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Why see Malaysia & Borneo together

Thinking of travelling to mainland Malaysia? It’d be rude not to pop by Borneo while you’re in that neck of the woods. Read our guide to Malaysia and Borneo to discover how our holidays here balance livewire cities with island rainforests and sanctuaries striving to protect one of the world’s most endangered (and most loved) primates. You’ll soon realise why mainland Malaysia and Borneo are two very different peas in a pod... and why it’s nigh impossible to resist seeing one without the other.

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Why see Malaysia & Borneo together

There’s only one way to see the very best of Malaysia: bolt on an extra week or two in Borneo. Just a three-hour flight away from Kuala Lumpur, it’s an island of many nations. Malaysia and Brunei have planted their flags in the sand in the north, while Indonesia has scooped the south. It’s also an island of many flora and fauna, including some of the most biodiverse forests on the planet. Most of our holidays to Malaysia and Borneo spend two weeks circling between the mainland and the Bornean Malaysian state of Sabah. So after a week or so spent exploring the Malay Peninsula, you’ll swap skyscrapers for sky-scraping trees and sink deep into the rainforests and rivers of northern Borneo.

Small group & tailor made

Organised trips are one of the best ways of squeezing the most out of your Malaysia and Borneo holiday, and they can be as hands-on or hands-off as you fancy. Tag along on a small group adventure (say, wildlife watching or mountain trekking) and travel with people you won’t want to leave behind on the last day. Or opt for a tailor made itinerary that’ll be crafted around exactly how many days you want to spend at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre (all of them!) and whether you’d like some alone time at a beach lodge.

Trips tend to stick to Malaysian Borneo, so you don’t have to faff around with extra border crossings and visas. Make sure you put aside a good two weeks, though. Most holidays to Malaysia and Borneo last between 12 and 16 days, starting and ending at Kuala Lumpur on the Malay Peninsula.

Locally led adventures

There’s another perk to organised travel – the indispensable knowledge and language of your guides. They’ll teach you a few words of Malay Bahasa so that you can offer up a ‘good morning’ (selamat pagi) and ‘thank you’ (terima kasih). Luckily, Malay is pronounced pretty much how it’s read, although regional accents and dialects between the mainland and Borneo are like the difference between New York and Louisiana.

Local guides can also point out the unmapped noodle houses and little-visited sacred sites, offering you a chance to dive more deeply into Malaysian culture. Plus, all that local expertise will mean skipping hours spent rifling through train and plane timetables. The guide or tour operator will know whether it’s best (or just more fun) to drive one way and cruise back along the river. Accommodation is also a highlight – a mash-up of adventure lodges and beachside hotels that do their best to be at one with the rainforest.

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Orangutans: the kings of the jungle

There’s no getting around it – most people go to Borneo to see orangutans. And fair play to them. Borneo and Sumatra are the only two places you can glimpse orangutans in the wild; in fact, the word orangutan comes from Malay for person of the forest (orang hutan). For guaranteed sightings, swing by Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Set up by German-British anthropologist Barbara Harrisson in 1964, it’s risen to near celebrity status thanks to its patient, hands-off approach to rehabilitating rescued primates. Arrive at feeding time to see for yourself how the conservationists put down deliberately bland food to encourage orangutans to go off and forage for themselves. We challenge you not to come away completely charmed by these gangly giants.

A few more conservation centres share the Sepilok Forest Reserve. The Sun Bear Conservation Centre rescues honey-loving bears from captivity and habitat loss. Five minutes up the road, the Rainforest Discovery Centre takes you up into the rainforest canopy, where flying foxes and primates swoop from tree to tree. Crisscross its canopy walkways and forest boardwalks to glimpse the endangered primates feasting on fruit alongside hornbills and endemic Bornean bristleheads. The 9km Sepilok Laut Trail also starts here, and leads you through the mangrove forests of the Borneo lowlands. Monitor lizards, fiddler crabs and macaques come as standard.

