Previously on “Two Up and Overloaded” -
Marisa: We made our way to the end of the Pan Borneo Highway in East Malaysia, in the city of Tawau. But just because it is the end of the road for most people, doesn't mean that it's the end of the road for us. Because we are about to take an extremely remote jungle road through the ancient rainforest of the interior of Borneo.
This 344-kilometer or 214-mile road has no gas stations, towns, or hotels along it. And it is going to take us 6 hours of pure riding to cross it. Our KTM 250 Adventure motorcycle cannot go that far on a tank of gas. And so we're going to have to make some extra preparations for the journey. And then, to add to all of that, I happen to be sick with a fever.
I am feeling sick. I could feel it starting in my head, got the headaches and the body aches. Tomorrow we have a really, really big, awesome, important day that I have been looking forward to for a long time. So not excited to, uh, do that while sick. But don't think I have much of a choice.
So even though I was feeling like I was getting really, really sick and the fever was coming on, I knew I had to eat something. So we went out that evening in Tawau and ordered a pizza.
Tim: I had pizza, oh my God!
Marisa: As a Chicagoan, I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert in pizza. This is really good pizza! Definitely homemade crust. It's delicious.
Tim: Not only did I get a pizza, but I got a milkshake.
Marisa: Ohhhh.
Tim: I had the gluttony course number one. I said give me, give me that one. In all of Florida, this is better than Florida pizza.
Marisa: Yeah.
I did try the pizza, of course, I had to because it just looked so amazing. But because I was sick, I got a chicken soup, which is always fabulous in Malaysia.
Tim: And we bought separate water bottles because I didn't want Marisa’s cooties.
Marisa: We were going to use those two water bottles to fill up with gasoline for the next day. We were going to empty them out as dry as we possibly could get them and then fill them up with gas and somehow attach them to the motorcycle so that we would have some extra gas for this super remote road that we were about to go on.
[Southeast Asia Journey - Day 133]
Tim: Hey, everybody. Good morning. Um, it's me. I'm sad for everybody out there that I'm doing the morning video vlog because Marisa is feeling sick.
The next day we woke up, Marisa was still feeling really poo poo.
Marisa: Even worse than before.
Tim: Yeah, I filmed her in sickness and in health.
Marisa: Is that part of the vows?
Tim: That was one of the vows.
I think this is… She's got something worse than heat stroke. But we have a very long ride today. We've kind of put ourselves on a tight time frame, so we don't really have a day to burn here.
Marisa: This is the worst day to be sick because we're going through the jungle, a 6-hour trek. There's no gas, there's no hotels, there's no towns, there's no restaurants, there's no stops.
Tim: But there could be pygmy elephants!
Marisa: Right. So I mean, I'm just going to get myself on the motorcycle and sit there, and I think I can do that. I keep telling myself I can do this. But there's just no amenities on this road today. We're going to be struggling for gas and hopefully, we'll have enough. It'll be an adventure.
I was not in the mood to take this extremely long, hot journey through one of the most remote roads on the island of Borneo and in Southeast Asia in general, through the jungle, on a motorcycle, all day long. Nope, that did not sound like a good time for me when I had a high fever. But we had a time constraint because this was a rental motorcycle, and we had to bring it back all the way to Kuching as quickly as we could. So we really needed to go.
I'm kind of nervous. Like, what if we run out of gas and I'm not feeling good? What if it rains and the road turns awful because, apparently, not all of it is paved. There's nobody out there. We have no camping gear, we have no food... Very little water, because we just, we can't carry that much stuff. Maybe this isn't the smartest thing we've ever done.
Tim: Rider A.
Marisa: Oh.
Tim: So we pull into the gas station, and I fill up my little water bottles.
Marisa: Good job.
Tim: I tried my best to put them in plastic bags and then try to get them around the little fishnet netting that I have. It's going to be hot, they're going to be shaking around, and I don't want it to just behind us have a rooster tail of an exploding gas. Marisa's already not feeling good, and you never add gas to that fire.
Marisa: And because we don't have paniers or anything, we were a little concerned about where we were going to put these bottles. But you were able to pretty securely tie them to that back bag, and then you had that netting over it. So I felt pretty confident.
Tim: It took a couple of times before I was really confident, but there was a couple of times where I was like, whatever.
Intro: Hey everyone! Nice to have you here. We are Tim, and Marisa Notier. I ride in the front. And I’m in the rear. We travel the world and we pack too much gear. Oh, all the places we’ll go! Through rain and through sleet and through mud and through snow. Oh, all the things we’ll see! We’ve been to a country or two. Or three! Oh, all the fun we’ve had! To have you along, would make us real glad. So give us a like, and hit subscribe to join us along our epic ride.
[This episode is brought to you by Doubletake Mirrors.]
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Marisa: So at first, the road was paved, it was nice. There was still a lot of industry happening around us, a lot of palm oil logging, things like that. But we hit our first patch of gravel, and I had heard that this road is not entirely paved. In fact, it's probably only about half paved. But this gravel wasn't bad at all.
