Malaysia is bad at selling itself. On the map it is a narrow peninsula and a slice of Borneo across the South China Sea, and plenty of travellers ride through it in a few days. Stay a while and you find that the best things about this country are out at the edges: on a brown river in Sabah, at a plastic table in George Town, or on an island without roads on the east coast.
That is why this list has three places on the peninsula and two on Borneo. It is not a balancing act. Borneo is simply the part you end up talking about most, and the peninsula is where you eat best and travel most easily.
So, five experiences, and they are not in route order. At the top is the one that stays with you longest.
1. Proboscis monkeys and orangutans on the Kinabatangan
Half past five in the morning, mist on the water, and the guide cuts the engine. Then the trees on the bank start to creak. A troop of proboscis monkeys is waking up, the males with their droopy noses and round bellies, the young ones leaping from branch to branch. A hornbill flies low overhead. On the mud lies a log that suddenly opens its eyes.
At 560 kilometres the Kinabatangan is the longest river in Sabah, and its last stretch runs through a narrow strip of forest between the palm oil plantations. That packs the wildlife in tight along the water: proboscis monkeys on almost every cruise, crocodiles, monitor lizards, with luck wild orangutans and herds of pygmy elephants crossing the river. You sleep in a lodge in Sukau or Bilit, and packages with a dorm bed start at about €110 for two days and one night.
Do not head straight there. Start a day earlier in Sepilok, where at ten in the morning and three in the afternoon orangutans come out of the forest to the feeding platform. The rehabilitation centre has been doing this since 1964, and the animals that turn up do so of their own accord. Then it is two hours on to the river. More in things to do on the Kinabatangan and things to do in Sepilok.
Our verdict: the high point of Borneo, and take two nights on the river, because the elephants keep no appointments
2. Stall to stall in George Town
You go to Penang to eat, and that is not a side plan. A bowl of asam laksa, sour with tamarind and thick with mackerel, costs about one and a half euros here, and you eat it on a stool next to a wok that has been turning out the same dish for decades. You order a second one straight away. That says it all.
The system is simple. In a hawker centre every cook makes one dish; you find a table, remember the number and give that number at every stall you order from. Asam laksa, char kway teow and satay then find their own way to you. Gurney Drive on the seafront is the famous one, Chulia Street in the centre the easiest.
And between meals you wander George Town, Unesco World Heritage since 2008. Pastel shophouses, clan houses dripping with woodcarving, Ernest Zacharevic’s street art and the clan jetties, wooden villages on stilts over the water. Our tip: eat your asam laksa at the market in Air Itam, at the foot of Kek Lok Si, then take the funicular up Penang Hill. More in things to do in Penang.
Our verdict: the tastiest three days of your trip, and count on them turning into four
3. Snorkelling with sharks on the Perhentian Islands
On the Perhentian Islands you swim with sharks before lunch. Blacktip reef sharks, a metre long and shyer than you are, circle the rocks at Shark Point. A few hundred metres on, green turtles graze the seabed while you float above them. A snorkel trip to five spots like that costs about €10.
There are no roads on the islands. You walk the jungle trails or hop in a water taxi, and on Long Beach on Perhentian Kecil the dive schools sit side by side between the chalets. Ten minutes over the jungle trail and you are in Coral Bay, watching the sun sink into the sea. Plenty of backpackers come for three days and leave with their first dive certificate.
Two things to know. There is not a single cash machine on the islands, so bring enough cash from Kuala Besut. And come between March and October: after that the monsoon shuts most of the islands down. Ask for a snorkel trip that leaves in the morning, too, and you share Shark Point with a couple of boats instead of a fleet. More in things to do on the Perhentian Islands.
Our verdict: the clearest water on the peninsula, and the best snorkel day ten euros can buy
4. The rainforest of Taman Negara
Your first evening in Kuala Tahan you eat on the water, at a floating restaurant on the Tembeling. On the far bank begins a forest that has been standing for around 130 million years. When the crickets and cicadas crank up after dark, you stop doubting that number.
