EPIC FLOOD vs MOTORCYCLE in Malaysia – Will the KTM 250 ADV make it through? 🇲🇾 [SE E39]
Previously on “Two Up and Overloaded” – On our way through the tropical country of Brunei, we hit a torrential rainstorm. It was hours and hours of riding through the rain, which then caused our phone that we use for navigation to die after getting water damage.
So it was like an iPhone 6. Oh my God, I’m already talking about it in past tense, this is really bad. And although we fixed it, and the sun came out, we thought our water problems from the storm were far behind us. Unfortunately, though, as we continued to ride across the Pan
Borneo Highway trying to complete our goal of riding a motorcycle from tip to tip of the island of Borneo in East Malaysia, we realized that doing so during the rainy season has its drawbacks. 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 dedicated to our Join the Journey Patrons]
[Join for as little as $1 a month! See link in the description below.] [Lawas – Malaysia] You can see the wind through our hair. That’s how fast we go. [Southeast Asia Journey – Day 120] Good morning, everyone! Today is another kind of cloudy, a little bit rainy day. We’re hoping
It should clear up, well at least that’s what the weather app says, a little bit. But as you can see, it’s pretty gloomy. So we’re going to be riding all the way to Kota Kinabalu, which is called KK, by the locals. And it is the biggest city of Sabah. We’re actually going to
Be exiting the state of Sarawak for the first time and entering Sabah, a land of beautiful beaches and the largest mountain in Borneo, and that is Kinabalu. So it should be really, really pretty. We’re quite excited. Fingers crossed the weather turns out okay today. And
Yeah, we’re going to get packed up with our new rack on the back of the bike. Thank you to Tim. All right, let’s go. So we packed up that morning, excited for what the new day was to bring. I was
Excited to test out my new rack that I made. Oh yeah! It was very uh, it was either going to be awesome or a complete failure. But I had enough zip ties to hold pretty much, you know,
The moon in orbit for the rest of all time. Bam! Look at that! Wow! Starting on one side, going to the other side. You can see Tim’s handiwork from this side. Oh, we got a new wooden thing. Yes!
Big shout out to Temple of Moto for allowing us to stay in such a beautiful accommodation. Because this hotel room is so awesome, we want to thank Temple of Moto for helping us out and supporting us in our journeys with a luxurious room just like this. So, Temple of Moto is a
Motorcycle tour company that goes all across the United States to different national parks. The roads that it rides on are incredible. They also have tours in Mexico and Europe as well, and they are super awesome. We went with them in Yellowstone, and it’s an amazing tour company with
Very, very cool accommodations. So, check them out at TempleOfMoto.com. Bye, thank you so much! Bye! Very, very nice hotel. Here we go! The weather was looking good, no rain so far, which was good because we had just fixed the phone from water damage. And so we had it off. This is true. This
Is our tripod going lengthwise, our rain gear is in the blue bag, and then our stinky, stinky shoes are in the black bag. Nice. And that’s it, folks. Except for the tank bag. It’s amazing when you don’t have camping gear how little you actually need. But camping gear kind of needs panniers if you
Are going to have all of that for two people. Or at least at the comfort level that I want. That day we went from what was it? Sarawak into Sabah? Yeah. And it’s kind of like… They’re two Malaysian states, so it’s kind of like Illinois and Indiana bordered together. But in at least East Malaysia when you go from one state to the other, there’s a border there. And we had
To do our whole passport and get a new stamp. We got another 90 days. It was odd to say the least. It would be like traveling across the States, and every state you go to you get like another 90 days. It was like an international border. In fact, people from Sabah who want
To go into Sarawak, they do all the same customs procedures as they would going into Brunei, which is another country. It’s very, very interesting. This was an accumulation of borders over the last couple of days. We went from East Malaysia to Brunei, Brunei to East Malaysia. It was just…
Yeah, if you have a motorcycle in this part of the world, you can just keep getting 90-day visas over and over again. But get the extended passports, the thicker ones. Lot of stamps. Pro tip, pro tip. We’re in Sabah!
And you know what? In the United States, a lot of people that come from other countries say, “Wow, you guys fly your flag all over the place. I see it everywhere.” Well, Malaysia does the same thing. They fly their flag everywhere. And not just the Malaysian flag,
Which looks very similar to the United States flag. It’s not the stars and stripes, it’s the star and stripes. Yes! But also they fly the state flags all over the place too. So in Sarawak, we were very accustomed to seeing that orange and red state flag, and now we were
Entering into Sabah, which had this beautiful blue flag with the shape of the Mountain of Kinabalu on it. This is true. But it kind of looked like an island because it does look like to a foreigner, you’re like, “I don’t know what that is, but that’s an island.” Yeah.
