Tag: animals

Discoveries in a mangrove forest in Malaysia (December 2026)

We visited a mangrove forest where we could walk through this unique ecosystem without destroying it even more than we humans already have 🪾
It looked interesting at first glance but the really interesting stuff we found when having a closer look 😳
There was a river bed to observe as well 🙂
And there were a lot of monkeys …
… chilling and socializing on the paths …
… watching over his gang and getting tired 😴
But the most interesting creatures we could observe after having a closer look at the ground 😀
They looked pretty alien …
… and were jumping in and out of there mud holes 🏠
And the crabs had very different colors ….
… nice blue …
… big claws …
… some had dates …
… and some happy time together 😁
Oh, and there were reptiles too 🦎
Some were fighting …
… and others were just strolling around. Warans were my favorite ❤️!

In the jungle of the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia (November, December 2025)

We took a bus to the Cameron Highlands. The bus engine was not that bad when it was moving, but in neutral the engine got pretty loud. And we were almost crashing into the roof when the bus hit the many bumps on the road 😄
The jungle was very different from what we’d seen in the last years 🌿
And the jungle trails were pretty cool and interesting. It was never boring to walk there. More like an agility walk 🥳
And they were actively maintained and some parts had even ladders and, or ropes 🪜
The plants were amazing 😍
So much green and besides the trails there was the impenetrable jungle 💚
We made it up to a view point. The viewpoints were mostly not so impressive because there was mostly not much to see. More covered by trees 🔭
All these patterns, …
… colors …
… alien shapes, …
… crazy ones, …
… mushy ones, …
… more mushrooms, …
… and psychedelic ones 🌺
So many 🥳
And reptile friends 🦎
Another hike brought Racki and me …
… to a peak at 1840 meters 😁
Meanwhile Tom got lost a bit because I accidentally put the wrong location in his navigation app.
But we made it and reunited 🤗
But still I was very sorry for my mistake because the path to the wrong location was very slippery and we had to walk a lot longer to avoid taking that path again 🙃
But in the end, we made it and on the way we met a lot of jungle-assimilated old cars 🌿
The weather was awesome. Not one rainy day in the rainy season in the jungle. Our apartment was in one of the big living houses in the Cameron Highlands and we had a lot of good food in the small restaurants 🥳
And we pitched up our new tent in our apartment. Tom brought it from Germany and we applied sealing to it ✨

Change of plans and remote rock climbing and nice hikes in Tajikistan (July 2025)

Our plan had been to go to Afghanistan and continue to Pakistan, India and then Nepal.
But after the only border crossing between Pakistan and India had closed after some military fights, we had been stuck in central asia.
After waiting for more than a month we gave up on the border to open again. We researched other options and came to the conclusion that we did not want to go through China with a guide and travel group. It would have cost at least 2000€ for going to Nepal and if the border between Pakistan and India would not have opened in spring 2026 and we won’t find a travel group back, we would have to pay about 7000€ to go back through China. What is more the visa and customs situation was not comfortable in India and Nepal without a third country to do proper border runs.
We thought about southeast asia as well, but the visa and customs regulations in Laos, Thailand etc. sounded complicated and in some countries even impossible.
So we made the plan to go back to Kyrgyzstan, then Kazakhstan, park Rosinante in Almaty for the winter and fly to Southeast Asia by plane until spring 2026 and see if the border between Pakistan and India would be open again.
On our way from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan, we found another rock climbing sector at a pretty remote location. The scenery was amazing!
The crag was awesome as well. Although there were only about four routes bolted. We did one not too hard one. The next day we went for the multi pitch we were looking forward to. To me, it was ridiculous! The route was very dirty and slippery. But still we were lucky, because someone did his best to clean it. There were freshly cut plants and bushes all over the place. But I did not enjoy this route. It felt just stupid to me and I thought about aborting it.
Racki enjoyed it and so I continued. But honestly, the best moment on this route was when we had reached the top/ exit after four pitches.
Happy to have survived.
At our camp spot next to a bumpy dirt road, we got quite some visitors. Among them was one nice elderly guy. We invited him for dinner, talked via Google Translate and one day he danced to my playing of the cajon. It was pretty funny.
We drove further and did a very beautiful hike.
The hike went all around a very famous white crag.
From there a lot of routes were going deeper inside the mountains.
It got pretty steep.
And the glaciers were as impressive as always.
On the way down, we had some fun sliding down the snow fields.
And we met a head attached to the inner remainder of his body.
This white mountain looked very nice. Here is our tour on komoot.
We went on and after driving a long time on bumpy off road tracks, we found a nice camp spot next to a river.
From our camp spot, we started our next hike and met some locals at their summer camp.
The men were herding etc and the women and girls did everything else.
The hike brought us to a very beautiful waterfall!
It looked really nice. Here is our tour in komoot.
After some days, we continued our way back to Kyrgyzstan and took one of the more remote and lonely mountain passes.
And we made it close to the border to a big lake we’ve only been to once before.
And like most of the times when we arrive at a lake, we helped a group of locals to recover their car from the muddiness.