Well, just before Christmas their son, Shyan, called to tell us they were all in LA being tourists, and that now there were 5 of them! We arranged for them all to come up and stay with us for a few days after Christmas. In the picture, above, are Mr. and Mrs. Ho, their son Shyan, Xian’s girlfriend Eva, and the Ho’s second son. There’s one more son who didn’t make the trip. The picture was taken in front of the Santa Barbara Courthouse.

It was a bit crowded, but we were able to fit everyone and had a great cultural experience as we showed them around Santa Barbara. Mrs. Ho prepared a couple of meals, and Harriet had a chance to see how some Chinese/Malasian meals were really made. In this picture, you can see Mr.s Ho working with our pathetically small wok. I think she was disappointed with Harriet’s kitchen tools, although if you know Harriet’s kitchen, that’s an amusing thought. It was truly a unique cultural experience, and a lesson in relative culinary expectations. Bottom line, we now know we need a bigger wok.

We had a wonderful meal at a local Chinese restaurant where the Hos had a chance to negotiate with the owner over some real Chinese dishes, in Chinese. I’ve never had fish with toasted soy bean, before, and it was quite good.

Since Shyan is an engineering student and Eva is a programmer, we stopped off at my workplace to give them a tour. I don’t know that I’m a typical representative of the Software Engineering profession, after all that cut out of Darth Vader in a multi-color boa quoting our ISO-9001 quality statement is at the entrance to my cubicle. But, I probably helped break some stereotypes for Shyan’s folks.

They stayed with us for three nights and then took the airbus to the LA airport for their various flights home (Indiana and Malaysia-which are each interesting contrasts with Santa Barbara). We took this picture just before they left, with their whole family and our two dogs (Mrs. Ho was particularly fond of the dogs and would just sit and pat their heads-which they, of course, loved).

It was a great experience for us and I think everyone had a fine time.

We flew to Brunei on a wing and a prayer — the “wing” being Royal Air Brunei with large seats, good food and excellent service; the “prayer” being… well… an actual prayer. As the jet pulled away from the gate, but before the safety talk of seatbelts and seat cushions that could be used as a flotation device, the video screens dropped down and there was a prayer chanted in Arabic with English subtitles. Nice touch.

We had reserved a room at an international meeting house and teaching/training center. Their drivers, dressed in their finest attire (gold brocade sarongs wrapped over slacks), drove us to VOTECH where we were greeted by the director, the director’s wife and several staff members. They were extremely welcoming and invited us to their Hari Rya celebration later that afternoon. We settled in and then set off to explore Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei.

The center of the capital was less than half a kilometer from our accommodations but there were no clear paths or sidewalks and we had to cross over several busy lanes of highway. It’s not for lack of funding or planning. It’s just that no one walks anywhere! First of all, cars are cheap, gas is very cheap, so everyone drives everywhere. And, as we soon learned, it’s just too damn hot to be out walking.

We stopped for a fabulous dim sum lunch at one of Brunei’s points of pride — the new shopping mall. The staff was extremely friendly, the service perfect, and the food was some of the best we’ve had. The mall is… well.. a mall. A big, shiney, multi-story, new mall with big new expensive stores, multi-plex theatre, gourmet supermarket, Dairy Queen and ice rink..

From there we walked over to the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque where we were the only visitors. The mosque-keeper let us in and showed us around. Exquisite stained glass from England. Wool carpets from Belgium. Chandelier from Venice. Lots of gold. As we were exiting this sacred, elegant structure, we spotted what looked like an ATM in the back of the nave. It turned out to be a video kiosk with FAQs about Islam. The mosque is surrounded by a moat and we were able to walk out onto the “island” that is used for ceremonial purposes. We had the entire place to ourselves.

From the mosque we strolled out to Kampung Ayer, the series of poor stilt villages on the water connected by kilometers of plankways and speedboat “taxis.” Again, we were the only people out and about except for a few groups of friendly young school children who came out to practice their English.

