Ludwig's Odyssey

Indonesia - Gili Air

Having been on the road for thirteen months and having visited most of what we wanted to see and more, we needed a break to think what we were going to do next and where we were going to go. For us, there was no better place to do this than on a peaceful beach where we could recharge the batteries.

With the weather in mind, our choices were actually limited around SE Asia as it’s wet season pretty much everywhere during October, luckily for us El Nino has changed the weather patterns in recent years and so we came to Indonesia as it’s been very dry. We made our way to Gili Air from Bali which would be my first foray to the Southern Hemisphere, Wend of course has been many times.

We stayed one day in Kuta on Bali to get some supplies etc.. and that was nearly one day too many. Kuta is a horrible place really and we couldn’t wait to get out. The day passed quickly enough and the following morning, we were picked up to be taken to the port and board the 3 hour fast boat to the Gilis.

Lovely journey, calm seas, we arrived around midday, found our guest house easily enough and started to adjust to Island life for what would be our home for the next three weeks.

Gili Air is a laid back island, one of three small isles on the north-west coast of Lombok, the other two being the party place Gili Trawangan and the very quiet Gili Meno, Gili Air offers a good mix between the two, there is no motorised transport on any of the three islands. You can walk around the island in around an hour, which we did on many occasions as it’s only a 6km circumference. The water is crystal clear, about 29c and very inviting despite there being not too much of a huge area to swim in as a lot of the island is surrounded by coral reefs but then that’s great for snorkelling.

As is the way with beach life, there isn’t too much to say about our time here, if you’ve been on a beach holiday then you know the drill.

We didn’t just laze around though, we did go on five dives with 3W, a really nice small dive centre run by some French guys who were really friendly and enthusiastic about diving. One of the dives we did was a more specialised dive to 30m, which means we can now dive deeper all the time having been restricted to 18m before. We saw some wonderful marine life and the visibility for the most part was fantastic. We saw lots of Turtles, a few White tip Sharks, some Lionfish, some Mantis Shrimps, a Cuttlefish and so much more that we hadn’t seen before on previous dives in Koh Tao. It was like being in an aquarium with fish everywhere at times, we so wish we had an underwater camera now.

We did also enjoy some snorkelling, plenty on offer on the east coast of the island and you can easily see Turtles as well as all the beautiful tropical fish.

Yep, we’ve seen loads of Turtles now, they’re so lovely.

Life is cheap in Indonesia and we had some good meals from the local Warung situated inland as well as the slightly more expensive beach bars which did some surprisingly tasty western food and there’s plenty of happy hour offers to tempt you into cheap beers and cocktails and although we didn’t indulge everyday, resistance was futile!

Aside from this, the only other ‘excitement’ was the eruption of Mt Rinjani on nearby Lombok. We had thought that we may climb it as it’s one of the popular side trips from here but if we’re honest with ourselves, our hearts weren’t really in it at this time so we were glad that the decision was taken away from us!

We had also thought about a side trip to Flores and then onto Komodo to see the famous dragons but again, getting there would have been a chore and we were feeling way too lazy. You can also dive around Flores which is meant to be amazing but it’s better suited to divers with more experience than us so we’ll just have to come back one day.

Back to Mt Rinjani, the eruption caused no real danger to us save for the volcanic ash which went down our lungs, you can see how much there was in a photo I took of a daily sweep of the patio. The real impact was on Bali Airport and many flights were delayed/cancelled because of the ash cloud. Looking at the situation a couple of days before our flight to Singapore, the situation didn’t look great, we had decided to fly with Jetstar which are owned by Quantas and so being the safest airline on the planet , they were very strict about which flights could leave and/or arrive, other carriers like Air Asia just went ahead anyway with no problems, which we thought was odd but the reasons why would become clear later.

So we made our way back to Bali a day before our flight was due to leave, another pleasant boat journey.

