Orang utan at the feeding station, Semmengoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, Sarawak

Pool, Damai Beach Resort, near Kuching, Borneo

Batu Caves - up the steps to the left of the statue!

Kuching waterfront and water taxi

Malaysia and Borneo

Martin visited Kuala Lumpur (KL) as an external examiner in April, August and November 2011. Gillian joined him for the August visit and we added a week in Borneo at the end.

In KL we visited the Batu Caves, a group of Hindu temples inside a huge cave system at the top of around 300 steps. The macaque monkeys higher up are playful and great fun to watch, while clutching bags and cameras carefully! The hotel is located on top of a large shopping mall, which was an interesting experience for country folk like us!

In Borneo, we based ourselves in Kuching, the old White Raj capital of Sarawak, for three nights, then moved to an exotic beach resort for the last three nights. Kuching is a delightful place with a small well-preserved old centre on the river and an interesting museum. From Kuching, we made day trips to see the orang utans and a tribal longhouse in the jungle. We learnt that orang utans, which are the same size as a small woman, build a new nest on the top of a tree every day - they look like storks' nests.

From the beach resort, we spent some time looking out to sea across the swimming pool.... . The highlight of our visit was to negotiate a boat trip with a local, going up river past various fishermen and seeing the fascinating 'fish that walk' (mudskippers) and vast numbers of iridescent turquoise crabs. Mudskippers (wikipedia) are truly amphibious fish, that can breathe through their skin and the linings of their mouth and throat, and spend most of their time on the riverbank or within 2-3 metres of it.

Borneo longhouse of the Bidayuh tribe

The longhouse skull collection

Fishing boat on our river trip in Borneo

The' fish that walks' (mudskipper) - too fast for the camera!