From Kota Kinabalu we headed back to Balikpapan, where my bicycle was waiting for me, but the cheapest flights go through Kuala Lumpur. As we would be stopping in Kuala Lumpur anyway, I figured it would be better to stay there for a couple of nights so that we can explore the city a little. I will fly back there with my bicycle soon, but Jessica had never been there and I don’t like to stop over in a place for just a few hours, it seems like a waste. So we arranged a Couchsurfing host in Kuala Lumpur and spent a day seeing a few of the tourist destinations, basically Batu Caves, the Petronas towers and a walk in the city. Batu caves are a couple of caves, one of which is home to a Hindu temple, the other is a nature reserve area for the study of bats and cave insects. After a tour of the caves we took the train back into the city and headed to the Petronas towers and asked about the tour to go up to the sky bridge. I was shocked to find that it was more expensive than the ticket to Borobudur temple (80 Ringit), I wasn’t too interested in paying to go, but the decision was made for me as the tickets were all sold out.
We flew from Kuala Lumpur back to Jessica’s home town of Balikpapan and stayed at her parents house for a few days before we flew to Central Borneo to visit her sister. There wasn’t a lot to do in her sisters city, Palangkaraya, we visited a few Dayak holy sites and spent the rest of the time relaxing at the hotel that her sister works in. Lots of time spent swimming, eating buffet breakfasts and using fast Wifi. On our way back to Balikpapan we stayed a night in Banjarmasin, a city 4 hours from Palangkaraya which is where we need to get our plane. This morning we got up at 4am and took a boat out onto the river to see the floating market. We got there before sunrise and had an awesome view of the locals arriving to sell food from their boats, it was worth the early morning and the ride back down the river was really nice too, seeing the locals waking up and washing in the river, starting their daily routine.
