As an explorer he took part in an expedition to Kamchatka between 1920 and 1922 along with Sten Bergman and Eric Hultén. Malaise eventually left the others and arrived in Kamakura, Japan in August 1923, just days before the great earthquake on 31 August 1923 which he witnessed from a short distance before his return to Stockholm. He then traveled back to Kamchatka in 1924 along with his fiancée, the journalist, writer and explorer Ester Blenda Nordström and did not return from the Soviet Union until 1930. On 31 August 1925 Ester Blenda married him on Kamchatka. They would divorce in 1929.