Sarawak
(Map from MapQuest.com)
For the time being I'm living in Sarawak which is the largest state in Malaysia. Sarawak has a rich culture and a beautiful nature, so there are lots of things for me to explore here.
The largest city in Sarawak is Kuching where I'm living. Kuching has an international airport so it's easy to travel in and out of the city.
The Malaysian flag to the left and the flag of Sarawak to the right.
Limbang
After you have walked the Headhunter's Trail in Mulu National Park you will end up in the small town Limbang, close to the border to Brunei. I spent some hours there together with Kieran and Maria. We walked around in the city and went to a café, but to be honest there wasn't much to see there...
The Limbang River.
A museum. The only good thing was that the entrance was free. :-)
A temple and a hotel with colourful balconies.
Borneo Highlands Resort
In the beginning of this year our client (Sarawak Energy) arranged a small team building called Borneo Highlands Resort Walking Challenge. I was the only one from our Norwegian company that attended. I saw it as a good opportunity to get to know some new people. It was a smart move because I met my Australian friend Colleen that day!
A bus picked us up from the office early in the morning and drove us to the gate at the foot of the mountain, on which the Borneo Highlands Resort is located. It is actually very close to the border to the Indonesian side of Borneo.
From the gate we started to walk uphill. The road is paved all the way to the top but some sections are very steep so it took a while to reach the top. Up on higher altitude the air is fresher and cooler and it was nice to escape from the warm and humid climate that is normal on Borneo
Up on the mountain we had lunch at Borneo Highlands Resort before we took a shuttle bus down to the gate.
Except for some small rainshowers it was a very nice day!
The gate where we started the Walking Challenge.
Some of my colleagues ready to start to walk.
It is an easy walk, the road is paved all the way up to the resort.
We thought that we had reached our goal when we saw this, but it was 30 minutes more to walk.
Nice gardens.Mulu National Park
Earlier this year I made my first little adventure to discover some of the real Borneo. I went to Mulu National Park for five days. I travelled together with Maria and Kieran from Australia and I really enjoyed their company.
Our trip started with a flight from Kuching to Mulu Airport out in the middle of the rainforest. There we met our guide and he took us to the park headquarter where we were going to sleep the first night.
View from the plane.
After we had signed in we made a guided walk on wooden walkways to see two different caves; Lang's Cave and Deer Cave.
A wooden walkway makes the access to the caves convenient.
We spotted a couple of colourful millipedes on the rails.
A bamboo viper, which is a venomous snake, was lying on a branch very close to the walkway!
After less than one hour we arrived to the caves. First we visited Lang's Cave. Lang's Cave is the smallest of the Mulu Show Caves but it has some really nice stalactites and stalagmites.
Inside Lang's Cave.
The next cave on our schedule was Deer Cave. When you look out of Deer Cave you can see that the rock wall has the shape of Abraham Lincoln in profile. The cave has also a natural shower inside and it is home for millions of bats which are hanging under the roof. The floor of the cave is almost completely covered by bat guano.
Inside Deer Cave.
The profile of Abraham Lincoln.
A natural shower.
After we had explored the caves we gathered outside and waited for the bats that live in Deer Cave to come out. Almost every night millions of bats fly out of the cave entrance to hunt for insects.
The entrance to Deer Cave.
Millions of bats flying out of the cave.
The following day started with a boat trip in a longboat to visit Clearwater Cave and Wind Cave. After visiting the caves we started to walk to the camp site where we should spend the coming two nights. We walked 8 kilometres and the terrain was easy, but it was extremely hot and humid. The sweat was dripping.
Travelling in a longboat.
The beautiful camp site.
The following day we woke up very early to start the climb up to the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are rock formations shaped by the rainwater. The climb up to the viewpoint is very steep and it took us 8 hours to climb up and down again. The distance is about 2.5 kilometres one way, but the altitude difference is almost 1200 meters. The last part of the climb was the steepest, with ropes and ladders, but it was actually my favourite part! I was tired in both my arms and legs afterwards!
The Pinnacles.
A chameleon that I saw during the climb.
At the camp site huge butterflies were flying around.
After our climbing adventure we walked the 11 kilometres long Headhunters' Trail through the rainforest. Back in the early days the real headhunters carried their boats along the trail, from one river to another, when they were out robbing and killing their enemies from other tribes. To show how brave the men were they collected the skulls from all the victims they had killed and that's why they are called Headhunters.
The last part of our rainforest adventure we travelled downriver in a longboat to a village where we spent one night in a longhouse. It was interesting to meet the local people and see how they live. The life in the longhouse is very social at least.
The longhouse as it looked like from the outside.
Inside the longhouse.
This was the end of a real adventure out in the rainforest. We experienced a lot during those five days and finally conquered all the leeches! Poor Kieran got 15 leeches on his legs when we walked the Headhunters' Trail, but luckily he was able to remove them all before they bit him.
Kuching - The Cat City
In the beginning of this year I moved from Norway to Malaysia and the island of Borneo to work as a mechanical engineer in a project that my Norwegian employer has here. I signed a contract for one year and are now living on Borneo. My plan is to tell you about my life in Asia in this blog and of course show you lots of photos.
When I first found out that I was going to the city of Kuching in the Sarawakian part of Borneo I googled the name of the city and I found a lot of pictures of cat statues. I asked myself why. When I arrived here I learned that Kuching means cat in the local Malay language. So that's the explanation of the cat statues, it's a way of marketing the city.
