Sharks and Monkeys and Crocs, OH MY!

In order to insure that we would be able to stay in India until September, Alex and I had to return to Bangkok sometime after March...so we ended up booking a flight to Malaysia and took a month to travel around there before returning to Thailand.

Our first stop was the Malaysian province of Sabah, located in the northeastern part of the island Borneo. The three weeks we spent in Sabah were positively amazing. We went SCUBA diving just off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, the province capital. We also took a couple of days to climb the highest mountain on the island (4095m). The climb up wasn't too bad but the way down was supreme torture on our joints - the views after sunrise at the top, however, were worth every shaky step...unbelievably jaw-dropping.

Yet another highlight of the area was a 3 day/2 night stay in the jungle. Before arriving on the island, my image of Borneo was mostly of jungle...although it was tropical looking, acres and acres of palm oil plantations altered this image slightly. We had to go out of our way to find the natural jungle. This existed only in national parks, which included relatively tiny pockets along Borneo's longest river, the Kinabatangan. The palm oil plants pushed these preserved pockets into narrow sections along the river and separated them into six conserved spaces - terrible for life there, great for business and tourism (we were guaranteed to see some wildlife).

We joined a group (http://www.uncletan.com/) that took us on river 'cruises' and both day and night trekking in order to point out as much life as possible. We ended up seeing a rare stork, King Fisher birds, Proboscis monkeys (oi, what a strange creature!), huge crocodiles, poisonous frogs and Pygmy elephants (nowhere close to 'pygmy' if you ask me).
This adventure was taken a bit too far at times - there were no showers, Alex developed a cold with a fever and one of the people on our tour was eaten by a crocodile...just kidding. We felt as though we came close, though, when our boat hit a log, started sinking, and forced us to the shore at dusk. How exciting.

Our final Sabah activity could possible be classified as our favourite so far on this trip - SCUBA diving in the Celebes sea off of Semporna. Here, three islands sit in the middle of fabulous coral. One island, Sipadan, holds some of the world's best diving (or so we were told). It did not let down.
For two nights we stayed on a converted oil rig just off the shores of the island Mabul (http://www.seaventuresdive.com/). We dove around the area 8 times in 3 days, including a 'nightdive' off the oil rig. Words cannot possibly express what it was like to swim there...the closest I can think of would be to say that it was like the movie Finding Nemo. We didn't know where to look- there was so much life. Dozens and dozens of Green turtles, white-tipped reef sharks and reef fish surrounded us. A slightly eccentric woman we met there tried to explain her experiences diving at Sipadan. She said, "I fell in love with the Earth down there." I guess that's the best way to describe it.

The rest of our time in Malaysia was spent on the peninsular part, just south of Thailand. We spent 5 days on Pulau Perhentian Kecil, the smaller of the two Perhentian islands. We had been told that these islands were the epitome of paradise. Although the water was gorgeous, sand was soft and trees were tropical, it didn't quite hold this distinction in our eyes. In our experience, there has been something consistently 'off' about SE Asian 'resort' tourism...it's not quite the same as what one might find in Mexico or Hawaii. If you were to orient yourself one way, it looks great, but if you take a panorama you might find oddly placed boats, building debris, garbage and haphazardly designed guesthouses. We really shouldn't complain - it was great to lounge on the beach, go body boarding and snorkel the days away.

We also spent a few days in the country capital, Kuala Lumpur. Both Alex and I really enjoyed this city. It was modern and easy to get around. We wandered, mostly on foot, and saw the expected; Petronas towers, Chinatown and old quarter filled with colonial and Islamic style buildings. The huge mix of people here was also really neat to witness. As with the rest of the country, there were many Chinese, Indian and Malay people. Among them, differences in religion and devoutness were visible. We met some Muslim women who didn't wear a headscarf (tudong), others who wore one with jeans and a T-shirt, others yet with a full burka and every variation in between.

Our final stop on peninsular Malaysia was a great place to check out some of the past colonial influences and more of this mix of people. Melaka was once a trading centre for the area. Starting in 1511, it was consecutively ruled by the Portugese, Dutch and then British and was home to many Chinese, Indian and Islamic traders at that time. This gave it an incredible mix of culture and architecture that can be seen today.

Our overall impression of Malaysia was a good one. The food was great, the sites worth visiting and the women we met were extremely kind. Unfortunately, we didn't have many positive experiences with the men there. The word I would use to describe our interactions with many of them would be "sleazy". Despite this, I thought Malaysia held a great mix of fun outdoor activities and interesting culture and I wouldn't be upset if I were 'forced' to visit again someday.