Traveling 10,000 Miles To Take Her On An Adventure! // S02E06

Relationships are hard at the best of times, wouldn't you agree? Our lifestyle of being full-time nomads throws up a couple of additional challenges. We're rarely in one spot for more than a minute, we live in a tiny home that's less than a hundred square foot and we spend more than 23 and a half hours together every single day. But that changed four months ago when Leah had to leave right in the middle of us building our new off-grid studio and so for these past four months we've been working together remotely 10,000 miles between us trying to tackle the logistical complexities of planning our upcoming round-the-world expedition. There hasn't been a lot of time for, well, us. I desperately need to rekindle my relationship with Leah, love needs adventure to thrive, so I put the build on hold, flew three flights to the other side of the planet to do just that, to take Leah on an adventure and this is how it went down. You know you're in Australia when there's wallabies in your back garden. It's always a little strange to fly this far but it was great to be out of winter and arrive in summer and of course it was even better to be back with Leah and out exploring. Where are we going babes? Somewhere magical. Let it move and expand, the first act as a man. I had originally come home to support my brother for the arrival of his first child but due to visa restrictions it would be a while before I was allowed to return to the UK. Family time had been great and much needed nourishment for my soul but I am actually itching for an adventure. And well as beautiful as Australia is I wanted to take Leah on an adventure a little further afield. Welcome to Malaysia. We chose to come to Malaysia for an adventure for three main reasons. One, because it's small enough to get around to explore their diverse landscapes from tropical coastlines to old-growth jungle to sprawling urban mega cities. Two, because Malaysia is one of the most multi-ethnic multicultural countries on the planet so it's like exploring several cultures in one place. And three, it just so happened to be the cheapest place to fly into from Australia and once you're there it's even cheaper. Dragon fruit juice, one dollar. What's that one? Apple boy juice. What's that? I don't know what apple boy is. This is nice. Most trips to Peninsular Malaysia start and end in the capital, Kuala Lumpur and whilst over half of Malaysia practice Islam KL is a great demonstration of how the country has substantial influence from both Chinese and Indian culture too. The Malaysian Chinese are the second largest community of overseas Chinese people outside of China and here in Malaysia they've maintained their Chinese heritage. The other major sector of Malaysian culture is Indian and with the main migration dating back to British colonial times much of the Malaysian culture stems from Hindus who brought their traditions, vibrant ethnic clothes and exquisite cuisine to this fabulous country. And it remains an important part of modern Malaysia's identity today. Kuala Lumpur has been a pretty cool city to explore but I think it's time for us to go somewhere a little bit more tranquil. What do you think? Mountains? Jungle? Beach? What's next? Jungle. Just a few short hours on a bus and it felt like a million miles away. We were surrounded by mountainous jungles and had swapped the shrill of constant traffic for the choir of nature. Taman Negara National Park, that's more like it. Five hours for breakfast is alright. Healthy, greasy but yummy. Here we go. So here in the National Park you can stay in some of these beautiful huts in the actual National Park with monkeys running around and the sounds of the jungle and everything. It's amazing. We opted not to do that. We opted for something much more... We like to travel in style. Yes. I think this is us. Right, it kind of looks like an office block, like cubicles or something. This is nice. It's an office block. Nice, isn't it? Budget accommodation. But we're not here for the room are we, Lia? We're here for the jungle. Let's go see it. The plus side of that is it cost us a lot less money, like a fifth of the price of being here. It's still quite expensive for what it was. Yes, it is quite expensive to stay in this area. There's limited accommodation. So we opted for a budget accommodation which means that we still get the same experience as everybody else during the daytime but we don't get to wake up here and we don't get to go to sleep here. What would you rather do, Lia? It would be nice to spend a night here in the rainforest, I think. Even just one night to experience it. To be perfectly honest with you, I think it's better if you sleep in the rainforest. This is not a place that you should be scrimping on accommodation. You spend so much time, effort and money to get here you might as well spend a little bit more for a more memorable night. I guess we're just gonna have to sleep in the jungle, aren't we? Taman Negara National Park actually means National Park in Malay and it's said to be one of the oldest national parks on the planet. There are parts of this jungle here that are a hundred and thirty million years old and have never been touched and to be able to hike through the trees here in this kind of old-growth primary rainforest is really special. You just get such energy from environments like this. This rainforest is home to a lot of endangered and protected species like the Malaysian tiger and the Sumatran rhinoceros and a smoky leopard as well. These are pretty cool animals here. Unfortunately I don't think we're gonna be spotting any of them. We have seen a lot of monkeys, cheeky monkeys and a huge ant. I'm pretty sure we can spot something else in here. There's also a lot of flying squirrels, giant flying squirrels. Apparently Alaska would love it here but unfortunately she's not here. She would absolutely love it here. We've got snakes as well so hopefully we don't see any