Brunei Darussalam

I'm now sitting here at one of the few cafes to be found in Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital city of Brunei Darussalam in northern Borneo. It is all very different from the rest of the region. It's very calm and relaxed, almost soothing. Cars drive past you slowly, noone seems to be out in the streets at all. The only sound that strikes you are the prayers from the minaret of the national mosque. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but a very strange feeling when you have gotten accustomed to the intense pulse of Asia.

The Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque in central bandar Seri Begawan

 Brunei is a tiny oil magnate, run by the sultan Hasanal Bolkiah himself without a government (His father, the former sultan banned all political opposition). It's a muslim country with a mostly malay population, that seems to be very warm and loving. The sultan is one of the richest people in the world, his own palace seems to cost as much as the sporadic infrastructure of the rest of the country. It's weird to see that one single person can manage pull that off. To use the whole nations assets to fund your own private interests, and still be loved and worshipped by the people. Paradox?

Lots have happened on our way here to Brunei though. We left Kuching behind us and took a ferry ride to Sibu. Did I feel nouseous or what. Atleast I wasn't alone having my stomach twisted inside out while the captain of the boat, probably considering going that fast with big waves in the side simply, "fun"!?

Sunbeams from a hole in the cave roof.

 That same evening in Sibu I started feeling very ill, which doesn't occur very often. My head was spinning out of control, I was sweating heaps, while freezing at the same time. it seemed I had all the symtoms of a proper dengue fever attack. I wasn't very happy. It lasted for about another 48 hours but then I felt fine. Lucky me. I remember in the Gili Islands in Indonesia two years ago when my dear friend Mick got the dengue, layed in bed for 10 days without eating or drinking and lost maybe 10 kilos. It's horrible.

Niah Cave

On our way to the bordertown of Miri we stopped over at the Niah caves National park, to check out some of the worlds largest caves. Inside the caves they appear to have found the oldest evidence of human presence in all of Asia. Apparently bones dating 40.000 years back have been found inside what appeared to be an ancient burial ground. Pre-stone age wall paintings can be seen accompanied by approximately 500.000 bats and equally as many swallow birds. The locals in the area today make a living, climbing bamboo poles 10-50 meters up in the roof of the caves to collect the swallow birds nest, consisting of feathers and saliva. For one nest alone, they can earn up to US$ 1000, because they are considered a delicacy in... wait for it.. yes of course... China!! When dogs, discarded human fetuses or seahorses simply aren't enough. let's get some bird's saliva!

Tomorrow it's time to hop on the bus again, this time towards Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian province of Sabah. We are going to have to cross a lot of borders to get there, since Brunei is divided into two parts enclaved by malaysia. So after another 9 hour busride and 8 stamps in the passport we'll both be looking forward to heading up the trail to climb Mt Kinabalu. the largest mountain in SE Asia.

Peace out - Sauerkraut!

Sarawak, Borneo

We got to Kuching Airport here in Sarawak, borneo a few days ago only to realize that there aren't any shuttle buses to the city, We were told however that we could walk a bit down the highway and catch one of the local buses. Waiting at the highway for at least an hour a guy pulled over and told us we're waiting in vain. There aren't more than 2 buses a day here, so jump in and I'll drive you to the city! We arrived at a hostel called Tracks in central Kuching, and the place is lovely. The guy working here, Dean makes everyone feel like home, and we pay almost nothing for the best accomodation possible. In fact everything here in Sarawak is dirt cheap, especially if one just arrived from Singapore. A meal at a restaurant is about 3 Ringgit (equal to 6 SEK), and that is awesome!


Kuching has a pretty cool vibe to it, it's very relaxed and soothing, even though it's the largest city in Sarawak. You don't meet a lot of backpackers, but the ones you do meet are lovely people. The locals are very nice and friendly with a constant smile on their faces. They speak remarkably good english and treat us very well. Like yesterday for instance. We were having dinner at a lebanese restaurant and were seated next to a group of local boys. We shared some beers and a hookah with them and for some reason decided to go to a karaoke bar together. It turned out to be one of the wildest nights in a long time. No matter how many times you experience it, it's always a blast to see asians enjoy their karaoke. They love it!