Tim: No, it was your standard gravel. The big chunky gravel is really bad, and the really fine loose gravel is not good as well. But this was your mid-grade gravel.
Marisa: Nice in between, average gravel.
Tim: This is true.
Marisa: So I had done my research and made sure to take note of the last gas station that we were going to hit. And it was off of the main road quite a bit. You had to go way off into this other town, and then in through the town, up through the hills, around through the alleys, and there would be this one last gas station.
Tim: When we did pull up to the gas station, there was a bunch of other bikers there, which was...
Marisa: A good sign.
Tim: And they were going to be headed the same way we were. And they were on a bunch of little scooters, which have much better gas mileage than us, but with tanks that are a third of the size.
Marisa: Okay, it's good to see that there are other motorcycles that have made this trip. So hopefully we can make it too.
Man: Are you headed to Keningau right now?
Marisa: Yeah, Keningau.
Tim: Uh, we came from TW.
Marisa: Tawau.
Tim: It's enough gas?
Man: It's ok.
Tim: It was nice to know that other people were going in the same same direction as us, and we would not all perish in some deserted Lord of the Flies scenario.
Marisa: That's true, but at the same time they were filling up these huge containers of gas, which is not the amount of gas that we were going to have.
Tim: No, but my theory was stay ahead of them.
Marisa: Yeah, exactly!
Tim: Because if we break down on the side of road we can be like "Hey, remember us?"
Marisa: So after that last gas station, we got on the road. The patches of gravel in between the really nice pavement were more and more frequent.
Tim: Yeah, it was like my hair loss up here. Like at first it was like oh, it's not too bad. And then it just got worse and worse and worse. And now...
Marisa: No...
Tim: Now I just wear a hat all the time. But the KTM was taking it very well, much better than I am with my previous said statement.
We were actually getting into some jungle territory opposed to palm oil and stuff. Because a lot of the major roads around here, if there's a major paved road, it's nice for the palm oil trucks to
get there, and it's easy to get in and out. And sometimes palm oil trucks fall on their side too.
Marisa: Yes, as we've discovered.
Tim: But it's a much easier oil spill to clean up.
I was really, really excited because this is where the pygmy elephants would be.
Marisa: Yeah!
Tim: And we saw pygmy elephant poop, which is the first sign of knowing that there's pygmy elephants around.
I just saw elephant poop though. And I think we're around the area where our buddy Lee saw the pygmy elephants. You could just imagine if they're not 10 feet that way or 10 feet that way, they are not to be seen.
Marisa: So pygmy elephants are very, very special, very endangered animals that are particular to Borneo and this region. And they're very rare, but can be seen along this road.
Tim: Our buddy Lee saw some, shout out to Lee, we love you brother. He's our Sarawak friend. Last time he was there, he saw the pygmy elephants.
Marisa: Yeah! So of course we were keeping our eyes out, but so far we've only seen elephant poop. Also, pygmy elephants are said to be quite aggressive, even though they are pygmy, they are small compared to other elephants.
Tim: But they're like Chihuahuas, you know? It's like don't mess around with them. So I was really hoping that we'd see one, especially to kind of brighten Marisa because she was feeling all bad because she had a high fever.
Marisa: Yeah, my fever was not getting any better. I was getting all of these chills while being on the back of the motorcycle and just feeling really cold and really feverish and really sick. The body aches, the whole you know, pain... Yeah, it was all there, the congestion, everything.
Tim: So we wanted to pull over to rehydrate ourselves as well as rehydrate the motorcycle with some of the gas that we'd already burned away. My theory is, any time you bring extra gas, the moment you can put it in, is the moment that I do it. Because there's no reason to have a bobbling fuel bottle behind you.
But we were unable to refuel ourselves because there was no food there. This is like the only place on the map. I felt bad for Marisa because again, it would have been nice to get something nice and warm in her.
Marisa: Okay, so they didn't have food there, which is fine. They had water, that's very, very, very, very important. And uh, they had a bathroom, so it was perfect. I'm cold, I got the chills.
Tim: She's sick, it's like 1,000° degrees. I dumped water on my head and my chest and everything. And it's sunny.
Marisa: I would rather be warm and sweating out all the sickness than chilled and cold with the wind.
Tim: But we got back on the motorcycle and continued to head west.
[Music]
I see this dirt road that stretches off into the distance, looking beautiful and going through the jungle into a huge hilly area. And I know the last thing Marisa wants to do is like, "Photo op! And launch the drone and take cool pictures of me and video!"
Marisa: But take a moment to lay down, that was something that I could do.
Tim: She's a trooper. We were already on a remote road, and now we're down this little vein of even more absolute stunning-ness. And man, if Marisa was 100%, we would have ridden down that road for a half an hour, just going up and down these little hills.
Marisa: We wouldn't have been able to, we wouldn't have had enough gas.
Tim: Yeah, but that would have been a nice place to been stranded.
Marisa: In our dreams.
Tim: This is true.
[Music]
Marisa: While you were flying the drone, I had these feverish chills, and so I just laid in the sun.
Tim: Like a monitor lizard.
