and guided jungle walks. 

Boat rides lasted about two hours cruising along the river and observing various birds or primates in the distance.

There were no large animal sightings, but we did manage to see a lone orangutan in the distance and several rare Proboscis monkeys.  This tree is filled with them.

And we saw dozens and dozens of macaques.  So many that we became tired of seeing them.  We stopped to observe a few walking along the river because our guide said that being that close to the water they were prime bait for crocodiles.  We waited around for a few minutes hoping for a fierce attack but it never happened and they continued to hang out obliviously.

This canopy was build by the World Wildlife Fund to help orangutans safely cross the river but now it had been taken over by macaques. 

The jungle treks were less about observing animals and more about trying to remain upright.  It had rained the previous night and with every step we sunk ankle deep into mud. 

Our guide raced ahead leaving us several steps behind him.  He had warned us of snakes and poisonous caterpillars but the one insect all of us were the most concerned about were leeches.

Each time we walked through brush we had to look up and down and make sure none of them were latched on.  A few times I did have to flick them off my and Sarah’s boots. 

We saw no animals on the trek, only various insects.  They all looked the same to us but our guide pointed out the ones that were harmless versus the ones that would cause a major rash or a painful sting. 

With every insect sighting, all of the aspiring entymologists would take out their expensive cameras to take close up pictures.

After we returned to the lodge, Sarah hung around to socialize but I went to lie down.  An hour later I got up and jumped when looking in the mirror I saw that my left side was covered in blood.  Apparently a leech had managed to get under my shirt and from the looks of it drank enough to last a month. 

He wasn’t around anymore but I had enough jungle trekking to last me a while.  Everyone else in the lodge felt the same way as well and after dinner we all passed on the night trek and hung around the dinner lodge swapping stories of our adventures through Borneo.

Mulu National Park, Malaysia

The bats flew out of the cave a hundred thousand at a time. Together they rose into the sky, forming a corkscrew pattern to avoid predators.  It was 5:30 and we were outside the entrance of Deer Cave at Gunung Mulu National Park to watch the spectacle.  Each evening like clockward, the three million bats that resided inside would exit and spread out for miles in search of food before returning by dawn. 

Gunung Mulu National Park is in the center of Malaysian Borneo surrounded by untouched jungle.  No roads lead to it.  We opted to arrive via a 25 minute flight from nearby city of Miri rather than the twelve hour motorboat ride along a winding river.  Mulu has hiking trails and various multi-day trekking options but we, like most people, had come to spend our time exploring the bat filled caves.

The park was just a mile from the airport and had accommodations, a cafeteria and a main lodge where we could get information about various activities.  We checked in to a large shared cabin featuring 21 twin beds and signed up for four cave tours.

The first three caves: Wind, Clearwater and Lang were impressive but similar with stalactites, stalagmites, various stories conncocted from the shadow patterns and an underground river.

We saved the star of the lot, Deer Cave, for last.  Unlike our crowded 120 person tour of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky a month ago we had a guide to ourselves.  He walked us the two miles from the lodge to the cave’s entrance along an elevated boardwalk, pointing out various insects and poisonous trees used for hunting by the natives.  At the end the path, he opened a locked gate and we continued inside.

To say the least, it was huge. 

Three million bats slept upside down on the ceiling 200 yards above.  As one could imagine, three million bats that eat all night create quite the stink during the day.  The ground was covered in batshit and as we walked in further the smell became unbearable.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to trudge throught it oursleves as we walked along a metal grate that allowed none of the guano to build up.  Our guide explained to us various rock formations but my favorite was the one of Abraham Lincoln.

Further along we came across a baby bat struggling along on the floor.  Apparently, it had fallen from the ceiling and couldn’t get back up on his own.  “He’ll be eaten by a snake by tomorrow,” said our guide after picking it up and placing it on a ledge. 

Then he left us at the cave’s entrance and we joined all of the other people jockeying for a position to view the exodus.  Shorlty later the bats came out relentlessly in wave after wave and our purpose for visiting Mulu was accomplished.

Bako National Park
Kuching, Malaysia

The country of Malaysia is split by the South Chinese Sea in half: Peninsular Malaysia on the west and Malaysian Borneo on the east.  We decided to spend 10 days on the island of Borneo before visiting mainland Southeast Asia.  We arrived in the southern city of Kuching from Malaysia and decided to get right into the action by visiting the nearby Bako National Park.

Bako Park attracts visitors for its jungles, trekking trails, and the opportunity to see endangered Proboscis monkeys in their native habitat along with other more common monkeys and animals.  To get the park we had to take a bus to a port and then charter a boat to take us to the entrance.  Our motorboat operator Muhammad took us and three other backpackers on the 20 minute journey to the beach.  Upon arriving he wasn’t able to take us to the dock because of the low tide so we had to roll up our pants and wade to shore.  We arranged for him to come back for us at 4:30 that afternoon and then walked onto the beach.

Now Sarah and I are veterans of physical activity on trips – last year we spent 4 days hiking the Inca Trail and two days in Patagonia, and just a month ago traveled 12 miles down and back up in the Grand Canyon.  so when the park ranger at the station suggested we start by hiking the 800 meter Telok Paku trail through the jungle to another beach I almost told her that we were advanced hikers and could handle something a bit more challenging.  But then I figured we had six hours to kill before Muhammad came back so we could do this hike and then a longer one later on.

Five minutes later we were in the jungle scrambling over roots and literally dripping with sweat; I was glad I had bit my tongue.  It was a hot day on the beach but for some reason it was about ten degrees hotter in the shade of the jungle.  We bushwacked around trees and up over steep terrain.  I put my camera away because I needed two hands to get through the trail.  Eventually we emerged onto another beach; the 800 meter trail had taken us over an hour.  

We caught our breath and sat by the beach for a bit before heading back, thouroughly humbled.  This time we knew what we were expecting and took a little longer to look for wildlife.  Everytime we heard rustling above we would stop and see monkeys above us. There were mostly macaques but on a few occasions we saw the Proboscis monkey.

After eating lunch we did another smaller walk then just sat by the lodge and laughed at the macaques who made women scream by grabbing their food or backpacks.  Having had enough of the jungle for a day we headed to the dock to see if we could get an earlier boat back and lucky for us Muhammad was there to take us back.