One morning we decided to go to the Semeggoh wildlife centre, which is like a sanctuary were they try to help domesticated Orangutangs back to a life in their natural environment! I'm very happy to see that Malaysia is really putting in an effort to help this endangered species. Anyway, we got there at around 9 am, which is the time they feed the Orangutangs, (like a supplement to the food they find in the wild themselves). It was clearly stated that, this is not a zoo. you are in their territory, behave, be quiet and don't expect to see any monkeys at all, you should be happy if you do. Expecting nothing, we waited for more than an hour when suddenly one of the wardens said that they had spotted a few orangutangs a bit up the path. He motioned us to follow him a few minutes up the path and there it was. Possibly the coolest creature I've ever seen in my whole life, just a meter away from me! That was such a "wow" experience I'm sure it's gonna stick around in my memory forever.

The day after, we went to the Bako Nationalpark which is about an hour away from Kuching. After disembarking the bus at the pier we chartered a boat to take us to the park headquarters, located half an hour out on the peninsula. As soon as we got off the boat, we were surrounded by naughty macaque monkeys trying to steal whatever possible. Having a lunch at the cafeteria one of the macaques stole a can of 100plus from a girl, ran up the roof and enjoyed it peacefully. They even stole Johans springrolls from his plate when he wasn't paying attention! Either way, the first night we decided to join in the "night safari" which supposedly should be a good way to see some of the creatures that don't really come out during the days. And indeed, we saw a lot of  different snakes, spiders, birds, bats and pigs. And went to bed very satisfied with the walk.

 
Woke up early the following morning, to get out on the path as fast as possible, before it gets too bloody hot. (the heat down here is almost comparable to a finish sauna). Johan and I decided to take the longest possible loop there was and boy was that a good call. We didn't just see an incredibly diverse flora with everything from palm trees to insect eating plants, but also a whole bunch of cool animals. We saw Pribiscis monkeys (which are famous for their noses that looks like penises), hermit crabs, a lot of different snakes and more macaques. The whole trek took us about 5 hours, but was supposed to take much longer, happy to realize the cycling fitness is still going strong!

Today will be our last day here in Kuching before it's time to head north to Sibu, not really sure what to expect or do, but one thing is for certain. Theres going to be more encounters with nature like these last few days. I love it!

Singapore

Riverfront bars!

Yeah baby! Feels so good to be back in asia again, To feel the heat strike you with the force of a fistblow as soon as you disembark from the airplane. To smell the fragrance of open sewers mixed with incences and oriental food. To go out in the steaming streets only to sweat like a pig after a few minutes. To hear different languages and witness different cultures only a block away from eachother. Singapore is quite extraordinary.

Hindu temple

The country is located on a few islands about 150 km north of the equator, so the climate is literally boiling, but I've been longing for that so I don't really mind. One can easily detect the difference between Singapore and other major cities in asia. It's clean! Really really clean, almost sterile, even by western standards. I suppose the $1000 fine for littering isn't such a bad idea after all.

Beautiful architecture at Taoist temple

We have settled ourselves down in an area called little India in the northern parts of southern Singapore, which is pretty cool. It's got a very chilled out atmosphere and people don't really seem to be in a hurry, in contrary to the very busy chinatown to the south. Another thing to note is that the city is not just full of mosques, but also heaps of churches, synagogues, taoist- and hindu temples. It's both a multicultural and multireligious country, mostly due to it's important location in the South China sea which has led to it being one of the most important harbours in the world.

Beer garden in chilled out Little India

Sentosa Beach

The six days we have spent here have been very busy but so exciting. There's been enough time for beach hang aswell as temple sightseeing and rainforest walks. Yeah, that's right. in contrary to my believes that Singapore was just one mega urbanised area, it has actually got a whole bunch of national parks and nature reserves, even though a bit touristy, they are still worth the visit. A trip to Singapore can easily become a very pricey holiday, but we managed to live quite cheap by doing the "free" stuff and eating the delicious food at the Indian foodstalls.

We have now taken another flight to Kuching in sarawak in the Malaysian part of Borneo, where we will spend some time before heading north towards Brunei Darussalam.

First time in a car, Mordor, Otane and Auckland.

