South-East Asia

Our first stop in Malaysia was Kota Kinabalu, the provincial capital of Sabah, one of the two autonomous states on the Malaysian part of Borneo. KK is a small port town with much Indian and Chinese influence and businesses, and mainly lives from its proxinity to Kinabalu National Park, hosting South East Asias highest mountain, the Kinabalu, with something above 4000 meters. Apart from that, there are some other parks around (Tunku Abdul Rahman bird reservoir) and some really lovely islands with some of the worlds best dive spots.

Our first day here brought us to the Lon Kawi wildlife reservation, basically a small, well-kept zoo where local animals live under pretty acceptable conditions in terms of space and comfort of their compounds.

Our second day brought us to the islands of Mamutik and Sapi, with lovely white beaches, coral reefs full of coloured fish, and a lot of stick-like jellyfishes, which strangely disappeared after 11.00 a.m. without a trace.

Our plans to go climb Kinabalu Mountain (actually, its more a long hike) were thwarted by the cloudy and rainy weather that day, which made for zero visibility and impossible conditions, as temperatures might fell down to freezing degrees up the mountain.

After walking some shorter trails around the mountain, we actually had to admit that even if the weather had been any better, our own physical condition would have prevented us from that nine-kilometer steep upward hike. So we were not too disappointed, and got away some nice shots of the mountain and the surrounding rain forests before it started raining.

We intended to spend some three days in the city-state of Brunei next, which separates Sabah from Saravak, and here we got really into trouble and an odyssey. According to our previous recherche, Russian passholders should get a 72-hour transit visa upon arrival. However, when we arrived after a six-hour ferry ride from Kota Kinabalu, we were informed that this refers only to those travelling by plane. So we were refused to enter, and Vera got that nice "Visa denied" stamp in her passport, which is definitely not a good thing to have as it raised suspicion at other borders as well. To get back to Malaysia we had to do the whole migration procedure again. In order to avoid going all the way back to Kota Kinabalu, we went to Limbang, a small town located on mainland Borneo, restricted by Brunei to the east and west and jungle to the south. We had the naive idea that we could catch a car and drive around Brunei, but that hope was crushed by the dense jungle. So we took a bus which was supposed to cross Brunei, only to be told at the border that Vera would not even get a transit visa for the hour to cross Brunei, even though we would not get off the bus at all. So back again to Malaysia, migrating again (lots of paperwork and health inspection due to H1N1), taking a taxi to Limbang, and then we bought the first possible air ticket out of the mess we were in.
The whole adventure cost us an additional 300 US dollar from an already tight budget, and four days of travel time. I really wonder which brilliant brain worked out those visa guidelines in Brunei - for a state separating a country, creating such a hassle seems to me like organised robbery or just incredible stupidity.
So everyone not from a country on easy relations with Brunei, be strongly advised to plan for a flight to cross between Sabah and Saravak.