Tag: photo

To the east coast of Malaysia (January 2026)

We took a long distance bus to the east coast of Malaysia. This time it was a really luxurious bus. A lot of space, adjustable air condition. We were flying of the roads 🧈🚀
We arrived at the coast and this one was very different. There were waves which reminded us of the Atlantic.
Our accommodation was still ok for us but more things than usual were broken and the balcony they praised on booking.com was not really existing. But we got used to it pretty fast.
Now that we were at the east coast of Malaysia, Racki and I wanted to see a nice sunrise and so we went up early, took our breakfast to the beach and … there was no sun. The clouds were blocking it.
So we started picking up trash from the beach. It was in fact one of the trashiest beaches we had seen so far and so we filled two dustbins in no time.
The locals were observing us and two men started to collect trash as well and dealt with it in the Malaysian way: burning everything right at the spot.
In the end, we had a nice, clean, big area without any trash laying and flying around. But again it interesting how these changes how we perceive a place. I mean, the trash is still there and all of us are producing more and more. But it just feels just better when we don’t see it.
A elderly lady came by and was very motivated to take a lot of photos with us. She was very cute and it was interesting that she was so happy to take photos with tourists in bikinis. Most Malaysian women were full body suites when they go for a swim.
We took a nice walk in the town and saw all kinds of interesting things.
Scooter benzene in glass bottles at the mini market.
And we were always on the hunt for mango with sticky rice and coconut sauce.
Once, when we had lunch, the locals from the hardware store on the other side of the road did a bit too well in burning there trash and had to move there cars and get a lot of water to get the fire under control.
Nothing to special in Malaysia but interesting for us.
More graffiti streets with beautiful …
… sweet …
… political …
… and creative graffitis.
And of course there was a lot of very delicious food and …
… cute kittens!
We visited a Buddhist temple …
… with a beautiful statue.
A colorful interior.
Interesting paintings.
And then we wanted to visit the big local mosque. It turned out that it was not a very touristic one.
But the locals there were super friendly and after we had waited for there ceremony to finish, they gave us a tour.
They were very eager to take photos with us and we loved that they were so open and happy to show us their holy place and tell us how they are deciding who becomes the next Imam and all kinds of things.

Into the biggest national park of Malaysia, Taman Negara (January 2026)

We went with the minivan from Kuala Lumpur to the long tail boat and then further up the river into the biggest national park of Malaysia: Taman Negara.
The ride with the boat took quite a while and it was nice to observe the shore, the jungle and how the driver had to put quite some effort to find the deepest paths through the river to not touch the ground.
The restaurants at the heart of the tourist area were mostly on floating platforms.
On the search for the best french fries.
Our accommodation was very nice but the geckos did not enjoy their stay so much. At least not the ones getting trapped in the fuse box.
Jungle explorers.
In the junge.
We found a lot of interesting stuff, sounds, and animals.
Some suckers were not our friends.
One evening, we went to an observation post and waited and observed for a hour in the hopes of seeing some jungle elephants …
… but didn’t see any.
On a guided night tour we saw a lot of interesting animals. These are sleeping birds.
Techno party scorpion.
Our guide showed us a photo of the biggest flooding that took place in Taman Negara in 2014 and was about 75 meters high.
To go into the national park, we had to take a boat to cross the river.
Dumbfuckery all the time!
Meeting other travelers.
The jungle rollercoasters …
… and highways.
My favorites: the big trees.
Some up to 80 meters high.
Some leaning over.

Rock sport climbing with alien friends and huge trees in Merapoh in Malaysia (December 2025)

From Gua Musang we went to Merapoh which was close by and a village known for being close to the biggest Taman Negara (national park) in Malaysia and the caving possibilities.
The first climbing sector we visited was called Gua Lima (“cave five”).
In the beginning of our time in Merapoh, the rain created some ponds we had to cross to reach the climbing routes.
Especially Racki attracted a lot of these leaches in different sizes. I only got a few.
At the end of our stay, it was all dry again.
In the beginning the crag was partly wet but dried up more over the days.
Climbing was awesome 🥳
The highest routes went up to the top of the wall 🧱
From up there, the view was amazing 🤩
As a belayer, we were always accompanied by different insects. Of course, there were mosquitos everywhere but we liked these jungle nymphs the most.
This impressive little one is a jungle nymph in its last stage. It looked super alien 👽
Gua Bekong was the next climbing sector we visited.
It was very nice but most of the routes were out of our difficulty range. We built up our climbing capabilities and felt really good and fit 🥳
But we did the easier ones and learned a lot.
Some days we met up with Alex who bolted all the routes in Merapoh. It was an interesting guy with a lot to do and a lot of motivation for bolting and sharing a lot about the process of bolting.
One day he took one of his friends and us to the newest climbing sector Gua Layang.
It was a nice big wall looking like a big wave. The approach was already easy climbing 🥳
The weather was nice all the time which was super good after the days of concessive days of rain 🌞
On our walks to the different climbing sectors we saw a lot of beautiful Malay homes with beautiful gardens 🌺
Impressions.
And big, big cows with a whole lot of skin 😀
Our first apartment after the camping in Gua Musang had an ac which we used to dry all our stuff.
This was our tower for the water kettle because its cable was too short 😁
The sink had an interesting outflow which led straight on the ground 🙃
Our second accommodation was the cheapest we could find: five Euro per person and night. It was just on the main road. The toilets and showers were public and in the next building. We were the only guests and had the public space of this little Hostel all for us. Even though they had not officially opened their hostel, they let us stay for a discounted price and we were the first western tourists they ever hosted.
The nights were strange. Most of the evenings a karaoke show was going on at one of the little restaurants next to our hostel. But there were barely any guests and we could really not join the singer because the songs sounded so weird to us. Sorry brave singer friend 🤗
In our room, we had this mosquito net. We called it the Käseglocke 🤣
Breakfast we always made ourselves and dinner we mostly had at one of the many small restaurants.
After some days we found our favorite ones. And the locals were always very curious about us because they did not have so many international tourists there 🎉
One day we went into the famous Taman Negara which is the biggest national park in Malaysia. On the way there, we passed a lot of Plantages …
… what made the beautiful rain forest even more beautiful. Because of the rainy season, only the tree top walk was open but it was absolutely worth it. The walk was massive.
And the highest platform was 32 meters high 🤩
This was one of the biggest trees seen from the top. It was massive and very impressive. The photos can’t transport how big it was. One of the branches at its top was the size of an ordinary tree in Germany 😳
These trees grew up to 80 meters 🚀