Borneo Blog

Lonely Planet, the world leading travel publisher, has posted an alert on its website, warning travellers not to go to the eastern part of Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island.

The alert says:

Travel Warning: Don’t Go to Eastern Sabah

The islands and coastal areas of Eastern Sabah are considered very dangerous for foreigners, who are at high risk of being kidnapped by terrorist groups.

Severity: High-level alert.

I don’t know since when the alert was posted but I don’t think the situation at the moment warrants a high-level alert. Probably a travel advisory would suffice. Definitely not a high-level alert. Sabah’s east coast is not the Gulf of Aden.

The situation in the east coast of Sabah now is not as dangerous as it was in 2000.

Following two hostage-taking incidents in resort islands in the state’s east coast in May and September 2000, security surveillance has been stepped up in the area.

Three US Pacific Commanders had visited the area since then and all had acknowledged that the security surveillance put up by the Malaysian government was sufficient to thwart any terrorist threats.

I’ve been following several blogs written by tourists and visitors, relating their experience in Borneo, particularly in Sabah, the state where I come from.

One such blogs is “100 Days of SoliDude” run by this Erik Page guy. I think he is an American engineer based in Thailand.

Two-week adventure in Borneo

He recently had a two-week adventure in Borneo, spending most of the time in Sabah.

While in the Malaysian state on Borneo island, and he explored many places, several of which I myself — a Borneo guy — have never been to. He had climbed Mt Kinabalu, dived in Sipadan, gone off the beaten tourist track in Sandakan, met the proboscis monkey, and gone stone age in Long Pasia jungle.

I like his style of writing, although he misspelled Kota Kinabalu as Kota Kinabula.

An experienced driver — with six years of diving experience no less — he initially appeared to be skeptical about Sipadan being one of the world’s premier diving destinations.

Let’s see what my six years of diving has to say about that, he wrote; I can’t recall the exact quote though.

Spellbinding Sipadan

Then he went to Sipadan and came back to report that he might stop diving forever after this. Quote:

“I ended up doing 14 dives overall there! Saw sharks, turtles, barracuda, sea snakes, morey eels, cuddlefish, and a billion other things. It really was an amazing place.

“I think I need to stop diving forever now because I’m pretty sure everything else will be a let down.” [Source]

Way to go Erik, hope you’ve had the adventure you were looking for in Borneo; and hope you don’t mind me quoting your blog here.

As for the diving, well, you can always come back to Sipadan.

[Pix by Kota Kinabalu City Hall] Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of Sabah, is AirAsia’s most popular destination. The city by the sea beat 56 other destinations serviced by AirAsia, Asia’s biggest budget carrier. Kuching and Langkawi came second and third respectively, according to a survey conducted by the airline.

The airline’s inflight magazine, “Travel 3Sixty”, says the other seven most popular destinations in its top 10 list are Bangkok, Jakarta, Macau, Bali, Kota Baharu, Shenzen and Phuket.

The magazine based its findings on the number of passengers flying to each destination per month.

But the magazine should get its facts right

One complain though. The next time the magazine wants to publish articles about Sabah and Sarawak — the two Malaysian Bornean states — it could use some double-checking of facts to avoid making glaring factual errors.

Take for instance in the column about Kuching being the second most popular destination. Why did the writer urge tourists to visit the 56Okm Kinabatangan River Wildlife Sanctuary in that column?

First of all, no Kinabatangan river in Sarawak, let alone in Kuching.

And the 560km Kinabatangan River Wildlife Sanctuary is non-existent.

The sanctuary is located in the lower Kinabatangan area or also known as the Kinabatangan floodplain or in Malay, the Dataran banjir Kinabatangan, which is 27,000 hectares in size, not 560km long.

Kamurang jangan main-main, nanti itu Bung Moktar Radin kasi tunjuk dia punya sleigh of hands baru kamurang tau.

I’m a RSS subscriber of several tour and travel forums and often times I come across questions such as where to visit in Borneo, when is the best time to visit Borneo, how to go to certain places in Borneo as well as cheap flights to Borneo.

Recently, a member of the AardvarkTravel.net Travel Forum, for instance, posted the question, “Where to visit in Borneo?“.

I wish I had the time to compile a report on all the must-visit places in Borneo — covering Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan — but I’m too busy with work.

Even if I do have the time after coming back from office, my mind would already be so tired up and bordering on fatigue that any possibility of engaging in productive research and writing is as good as none.

But I still harbour the hope of being able to come up with the report one day. If you have the time though, you might want to suggest the places through the comment section.

When The Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler went to Borneo with his wife and children, nature awaited them. He says:

“When my wife and I thought about bringing our three children closer to nature by taking them deep into the jungles of Borneo, we didn’t realize how close we’d actually get.”

Read the exciting story and enjoy his crisp writing as well in the article titled “Hanging out in Borneo on a family vacation“.

[Photo caption: Prince Albert II of Monaco and Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Alfred Jabu. Pix from Bernama]

Prince Albert II of Monaco, who is on a three-day visit to Sarawak, the other Malaysian state on Borneo Island, today launched the world’s first digital remote-controlled bats monitoring system at Deer Cave, one of the many caves within the Mulu national park.

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