Borneo No 11

Hi Family, Friends, Davenanters, Dancers and Bloggers,

We left our Kota Kinabulu Hotel in Borneo on Monday at 3.00pm, took a flight to Brunei, another flight to Dubai and then we had a flight to Heathrow. We arrived back at 6.15 am on Tuesday and everything went to plan except our Saga door to door taxi wasn't waiting for us when we arrived at Heathrow and we had to wait 55 minutes for it to turn up - we were not best pleased, in fact we were absolutely furious. 

We flew all the way home with Royal Brunei Airways and were very impressed with their new aircrafts but not with the inflight entertainment as the number of films on offer was very limited. I watched Baggage Claim and had a good laugh and then slept for the rest of the journey. The cabin crew uniforms weren't all that attractive either - not a patch on Emirates or Malaysia Airways.

The Saga Holiday Company really didn't live up to its reputation. It made too many mistakes, it made last minute changes to the itinerary and it gave us poor information on numerous occasions. On the feedback questionnaire we felt unable to say that we would recommend them to family or friends and we also said that we would not use them again. Nevertheless, we had a wonderful experience and a great laugh; we met some really lovely people and enjoyed being in their company. Cynthia, our rep, was also very good and we all really liked her.

Some Cultural Observations:

The dominant religion in Malaysia is Islam, whose followers make up 61% of the population. Islam is recognised as the state religion of Malaysia, although the country has a secular constitution. Debate exists about whether Malaysia should be a secular or Islamic state, with politics often becoming entwined with religion. The government promotes the spread of Islam, which is under the control of individual states.

All the world's major religions have substantial representation in Malaysia.

• 61.3% Islam
• 19.8% Buddhism
• 9.2% Christianity
• 6.3% Hinduism
• 1.3% Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions
• 0.7% No religion
• 0.5% Other religions or no information

 

In the North West of Borneo, where we were staying, the main religion is Christianity and this was brought to the indigenous people of Borneo, called Dayaks, by Missionaries in the 19th Century. 

In every hotel room there is an arrow on the ceiling that points towards the kabah in the Holy Mosque in Mecca. We were wondering what the arrow was for when we first arrived.

Before a flight takes off Prayers are played on the TV screens in a quiet and discreet way.

The Malaysian people are very calm and polite and seem to do everything without a fuss.

A lot of the hotel staff would greet us by putting the palm of their right hand onto the left side of their chest, just over their heart, and would do a small bow and then say Hello Mam or Good Morning/Afternoon Mam. It was a really lovely greeting and we were doing it ourselves by the end of the holiday.

No alcohol is served on Malaysian aircraft and the selection of alcohol is very limited in the country.

Hygiene is a prominent topic in Islam, as witnessed by us in many of the public toilet areas.  In general, the Qur'an advises Muslims to uphold high standards of physical hygiene and to be ritually clean whenever possible. For this reason in Muslim countries, bathrooms are often equipped with a Muslim shower situated next to the toilet, so that an individual may wash themself. This ablution is required in order to maintain ritual cleanliness.

Also because of ritual cleanliness, and again common to many Eastern cultures, many Muslims take their shoes off when entering mosques and homes. We took our shoes off on a lot of occasions.

Our Final Photos:

Cheers everyone and thank you for reading or contributing to my Blog, I hope you have enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

A selfie of Sue and I on our way home with our newly acquired mugs - those aircraft cups are far too small for a decent cup of tea!

Bye for now

Lynn xx