Kuching, the "cat city"

Kuching is the capital of Sarawak, one of the states that compose the island of Borneo. According to some people, the name Kuching means "cat" and this fact is reminded by the many statues of cats spread all around. It's a rather large town, and a good base to explore this part of Borneo, but there is not very much to do in the city, apart from a stroll along the waterfront, a short cruise on the Sarawak river or a visit to some of its weird museums.

Bako National Park, into the jungle!

We loved the orangutans at Semenggoh but we wanted to see more animals and in the wild, so on one (as always) cloudy morning we found ourselves on the way to Bako National Park. First a bus, then a boat through the Bako river estuary full of crocodiles took us to this nature reserve, the oldest in Sarawak. From the beginning it was clear that we would find here the animal company we were hoping for...

Semenggoh, Borneo days

Flying above Kuching made us eventually grasp the importance of the moment: we were getting ready to land in the island of Borneo! The name itself summons images of deep jungle, wild animals and above all monkeys. From the airplane we could see a large winding river and vast extensions of rainforest. We were a bit tired after the night at Singapore's airport, but we felt ready for the adventure.

Welcome to Borneo

Rainy Kuala Lumpur

Originally, we thought that we wouldn't even get as far as Kuala Lumpur but since we didn't enjoy Malaysia so much in the end and rushed through it, we had a couple of days to spare to visit the capital. Also, most of the long-haul buses for Thailand depart from here, so it was only logical to make Kuala Lumpur our last stop in peninsular Malaysia before returning to its northern neighbor.

Melaka, UNESCO gone wrong

The original plan after Cameron Highlands was to go to Taman Negara National park, one of the oldest rain forests in the world. Unfortunately the weather forecast was against our plans again, and a whole week of rain in a jungle didn't sound like a good plan at all. This is why we decided to go to the historical city of Melaka instead.

Cameron Highlands, not our cup of tea

Cameron Highlands is the Malaysia's largest hill station and a place where both Malay and foreign tourists come to escape the steaming hot lowlands and to enjoy the green hills covered with a thick jungle, tea plantations and strawberry farms. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? Well, after three months of traveling we should know better than believe everything our guidebooks say. But we succumbed to the idea of lush greenery and vast open strawberry farms like the ones we'd seen in California, and decided to go.

Apa khabar, Georgetown

It was a very long night indeed. All over the Thai islands full moon parties were celebrated that night, while we had our own version of it, with no alcohol and also much less fun. We took a bus that dropped us off beside the road, had to wait four hours for another bus that would be too uncomfortable to sleep in, and at 3.30am we were in Hat Yai already, with huge bags under our eyes and with our journey being far from over. Hat Yai was not the final destination.