what's up everyone my name is nick
and today i'll be telling you about my
story why i moved
to malaysia this is global gibbon
[Music]
oh hey good morning i did not expect you
this early
but i guess that's fine so let me make
myself a nice cup of coffee
before i tell you about why i moved from
this
tiny and cold european country called
the netherlands
to the country where i live now which is
the tropical
malaysia all right let's do this let's
go
all right so here we are on my journey
to malaysia
started off all the way in the
netherlands of course when i was a young
boy
my parents always used to take me and my
brother on trips
through europe where we used to go
camping
and you know that sparked a little
trouble bug in me
we traveled to the united states we went
to indonesia
on longer journeys and you know that
opened up
my eyes to all these different cultures
and what else
is out there in the world so in 2006
eventually i went with my parents to
malaysia
on a holiday my brother didn't join
because he was in his puberty and he
wanted to stay with his friends
so i went on a really cool trip with my
parents for the first time
here to malaysia so
it was 2006 and i was 15 years old
as we arrived in kuala lumpur
and traveled through west malaysia at
first
we went to cameron highlands we saw all
the beautiful tea plantations there
and we traveled further up i believe we
went to balum
rainforest in northern west malaysia
and eventually we took the plane
to malaysian borneo
we arrived in kuching and had a few nice
days here in kuching
and then we traveled all the way up to
batangae which is
a beautiful piece of jungle about four
to five hours from
kuching and over there we spent some
time with the iban
and still live in their traditional
longhouses and that's
where the story kind of begins
[Music]
i hope you don't mind my overgrown grass
i actually have a grass cutter coming
over in about an hour
so let's get back to the story
so that year in 2006 we went to
batanga and we spent some time with the
iban community that lived deep in the
jungle there
somehow it had such a great impact on me
to see how these people lived purely
with the with the jungle in united was
it was so nice to see that they lived in
the jungle
they lived off the jungle their
supermarket was the jungle
their only way in was by boat by a
two-hour boat ride upriver
to their little settlement and there was
no electricity there was only a
generator at night
there were no tvs no satellites no cell
phone reception
so it was very impressive just to be
there and spend some time with the
people
you know i got a really close connection
even though i was only there for about
two or three days so i met some locals
hung out with them
and eventually you know went back to
kuching and continued our travels
through malaysia
and eventually went back to the
netherlands
all right so i'm back in the netherlands
i'm 15 years old
and i'm in high school and i'm trying to
figure out what kind of studies i want
to do
you know when i go to university so
eventually i decided that i wanted to do
tourism because i wanted to travel the
world and see more of these beautiful
places like malaysia
i studied tourism and in the second year
i had to choose what i would do
for my internship so i decided to
contact the company that took us to
batangae
on that trip i took with my parents i
contacted them
and asked them for an internship and
within a day i got an email back
saying that they were interested and
that i could basically come over
all right fast forward to 2011
january i took my first long-distance
alone flight
to malaysia to start a six-month
internship with a company called borneo
adventure
and oh what an adventure that was
i still remember the first day i arrived
in malaysia and
i stayed at the company's guest house
and i went out for some food so i went
out for food at chong lin park i still
remember a little coffee shop there and
i didn't know what to order it was all
different food it was
it was rice and noodles of course which
i didn't know how to eat in the morning
or for lunch
um so yeah we eventually had some
noodles i didn't really like it
you know it was my first day here in
malaysia and
and then i left a tip and i walked away
and i immediately realized that you
don't leave tips here in malaysia
so a block down i saw this woman running
after me and shouting at me and i was
like you know what did i do wrong
and she came back and gave me my 20 cent
change back
so that was that was my first
interesting encounter here malaysia
so during that initial internship in
2011 i
worked at borneo adventure a local
travel agent and i managed to explore
bits of sarawak i went to baka national
park and eventually
i went back to the longhouse in
batanghai where i
originally visited with my parents all
those years ago
now i had a great time and i went all
these adventures
and i fell in love with this beautiful
woman called magdalene
now after that internship i had to go
back to the netherlands to continue my
studies
and i was trying to figure out a way to
come back to malaysia
again so i decided i have to come back
again and do another internship because
i wanted to be with the love of my life
and
yes i had to figure out a way to come
back so i went on another internship in
2012 with the same company
and you know i explored more and more of
this beautiful country and i fell more
and more
in love with the country and of course
with this
lady then fast forward i had to go back
to the netherlands again to continue my
studies and again i wanted to come back
here because i lost my heart here in
malaysia
so i had to figure out a way that i
could come back so i
paused my studies i put it on hold and i
came back that was the first time i was
officially
a working man here in malaysia
all right it is 2013 and i've officially
started work here in malaysia for the
first
time officially after two internships
so my first job was a lodge
manager supervisor at that
longhouse in batangae the one place
which basically brought me to malaysia
and it was full circle
because i got to spend a year in the
jungle
learning about the local culture the
local iban tribe
and i got to spend so much time with
these people
which made me fall in love with the
country and the people
over and over and over again
so i started living in malaysia time
with no more breaks of having to go back
to the netherlands
and yeah i got closer and closer with
this girl the love of my life and i
became close with her family
her family took me in as part of their
own i
traveled extensively through malaysia
and you know met all these different
people
and visited these beautiful national
parks and saw this amazing wildlife
everywhere
yeah during that period i decided well
this is this
is what i want to do i want to stay here
and
then i ask my that time girlfriend to
marry me
and now fast forward again
i've been here for 10 years we're
happily married this is where i want to
be
so to sum it all up the reason why i
came to malaysia the reason i moved to
malaysia
is the people and initially it was
batangai the place i spent a lot of time
and it was the people that you know
latched on to me and
the communication you have with them
about their lives and all the things i
learned from them
and later on it became magdalene
she became the reason why i and
i love it here the food is amazing the
people are amazing as i keep saying
the nature is amazing it's always good
weather here sometimes a bit hot
but it's never cold even though i do
miss the cold in the netherlands once in
a while but it's it's such a great place
to live
in you can go out into the jungle
you can travel around and see all these
different places nearby and far away and
it's such a diverse country
so this is definitely a beautiful place
to
to settle and and to live in yeah
all right well i guess i guess that's
the end of the video i hope you enjoyed
it
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alright
bye bye
you