My first morning in Bali started off very well: a reunion with my beloved bank card. Hooray! (thank you Emma). Even better and more surprising was that the homestay in Ubud had kept my reservation, so after an hour on the back of a motorbike (a journey made more enjoyable by keeping my eyes firmly shut), I plonked my bags down and had a wander around Ubud, a little village known for its arts and culture that tenaciously clings onto its identity. The people here are so gentle and warm; shopkeepers put out little offerings to the gods outside their shops and everyone wants to say hello and ask where you are from, which is no different to Java, but somehow much less invasive.
Having scouted out the territory, I went back for a shower and was invited to a wedding (nephew of homestay’s owner)! As I put on my sarong, I cynically wondered how many other guests had been invited, but when I arrived I saw that I was clearly the only white person there. They were all so accepting of me and chastised me for not taking enough photos or eating enough food, laughing that I was eating with my right hand like them (well there was no cutlery, so I had little choice).
That evening I sampled my first Balinese massage, and after, covered in oil, I slithered back to the homestay, where I collapsed after a (cold – eeek!) shower.
The following day I joined a cycle tour of Bali. Hmmm, initially not so much cycling, more like driving in a van from one shop to another, which is rather taxing, but in a less physical way than I had expected. Eventually we were shown our bikes at the top of a big hill to free-wheel down for 3 hours. On the way we passed a funeral ceremony, a great big event: the person who had died was of the 2nd highest karst and was being cremated inside a big cardboard bull. The whole village had turned out (including the fire brigade), and no one seemed very sad – I chatted to the deceased’s niece; she was again so welcoming and pleased that we had happened to cycle past.
At the end of the day I took a little stroll off the beaten track and found myself in the middle of another funeral ceremony. This one was for someone of a lower karst, so the person was buried, to wait for a mass cremation in a few months or years. The thing that really strikes me about the Balinese is how they hang onto their traditions and even though the western world seems to be doing its best to wear them down, they are really digging their heels in.
Which, considering I had pizza for dinner, is probably an ironic observation.
Saturday was a lazy day of eating too much and reading at a little Belgium restaurant (yes, I know I’m in Indonesia, but I am also on holiday and it is possible to eat too many noodles & rice!); catching up on admin; and getting languidly lost in the Kraton. In the evening I wandered to a theatre to watch a Ramayana performance – the story of the capture of the beautiful Sita by the evil Ravana, and her subsequent rescue by the heroic Rama (only to throw Sita into a fire as he doubted her chastity, of course). The story has all the normal ingredients for a true romance: large fake teeth, bulging eyes, bouncing golden deer, self-castration, human sacrifices…
The next morning I started a journey that was to be the most madeningly boring 2 days of my trip so far. I had decided to get a bus to Bali, so I could see the sun rise from Bromo, a volcano at the eastern end of Java. The first 12 hours in the bus passed very uneventfully (apart from my giving a waitress a stern - but fruitless - lecture on the ethics of charging white people double). After a very short sleep I lugged myself up another mountain to watch the sun rise. Needless to say it was beautiful, but also terribly smelly: the volcano is still active and although you don’t see any lava, you definitely see (and SMELL) the sulphur.
From Bromo, I got on another bus to Bali, and with not even any lectures to dole out, the journey was less eventful than the day before. Arrived in Denpasar, Bali late-late-late and flopped to sleep immediately.
Very early start: I had arranged to be picked up at 4am by a man called Bambang to watch the sunrise from a hill above Borobudur, a 1,200 year old Buddist temple 50kms from Jogja. Bambang looked a little worse for wear: he admitted to too much arak (rice wine) the night before and 2 hours sleep, but I bravely hopped on the back of his motorbike and we were off.
After only a few stops on the way (Bambang had a “rock & roll stomach” due to the previous night’s festivities), we arrived at a gathering of huts and traipsed up a little-used path to watch the sun rise. Which I’m sure it did at some point, just behind a lot of cloud. When I had convinced Bambang that the sun was not going to make an appearance, we went off to Borobudur: absolutely incredible, a surprisingly magic and peaceful place (if one ignored the swarms of schoolchildren wanting to practice their English).