Hello again!

Swedish Citizen?

It's been quite a while since the last update, again... But at least a lot has happened since the last time I posted. We've lived a month at the Coromandel Mansion in Wellington and it's been a blast! The city has been treating us well and we've have had the best company possible. The most amazing girl from Tasmania that I was lucky enough to meet in Queenstown has been staying with me at the Coromandel. I'm not sure if there's anything else in the world that can beat a romance. Love is amazing! Unfortunately duty called and she had to go back to Australia to take care of Greg Barns and some other business. I can't wait to see her again though!

Because of the earthquakes in Christchurch, the Wellington city council has decided that all buildings must be earthquake proof, which the old mansion is not. Our landlord "Jacko" therefore had no choice but to kick us out, which wasn't too bad because we had been planning on leaving either way. However, we wanted to stay for the Wellington sevens this weekend which is one of the worlds greatest rugby events where the best teams in the world play each other with only 7 players. (Apparently this version of rugby is to be a part of the olympics in a few years if everything goes right.) But all accomodation to find in Wellington this weekend was sold out, so our only option was to leave.

Wellington from Mt Victoria

We went to Thrifty car rentals hoping to relocate a car to Auckland, which is for free as long as you get it there in 48 hours! We got ourselves a Toyota RAV4 and burned away towards Otane in Hawkes bay, where we have relatives which neither one of us ever met before. We are both very glad we went there to meet them! They are a friendly and loving family not too different from our own. Hopefully our paths will cross again eventually, maybe in the northern hemisphere!

The Napthens

Hoppa Hulle

After spending the night at the Napthens we decided to head for Tongariro national park to do the Tongariro crossing trek. Tongariro is where they shot all the scnes from Mordor in The Lord of the Rings! Even though we got there at 1 pm and the fog was so thick one could almost cut it with a knife we decided to go for it. We figured we could do it if we walked twice as fast as calculated on the signs. Even though visibility was zero throughout the whole trek we both enjoyed it, especially the mind blowing silence that struck us when we were up on the plateau close to the volcanoes. It felt so good with a proper workout after a month of laziness. We managed to do the 11 hour trek in 5½ hours, which is evidence enough the fitness we built up during our 2000km bike ride is still there!

A crater in Mordor

Having driven some 300km more from Taupo, we are now in Auckland.We are ironically enough staying at base backpackers and have already had one of the famous "button-showers".
It will however only be for a few days because we fly out to Singapore on the sixth to continue our journey. We'll stay about a week in "The City of Lions" and then fly over to Kuching in Malaysian Borneo. From there, find our way through up to Brunei Darussalam and then on towards Palawan in the Philippines. It's going to be a nice change to pick up the backpack again and discover new cultures in SE Asia!

Tutta Fjutt på en vessla!

Settling down in Welly!

 Almost a week have now passed here in Wellington and it has been a great one indeed. I am falling in love with the city. It's not too oversized but still has the pulse of a larger city. It takes us about thirty minutes to get down to Oriental bay, where the beach is actually pretty neat! Our own suburb, Newtown is sweet. Theres a whole bunch of Opportunity shops where we've already found ourselves some bargains! The cafés are half the price of those in the city, and the asian veggie-shops are just too awesome. There's no doubt that the upcoming months here are going to be amusing! Now it's time to get a move on, Ryan is waiting at his amazing mediterranean patio with some beers! Life is awesome!

Newtown from Coromandel street

Wellington

Tahunanui beach in Nelson

Hey there people. It's been quite a while since I last made an update here so I reckoned it was about time!
Lots have happened since though. After those few days in Hokitika we got back on the bikes and went underway towards Nelson to celebrate christmas with our dear friends from Hamburg, who we used to nag out in Dunedin with. The ride to Nelson was amazing, with a whole bunch of picturesque little townships along the way. Since neither one of us had made any reservations for accomodation in Nelson we ended up staying at a Holiday park for almost a week. It was a pretty nice place, apart from the kitchen which was the worst equipped I've ever set my foot in. Nelson itself is a neat little city located by the Tasman bay. We spent a lot of time down at the beach there, feeling in love with life. When the germans rocked up at our campground on the 23rd we decided to meet up with them at their hostel the day after to spend the day drinking beers in the park, which we all did with joy. We completely forgot that the supermarkets were gonna be closed on the following day so we ended up eating instant noodles for christmas dinner. The people around us however felt sorry for us and we both ended up having full stomachs before we went to bed.