Kampung Ayer is touted in all the tourism materials as a “charming” place to visit. Granted, the kids were cute and the walkways are fun, but there is no charm to the poverty which is in stark contrast to the extreme wealth within easy view. I assume these are the people who scrub those hotel toilets and mop the malls after hours.

Finding a bus took some effort because, as mentioned before, it seems like everyone drives everywhere. We asked half a dozen people before spotting the stop ourselves. Eventually, we caught a bus to the national museum. There were maybe a dozen people in the entire place. The highlight was a spectacular display of illuminated Korans. Some of them were far more elaborate and exquisite than any illuminated manuscripts I had ever seen with unbelievable detail and nearly microscopic gold calligraphy on some of the borders. These alone were worth the trip to Brunei.

Finding a bus back into town proved to be impossible. We waited outside for about 45 minutes, (which, in the 110 degree heat, felt like days) certain we would succumb to dehydration and heat stroke, when a guy who said he was a tax driver offered to drive us. At that point, we would have paid anyone anything to take us anywhere. And, like everyone else we met in Brunei, he turned out to be very friendly and helpful.

I had wanted to see the Sultan’s palace and it was rumored that it might be open for Hari Raya. Our driver/new best friend drove us out to the palace, insisted on helping us cross the “busy” street (which we found very sweet), put us in a couple of those awful, boring poses in front of the locked gates and uniformed guards and snapped photos for us, then shuttled us back to VOTECH.

PARTY TIME

So we crawl into VOTECH, sweat gushing out of every pore, and are greeted, again, by the director and several staff members — all dressed in their holiday finery — who want us to join the Hari Raya party. We convince them that we really do need to change into something that isn’t dripping wet, and return to the party a few minutes later.

Men on one side. Women on the other. Two enormous tables piled high with food. (Coolers with Diet Pepsi for Alan.) Someone takes me by the hand (think Jewish mother only Muslim) and insists I start loading up my plate. “Take more, take more… Have you tried the satay?… Don’t miss the chicken soup…” I’m happy to oblige. I’m told that Alan and I can sit together since we’re “special guests” so I find a couple chairs on the “border” so as not to completely offend everyone. I make small talk with the woman next to me about the great food and stop myself just before blurting out one of my standard lines (Note to Nina: feel free to add this to your travel socializing repertoire) “The food here is so good. I don’t know how you stay so slim. If I lived here, I would weigh 100 kilos (220 lbs.)”

The problem is, most of the women did weigh well over 100 kilos, most of the men were huge, and many of the children and teens we saw were unhealthily overweight. It’s not that this is a country of large-statured, big-boned people. No, this is a country of mostly wealthy people who eat a lot of fast food, drive everywhere and get no exercise except, perhaps, strolling through an air-conditioned mall.

Back to the party…

Eventually, we’re introduced to some big wigs and try to be gracious and inquisitive although it is clear that the big-wigs are more interested in getting back to the food table for another helping of satay and fried noodles. We meet another Westerner who looks even more out of place than us — a young French woman with long strawberry-blond hair, wearing a short, sleeveless dress, who was just hired to teach there.

But it was the winding down of the party that was most amusing. Keep in mind that most of the attendees are teachers or administrative staff and probably not receiving the highest salaries. So, the party is over, the staff has to attend a meeting, and there’s a ton of leftover food. Out come the styro boxes and paper plates and people are just shoveling the leftovers onto plates, into paper cups, into Ziplocs, onto clipboards, into purses; wedging cans of soda under their arms, probably under their dresses. Within minutes, the food tables are nearly empty. It was just like any social service or teachers’ gathering. Nothing goes to waste.

We were urged to do the same but politely took only a small baggie of cookies and a can of soda. They were probably muttering to themselves, “No wonder those Americans are so tiny. They don’t eat anything.” Frankly, after looking relatively huge and not fitting into an XXL t-shirt in Malaysia, I was happy to be thought of as the skinny little tourist.