of them. Speeding snakes too. Are you getting bitten by mosquitoes? Yeah, we drenched ourselves in mosquito repellent. You're not wearing very sensible jungle wear there, Leah. I don't have anything in my house at home and this is all I've got to come to the jungle with, unfortunately. Yeah, I need some new equipment. Shall we go up? Up and up and up and up. It's so flipping hot. I'm dripping with sweat. One and a half litres of water was not enough. It's so refreshing to see such beautiful untouched jungle here because much of Malaysia has actually been sold off to the highest bidder and logged. As many people know, the world rainforests are in a dire situation. We are literally chopping down the planet's lungs. It is disgusting and much of the country has actually been replanted with this, with palm trees so you can get palm nuts and palm oil. This stuff is kind of like the jungle gold now. This product is found in everything from soaps to shampoos. In so many household products you will find this and it comes from places like this, like Malaysia. All throughout Malaysia we saw the tragic signs of deforestation. All too much of this country's national resources have been sold off. In the past logging has scarred this country's landscape and unfortunately it still remains an integral part of the Malaysian economy today. We've stopped for a little jungle picnic, a traditional Malaysian picnic, with these nice little pockets of nasi ayam, which is rice and chicken, coconut rice. A lady in town was making them and it's like a little traditional Malaysian picnic or lunchbox. This is three ringgit each which is about 75 cents and we've also got for dessert these little coconut, delicious coconut sweet things. I haven't tasted it yet. Is it delicious? It's not that sweet actually. I told you they never put sugar in it. That's a nice coconut cake. This was one ringgit, two, about seven ringgit, which is about $1.75 for this picnic. Pretty bargain. It's also very traditional to eat with your hands in this part of the world and not cutlery, which has the added benefit of never burning your tongue because you always know the food is too hot before it gets to your mouth. It has a big disadvantage of giving you very messy hands, which isn't ideal when you're in the middle of the Malaysian jungle, but we'll make do. We're walking on a staircase of tree roots. It's really cool. Not amazing, cool. Leah and I are trying to test our vocabulary with new words, new amazing words, isn't it? We're trying to expand our awesome vocabulary with new amazing cool words. This is epic. You've got epic and I've got amazing. I never say epic anymore. You say epic a lot still. Well it's because everything we do is epic. We're walking in the flipping Malaysian jungle right now, Leah. These vines are strong, man. It's really stretchy. I've never actually swung on a vine before. Is that quite far down? Yeah. I wasn't expecting to go out there. I can't believe it held my weight. It's so stretchy. It's actually quite fun. Want to go? No. It was epic. I mean invigorating to be immersed in such an ancient environment. It felt like we had the whole jungle to ourselves, but the next stop, we were back amongst the masses. We are here in Ipoh, which I think is Malaysia's second largest city. If not, it's one of the biggest, that's for sure. We're going to go and check out Old Town, see what an old Malaysian town looks like. As you can see, this town has a lot of British influence from before Malaysia gained its independence, and the town is full of colonial, old colonial buildings which are now turned into cafes and hotels. It's a really cute little place. I wouldn't have thought that this town would have great street art, but there are so many awesome murals like this around town, and apparently a guy from Lithuania, out of all places, has come here and done some art on the walls. It's pretty nice. Thank you. Enjoy your summer supper. Unicorn toast. See that mountain up there? We just went caving in that mountain. It was freaking cool. Yeah, it was really cool. Sorry we couldn't bring you with us, but let's be honest, cameras and caves don't really mix all that well, especially when there's a lot of water involved, so we just left you at home. That was an adventure for the two of us, but it was so much fun, wasn't it? It was so much fun. I love caving. Right now, we are testing our theory about whether Malaysians like to pick up hitchhikers or not. We have an eight kilometer walk to the town where we can get a bus. We decided not to get a taxi and just hike it out and see if they pick us up. What do you reckon? I don't think so. I'm completely soaked from the caving, so I don't think anyone's going to want to pick me up. I'm not going to even stick my thumb out for at least two kilometers because I've got to dry my bottom. Let's see if this works. We got our first ride before we even put our thumb out. They just stopped and said, do you need a ride? So that's two kilometers down and six to go. This road's busy. Not so nice to walk on. This car looks especially familiar. This is the first time there's two hitchhikers in the same car ever. That's so funny. Why did you come back? Because we see now it's raining and then... In the end, he wouldn't take us to the bus stop, but insisted on taking us all the way to our hotel and to think we had questioned whether we'd get picked up at all. What a nice guy. I'm very sorry, Malaysia. I will never question how nice you are at picking up hitchhikers again. You've blown us away with your hospitality. Malaysia had definitely been a great choice of destination and most importantly, the adventure had been just what we needed to rekindle our relationship. But this adventure is not over yet. So until next time, happy travels. Please let us know because we're inviting all you guys to help us with the planning. So get on the Kombi Crew and comment the video coming up very soon. Thank you for supporting us and we will see you in the next one.