Punctures!

After a few more days in Nelson we decided it was about time to go on with the biking and make our way to Wellington for the new years celebrations. It didn't take more than a few kilometers down the road before I got a flat tyre, which we did solve in a few moments.. The rest of our two day journey to Picton was pretty rough with a couple of large hills, but the view over the beautiful sounds were a blessing which made it easier. We too realized how fit we have actually become during this trip, a 12km hill would have been devastating in the beginning, but now it's like "shooting fish in a barrel."

We got on the ferry early in the morning the following day, only to discover that the ferry itself was an old Danish Bornholm cruiser with all the signs still in Danish. It felt pretty awkward to be able to order Smørrebrød, vand and fadøl in the middle of the Cook strait. Even though the ferry was Danish it actually got us all the way to the Wellington Harbour!

We were staying at a hostel called Downtown backpackers, which used to be one of the fanciest hotels in New Zealand back in the days. Even the Queen of England was staying there once. It was now nothing near it's old glory, but atleast the company was superb! We celebrated New years with two awesome americans and Canadian Ryan whom we know from the wild times back in Queenstown, and a whole bunch of other people. We all decided to get a liter of Gin each and see who would manage to drink it first. I don't think anyone made it, but Johan and Ryan wasn't too far from the last drip.

Mr Richenback with a lot of gin!

Cool in France?

 The last days after new years eve have too been great. We've been doing a lot of sightseeing, only to discover that there is still so much left to do here. Bored is one thing we won't get here for sure!

Johan behaving in front of the Beehive!

We have officially moved in to an old 1900-century mansion in Newtown, which is about a twenty minute walk from the CBD. The place is awesome! We have 4 kitchens and some 7 bathrooms, an inflatable pool in the backyard and red carpets in every room, for only 160$ a week. It feels so good to have our own rooms for a change, without having to make 9 people company every night. I will take some photos and upload here for the next update. Our landlord is however one of the sketchiest people I've ever met. He could honestly be Jacko Jacksons twin brother, literally. He managed to pull the two dirtiest jokes I've ever heard in my whole life in less than a minute! Click the video link if you don't know who Jacko/our landlord is!

 

Peace out everyone! See you soon.

Westland weather

We woke up this morning in what felt more like a lake than the tent we usually sleep in. It has been pouring down like crazy all night and still is actually. We thought we were lucky enough to miss the worst of the so famous Westland weather, but today we were caught in the middle of it. The massive rainstorm made it impossible for us to even try to cook our traditional oatmeal brekkie. We had to leave immediately. All day, it's been raining and hailing horizontally due to the 40+ km/h northwesterlies. It was some very exhausting 60km to get to Hokitika. I now know not to underestimate the NZ weather because it can be devastating.

Anyway, soaked as we were we managed to find ourselves a hostel for the night, where we are going to celebrate our 3 months away from home by cooking some good food and watch an awful lot of movies! I sincerely hope that the following days will have some nicer weather in store for us, but what can you really do about it.

Westland

About a week have passed since we left Queenstown behind! Not only did we have an amazing time there, but also did we meet a whole bunch of awesome people to spend those fourteen days with! However, after two weeks of beer drinking it's been quite pleasant to be back on the road again. The first day from Queenstown we figured we would take the short way to Wanaka over the mountain pass, but changed our mind as soon as we realized how steep it would be. So we took the detour which was the by far best alternative, two days of beautiful scenery and "mostly" downhill roads along vineyards and clearblue rivers took us to Wanaka. From Wanaka we started heading north towards our forth province, Westland.

The ride from Wanaka to Haast at the coast was by far the most scenic one so far during our month-long trip. For about 100km were we accompanied by the outlandishly blue lakes and the snow covered mountaintops. It all seemed so unreal and we felt very grateful to be able to witness this natural wonder. The profile of the ride however was perhaps not the easiest one. A LOT of steep ups and downs made us quite exhausted, but the will to keep on going still made us push through it and the gorgeous landscape did ofcourse play its part.

