Looking over the last 2 weeks I don’t know whether its worth even writing about my 1st week or so in Borneo. It really was pretty awful: the men got even worse; I was the only “westerner” in every town as I travelled up the coast to Sibu, up-river to Kapit and then to Bintulu. In Sibu I resorted to drinking 2 cans of beer before I went to bed in hope of falling asleep more quickly; in Kapit I couldn’t find beer (so had to face the bed bugs sober with my trusty swiss army knife in case someone decided to come though the cardboard door to my room); and in Bintulu I had to find a hospital that was open on a Saturday to get antibiotics for a bad throat (initialy no one wanted to treat me for fear of contracting H1N1). Generally the thing to do in southern Borneo is to visit a longhouse where the “local people” live, but that’s not really my thing, so in all those places I just wandered around trying to talk to people at markets. Every single person I spoke to asked me if I was travelling alone and were shocked when I answered yes: “but is it safe?” (which of course made me very uncomfortable). They would then ask me why I was in their town which I thought was a very good question that I didn’t have an answer to.

Fresh goods at Sibu market