Sabah | The Land Below the Wind

The Austronesian language family covers half the planet so who are Austronesians, where do they live and where do they come from?

Going off-the-beaten-track half way round the World with people you don’t know, food you’ve never tried before and what appear to be extreme weather conditions. What can possibly go wrong?

A few tips on how to get the best out of your small group tour to Southeast Asia

This World Heritage-listed national park in Malaysia’s Sabah State features on our small group and family tours to Borneo

The picturesque Kinabatangan River, located in Malaysia’s Sabah State on the island of Borneo, is home to a remarkable range of wildlife

Malaysian street food Sampling local street food has become an essential element of overseas travel and indeed offering street food and street food tours is increasingly seen as an important draw for foreign visitors. A brief scan of any of the myriad ‘best street food’ kind of articles includes entries from right across the World with cities as diverse as…

Where to see orangutans in Sabah The large, equatorial island of Borneo comprises the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak – covering the far north and northwest respectively – and the Indonesian region of Kalimantan, by far the largest portion of the island.  Our where to see orangutans in Sabah post, however, is therefore restricted to the former of…

Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu A flight from north Sabah’s Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu Town on Borneo’s west coast was an often scenic but otherwise unremarkable flight, although it was reassuring to fly over some still extensive forest cover. Alas, from ground level – especially aside highways – it can seem that the dreaded oil palm plantations stretch all the way…

Malaysia UNESCO Sites Malaysia UNESCO sites currently include 2 cultural sites in the Peninsular and a national park each in Borneo’s Sabah and Sarawak States. A further 2 candidates in the tentative section add a second national park in Sarawak, plus the famous Taman Negara in West Malaysia. Considering the country’s rich cultural heritage and stunning landscapes, that’s a relatively…

Kuching The ‘City of Cats’, Kuching, is the capital of Malaysia’s Sarawak State on Borneo Island. (Note, that’s nothing to do with furry animals but the nickname actually (apparently) derives from a tributary of the Sarawak River along which the city was founded and which in turn was named after a common local fruit, the cat’s eye longan.) Kuching was…

The Danum Valley Situated in eastern Sabah State, inland from the Malaysian coastal town of Lahad Datu, the Danum Valley is one of Borneo’s best-preserved stands of primary rainforest. It comprises of nearly 450 square kilometres of lush, lowland tropical forest – an ecosystem sadly, increasingly rare with the predominance of oil palms in the local economy. Danum is particularly…