We went from the grazelands of the interior country, through the dense rainforests, over the exhausting Haast-pass only to emerge at the coast with the roaring surf welcoming us. No words can describe the feeling. It didn't take too long for our mood to change though when we discovered our new worst enemy, SANDFLIES. What these tiny creatures lack in comparison to mosquitos, they make up in sheer numbers. I'd gladly live accompanied by mosquitos for the rest of my life as long as I would never meet another sandfly again!
After another two days along the pretty Tasman sea coastline we made our way to Fox glacier, and decided to go for a hike the following day. However the next day, for some reason the weather gods decided to dump an incredible amount of water upon us. We still did the trek and no matter how soaked we got, we enjoyed the shit out of it. Johan felt like he could stay up there forever, but I'd rather not.

After the trek we got on the bikes again, only to ride the toughest hills we've done so far. The 25km ride from Fox glacier to Franz Joseph contained three massive hills that would make Lance Armstrong stop to catch his breath. Although, now that we're down in Franz Joseph we feel pretty good about ourselves. The plan for now is to get to Nelson and catch up with Jack and the Hamburgers for Christmas. Supposedly Nelson has the best weather in the whole country... I reckon we deserve that after theese rainfalls.

Now it's time to keep scrathing our sandfly bites, nasty buggars.

See you soon!

Queenstown

We left Invercargill behind us, this time accompanied by our new friend Zane from Colorado, who's also cycling through the country! We met him at the hostel over a "few" slabs of beer and our new favourite game, "Udda eller jämnt". It turned out he liked the brews just as much as we do! The first day of cycling however was neat! No crazy winds blowing us off the bikes, and no exhausting hills to climb! Just easy flat cycling, which resulted in us cycling 85km that day! Then we camped in a little village called Lumsden, we made our tents up in the middle of the park, not knowing that we were just meters away from the local police station. Fortunate for us though was that they didn't care the slightest! The day after, Zane was heading west towards Te Anau and we were going north towards Queenstown so, we took farewell and kept on pedalling.

The following day was pretty rough though, but the scenery totally made up for it! Biking uphill feels so much easier when you do it next to postcard landscapes! After those 65 kilometeres we finally made it to Queenstown, where we are staying right now! This means we have cycled a total of 830km so far!

Queenstown wharf

The road along lake Wakatipu

Queenstown is a very pretty little town, with a mere 8.500 inhabitants, but 1,8 million visitors each year, which means it's very busy. It's beautiful though, located just at the shore of lake wakatipu, surrounded by rugged mountains. (This is where they actually shot a lot of the scenes from the Lord of the rings trilogy). It seems to be a very new city where all the buildings seem to have popped up just over the last decade. Reminds me a lot of the Austrian ski-resorts. The next destination for our journey will be Wanaka which is a day or two from here, but, we have to pass a massive mountain! Gulp..

I heard a funny kiwi-australia joke today, Do you know the difference between Australia and yoghurt?
-Atleast yoghurt has got a little culture!

South!

The first 650km from Christchurch to Invercargill

We are now located in Invercargill, at the very bottom of New Zealand! I don't think we will ever get this close to the south pole unless we're in Chile or antarctica itself. It's a pretty quiet city with somewhat 50.000 inhabitants. Still feels amazing to have a bed to sleep in, a hot shower and all the other stuff we lack when camping though. It's been some very rough days cycling the last week actually, yesterday was the worst one so far. 55km with an insane headwind that would make the Swedish january-storm Gudrun look like a summer breeze in comparison. In addition to that, there's been hailstorms, rain, punctured tyres and arrogant truckdrivers overtaking like their life depended on it! We are both alive and well rested today though and actually still looking forward to hop on the bike tomorrow. We are now at the starting point of the route we had planned from the beginning, meaning this first 650km was just warming up. Neither one of us have that sore of an ass yet so it still feels compelling to keep on going. The next checkpoint for us will be Queenstown about 6 days north from Invercargill. It's going to be more hills than we have experienced so far i reckon, but also more rain. The westcoast is world famous for it's wet and humid weather! Awesome.

A tiny kiwi hill