From Borobudur the plan was to go to Prambanan, a Hindu temple a little closer to Jogja. Bambang offered to take me via the back roads, rather than the highway to get there, partly as the scenery was more beautiful (rice paddies and sala palms) and partly because he was concerned for my breathing in bus exhaust fumes (although his rock & roll stomach had already done enough damage to my lungs when I was sitting behind him on his bike). But the true reason was soon revealed and he took me to his brother’s house who he had not seen for 5 years. (Bambang’s had a rough ride over the past few years and hasn’t been in touch with his family). It was really lovely to see this reunion: his brother and sister-in-law were so delighted to see him they didn’t stop smiling once and proudly showed him photos of his niece’s wedding as well as the sala palm orchard that they were cultivating.
A lot of cake later, we whizzed off to Prambanan, also amazing, but admittedly a little bit of an anticlimax after Borobudur (I’m a bit of a sucker for bling when it comes to temples).
Bambang then wanted to take me to a beach to watch the sunset which I wasn’t so keen on as it was now wet and cold, and I was having to drop hints about my “wonderful boyfriend in London who was coming over to visit me in Bali next week” (actually I got a little carried away with all the charms of my fiance – we are to be married next year - and my next boyfriend will have a tough time living up to him). Anyway, I allowed myself to be driven to the beach, which was rather less romantic than I suspect Bambang had hoped for, as the sun was as elusive going down as it was coming up that morning.
We eventually went back to the area where I was staying and shared a few beers, but I soon had to plead near death by tiredness when a “healing foot massage” was offered (I was reminded of a dialogue in Pulp Ficton). I made my way to my hotel, using a short-cut through a hotel I had stayed in the night before, where La Bamba was being murdered by a little old Indonesian lady just outside the room where I had stayed – lucky escape on all accounts!
After spending a pretty uneventful day lurking around KK and KL airports I landed rather bumpily in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. I had a slightly panicked arrival (mislaid passport by visa office; uncertainty re obtaining said visa; and being shooed to another hotel from the one I had booked), but all in all, Jogja has a good feeling about it: rather more civilized than Bornean Malaysia, but confidently hanging onto its cultural past.
Indonesians are however like friendly cats to allergy sufferers: drawn mysteriously to people who quite like being on their own. The first person to attach himself to me sat down at my table at supper and insisted on following me everywhere for that evening, and my remaining days in Jogja. While he was very generous, he was also a bit odd: he kept washing his hands, arranging his hair and looked completely bewildered when I told him that I hadn’t had a shower since that morning (information I reluctantly shared). Anyhow, with my new shadow in tow I spent my first evening at a Wayang Kulit (traditional puppet) show: lots of crashing, clanging “music” and leather puppets with hunchbacks, pointy noses and goggly eyes.
The next morning I guiltily avoided 11 calls from my new best friend and had a wander around the town to visit the kraton (old town where the sultan still lives), the water castle (unremarkable crumbly walls) and the bird market: a few alleys crowded with wooden cages, flapping bird of all shapes and colours, as well as all the dust which comes from so many birds. Eeeugh. Needless to say I encountered a few more best friends who couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to practice English with them, and who looked terribly hurt when I gently told them that I liked very much being on my own.
From the north of the town, where I had wandered to in the course of the morning, I hopped in a becak - a rickshaw that puts the safety of the cyclist first and uses the passenger as a sort of air bag should there be an accident. After again being shooed away from my second hotel (misunderstanding due to my lack of Inonesian… or perhaps I should have had that shower after all…?), I found another hotel with a lovely view of the rooftops, offering a unique shower experience of a bucket and cold water which I thought was a fair trade for peace and quiet – I think I am the only person there.
I spent the evening after my shower visiting a few travel agents to organise a few trips, teaching one of them important topographical information vital to their career, and eating a very unjavanese dinner of chocolate torte. Mmmm!
