June 16/13 – Malaysia, the last country in our itinerary before going home was a mix of heavy rain storms, night markets, being beach bums, watching Criminal Minds, arcade car racing (SEGA Daytona) and playing Pick Big 2.
Through all these activities, the best part was getting to know more about my travel buddy, Neil. His 4 years background as a Military Officer and his 2 years as an “Expedition Leader” (a tour guide for road trips from England onto the Sahara dessert and across Africa for a 16-week trip) made him such an amazing person to travel with.
When we left Taiwan, we nominated Neil to be our “tour leader” to plan all our days and I couldn’t ask for more. No one could have been better. He knew exactly what things Deon and I like to do and what types of activities to avoid for us. At times, he also knew where to stretch us. LOL. We felt completely safe everywhere we went to because we saw how careful Neil was in his planning. His observations of every new place we got to and which he shared with us upon our return to our hotel is also amazing. It has really been our privilege to be travelling with him for the last 3 weeks.
Below are places we visited over the10 days we were in Malaysia:
Penang is an island off the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Despite being an old colonial city that is known to have looked a lot better before, Penang is still an interesting place to visit. The place is also well known for being the “food paradise” of Malaysia.
Kota Kinabalu is the capital of the state of Sabah located on the northwest coast of Borneo that overlooks the South China Sea.
Mamutik Island is a small island in Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, a 15-minute boat ride from KK. While it is well known to be a great place for snorkeling, our experience here can’t come close to what we had in Bali, Indonesia.
Tip of Borneo – The most northern point of Sabah from where we could look across to the Philippines, this place of Borneo is surrounded by long white sandy beaches with crashing waves which makes it ideal for surfing and possibly kite boarding. There is also a light house that was built to help protect hundreds of ships passing along this line, a lot of which experience problems. Two hundred kilometers from KK, this place is very remote and populated mainly by the Rungus people. The only way to get here is by car.
Originally posted on Amy’s travel blog: TravelwithAmy.ca