Hot News - June 2006 (Miri/Sarawak / Malaysia, June 10th, 2006)
- Website statistics: In May we were able to welcome on our website 35'066 visitors
- from ??? different countries* who did 719'766 (= record) hits.
- (April = 32'946 visitors - ??? countries* - 695'678 hits)
- (*= the country counter, which stopped working March 23rd, could still not be repaired
- by the ISP Goldnet - usually there were monthly between 100 and 118 countries!)
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- Although we heard several times suspicious noises coming from the rear axle, which was temporarily repaired
- in Ranong in Southern Thailand, we reached on May 18th, without any problems the port city of Butterworth,
- situated on the Malaysian peninsula just opposite of the island of Penang. One day later, we loaded our Land
- Cruiser into a container with destination Bintulu, located in the East Malaysian part on the island of Borneo.
- Then, we rode by bus to the Capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, from where we flew on May 23rd, with the
- low cost carrier AirAsia to Miri, also located in Sarawak. Miri - like Bintulu - still preserves a little bit an
- atmosphere of a frontier town, although the oil business as well as the logging and palm oil industry are
- considerably influencing more and more its character. The shipping itself by Hubline - even if it was relatively
- expensive regarding its short distance - was efficient and in time. It was interesting to see that the Malaysian
- State of Sarawak has its own autonomy regarding customs and immigration procedures, i.e. that - although it
- is just a domestic dislocation - the vehicle was being rechecked, the 'Carnet de Passages' of the car
- re-stamped and our "3-months-Malaysia-mainland-entry-permit" reduced to one "Sarawak-month".
- Currently, we are looking for a qualified body worker who is capable to "de-rust" our LandCruiser for a
- reasonable price. Also the repeatedly mentioned engine overhaul cannot be postponed any longer, because
- one of the piston rings "disappeared" on the road from Bintulu to Miri, hence the oil consumption will even rise
- more. Our luck in this badluck is that in the East Malaysian States of Sarawak and obviously also in Sabah,
- our type of LandCruiser from the 60'-serie is still common, even if it is mostly the diesel version. Thus the
- problem of finding here our axle shaft was much easier than in the other Southeast Asian countries - the
- ubiquitous Chinese shops still have (nearly) all parts on stock.
- Like a month ago, we are still waiting for the car entry permits to arrive from Indonesia and the Philippines.
- In the meantime also the Swiss Club of the Philippines kindly offered to help us to reach finally that
- country. We only can hope that the obviously very slow working bureaucracy becomes a little bit more open
- towards our applications, as otherwise their attitude towards tourism seems to be very positive.
New Reports/Pictures
- SOUTHEASTASIA: mouse over picture shows comments
- click a picture to see details
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| + our LandCruiser on a "Rejuvenation Cure" | in Miri/Sarawak - the East Malaysian province on Borneo |
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| + added from a earlier visit to the USA: | Las Vegas (Millennium change) |
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| + added from our Arabian Peninsula round trip: | Pictures from Yemen (May-June 1996) |
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| + Flashbacks of our Worldrecordtour: | Pictures from "all the continents" (Oct. 84 - April 97) |
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