Pointy nose and wirey hair... and that's one of the goodies in the shadow puppet play
So! Finally the day arrived that I was to start climbing Mount Kinabalu. Its the sole reason why many people come to Borneo and so pretty damn expensive (150GBP in total: 85GBP of which is for a dorm bed), and I had to book it 3 weeks in advance, but wow – so worth it!
I wanted to start as early as possible and so got to the park HQ at 7am where I parted with all my ringgit and found a 3 others to share guide fees with. A short ride up to the starting point at Timpohon Gate (1,866m) and the relentless climb started immediately. The trees were pretty close so the view for the next 3 3/4 hours up to Laban Rata (the over-night stop) was mainly of my feet, and the sound-track was lots of huffing and panting. All the fried bananas and noodles I’ve eaten over the past 2 months must have paid off as I came in 3rd (ok, I know its not a race, but some habits die hard!). However, arriving early also meant that I then had 8 hours to kill before going to bed. Played cards with a few people and had a good chat with one of my dorm-mates, Elizabeth, and at 8pm attempted the impossible of trying to sleep: torrential rain (after a lovely sunny day), a very squeaky bed, and a jumpy bunk-bed neighbour meant I slept for about 2 hours before waking up at 2:30am to start the climb to the summit.
Adrenalin and the aforementioned fried bananas & noodles made up for the lack of sleep, and again I whizzed (well its all relative) up to the summit (4,095m) in the dark with a torch light strapped to my head. The idea is to walk/climb in the dark to the top to watch the sun rise and again my speediness meant a very VERY cold wait at the top with 2 American “dudes”, willing the earth to rotate faster. Chad and Mike were actually terribly funny, but not enough of an incentive for me to hang around much longer after the sun peeked over the horizon (which was pretty amazing) and I was easily persuaded by Bitrus, my guide, to make my way back to Laban Rata. It was only in the daylight that we could see what we had climbed in the dark and although pretty impressive, it was quite frightening to see what we had achieve in pitch dark.
The climb down from Laban Rata to HQ after breakfast was fun as Mike and Chad had attached themselves to me (or I to them, I’m not sure), but wow, my thigh muscles are NOT pleased with me. I caught a taxi back to KK with an English couple and headed straight back to the nice hostel I stayed in before and plonked myself down to bed (after a short visit to the night market for calamari and langoustine of course).
Which brings me to the end of Borneo – I’ve spent most of today catching up with this blog and uploading photos onto facebook, and tomorrow I head off to Yogyakarta, Indonesia, to see if I can sort out the political violence they’ve had there this weekend…
Back in Sepilok after the camp on the Kinabatangan River I trundled down the road to my next B&B which was to be my base in the area. Its hardly a village, more like a collection of B&Bs and hotels (and a small shop) built along the road to the orangutan rehabilitation sanctuary. I’m still in 2 minds about how I feel about the gawping crowds (of which I was one, I admit), who leer at the orangutans at feeding time, but it was still pretty cool to be so close to them. I hung around in the afternoon after most of the crowds had pushed off, for lack of anything else to do, and was rewarded with one of them coming up onto the platform and brushing past me (again, is that a good thing for an orangutan who is under rehabilitation?)
The second night I was there I wandered around in search of a restaurant and started chatting with the locals who were hanging around the shop. An old man, Mr Chin, seemed to take a liking to me and tried his best to get me drunk (I doubt there were malicious intentions: our only form of communication was smiling at each other and saying “cheers”), but I was rescued by Hubert, another local guy who worked at the Rainforest Discovery Centre down the road. We started chatting about the politics of Sabah (all Borneans are very politically opinionated), and when his wife joined us they invited me to a barbecue at the rehabilitation centre. So we all squashed into their car and I spent an hour or so there (only an hour as Hubert was feeling wobbly after Mr Chin’s best efforts). Before saying good night they invited me to a “ground-breaking” ceremony the following day at the rehabilitation centre. They didn’t really elaborate and so I was unsure what to expect when I got there in the morning.