Once back in Bali, we looked up the latest travel news for our plane in the morning, it was due to fly as good conditions where forecasted, “Great!” we thought. We checked in the morning again and it was delayed by a couple of hours by now, no big deal as long as it was leaving, so we made the short walk over to the airport only to be told that the flight had been cancelled after all! With no Jetstar staff present on Bali, we spent a frustrating afternoon trying to chat online to their staff who where not helpful at all and by the end of the day, we were no wiser if we were to be rescheduled onto another flight in a couple of days or not, all they told us was check your emails and the travel alerts on their website.... great service don’t you think!

The following morning, we woke up to no news at all and we then decided to book a flight with Air Asia for a couple of days later as all of their flights were flying to and from Bali quite happily.

Yes we lost out on £80 but we would spend that much staying in Kuta (which is an awful place) whilst we waited anyway, if not much more. The particular daily flight we were due to leave on with Jetstar had not been in service for ten days or more by now so the backlog would have been huge. We think Jetstar were focusing on returning stranded Australians back home with a stack of recovery flights scheduled and rescheduled as the conditions changed, they really didn’t care about getting people to Singapore, well that’s how it came across to us anyway.

It wasn’t all bad though, the enforced weekend stopover in Kuta meant that we could go to the cinema to watch the new James Bond movie and we also met up with some diving buddies from Koh Tao. They had recently left Alvaro (the dive shop we learned with) to start new jobs on another Island near Bali called Lembongan, great to catch up with them.

We’ve now made it out safe and sound to Singapore on Air Asia and four days after we were supposed to fly here with Jetstar, the email from them about a flight reschedule still hasn’t come through, it will be interesting to see how long it takes...

The only good thing about Kuta, the coolest Jesus!

The transportation system around the Gilis

Pineapple Man

An offering

Daily Volcanic Ash sweep on the patio

There's always some creature in the house, we had a huge spider visit us too!

Our house for three weeks

Fresh Papaya everyday, we also had Mangos, all for free, yum!

Malaysia - Borneo

The wilds of Borneo. A land of weird and wonderful indigenous creatures large and small.

Well we arrived in Kuching (which is also the Malay word for cat), the biggest town/city to spend a couple of weeks exploring some of the jungle and anything else the island had to offer, but just on the Malaysian side. We had wanted to go to the Indonesian part (Kalimatan) also, but with all the illegal fires raging down there, the Air Pollution Index was off the chart which was what was causing the haze back in Peninsular Malaysia and also in Kuching to some extent.

We somehow managed to spend six days in Kuching, the ‘Cat City’, when in reality you only need three to four but the cheap hotel we were staying in was a nice place to plan where to go on Borneo as we really had no idea when we first landed.

We spent the first afternoon not doing much as we were getting up very early the next day to visit the Orangutan Reserve at Semengoh. This is a rehabilitation centre for Orangutans that have been badly treated or been kept as pets (illegally) and are taught to fend for themselves again. As the warden explained to us, all of these animals are semi-wild now and only dependant on feeding when there are no fruits on the trees. This being the start of fruiting season, our hopes of seeing any of our Orange coloured cousins where actually not that good but you live in hope.

We got up and it was still dark (not our favourite thing to do but needs must) so we could catch a bus at 7am. We arrived at the entrance of the reserve around 8am and then had to walk up to the main rehabilitation area for 20 mins or so. On the way, I did see some arms swinging through the trees, not a complete Orangutan spotting but a good start.

Well the feeding time is between 9 and 10 am so we ventured towards the area and waited but nothing to be seen, just a squirrel or two. We had mixed emotions at not spotting any, glad that they were fending for themselves but sad that we didn’t see one and so we made our way back to the main rehab area and sat around for a little while to decide if we should come back in the afternoon or the next day.

Just as we were going to make our way back to catch the next bus, the main warden got a call to say that one of them was making their way towards us! After a few minutes, a young solo male around eight years old made his way to the secondary feeding station and we were treated to a great acrobatic show (they really do have four arms rather than to arms and two legs) while he made his way to the stack of bananas. He stayed around for a while and it was a real treat. To see an Orangutan in Borneo, wow! how are we going to beat that!