When you say it’s the same as America, I think there’s even more Malaysian flags everywhere. It’s just, you know, it’s like ticker tape 4th of July everywhere you go. But it’s a great country to be proud of because it is absolutely stunning and beautiful. And it has a cool flag. It does. So after our little border crossing, we wanted some food. You actually got off of the main Highway, the Pan Borneo Highway, and decided, “Hey, let’s go to the coast because we haven’t really seen the coast.” And there’s a little detour
That you can take. But we took this little off-ramp, and we found somewhere that looked cool. There was a whole soccer team eating there. Oh my gosh, they were the coolest. What team? Red Jaws. Red Jaws! Where are you from? America. Ohhh! Chicago. One, two, three. Red Jaws!
Go Red Jaws! Go Red Jaws! The town was called Sipitan, and everything really was right on the oceanfront, which was very cool. The food was good, and it was the perfect little rest stop. But oh man, it was so hot. It was very, very hot. Not the food,
But the weather. But we made at least a couple more subscribers there, so that was good. Thank you, mister! Thank you! Really great people. And we got back on the road, and… It just started to dawn on us, which it already has for so long,
But Indonesia and Malaysia are just filled with just the kindest people and just the most hospitable and friendly. There are friendly people all over this world, but like wow, Malaysia and Indonesia just really were blowing our minds when it comes to friendliness. Woo! Woo!
The people here are super friendly. Yeah, right? We just met a soccer team. Yeah, and you kind of veered off the main road to come to this little town. I’m so glad you did. Yeah, I saw that was by the ocean. The ocean’s kind of brown, the sea. I’m not sure.
But it’s kind of brown. It is brown. Yeah, but it’s still nice. It didn’t take long after we left the town of Sipitang to get to a part of the road where all these cars were kind of lining up. We’re like, “Oh, is it more construction? What could it be?”
And usually we go around cars, but it didn’t take long for us to realize uh-oh, this is not road construction. I was zipping through the middle, and then I saw this just river going through the road. Yeah.
It was like an entire river had just taken over the road. It was that brown, muddy, thick water from lots of flooding. From the rain before that we had experienced the day before. Once you get that momentum, you go, and you start plowing through that water, and you don’t
Stop. Because if you stop, you’re just going to get flooded. And… it’s crazy! And Southeast Asia is known for its small motorcycles, and there were some of those. And I kept looking out for them because I was like, “All right, if a really small motorcycle can make it through,
Then we can make it through.” Even though our motorcycle itself was quite small. 250 for a Malaysian standard or an Indonesian standard is pretty big. But for us, that’s a very small motorcycle, and I’m wondering, where the air intakes? How high is the exhaust up off
The ground? Because the worst thing is there’s this line of traffic, and we’re going to get stuck behind a stopped car, and then our motorcycle is just going to fill up with water. I can’t stop though. Jesus. We can’t stop. Oh no! This river is so deep! Whoa!
You can really feel the water! Yeah. It was a rented KTM from Tay Motors, so shout out to them. And welcome to this episode where we had no idea if we were going to flood the bike or not.