It turned out to be an earth breaking ceremony for the start on site for a new sun bear sanctuary, complete with the Malaysian minister of tourism, 3 priestesses, 1 priest, and 1 very handsome rooster. I felt massively privileged to be there as the priestesses blessed the ground and the rooster was sacrificed – it was a very moving ceremony.
After a visit to the Rainforest Discovery Centre I reluctantly got on a bus back to Sandakan and the following morning took the Borneo Rollercoaster Bus (my glasses actually fell off my face during that bus journey) to Kinabalu National Park – the starting point for my 2 day hike up Mount Kinabalu!
Priestesses during the earth breaking ceremony (Hubert in background with camera)
After spending 5 days in KK catching up with myself, I hopped on the bus to Sandakan, and bumped into a couple who I had met in Niah, which was a good distraction from the bus ride: the lovely old lady sitting next to me saw the funny side of us crashing into each other every time the bus zoomed around a corner. Sandakan’s not the nicest place in Borneo, in fact it probably rates worse than Kapit (as I was leaving a restaurant at night, the waitress yelled out to me “Be careful! Very dangerous! Go straight to hotel!”), but there is a little oasis of England in the Agnes Keith Tea House where I crossed the croquet lawn to take a surprisingly delicious cream tea.
The following day I made my way to Uncle Tan’s B&B, the starting point for my trip down the Kinabatangan River which is famous for its wildlife. Sadly the reason that there is such an abundance of wildlife is that the oil palm plantations have reduced the habitat of the animals so they are restricted to the banks of the river. From the B&B it was a depressing 2 hour ride (made longer by a puncture) through oil palm plantations to the camp, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere – fantastic! I was in a small group of lovely, fun people, and the boisterous guys who ran the camp’s LOUD and very off-key singing made the 3 days I was there a hoot. Seeing an orangutan in the wild is pretty special, however when the guide started jumping up and down in the boat on our last day (not the cleverest thing to do in a small boat), we knew something was up: he had seen a massive male orangutan that he had never seen before. In fact he was so excited he got us out of the boat and told us to go into the jungle (barefoot). The orangutan wasn’t enthralled with this idea and started throwing leaves at us, which soon developed into branch-throwing, so we hopped it back onto the boat, knee-high in mud and a few leeches.
In between eating (there was always a lot of very good food about), trekking and avoiding orangutan-projected missiles, there was a bit of time for side activities: fishing – which I have now established I am no good at, but very good at feeding fish worms; arm-wrestling for rice wine (or methylated spirits – I’m not sure exactly what that stuff was); and just general mooching about, listening to the sounds of the jungle. By the time I left I didn’t mind that I smelt awful after not showering for 3 sweaty days of sleeping on a mattress that smelt of a decrepit wet dog!
From the first moment I landed in KK I decided I was going to spend some time here – it felt like a proper city and somehow just has a good feel about it. The hostel I am saying in is lovely: relaxed, clean and has a fridge that houses red wine, which I and a few others tried to finish on my first night there.
KK has an amazing night market (the Bible / Lonely Planet devotes 4 pages the the market alone), where you can eat your way through shoals of fish, crabs enormous langoustine, squid and weird seaweed (…well I hope it was seaweed) for a handful of ringgit: heaven!
For 2 of the days here I went out to 2 of the little tropical islands off the coast, and it was there I learnt a minor meteorological lesson: when the sun is shining and there are no visible clouds, its not always the pesky lifeguard squirting water at you, its most likely the clouds hiding behind the trees, and that it will rain torrentially in 20 seconds, even though you put sunscreen on less than 3 minutes ago. Going back to the city on a boat driven by an excitement-deprived hoodlum was also an experience in itself: very wet and sore on the bum and ears as the “driver” yahooed every time he ramped off a particularly big wave, which was every second or so in the storm.