The next few days were spent looking around Kuching which was very laid back and had some nice colonial architecture (if a bit tired looking in places) as well as the very striking government building across the river. Before we left we also organised to go on a boat trip near the coast so that we could hopefully spot lots more wildlife. We were taken by minibus about 30 mins nearer the coast to board a little boat which took us up the Sungai Satubong river and into the mouth of the sea. We initially thought it wasn’t going to be a great trip as it was a very high tide which makes Crocodile spotting much more difficult but after seeing not much during the initial 15 mins or so, things got better. We saw plenty of huge jellyfish and a few Irrawaddy Dolphins which were great to see, we then ventured into a smaller channel and saw a few Proboscis Monkeys having their evening meal and after dark saw lots of tiny Fireflies, finally on the way back we did see a Crocodile.

Having spent log enough in the city we wanted to go and explore the real jungle of Borneo. We decided to go to Mulu National Park which is famed for it’s caves but we really went there in the hope of spotting more wildlife. Mulu is a very secluded area with no roads going there so the only way to get there is to take about five different boats over the space of four days or to fly, so we took option B and flew there for a ridiculously cheap fare in a prop plane which had about 10/15 people on board.

We landed on a small but long enough air strip in the jungle in Mulu, the sleepiest airport we’ve ever been too. We had organised to stay in the Mulu Village guest house before we arrived as there are not too many places to stay here (most are rustic types but there is also a Marriott which we couldn’t understand what for, surely you come to the jungle to experience the jungle?!). We took some ‘transport’ from the airport to the homestay which was about 2km down the road in what can only be described as a write-off. There is absolutely no way anywhere in the world this minibus would be road legal. Everything was rusted, no doors closed properly and there were holes so you could see the road under your feet. All part of the fun though and as the driver only went at about 15km/ph we were in no real danger.

So we got to the homestay safe and sound which was a traditional long house building of the region, slightly updated with cold water shower and electricity that ran for 3 hours in the morning and 6 hours in the evening. It was surprisingly cool at night so no need of AC or fan thankfully. Brenda, originally from Singapore, and James gave up the 9 to 5 life and instead relocated here, upgraded the building which was part of James’ ancestry and started the homestay, you really can’t be more extreme than mega-city to mega-jungle, it’s not for the faint hearted that’s for sure. It turns out this was the building (well at least the site) where two Brits stayed when they mapped the caves of the national park during the early part of the 20th Century.

After dropping our bags off, James kindly gave us a lift on the back of his motorbike as the park entrance was a good 30 mins walk away. We picked up our passes and went for a walk in to the jungle towards the bat cave. Half way there, it rained quite hard and we hadn’t packed our waterproofs so we got a bit wet but with the humidity and temperature being so high, we really didn’t mind. We had hoped to see some nature on the way to the cave but there wasn’t much to see in the way of birds, we only managed to see a Pygmy Squirrel and a huge Stick Insect. Once at the cave, we were pretty sure that the bats would not come out, they usually wait for the best conditions so we didn’t stick around but instead walked very slowly back towards the park entrance (about 30 mins away if you walk normally) so we could make the most of the dark and see what creatures come out at night, we weren’t disappointed.

If you’re not keen on creepy-crawlies, this wouldn’t be for you. We saw loads of caterpillars, worms, toads, large snails, spiders (although not the huge huntsman we wanted to see) and a large grasshopper type bug with very big leaf shaped wings that made a violin type noise. We then walked back ‘home’ in the pitch black and saw lots of Fireflies again.

The next day we decided to go and walk the big loop around the park, around 9km. We had expected to see more nature but it really was just dense jungle with the occasional bug so not as good as we’d hoped. After a few hours of sweating we made our way back to the park headquarters, had a drink then decided to walk back to the bat cave again as the weather was better. Turned out we were right, they did come out at dusk, about 3-5 million of them. An impressive sight but if we’re being picky not quite as good as what we saw in Battambang.

We spent the next day relaxing at the homestay, reading and playing games although we did go for an evening walk down a road that was built but never used (because the locals protested against the government building a load of houses which would ruin the village life) that had the feel of a set from a post-acpocalyptic movie. We hoped to spot some nature down there and we did see a Bat Hawk and some Silvered-Leaf Monkeys.