You cross to that forest in a little boat. That is where the canopy walkway hangs: 530 metres of rope bridges and narrow planks, up to around forty metres above the ground, for about a euro. Then climb Bukit Teresek, 334 metres, for a view of rainforest running all the way to the horizon. And go back in the evening with a guide and a torch, because after dark there is ten times more in that forest than you saw in the day.
The best way to arrive is the river boat from Kuala Tembeling: about three hours upstream, for about seven euros, with jungle on both sides. On your second day be at the little ferry at seven and you have the walkway almost to yourself. Heads up: it is closed on Fridays. More in things to do in Taman Negara.
Our verdict: two to three days in the oldest forest you will ever see, and pack leech socks
5. Sunrise on Mount Kinabalu
At two in the morning your alarm goes off in a mountain hut at 3,272 metres. With a head torch you climb the last stretch over bare granite along a rope, and when you stand on Low’s Peak, at 4,095 metres, the sun comes up over the whole of Borneo. It is the highest mountain on the island, and the reason plenty of backpackers come to Sabah.
The climb takes two days. On day one you walk four to six hours up to the Panalaban huts, and the same night you carry on to the summit. You are not allowed up the mountain without a guide, and the beds on the mountain are limited. A full package from Kota Kinabalu starts at about €550. Bring a warm layer and gloves: around sunrise it can freeze up there, whatever month you go.
What matters most is timing. Book the climb before anything else, ideally six months ahead, and build the rest of your trip around it. Can’t get a spot? Ride to Kundasang on the flank of the mountain and look up from the vegetable fields in the morning at the grey peaks above the clouds. More in things to do in Kota Kinabalu.
Our verdict: the toughest night of your trip, and the view you will still be longing for years later
Got time to spare?
The cool air of the Cameron Highlands. At 1,440 metres you pull on a jumper for the first time in weeks. Get to the BOH Sungei Palas tea plantation around half past eight, walk the path up between the bushes while the mist still hangs in the valley, and only then drink your tea on the terrace. From Ipoh it is just two hours by bus.
Kuching, on the other side of Borneo. A calm city on a brown river, with orangutans at Semenggoh just outside town and proboscis monkeys in Bako National Park. Start your day the way the locals do: with a bowl of Sarawak laksa. How Sabah and Sarawak differ is in Borneo: Sabah or Sarawak.
The water of Semporna. Lagoons in ten shades of blue, the volcanic crater of Bohey Dulang and, for divers, Sipadan, where only around 250 people a day are allowed in the water. Several governments, the UK’s FCDO among them, advise against all but essential travel to the islands off this coast, Sipadan and Mabul included. So check your own government’s current advice and your travel insurance before you book. Everything about the permit is in diving Sipadan and Semporna.
An island for every season. Travelling in the northern winter? Then the east coast is shut and Langkawi on the west coast is at its best. Which island suits your months is in Perhentian, Tioman or Langkawi.
Our top five in Malaysia
- Proboscis monkeys and orangutans on the Kinabatangan, with a morning in Sepilok first
- Eating from stall to stall in George Town on Penang
- Snorkelling with reef sharks and turtles on the Perhentian Islands
- The canopy walkway and a night walk in Taman Negara
- Sunrise on the summit of Mount Kinabalu
Can you do all five in one trip?
Yes, as long as your season is right. The Perhentian Islands are only open from March to October, and Borneo is driest from March to September. Travel in those months and all five fit into one route: Penang and Taman Negara on the peninsula, the Perhentians on the east coast, then a flight to Kota Kinabalu for the mountain and the east of Sabah. How that fits into three weeks is in our Malaysia itinerary.
Give Borneo at least a week. Kota Kinabalu and the mountain take three to four days, Sepilok one or two and the Kinabatangan two to three. You fly to Borneo, because there is no boat, and from Kuala Lumpur you are there in under three hours.
If we had to pick one: the Kinabatangan. George Town tastes better and the Perhentians are bluer, but a little boat at sunrise among the proboscis monkeys, with an orangutan high in the canopy, is the moment you realise you really are on Borneo. When each part of the country is at its best is in the best time to visit Malaysia.