But it’s not all about the wildlife. Scientists reckon that Borneo’s rainforests could have the highest plant diversity on the planet, cradling at least 15,000 species; WWF says that three new plant species are recorded in Borneo each month. A tropical climate also means that everything booms. Trees can reach 20 storeys and the largest flowering plant in the world, Rafflesia arnoldii, shows off alien blooms up to one metre across. Sadly, Malaysian flora and fauna is under fire from all angles, including from deforestation for palm oil plantations and mass tourism expansion. Our holidays help you support incredibly worthwhile conservation efforts by paying entry fees and offering volunteering opportunities.

The river wild

The Kinabatangan is one of the longest rivers in Malaysia, ducking and diving through the forested plains between Borneo’s north coast and interior. An organised tour will put you in touch with an eagle-eyed local guide, who can answer all your questions about the primates (including gibbons and long-nosed proboscis monkeys) clinging to the rainforest canopy or the crocs cruising alongside you. On a dawn boat trip you could catch an endangered Borneo pygmy elephant bending its knees for a drink. Cut off from mainland Asia for 300,000 years, these elephants are a genetic marvel endangered by palm oil exploitation. A night hike, perhaps? It’s all about the goggle-eyed Western tarsiers, fireflies and owls.

Most tours stop off at the Gomantong Caves on the north side of the Kinabatangan River. The neck-craningly tall main chamber is practically gothic, crawling with cockroaches that feed on bat guano. But the most famous residents hide high above the boardwalks: swiftlets. Collectors harvest the prized, high-protein nests twice a year, which make the base of the Chinese fountain of youth recipe of bird’s nest soup.

Gomantong Caves is a national park, so at an official level harvesting is now strictly regulated to protect recovering swiftlet populations. But scaling rickety scaffolding and massive piles of toxic guano is as risky as it ever was for the harvesters. Get your guide to fill you in on the debate surrounding bird’s nest soup.

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Mountain treks & tea hills

Mount Kinabalu (4,095m), in the Bornean province of Sabah, is the spire of Malaysia. To catch its best side, you’ll need a guide to tell you about all the wonderful flora and fauna you’ll see in its foothills. A two-day trek climbs through a series of climactic zones that double as a greenhouse for around half the world’s flowering plant species. It’s like suddenly finding yourself off-planet: you’ve got luminous mosses, carnivorous plants and fairytale fungi. And then there are the fiery rhododendrons and 1,200-plus species of orchid. The Rafflesia arnoldii (or corpse lily – charming) is a resident, too, and the biggest flowering plant in the world. Bat-like flying lemurs are the – quite frankly bizarre – topping, not least because they are not lemurs, and they glide – not fly.

The hike up Mount Kinabalu might be a well-trod route, but it’s also a challenge. You must be fit enough for a two-day, high altitude trek, and also prepared for changeable weather that gets chillier the higher you get. It all ends with a rope-assisted scramble up to the summit that more resembles abseiling than walking. The view’s worth it, of course. Most treks overnight in the dorms of a rest hut, so you can make the final ascent at dawn. Clearing skies often raise the curtains on long range views over Borneo and as far as the southern Philippines.

Fancy something a little less challenging? Take on the Cameron Highlands back on the Malaysian mainland, just a three-hour drive north of Kuala Lumpur. Old British hill stations perch on the low mountaintops, rolling out red carpets of strawberry farms and tea plantations.

You can go for a wander around neighbouring Taman Negara National Park while you’re at it. It’s one of the oldest remaining rainforests, with trails burrowing deep into the jungle, crossing suspension bridges and river routes. Alternatively, ditch the hiking boots completely and slip towards the cascades and pools of the Lata Berkoh waterfall by boat. Lesser known hikes like Taman Negara National Park tend to be the speciality of tailor made holidays.

