little paradise

Thanks to Nurul Akhmal who recommended me to visit the paradise-like Perhentian islands on the north-east side of Malaysia I spent a wonderful time just doing nothing ...

with a speedboat over the very quiet sea toward Perhentian Kecil

emerald-green water ... swimming in it and looking at it were two of my major activities

gazing out at some neighboring uninhabited islands

a storm is coming ...

heavenly enlighted

peaceful sunrise on the morning after the thunderstorm was gone

under the rule of His Majesty the Sultan

Since I have first heared in Highschool of Brunei, the small Sultanate located in the South China Sea on the Malaysian part of Borneo, I was somehow fascinated.
I cannot really explain why ... maybe because many people don't even know about Brunei's existence, maybe a liked the sound of its name (in full it is actually Brunei Darussalam). And I remembered its capital Bandar Seri Begawan because it is the only major city I know, whose name consists of three words.

However, I never really thought that someday I would have the chance to go there.
But thanks to AirAisa I got an almost no-cost flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bandar Seri Begawan and so I happened to spend a couple of days in the world's longest-lasting hereditary monarchy.
The first Sultan of Brunei ruled in the 14th century and the same family has been in power ever since. Although it was for some time a British protectorate, Brunei never completely lost its independence. And with the discovery of vast amounts of oil at the beginning of the 20th century the royal treasury department became suddenly very busy. The black gold made the Sultan over night to the richest man in the world (before Bill Gates took over a few decades later).

Bandar Seri Begawan is quite a small city (about 50.000 inhabitans) and unlike Dubai the Sultan's wealth can only be seen in some of the official buildings, like the Royal Regalia Museum, the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque and, of course, the Sultan's palace which is bigger than the Vatican palace and not open to public.
Besides that there are some monuments marking different birthdays of His Majesty as well as the impressive Empire Hotel which cost estimated 1.1 billion USD and a huge amusement park that was built by the Sultan's brother (who happened to be finance minister at that time) and who has given it to himself as a birthday present.

The common people enjoy some benefits such as no taxes, free health care and subsidies if someone wants to buy a car. But for many foreign workers coming from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc. the standard of living is not much higher than in neighboring Malaysia.


Unfortunately, the Sultan was preoccupied during my stay and had no time to meet me ... I guess he was busy either with some issues concerning falling oil prices or his two wives gave him trouble ...
so I had to look around the city on my own.

water village (about 30.000 people live in the middle of the river) with one of the numerous water taxis in front

portrait of His Majesty Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei, commemorating his 63rd birthday.

monument commemorating another birthday (maybe his 60th, but I'm not sure)

ceremonial carriage inside the Royal Regalia Museum ...

... the Sultan used it once to drive through the city.

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque

ceremonial ark for the Sultan in the artifical pond surrounding the mosque

Empire Hotel featuring five-star-plus luxury

the many faces of Kuala Lumpur

It is fascinating how different this city can be. I guess it is possible to get a full range of experiences, from bad to really, really good, in just a single day.
You can walk through the city center and encounter all sorts of businessman and -women in perfectly fitting suits typing away on their notebooks in a Starbucks. And then you turn into a side-alley, where homeless people in awful conditions beg for money. Just next to the glittering shopping malls, with armored security personnel in front of every luxury boutique, you find street vendors selling cheap food and drinks. Black luxury limousines are parking next to old, rusty Toyotas.
You see women in tiny hot-pants and high-heels (mostly of Chinese descent), women with colorful Indian scarfs and women in black Burqas that leave only a small slit for the eyes. And all of them trying out the new iphone at an Apple store.
Men with turbans, men in robes with long gray beards, young men with fancy haircuts and way to much oil in their hair. People on the street kindly helping you with directions and Buddhist monks selling peace in the form of little golden badges.
You can hear people talking in Malay, English, Chinese and India. Some people try to scam you with faked games or overpriced souvenirs. People smiling at you with no obvious reason, saying hello to you on the street and wishing you a nice day. You can watch the religious police shooing young (unmarried) Muslim couples apart because they dared to hold hands in public. And so on ...
Kuala Lumpur seems to be a mix of almost everything.

market in Chinatown

central market

lake Titiwangsa

old British influenced building in Little India

KL Tower

old Bentley, stopped and caught in heavy traffic just in front of me

And the Petronas Twin Towers are just amazing ...

cleaning the Malay flag at the outside of the Petronas Towers

in the park behind the Petronas Towers

throughout Taipei and a bad start in KL

It's been a little while since my last entry here but the reason is not that I didn't do anything or that I'm lazy (although sometimes ...). I was suddenly and unexpectedly occupied with other objections ...

