To Penang peninsula in Malaysia and encountering the nasty monkey (January 2026)

Our luxurious bus brought us on the Penang peninsula which was a pretty touristic and crowded place.
But we found a very nice accommodation: Tony’s guesthouse. It was such a nice and calm place with a big community kitchen, eating table and everything. There were very interesting guests and the atmosphere was just nice.
Especially meeting somebody of the rainbow family gave us a nice and interesting perspective on life and the balancing and struggling between planning and just flowing and positive vibes.
And there were a whole lot of graffiti arts at the whole place.
Of course we went to the beach on which some interesting things got stuck …
… or constructed.
And the famous cat beach, a medical station and temporary accommodation for cats which helps them a lot.
About ten cats per visitor.
In the canals there were a lot and very big monitor lizards.
But we sticked to the mango, sticky rice with coconut sauce.
The other day, we went to the monkey beach.
A touristic, but still beautiful place.
With a lot of monkeys who looked kind of nice and innocent like always …
… until they attack you to steal your food, drinks or whatever. One grabbed me on my leg which let me to improve my defensive strategy: louder yelling, rising and waving the arms, and walking towards them until they back off.
We visited a beautiful botanical garden.
Had our feet cleaned.
And almost got stuck in the children slides.
On the way to a hike, the door of the bus broke down and we helped our thankful driver to repair it and were able to continue our ride.
The hike was interesting and nice and it felt very good to have some exercise-like movement again.
The locals stayed mostly at the artificial swimming ponds in the river and we tried the hiking paths.
And met a beautiful lizard.
And found a pretty much broken viewpoint structure from which we had a good overview of the small town. Here is our hike on komoot with many more photos.

To the east coast of Malaysia (January 2026)

We took a long distance bus to the east coast of Malaysia. This time it was a really luxurious bus. A lot of space, adjustable air condition. We were flying of the roads 🧈🚀
We arrived at the coast and this one was very different. There were waves which reminded us of the Atlantic.
Our accommodation was still ok for us but more things than usual were broken and the balcony they praised on booking.com was not really existing. But we got used to it pretty fast.
Now that we were at the east coast of Malaysia, Racki and I wanted to see a nice sunrise and so we went up early, took our breakfast to the beach and … there was no sun. The clouds were blocking it.
So we started picking up trash from the beach. It was in fact one of the trashiest beaches we had seen so far and so we filled two dustbins in no time.
The locals were observing us and two men started to collect trash as well and dealt with it in the Malaysian way: burning everything right at the spot.
In the end, we had a nice, clean, big area without any trash laying and flying around. But again its interesting how this changes how we perceive a place. I mean, the trash is still there and all of us are producing more and more. But it just feels just better when we don’t see it.
A elderly lady came by and was very motivated to take a lot of photos with us. She was very cute and it was interesting that she was so happy to take photos with tourists in bikinis. Most Malaysian women were full body suites when they go for a swim.
We took a nice walk in the town and saw all kinds of interesting things.
Scooter benzene in glass bottles at the mini market.
And we were always on the hunt for mango with sticky rice and coconut sauce.
Once, when we had lunch, the locals from the hardware store on the other side of the road did a bit too well in burning there trash and had to move there cars and get a lot of water to get the fire under control.
Nothing to special in Malaysia but interesting for us.
More graffiti streets with beautiful …
… sweet …
… political …
… and creative graffitis.
And of course there was a lot of very delicious food and …
… cute kittens!
We visited a Buddhist temple …
… with a beautiful statue.
A colorful interior.
Interesting paintings.
And then we wanted to visit the big local mosque. It turned out that it was not a very touristic one.
But the locals there were super friendly and after we had waited for there ceremony to finish, they gave us a tour.
They were very eager to take photos with us and we loved that they were so open and happy to show us their holy place and tell us how they are deciding who becomes the next Imam and all kinds of things.

Into the biggest national park of Malaysia, Taman Negara (January 2026)

We went with the minivan from Kuala Lumpur to the long tail boat and then further up the river into the biggest national park of Malaysia: Taman Negara.
The ride with the boat took quite a while and it was nice to observe the shore, the jungle and how the driver had to put quite some effort to find the deepest paths through the river to not touch the ground.
The restaurants at the heart of the tourist area were mostly on floating platforms.
On the search for the best french fries.
Our accommodation was very nice but the geckos did not enjoy their stay so much. At least not the ones getting trapped in the fuse box.
Jungle explorers.
In the junge.
We found a lot of interesting stuff, sounds, and animals.
Some suckers were not our friends.
One evening, we went to an observation post and waited and observed for a hour in the hopes of seeing some jungle elephants …
… but didn’t see any.
On a guided night tour we saw a lot of interesting animals. These are sleeping birds.
Techno party scorpion.
Our guide showed us a photo of the biggest flooding that took place in Taman Negara in 2014 and was about 75 meters high.
To go into the national park, we had to take a boat to cross the river.
Dumbfuckery all the time!
Meeting other travelers.
The jungle rollercoasters …
… and highways.
My favorites: the big trees.
Some up to 80 meters high.
Some leaning over.