Later that evening, we explored the outdoor food market and the very indoor, air-con food court at the mall. Attached to the mall (did we mention it has a skating rink?) is a brand new, gigantic hotel — the largest in Brunei. As a result of Alan’s curiosity, Harriet’s unabashed willingness to ask anyone for just about anything, and the open, friendly nature of the Brunei people, we were treated to a private tour of the place. Pretty spectacular.

We never did get to see Michael Jackson (evidently he was in London that week) but we can certainly understand why he’s now calling Brunei his home. It’s a friendly, pretty, slightly weird place where excessive wealth is not such an oddity.

Brunei is a very Muslim country and it is nearly impossible to find alcohol anywhere. The souvenir I regret not having bought in the airport gift shop: A shot glass with a picture of the grand mosque on it.

Next up: Back to Singapore

Note to budget travellers: We discovered the Ryan Air (or Southwest) of Asia. We flew 4 times on Air Asia, the Malaysia-based, no-frills, budget airline. Three out of four times we left EARLY — as soon as they load the flight, they take off, damn any stragglers. The fourth time, we left 10 minutes late and arrived only 5 minutes late. The average fllight cost about $20. We immediately lost any desire to “travel with the locals” on 6-14 hour sweltering bus rides.

A van picked us up at the Sandakan airport and we drove straight to the Sepilok Jungle Resort where we checked into a very ratty room (but only $12), dumped our bags and dashed out to the orang (man) utan (of the forest) sanctuary.

The Sepilok Resort sits in a semi-wild, manicured, multi-hectre portion of jungle. There are Disneyland-like walkways over murky river waters (except there really IS scarey stuff in these waters) and the stiffling heat and 99% humidity make it the perfect nursery for all kinds of riotously colorful flowers and gigantic palms, pandans and trees that look like they could eat you for breakfast.

The Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Sanctuary rescues sick, abandoned and abused (kept as domestic pets) orang utans, gives them medical care, and strives to gradually reintroduce them into the wild. We’re sure it is a better fate than dieing from disease or stravation, but we’re not certain as to the success of the program and have some questions about the seemingly overexposure to humans during the “rehabilitation.” In addition to the twice daily exposure to tourists like us, they spend massive amounts of time with their human “mentors.” We need to do a little research…

We took a short hike into the sanctuary and, like clockwork, the orang utans came swinging in for the 3 o’clock feeding at the feeding platform. And, also like clockwork, a few dozen tourists — ourselved included — started snapping pictures. The orang utans had no fear of us and we can only hope that they enjoyed the show we put on. They certainly weren’t learning to fend for themselves or be wary of humans.

Tame and zoolike as is was, it was still very cool to see the “men of the forest” in one of only two places in the world where they exist in the wild (Borneo and Sumatra). Orang utans are supposed to be 96.4% similar to humans. I suppose the remaining 3.6% is about more advanced language skills and the desire for iPods.

On our return to the “resort” we stumbled upon the new(er) accommodations and immediately upgraded to the $25 air-con, tiled room with CNN and a view of the grounds. At this point, we probably would have paid anything to escape the steaming jungle heat; it was well over 100 degrees and we were totally wrung out.

True confession: The next day, we lingered in our air-con room watching a very bad Keanu Reeves movie until check-out time. Then we ventured into Sandakan, explored the market, searched for more air-con and wished we had booked an earlier flight back to Kota Kinabalu.

Next up: Looking for Michael Jackson: Negara Brunei Darussalam (Brunei, the Abode of Peace)

Okay, I think I have the thumbnails working on this post so that you can click on the tiny images and get a larger view. I know the image sizes have been inconsistent from post to post and I’ll use the excuse that I’m trying to work the technical issues from frikken’ BORNEO. <>

Harriet:

Admit it. Some of you have seen an episode or two of “Survivor.” Maybe you even watched “Survivor – Borneo”, you know, a reality soap opera that takes place on some exotic, humid island where buff dudes and buxom babes annoy the heck out of each other and the viewer.

We decided we had to visit one of the islands of Borneo. There is indeed a tour to Palau Tiga (“Survivor Island”), but we opted for the closer Manukan instead.