But you got it back just fine. Spoiler alert. Yeah, a lot of people say, “You know, ride it like you stole it, or ride it like you rented it.” And I don’t want to trash this thing. It’s been good to
Us. We just blessed it. We named it Koi, The Real McCoy. Yeah, that’s true. It has proven to be a very nice little motorcycle. Absolutely. And then here we are, you know, Yellow Submarine-ing it. But we are plowing through this water like a speedboat. And again, you can’t
Stop once you’re going because all that water will just surround you. Absolutely. And the oncoming traffic was just splashing us like we were at SeaWorld. Yes, this is true. We were definitely at an amusement park for motorcycles and vehicles. Everybody was kind of having fun. You can see it
In their eyes. Just grown adults playing in the big, big puddle. It could be disastrous, but you might as well enjoy it. Well, the water’s so brown that you can’t see potholes. And the cars are going side by side, and I don’t know where that actual asphalt ends and
Then turns into the shoulder. And if I were to hit that, things could get a little bit squirrely. And no one was making a plethora of room for each other to pass by because they were judging where they assumed the road was and trying to stick to that as much as possible. Yes,
And it wasn’t just the road that was flooded, it was all the sides of the flat landscape that we were in that was flooded. So you just couldn’t tell where this road was. I mean, you just look
In the distance where the road is again, and that’s where you’re riding towards, you know? Yes. I’m, “Woo!” I’m having a ball. I have my Klim Adventure Gore-Tex boots, and they are waterproof but not when it just goes over the top. You can’t swim in them and then expect to be like,
“Oh, my feet got wet. These boots suck.” So they held up just as much as they could, but that amount of water and when the traffic’s going by and splashing you… I mean, I was getting water in my helmet. I had to close my helmet visor because it was
Getting in my eyes. It’s too fun, no. I got my glasses on. It was really, really fun. I don’t know if you guys, a lot of you are motorcyclists, but when it starts to rain, there’s that hot engine kind of steamy smell. And when it hits the radiator, there’s a very specific, “Hey,
The radiator is soaked” smell. It kind of makes you nervous at first because you’re like, “That’s a mechanical smell.” Yeah, that can’t be good. But it is just a part of it. But it was awesome. Yeah, my boots are soaked! I’m soaked! Yeah, buddy!
We actually came to a section where we thought, “All right, it’s over.” Done. There weren’t any cars ahead of us, and so we were just driving along like, “Ah. This is it. That was great.” And then we realized uh-oh… Round two!
Round two is coming up. I don’t know if it’s even ended because there’s more stopped traffic up here. Yeah. Ohhh! Oh, man. Oh, wow. All right, I think we made it through. Like you said, you have to
Just keep going when you’re in the water. You can’t just stop. I mean, when you’re going, you’re pushing the water out of your way to a certain extent, right? But when you stop, all that water that you’re physically pushing out of your way then comes back, and that’s when things can
Get a little bit more sketchy. Yeah, again, I was just smiling and woohoo-ing, and Marisa is giggling in my ear. Oh man. Yeah. It was a water ride. It was “Splish splash, we were taking a bath.” It was super, super fun. But my feet were just soaked… I’m changing gears,
Pressing on the brakes, and it’s just like… That’s I think everybody’s favorite feeling in the world. No! Just soggy socks and boots. It’s just reminds you of pleasantries. At least that wasn’t a sewage line, but I am soaked. That was a lot, that was intense. Well,
There was, like… being on the open water and a jet ski going by. Just nailed me. So after that massive water crossing, we were going along the highway, and we saw this place to stop, a rest area with a little cafe. And we’re like, “Uh, we have to stop.” Yeah,
We had just eaten not too long ago, but I was like, “I feel disgusting from the waist down.” You needed to take off your boots. Oh, I sure did. I can just feel my toes swimming around like goldfish. Oh no! Here we go!
Oh my gosh! You dumped your boot out. I dumped my boot out. And it was… it was gross. A little goldfish was like… I was like, “Oh no!” It’s vacuum-sealed, it goes like… Oh! So gross.
Look at that. Oh, that’s a dry boot right there. I need a Hazmat sign. Ew! I don’t know how he lived. I mean, my boots got wet on the inside, but they didn’t puddle up. Then again,
My feet are much higher than his. He was just, like, straight up in the river. But that rest stop was needed, and it was great for us to recharge and continue on to Kota Kinabalu. [Kota Kinabalu – Malaysia] Malaysia has Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital over in West Malaysia.
Yeah. KL. There’s KB, Kota Bharu, I think, and there’s KK, which is where we were headed, Kota Kinabalu. And Kota means the place of, and Kinabalu is the big mountain of Borneo, which happens to be very close to this big city. And so this is the Place of Kinabalu. Even though
Kinabalu is not there, just to be clear. That’s right. This is the place next to it. Yeah. It is on the coast, and as we came into Kota Kinabalu, we realized how beautiful this city is. It’s very modern, it’s got big buildings,
Neon lights, shopping mall. It’s got a whole mixture of cultures there, so you got your Chinatown mixed in with your Malay area mixed in with all the indigenous people. So cool. Yeah. We finally found our little hotel we were staying at. And we were kind of in a busy
Part of town, right? And it’s a rental bike, and it’s a KTM. Theft is not rampant anywhere, but I just wanted to be double triple safe with everything. For sure. We didn’t want to just leave it on the street. Yeah, and the guy said that
He had these sliding doors and he said that we could park it in the little hotel in the section where it wasn’t being used for much. But… There was no way to get it in there without lifting it up in.
