I love markets, especially food markets, even more if I have the opportunity to cook at home. And the markets of Sabah offer an abundance of colors, smells and impressions. The permanent ones are in covered market halls or other shaded establishments, due to the heat and sun. The stall owners are typically friendly, interested…
Still trying to keep my running practice, I had to do it in the afternoon, in the jungle of Muru, a World Heritage Area on Borneo. Poor me. As most of the accessible jungle here, it is part of a park, and they have well-kept paths. However, running / jogging here comes with a catch:…
“Oh, from Germany! Muller. Brehme. But not so good anymore.”, the taxi driver said on our way to KK center. It is not so easy nowadays to be a proud German abroad. But what about the world-famous German goods with their fame for quality? Like … Cars? To be frank, on Borneo, there are times…
Google has a cool app, “Translate”, which integrates “Lense”, allowing you to take a photo or use the life camera to translate what you see, e.g. of a restaurant menu. For being in countries like Thailand, Greece, China or Japan, this is a game changer. And as there are a lot of Chinese restaurants in…
A dear friend once told me that when you travel, you realize afterward which experience was the most significant, the one that immediately comes to mind when reflecting on the trip. During our three-month journey in Borneo, mostly on Sabah, two experiences stood out, one of which was our visit to Howard’s Tampat Do Aman,…
“I miss him. I would like to have him back. Now I have a mouse that wants to eat my stuff”. Said Marc, a traveler from Canada. Howard said they have 7 in their house, and they like them, as they keep everything clean. We encountered one of them in the first night, and let’s…
As Tamara Thiessen wrote in her Borneo Guide: “Gyms in hotels with less than a luxury rating are rare, so make the most of them when you get the chance if you are trying to keep fit while you are travelling. The heat and humidity make it tough to run outdoors.” The only chance to…
“But we are a chicken country, how can you not eat chicken? What do you want to eat here?”. At least she did not ask “why did you come here”. Malaysia is a chicken country, Borneo is a chicken island. Poor lady at a small eatery in Poring Hot Springs. The Malaysian word for chicken…
There is a substantial Chinese community in Kota Kinabalu on Borneo, and the celebration of the Chinese New Year is an important thing. Over the two weeks of festivities, the Lion Dance is something that thrilled us, especial A M C. Have a look at the video. Special dance teams train the whole year to…
The cats I know and have met in my life, almost always had their tail as decoration, indicator of mood, or for whatever reasons – full and in one peace. Even in ports in Sicily or Greece: They were meager, had spotty fur, or a dripping nose, but the tail was almost always “intact”. Not…
You stumple upon a night market in KK specialising in Durians, and one stand had boring-looking green fruits without label, only price displayed (20 Ringgit per kilo). „Duku“ they said. How does it taste? Shrugs. How do you eat it? The man made a peeling gesture, but did not open one. So I bought half…
These are some of the magical things I saw in the Borneo jungle. One is called cotton bug. The other is the lantern bug. Guide Lan showed them to us at the Kinabatangan River. Cotton Bug eggs. I would not have noticed, but Lan new. Then Cotton Bug – potentially Flatidae – fully developed. Looks…
When I first saw the Mantis Shrimps encaged in PET bottles in a seafood eatery in Kota Kinabalu, I got quite angry and cursed the “animal-cruelty of the Asians”. I imagined they grow them in the bottles because – how would they otherwise fit through the small bottle-neck? This is how they grow pears in…
Mabul resort (actually Mabul Water Bungalows, as there are more than one) is quite impressive. With wonderful flowers along the houses. We visited it as a day tour from Semporna, to dive/snorkle, as our wildlife guide from Sukau (being a native Sempornan) considered it the most beautiful island in the are. The board walk of…
I find the Rambutan one of the least visually tempting fruits on earth. With it’s tentacly outside (or “hairy”, as literal translation from the Malaysian word) , in yellow-reddisch colors, hinting at a new cleaning device for your encrusted one-pot, the more rotten it looks, the better the inside. Having first encountered it 25 years…