Thursday night I arrived in Kuala Lumpur (KL). I managed to find my way from the airport which is about 50km outside of the city to my hostel with a bright full moon watching over me. I was really looking forward to exploring KL the next day.
Thus, on the next morning (actually I got up late, so it was already around noon) I looked around the city center and in the afternoon I went to a huge shopping mall (MidValley) further south. When I decided to go back to my hostel a few hours later, a large crowd was waiting at the train station.

Finally the train arrived, everybody was pushing inside and a minute later my wallet was gone - stolen right out of the pocket of my trousers.
Within less than 24 hours in Malaysia I had no money, no credit card, no ID (except for my passport) and I realized that I was trapped inside the subway system.

After I quickly went through the stages of shock, disbelief, anger and acceptance I called my father to block my bank account. At the exit gate of the subway I convinced the security guy that I had no ticket and that I was by no means able to buy a new one and went straight to the police.
With no money at all and no way to get some, your options become suddenly very limited.

The police officer was friendly but considered it more or less useless that I told him about the theft of my wallet. I made a report anyways and asked him at the end for a little money so that I could take the subway back to my hostel.

I didn't sleep very well that night but I was lucky to find a Western Union bank the following morning that was open although it was Saturday. My Dad sent me some money and I eased up when the woman at the counter kindly handed me over the bank notes.

Now that I'm relieved of the burden of having to carry my wallet around, I can start (with some delay) to experience the more enjoyable aspects of Kuala Lumpur ...




But before that, I want to add some info about the rest of my time in Taipei:

Throughout Taipei
I was pretty lucky with regards to the weather. Only on one day it started raining heavily. At that time I happened to be a little bit outside of Taipei in the mountain area where I visited some temples and shrines (all very close to each other) dedicated to deities of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

view over rainy Taipei from 'the mountain with the highest spirituality in the world'
(at least that's what the sign post next to me said)

Zhi-nan temple and also 'China Center of Taoism'

Taoist altar at Zhi-nan temple

steep curved steps to the entrance of the Buddhist temple

tiny palm tree in the botanical garden of Taipei

lotus flower (botanical garden)

Core Pacific Living Mall

crossroads on the Roosevelt Bdv. nearby my hostel

Shilin night market

somewhere in Shilin

lion guardian at the entrance to the Palace Museum

I got off the airconditioned bus, walked along this path for about 200m in the blazing sun and when I got to the entrance of the museum I was a sweaty mess.

One morning, I was just eating my breakfast in a small park, I suddenly got company ...

he was as much surprised to see me as I was to him when he came around the corner.

On my last day in Taipei I went to the Museum of Drinking Water. Because the name itself sounded funny and I was curious if I could gain some special insight in how to drink from my water bottle.

But as I discovered to my disappointment, there was no information about drinking, gulping, sipping or slurping water ... just pipes and water pumps. The most exciting thing in the whole area was a red water hydrant on display in the sculpture park outside the museum.
As my boredom grew larger with every single piece of water engineering equipment, some kids playing in a water fountain caught my attention. They seemed to have lots of fun and I would have joind them immediately but I guess the limit for admittance to the 'water party' was somewhere below the age of 8.

pipes with different radii ... breathtaking

it seemed that in order to jolly the tourist along they put some funny signs up at the museum ...

... I watched out and lucky me - there was nobody around to hit me.

One of my favourite places in whole Taipei was the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial area. It was just too nice to spend some evening-hours there ... reading, eating or listening to my mp3-player.

the National Theater on my last evening in Taipei

the truely impressive Chiang Kai-Shek memorial hall in the light of day...

... and with an nearly full moon