Yeah, I sat there just kind of being a big dummy. I mean, you could have gotten over that ledge if you had been able to turn the bike to face it. But because you were on the sidewalk,
There was no way to turn into it. And he saw me do it like three times, and he was like, “It’s going to be just fine.” I was like, “Okay, thank you. Thanks, because… yeah.” We walked up into our hotel, and it was like a little Swiss chalet in the Alps. Okay,
Before I close the window because we’re going to have the air conditioner on, look at how cute this window is with the view of the city. I loved it. It had the little curtained shutters to the window that would open up to the street below,
And it was all wood. It was really, really nice. It was exactly what we needed. It was on the third floor, though. Yes. But to get the cute little shutter window view… You have to be high up. Very cute.
Good morning, everyone. So I am not feeling very good today. But little did we know that the rain from the previous couple of days and getting drenched and being in the hot sun made Marisa get pretty ill. Yes. But that will all be in the next episode.
And we have some fun exciting news. The podcast edition of our episodes! So some of you guys out there have said, “Wouldn’t it be great if you had a podcast or audio version of your episodes so that I can listen to them on the road, on the motorcycle, in my car,
On a bike, doing dishes, whatever it is that you’re doing.” Yeah. And we listened. We did indeed. So you very well may be listening to this in that podcast version of our episode, and so you are fairly aware that it exists. But for the rest of everybody, we are now on iHeart
Radio. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, all the things. You can find us everywhere. You just have to look up “Two Up and Overloaded,” and we’re there as a podcast. This is true. And if you are a Patreon, you get the podcast episodes a week early, just like you do the
YouTube videos. That’s right. As well as our YouTube members. Yes! Yes, they get our videos a week early as well. So we want to thank everybody who supports us out there. We’re so glad to have you along on this journey. It’s been an amazing experience, and we can’t wait to show you all
The amazing things we’ve been up to. So if you liked this video, please give us a big thumbs up and hit the Subscribe button below. Ding, ding. And we’ll be seeing you next time. Stay safe, everybody. Bye! Peace. This was the longest water crossing that we had ever experienced.
There were a couple really long ones in the Baviaanskloof in South Africa. That’s true. Yeah. But this was the longest one that we had experienced on a major road. This is a major highway, and it was completely flooded out. This is definitely
The longest flooded highway we’ve ever been on, just to be clear. But yeah…
As we continued our journey riding a motorcycle through East Malaysia, we thought we had gotten through the worst of the rain in Brunei and Sarawak. But once we crossed into the Malaysian state of Sabah and headed to the big city of Kota Kinabalu, we realized that Mother Nature was not done with us yet.
Ahead of us was the Pan-Borneo Highway… except we could no longer see it. The entire road and surrounding region was covered in a thick layer of brown water, entirely flooded out. And not knowing how long this flooded road was going to be for, or more importantly, how deep it was, we just plowed right into it, hoping for the best… But also fearing the worst.
🎙️Podcast version of this episode –
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2165278/14330493
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10 Comments
Ringo and the fellow Beatles would smile at your yellow submarine..😊
Another super video..thanks for sharing
Stay dry !! 😅 Stay safe
Looking forward to review videos of THE best rain gear..😮
Hai im one of your subcribers..its awesome to see all of you content and about our country too, im living in East malaysia, Sabah, im a bikers too im riding a 250cc so if you can reach here most east cost of sabah, its a town called Tawau, its a border between malaysia and indonesia, i would be gladly to show you around this district and have a great time with you guys, Cheers guys have safe ride and be happy here in our safest city🤗😎
6:30 one of Sabah and Sarawak conditions before joining the Federation of Malaysia was to have full controls of the immigration. in order to work there, we even have to apply for work permits 😅
Its Flooding do you know what come with flood Shit lots of it😂😂🤣😂😂😍😍😘😘😘😘😘😘
were you in sabah between august and september? I'm asking because we're celebrating independance day and malaysia day during the months…where the flags were everywhere….
a new home. i guess u guys not in borneo anymore
Exciting guys pretty crazy.
Great video thank you very well done ho soggy boot simulation. Thanks again cheers to ya.
👍👍👍👍👍
Well..we now can call u Mr.D.i.y guy😄 too