Again, assuming some of you have seen the show, you know when Jeff Probst comes zooming in on some hot yacht and takes the winners of a “reward challenge” to some buccolic little island get-away? Well, we stayed at one of those places.

We took a speed boat (not as swanky as Jeff’s, but fast enough) to the island where we were greeted by a young woman who introduced herself as our personal butler. After lunch, she escorted us to our “room” so that she could explain a few things. Because Manukan is managed by the national parks service (like Kinabalu Park) we knew our room would be fine.

Oh yes. It was just fine. It was similar to our “cabin” at Kinabalu except that it was TWO STORIES (think condo/chalet) with two wrap-around, ocean view balconies, satellite TV (our first look at CNN and BBC World), a separate “sitting room” with armoire and dressing table (again with the Q-tips and make-up remover pads), and did we mention OCEAN VIEW? Our butler showed us around and then presented us with welcome drinks and cold towels from our refrigerator.

We finally dragged ourself out of this exhorbitantly-priced ($50) hovel to explore a bit of the island: almost NO people on one very long stretch of beach but a couple of 3-foot long monitor lizards to keep us company, crystal clear warm water that was perfect for snorkeling, psychadelic tropical fish swimming through coral reefs, clear blue skies, dramatic sunset. A perfect two days.

Next up: It’s a Jungle Out There: Orang Utans

• Heat and humidity: high 90s, except in Sepilok where it must have exceeded 100 degrees and, though meteorologically impossible, 120 percent humidity. (Note to Marylanders: by comparison, you have arrid summers.)
• Speaking of Maryland, twice we’ve seen “Maryland Chicken” on menus. Something breaded, I think. Didn’t realize they were so aware of your largest industry. 
• Language: almost everyone speaks “Manglish.” We rarely have difficulty communicating.
• Cars drive on the left-hand side of the road. Consequently, we’re usually looking the wrong way when we cross the street.
• People instinctively walk on the left-hand side of the sidewalk. Consequently, we’re often doing a little dodging dance.
• As in most of the world, men rarely “give way” on the sidewalk, so even when Harriet comes face-to-face with a male on the sidewalk, it is she who gives way in order to avoid a collision.
• There are very few motorcycles around. Very little deisel too. The most popular vehicle of choice is the Toyota Land Cruiser.
• There are almost no Americans here. We’ve mentioned Nina. We saw a family of 3 at Kinabalu. And there’s some guy from Arizona whose name keeps appearing a week before ours in different guest books.
• Music: Aside from the shows for tourists where traditional dances are performed, the music is mixed – Asian and U.S. rock, rap and a lot of 70’s classics. Gordon Lightfoot tunes are alive and well here; we hear that big hit by Kelly Clarkson almost every day (and speaking of her, there IS a Malaysian Idol show); and tonight on the plane we listened to Dionne Warwick and Willy Nelson. 
• We’ve been staying in fairly nice places and they all provide bathroom amenities. They all have towels and little soaps or soap dispensers (think industrial wall-mount models). They’re all big on shower caps (which, after 30 years of travel, I have discovered make great shoe protectors — that is, they keep my muddy shoes away from my sweaty clothes). Most have little bottles of shampoo. But the oddest little thing is that the national parks accommodations are very proud of their decorative pots of Q-tips and… drum roll… puffy cotton make-up remover pads. (Damn, I could have brought my mascara.)
• Water: perfectly potable in Singapore. Pretty good in Malaysian Borneo. We haven’t been as careful as usual, but we’ve been just fine. All the hotels supply thermoses of boiled water too.
• Internet: Internet cafes aren’t as plentiful as we had thought. Some are dark and hot and worst of all, many are crowded with pre-teen and teen boys playing deafening, violent net games. However, the cafe we’re using tonight is probably our favorite — decent music, fast machines, good screens, AIR CON, nice staff, 7-Eleven next door with Diet Coke for Alan, and best of all, the computers are on coin-operated timers that when you’re down to 60 seconds play an electronic version of that old standard “Be It Ever So Humble, There’s No Place Like Home” . (Did you know there’s a second verse?) … We’re hearing it now.