Hikers are well used to using packing lists as bibles. Leech socks? Check. Quick-dry shirts? Check. But it’s worth observing packing lists even if you don’t plan to stray into the wilderness. Torches are handy on both rainforest hikes and unlit city roads. Insect repellent is a must too. Bloodsucking mozzies don’t just stick to the forests and rivers; they’re quite happy to snack on you in a KL hotel too.

Island idyll

Holidays to Malaysia and Borneo err on the adventurous side. But tailor made tours give you the chance to balance being on your feet in the forest with kicking back on a beach. Round off your trip by catching the boat from Sandakan to the sandy speck of Lankayan Island. Peaceful and pretty – a decent coda to two weeks of touring. Our partners will sort you out with a seaside chalet with widescreen sunset views, so all you have to do is swap your boots for flip flops.

There’s another option: why not shake things up and start your holiday on the beach? Lovely Langkawi is only a half-hour flight from Penang on the Malay Peninsula. This archipelago speckles the Andaman Sea with almost 100 tropical islands crowned with beaches and jungles. Let time turn syrupy-slow as you cycle the pancake-flat beaches and explore mangroves by boat.

City of lights

Most international flights nip in and out of Kuala Lumpur, so that’s where you’ll probably start your holiday to Malaysia and Borneo. Really, it’s just the excuse you need to tag on an extra day or two to explore a place that puts the multi in multicultural. Malay, Chinese, Indian and British cultures have all visibly had a hand in shaping KL.

Do say yes to any food tours on offer in Kuala Lumpur. There’s no better way to illustrate the mishmash of cultures in Malaysia, so most of our holidays include one. You might take the monorail to the backstreet sweet vendors in Indian Brickfields for sticky-sweet gulab jamun (yum) or cendol – a concoction of shaved ice, plum sugar and coconut milk jelly. Chinatown is another foodie favourite, where a fast-working chef will slide a bowl of still-sizzling beef noodles and lime juice in front of you. Some of the more traditional coffee houses are like taking tea in a grandparent’s living room, wonky family portraits and all. Plus, KL serves up food halls that are just as good as (and a lot cooler than) any street food stall.

A guided tour is also a great way to get your bearings, taking you by the strikingly modernist National Mosque and the National Palace museum while giving you a potted history of an ever-changing country. Some of the best views come courtesy of the 88-storey Petronas Twin Towers. Not fussed about the queues and crowds? Sip a jungle bird rum punch (a KL speciality) at one of the many sky bars instead – Kuala Lumpur is the king of the rooftop sundowner.

You might also get the chance to see the city of Malacca (Melaka). Take a ride on a glitzy rickshaw, check out the 16th-century St Paul’s Church, rifle through the shops of Chinatown, and admire the island-bound Masjid Selat Melaka mosque.

Malaysia & Borneo holiday advice

Tom Harari from our partner Exodus Travels tells us why he recommends travelling to both Malaysia and Borneo.

A bit of everything

“People often think of Malaysia as just the peninsula and Borneo as a separate country, yet the most accessible parts of Borneo are part of Malaysia. The peninsula offers fantastic culture, whilst Borneo’s reputation for amazing wildlife is well deserved. Add a bit of beach time and you have a holiday that covers everything!”

Outstanding wildlife

“The outstanding wildlife experience in Borneo, for me, is the Danum Valley – an area where some of the island’s best wildlife can be seen, from orangutans to flying foxes, plus better chances of seeing animals like the pygmy elephant.”

Adventurous spirit

“If you have an adventurous spirit there are many places in Borneo where you can go way off the beaten path, whether travelling the waterways or hiking jungle trails. One standout area is the Deramakot Forest Reserve, where you have the best chances of seeing a clouded leopard.”

Shady souvenirs

“As with anywhere supporting ecotourism, Borneo has its share of operations or lodges which are eco in name only. You should also be careful when shopping for souvenirs in both Borneo and the Malaysian Peninsula, as there may be trinkets, jewellery and other crafts made from endangered species and should not be bought or encouraged.”