Kota Kinabalu – KK for friends – is a name we had never heard of until recently. It turns out to be quite a large city, with as many as four hundred thousand inhabitants squeezed between the sea and densely forested hills. Nowadays, it's…
Pale sandy tracks draw long, parallel lines through the lush greenery. The Malaysian rain-forest had to give way here to the geometric pattern of palm oil plantations. Further on, the mud-brown Baram River winds sensuously through the flat land in a hundred and one bends. Then the untouched rainforest of Brunei appears. It looks as if …
At Kuching International Airport Edgar is waiting for us, together with bus driver Jef. For the next three days they will guide us through Sarawak, the Land of the White Rajahs. Both of them belong to the Bidayuh, a tribe that inhabits the hills between Kuching and the border, but also ...
In the distance, the jagged, pale grey ridge of Gunung Kinabalu makes its appearance, at 4,095 meters the highest mountain on Borneo. A little later, we land at Lapangan Terbang Sandakan, on the coast of the Sulu Sea. An almost cloudless sky gives the sun free rein here. Once, this little airport …
Shortly after half-past nine, we leave Sukau behind. Not even ten minutes later, the paradisiacal, quasi-untouched rainforest is gone. Palm oil plantations slide past the bus window, one after another. There seems to be no end to them. When it comes to palm oil, …