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samandnicolestravels · 6 years

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All over the place

Two countries and countless forms of transport.

Apologies for the lack of blog activity recently. I would say we’ve been busy, but in truth at times we haven’t. Really, it’s just the terrible WiFi that seems to have followed us for over a week that has slowed progress. Since my last entry we’ve spent time in two countries, taken two boats and three flights. The only constant in that time has been the terrible WiFi. So here’s an update.

At the minute we’re in Sabah, one of the two states in Malaysian Borneo. Admitedly not one of the first places that we thought we’d end up on this trip, but we’ve done some unbelievable stuff so that deserves its own post at a later date. I left the last entry at our night out in Ubud. As imagined, the long drive and ferry we had to catch the following day was awful. We were headed to Nusa Lembongan, a little island south east of Bali. Having read many good things about the island, citing it as a slice of paradise and the ‘Bali many expect to find yet never do’, our expectations were high. I guess getting off the boat to this certainly did nothing to temper those expectations either.

However, sadly several things conspired to make our visit slightly underwhelming. None more so than Nicole getting very ill, a bad case of food poisnening, which rendered her bed bound for two days. Thankfully, she is much improved now. However, after our 3rd day on the island, we had barely left the accommodation. It was only on the third night that Nicole managed her first food (since the featfull fruit juice), some excellent spring rolls that I dutifully brought back from dinner-for-one.

In truth, the areas we did see were on the most part very poor. Tourism is almost the sole income on the island and it was clear that locals were cobbling accommodation facilities together by whatever means to take advantage (can’t blame them). The beaches were underwhelming and lack of proper waste disposal facilities added to the tourist influx meant the island was very dirty. It is common place for people to just burn their household/business waste. They say that Lembongan is Bali of 30 years ago prior to the tourism boom, and in these aspects that is very imagineable.

Our time on Lembongan wasn’t entirely a waste, we saw several impressive sunsets from Mushroom Bay, our closest beach. We also went on a snorkelling tour around several marine life hotspots off the coast of the adjacent Nusa Ceningan and Nusa Penida. We saw lots of amazing fish I had only previously seen in an aquarium, however I have very little photo evidence. My photographic abilities are limited on land, needless to say I’m fairly useless at underwater photography and am unlikely to get a job on big Daves next Blue Planet documentary.

Nicole most definitely could, if it weren’t for her severe dislike of the sea/any marine life larger than a goldfish. We make quite a pair. We left Lembongan slightly dissapointed, but knowing we have plenty of time yet to find a bit of island paradise. After one night back in, Kuta at the Ida hotel (see blog post 3), our time on Bali and in Indonesia was up. We thoroughly enjoyed our time, in the most part. Even if Bali wasn’t quite what we expected, we saw some amazing things. We won’t be back in a hurry. Besides, given how tectonically active Indonesia seems to be at the minute, I’m not sure Mums nerves could take it. On to Malaysia, next stop Kuala Lumpur.

So started a whirlwind of a few days travelling. We flew from Bali to KL, with only a night (less than 24 hours) in the Malaysian capital. This wasn’t an oversight, we had spoke to many people saying KL had bored them, and there really was little to do there. We arrived midday, and had what we thought was going to be a relatively easy journey to the hotel using the city’s light rail transit system. How wrong we were. Imagine the tube in London, with each line operated by a different company. Navigating our way from the airport to KL Sentral, the city rail hub, was easy enough. However finding the right line/company to purchase tickets from turned out to be a monumental and stressful ordeal.

We were staying very centrally in KL, well away from the airport which is someway south of the city centre. Maybe an oversight looking back given the difficulty of the journey. However, our homestay was lovely. Despite the building appearing unfinished, the actual apartment was luxury, with another unbelievable city-scape. Probably our best so far.

We actually had the homestay recommended to us by a guy we met in Singapore whilst doing laundry. Random. But I’m glad we got chatting, as it was perfectly placed to venture in the the city centre to wander round the central business district and get the obligatory tourist photos in front of the Petronas Towers. Which by the way, are bloody massive and a spectacle when lit up.

However, the main premise for the reccomendation was actually the complex’s rooftop pool. Our informant couldn’t remember the buildings name, but just said to google ‘best infinity pool in KL’ and no doubt we would find it. If there’s a better view from a pool in KL, or anywhere else for that matter, I would like to see it.

The following day we were to leave KL, quite satisfied with what we had managed to achieve in our little time. Our 3pm flight to Sandakan, Borneo left us the morning to explore a Hindu temple known as the Batu Caves. In theory the caves were only a 15 minute metro ride away from us. Feeling seasoned pros by this point we thought why not, as we had time to spare. We got to the station, bought our ticket and sat and waited. Almost 40 minutes passed before we realised no trains were coming as there was a significantly reduced timetable. Proves us right for getting ahead of ourselves.

We spent the rest of what we had left of he morning strolling round a shopping centre looking for a new bikini for Nicole, before embarking on our journey back to KL International Airport. So that’s it. You’re up to date (almost). Speak in a few days ✌🏻

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