I also went White (well, Brown really) Water Rafting in the jungle for one of the days. Really really fun day. My heart sank initially when I got on the tour bus to get there as about 75% of my future fellow rafters were excited and screeching Chinese teenagers. However once the bus stopped and I saw the “train” we had to take to get to the starting point, my spirits lifted: the train was no more than a few planks of wood nailed to some wobbly wheels that whizzed down to the river on old rusty tracks, punted along by a gondolier sort of man with a stick. The rafting itself was good fun too (although sadly I was in the sensible boat that didn’t capsize), and thankfully by the time we all crawled back on the bus to return to KK, the teenagers had destroyed their vocal chords and we were left to watch a terrible horror movie in peace and quiet.
I met up with some lovely people while staying in KK, and spent one paticular evening preparing to remind myself the following day that Long Island Iced Teas may be nice, but in moderation. For that I blame a couple I met climbing the Pinnacles in Mulu, and I was pleased I could spend my hangover mooching about the hostel, watching more Michael Jackson tributes on tv.
Gosh, so here I am in Brunei. Its probably a good thing that there are only 2 things to do here – visit a mosque and look at another market – because I had some quite important things that needed doing. Like painting my toenails (twice: tangerine splash and grape-berry crush. I settled on the latter); reading 1.5 voluminous books; washing my shoes that had grown some sort of fungus on them after climbing the Pinnacles last week; checking my horoscope (a miracle will befall me on Friday: hooray!) and taking a test on facebook to see what kind of wife I will be (”domineering” apparently. Ha! The computer must be broken!).
Its not all that bad here, just slow and unexciting. I tried to buy some beer last night (really, I was lusting after some red wine), but was told the embarrassed shopkeeper that it is illegal to sell alcohol in Brunei. And so he should be embarrassed! What kind of nitwit chooses to live in a country with no alcohol?!
Ah, I’m being harsh I know, but I leave tomorrow for Sabah, the other bit of Malaysia on Borneo which sounds more like a great big jungle gym than a state. A mountain to climb, a beach to snorkel off and lie on, a river to sail up and an endless horde of leeches to befriend – can’t wait!
After convincing the doctors in Bintulu that I was not Mexican and wasn’t going to precipitate the next outbreak of N1H1 in Malaysian Borneo, I made my way up to Niah, a zero-horse town known for its caves where bats and swifts “cohabit in harmony”. It was a real turning point in terms of me enjoying my trip: I met a few lovely people; the anitobiotics had kicked in and I felt like I was in the “jungle proper”. Hooray! Things were finally looking up!
After 2 days of good rest and food I caught a lift with a couple to Miri, a large town right at the top of Sarawak, just below Brunei. In Miri I stayed in my first proper backpackers dorm EVER and the experience wasn’t all that bad – I was expecting snoring, smelly, creepy men and bed bugs, but it was all quite normal. I felt a little let down…
The following morning I was keen to find a pair of elusive leech socks and while plucking up the courage to ask the manager where the best place to find them was, I met a Malaysian man called Luke who has the the most ridiculously posh English accent. Luke took me under his wing and drove me all over town to find socks and bits & bobs for a trek in Mulu National Park, where I was off to in the afternoon. I felt really honoured to have Luke take me around town: he seemed to know everyone (he used to be a teacher, so taught half of Miri) and everything about Mulu (he used to also be a guide there).
Mulu has probably been the highlight of my trip so far: I spent the first day traipsing around caves, and then the following 3 days on a trek to The Pinnacles, some pointy rocks on the top of a mountain. Absolutely gruelling, but SO MUCH FUN!! The trail to get to the rocks is only 2.4kms, but you have to climb (literally) 2,100m UP and back down in a day on a track that’s barely deciferable and the last 400m is a tribute to health and safety rebellion. I’m still aching now, but what brilliant fun!
Coming back into camp I met up with one of the guides, Syria. It seems Luke had called ahead and told her to look after me and so she took me out for dinner and a ride on her motorbike in the dark, looking for snakes. She even took me to the airport this morning.I’m not quite sure why I got special treatment from Luke and Syria but I feel very lucky that I was looked after so well.
And now I’m back in Miri, off to Brunei tomorrow for 2 days break from the jungle!