Marisa: Yeah, it was so warm and hot that I just laid there and it was nice to be off of the motorcycle for a moment.
Tim: I'm having the time of my life and Marisa's over there sticking her forked tongue out, trying to absorb heat. So we got back on the bike because we needed to get Marisa to a hotel.
Marisa: So from this dirt road section we headed off again, of course hit more gravel sections. They started to become even more frequent but the views were getting better and better.
[Music]
Tim: Sadly, no pygmy elephants. But it sure is a lot of natural beauty.
Sadly, there was no… The ratio of elephant poop to elephants was 1,000 to one.
Marisa: 1,000 to zero.
Tim: 1,000 to zero, even worse.
Marisa: We did not see any elephants.
Tim: No.
Marisa: But as we continued along, we realized that there were more and more buildings around us and we were getting closer and closer to civilization.
[Music]
Marisa: Eventually, we did see a restaurant that was open with food and we were like, “Yes, this is amazing.” We hadn't eaten anything all day, and so we finally had a great place to stop and rest.
Tim: And then as we're sitting there, a storm just came out of absolutely nowhere.
Marisa: Oh no! It's raining!
Tim: So I ran to the bike and got our rain gear. You know, Marisa was sitting over there just cold and shivering and miserable.
Marisa: Oh, it's cold!
But you got everything off of the bike and you risked getting terribly wet in order to get my road coat.
Tim: I did, I dove on it.
Marisa: I wasn't going anywhere.
Oh! It's windy, everything's blowing...
But I was so thankful for that raincoat because it got really cold.
Tim: It did, even I got a little chilly. So I put on all the layers to keep warm, so does she. And then the sun comes out again and we're just...
Marisa: The storm was gone.
Tim: Gone, and we're in our sweatsuits. And I'm like, "I'm not, we can't pull over and undress."
Marisa: Just headed along the road to the hotel.
Tim: Carried on to the hotel.
[Keningau - Malaysia]
We finally got to a hotel where Marisa could get nice and dry and just lay down and relax.
[Grand Hotel - 5.3358˙ North 116.1512˙ East]
Marisa: I'm just dead. Today was beautiful, but I can't, I can't do it anymore. This hotel is booked fully tomorrow, so we have to move on. I just want to relax someplace. Oh man…
Tim: She actually passed out and I snuck out and I went and tried to get her some rambutan and some other things that might lift her spirits up. And when I went outside, it was like Hitchcock, “The Birds.” It was just “Bird On A Wire,” I guess would be a better analogy.
All birds, all the way down.
But there was a million birds on the telephone wires, all again facing the same direction.
Marisa: It's so weird!
Tim: It just blew my mind of what was going on.
These are all birds. All birds. It’s dangerous to stand right here.
And Marisa's zoned out, passed out, has no idea that the apocalypse of the birds is happening.
Marisa: I didn't even know you were gone!
So I am going to take a COVID test. Tim was so nice. The moment I got in here, I showered and just fell asleep. I just passed out, and Tim secretly went out and bought me all this stuff. He bought me my favorite rambutan and apples and yogurt and soup, chicken soup in a bag. Oh man! But he also got me a COVID test. Look at this. How can anyone follow these instructions?
I didn't know what I was coming down with and I desperately wanted to take a COVID test.
Okay, results are in. Check it out… Yay! Negative!
I did not have COVID.
Tim: Yay!
Marisa: Just your typical jungle sickness.
Tim: Jungle fever. Let's go with jungle fever.
Together: Jungle Fever.
Marisa: Next time - We head back into Sarawak and through the entirety of the country of Brunei, going along Southeast Asia's longest bridge.
Tim: But all that will be in the next episode.
Marisa: So thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you liked it, and our journey across the remote road of the jungle. If you did, please give us a big thumbs up and hit the subscribe button below, and we'll be seeing you next time.
Tim: Stay safe, everybody.
And so our Borneo tour is coming to a wrap, but it could be just the beginning for you if you check out our tours that we have available now of us riding across Borneo. You could join us, you can come along with us as we see Mount Kinabalu, snorkel along with us as we see all the little Nemo fish, and we can go through the jungles and see the proboscis monkeys and the little evil macaques with the mohawks.
Marisa: And orangutans.
Tim: And it's an incredible adventure via motorcycle across an amazing, beautiful part of the world, and we extend our hand out to you, and we would love it if you joined us. If you are interested, please do check it out in the link below, www.2upAndOverloaded.com.
Marisa: We'll be seeing you next time.
Tim: Stay safe, everybody.
Marisa: Bye!
Tim: Peace.
And then I see this dirt road.
[thunder rumbles]
Marisa: While you were flying the drone, woo…!
[thunder rumbles]
Tim: The storm just came down, torrential. It was like, it's not raining… That was weird. Did you see me snap and then everything flashed?
Marisa: Yes, I saw that!
Tim: But the uh... The storm just came out of absolutely nowhere. I mean, it was nothing was there and then…
Marisa: Nope.
Tim: Nope.
Marisa: All right, God of Thunder over here.
Good.
Tim: Hey everybody!