On our last day we went back to the park and walked around other parts as well as going up the tree-top tower to do a bit of bird watching. We did see seven new varieties that we had not seen before including a Leafbird, Woodpecker and Falconet so we were happy with that.

We enjoyed our time in Mulu but were also glad to move on, our four nights stay over, we got another cheap plane ride to Miri in the morning, nothing to do here except have some food and make your way towards Brunei really, so that’s what we did.

The Sultan of Brunei, you’ve heard of him I’ll bet, but did you know that Brunei was in Borneo? I’m not writing this to belittle your geographical knowledge but next time you are in a pub quiz, it may come up :-)

If memory serves, I’m sure I had to look it up when I was a teenager as I thought at the time it was an Arab state, all countries rich in oil are, aren’t they? Of course not!

So oil, yep plenty of nodding donkeys (pumpjacks) and refineries to be seen here. The relatively short journey from one side of the country to the other has a few on the way. Malaysia may have been a step up from the rest of the Asian countries we visited in terms of wealth and infrastructure but Brunei was a notch up again, except of course Japan and am sure Singapore when we get there (mid Nov).

We arrived in Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) the capital and checked in to the cheapest hotel we could find in the centre which looked like it hadn’t been re-decorated since the 80s. Expensive compared to Malaysian standards but for one night, it’s ok. Food was cheap though.

It’s a weird place really, nothing much is going on and not many people around, It’s even quieter than Vientiane and there was nothing going on there! Oh well, it’s one to say “yes been there” but not sure we would recommend it.

We did however enjoy a very good boat trip. A young boat driver took us up river for around one hour or so to see some Proboscis Monkeys. We had seen a few in Kuching but this was an even better sighting and we saw at least three different families feeding on the young mangrove leaves. They did make us smile, they are such funny looking monkeys but so cute at the same time.

We made our way back into town and at dark the Mosque looks very pretty with its green lights.

The following morning, we were offered a free tour by our hotel around BSB to see some of the other sights. Of course we had already seen most of it the day before having walked around it! Anyway, we did see a few new things including another huge and very beautifully decorated Mosque and the start of a bridge being built to link the city to the ‘floating’ towns (literally, thousands of houses on stilts) on the other side of the river. We didn’t visit these houses, having seen similar efforts in other countries, it’s not really our favourite thing to do, it’s usually dirty with bad sanitation facilities and rubbish everywhere but perversely the people always seem happy and don’t want to move to dry land.

The last thing we saw was the Regalia Museum which is basically a Museum to the greatness of the current Sultan. It housed lots of gifts he had received from foreign dignitaries as well as items used during his coronation and pictures of his life from childhood to modern times. All a bit self-indulgent but when you have a $22 Billion dollar purse or whatever it is now, you can do what you want. Brunei really is all about the Sultan, his picture can be seen in every shop and restaurant. His palace is huge, twice as big as Versailles apparently, not that we could visit it of course being mere mortals!

Not to do him an injustice, if his subjects are anything to go by then he must be a charming man, all Bruneians we met were very kind and pleasant to talk to.

Our Borneo adventure over, we got a flight that evening for Bali to then make our way to the beach of Gili Air and do nothing for a while, it’s tiring being a traveller you know!

Our lasting memories of Malaysia;

We spent nearly two months on and off in this country and we did enjoy it but there’s no wow factor except the nature so our list is quite short for once...

Apes. A treat to see an Orangutan and all those Proboscis Monkeys.

Shopping Malls, how many do you need?!

Palm Trees everywhere, what happened to the indigenous vegetation...

The mix of peoples (Malay, Indian, Chinese) seemingly getting on well and living together.

Being left alone, unlike most SE Asian countries, people don’t stare at you here or try to rip you off.

Colonial past, it really is evident that the brits where here not so long ago.

Hardly any dogs to be seen (muslims don’t like them) and most of the cats seem to have their tails docked or curled up/broken somehow, very strange.

Enjoy the Ape photos although we won't be winning any awards that's for sure! best we could do with our limited equipment.

Kuching