GameBanshee Forums

Originally posted by Gruntboy
Shouldn't the rainforest be dead by now? I remember they were slashing and burning a portion of it the size of great britain every year when I was a wee nipper at school. I suppose its like on Terminator when it says the nuclear war starts in 1997.... hehe, silly scaremongering buggers.

My guess is that the rate at which the rainforests are being cut down is slowly deteriorating, but the net effect is still that more rainforest is being cut down than regrown. Nuclear war on the other hand is pretty binary, either it is or it isn't.

Home again. Like all vacations, much too short. To see everything interesting on Borneo would take many months, and require a number of battles with the bureaucracy.

Back in Kuala Lumpur, not much had changed. I still detest the cab drivers, the focus on being a shoppers paradise is blatantly apparent but at least the coffee was better than on Borneo. The availability of Guinness is also considerably higher.

Flying with Thai airlines was a pleasant experience, but that is hardly a surprise when comparing to AA or SAS. The service was quick and everyone was very nice and polite. Quite different from AA, where service is non-existent and SAS with their staff of grumpy old geezers (again, gender unspecified).

To summarize; Go to Thailand, but dont forget to make it clear how unhappy you are about the abundance of prostitution and how it effects your view of the country - make sure to visit Maharlika. Go to Malaysia, but make sure they understand that the point of going on vacation is to get away from the pampered, controlled society you live in and that you need to have personal space and be able to choose to be responsible for yourself and your life. Both nations are extremely sensitive to criticism by tourists, so if a sufficient number of us make the point of pressing these issues, they will change. Or perhaps I'm just naiive.

Pictures, in no particular order

Didn't take that many pictures, but here are a few starting in KL. Andy did most of the photography in Thailand, but managed to get his camera stolen the night before flying home.

Here is a nighttime view of KL. The two towers are the PetroNas towers, a monument to the excessive profits made by the oil industry.

A typical rainforest trail. Follow the blue markings... Actually this was an unusually rough trail, located in the Bako national park. In Mulu and Kinabalu, there were either boardwalks and handrails or concrete "roads" running through the forest.

The Deer Cave in Mulu park, the home of some 3.5 million bats. The floor in some parts is a complete miniature eco system, based on the net influx of bat droppings.

A few thousand of the bats flying out each evening to eat insects. There are some 400 different kinds of bats, but what everyone asks is if I was afraid they'd attack me and drink blood! To cite Waverly; Nimrods! There are two bats in the world that are vampires, and they're not extremely common.

The bats keep this up for about half an hour. Gives you a perspective on millions...

View from Mount Kinabalu. A picture really can't capture the breathtaking view from the top.

Finally!

I reached the top. From there, it's all downhill.

Great pictures! Southeast Asia is a beautiful region. I especially like the picture of the flying bats, but they remind me of the mosquito swarms at Greenland (which I will soon have the opportunity to meet again)
You should post some more pics of you, Mahar and Andy in Bangkok too!

@CE: I wish I could, but Andy was the one taking pictures in Bangkok, and he got his camera stolen. Maharlika is the most likely source of pictures of the three of us in Bangkok.

On a good day, one bat can eat up to 4000 moskitos. I like bats.