Next up: (Not quite) Survivor Borneo  — The Island

We expected Kota Kinabalu to be a dusty little town at the base of Mt. Kinabalu. Okay, well, nothing is dusty here in the tropics, but we did expect a small town. Though smaller than Kuching, KK is another mostly modern, bustling city complete with Hyatt Regency and spankin’ new Le Meridien hotels, and it is the capital of Sabah state.

There are plenty of air-con shopping malls that provide a cool respite from the heat of the intense fish market, produce markets, Filipino craft market, various outdoor night markets, central market, pearl markets, stuff we don’t understand market, etc…

We’ve been enjoying dim sum from a little food stall/restaurant close to our hotel and made friends with the owners, whose son is getting his masters in electrical engineering from Purdue (U of Indiana). As always, the satay is good and cheap, and we finally learned to order it with a steamed, coconut rice dumpling so we can soak up all the spicy peanut sauce. Alan continues to sample the baked/fried goodies. Aside from the fact that it was dripping with oil, the martabak, a sort of gigantic flat egg roll folded over cabbage and meat was great. He’s still sold on the chocolate and peanut butter filled waffle and the peanut butter filled pancakes. (Sensing a trend here?)

We braved the bustling night food market a couple times. One night, we had a skewer of large prawns (about $1.50) and a skewer of squids the size of shoes ($1.25). Another evening, we went for the noodles and chicken parts. Two wings, two skewers of chicken meat and two skewers of chicken… hmmm.. these little heart shaped things that turned out to be chicken, uh, tails ($1.25).

We took in a few museums including one that happened to have a showing Sabah’s most famous women artists. The historical museum was fairly interesting. Best of all, it was sponsored by Shell Oil so the take on the industry’s “contributions” was a bit skewed to say the least. The city mosque is the second largest in Malaysia (room for 5,000 male worshippers and 500 female worshippers) and would probably be stunning inside when thousands of colorful prayer rugs are unfurled. Unfortunately, we were there between prayer times so it was rather stark and gray. The exterior, without its gold domes and minarets, would look very similar to a multi-level parking lot.

 

Part Dua (2): MOUNT KINABALU

After a rocky start (no pun intended) — miscommunication with a taxi driver, new bus station that even the tourist office failed to mention, and a shorter-than-expected ride to park headquarters (which had us a bit confused), we arrived in Kinabalu National Park.

It was not a good sign when we were greeted by the friendly park “rangers” — all lovely, young women — in their kacky blouses, skirts and PARKAS. The mountain was completely enshrouded in heavy clouds

We took a mediocre breakfast in the overpriced “canteen”, changed into slightly warmer clothing, and proceeded to take the self-guided hike through the botanical garden. Our cabin wasn’t ready so we signed up for a guided 50-minute hike staffed by a knowledgable young guy.

The little hike proved to be a real treat with lots of information including the difference between bamboo and rattan, a sighting of the world’s smallest orchid (the “Pinhead”) and hints on how to distinguish between vines that discharge water and those giving jungle tranquilizer cocktails. Helpful information, I suppose, if we were ever on “Survivor.”

We proceeded to take another hike on our own. The weather warmed up but everything was still very drippy and wet. No doubt we were in a rainforest.

After a fortifying meal outside the park, we returned to headquarters to collect our bags and hike up the hill to our cabin. There we were greeted by one of the lovely young rangers (who had hiked up in her ranger pumps — honest to god — 1 1/2″ heels) whose job it was to give us a little orientation to be sure we knew how to work everything. (We didn’t think we’re were going to have to learn how to make fire or forage for food, but we were a little concerned that we would need to know how to “work” anything.)

And then she opend the door. Oh my. This was the kind of place where, as our friend Sue Benasso and I would say, “our parents would stay here.” Immaculate, huge, beautiful, polished wooden floors, rattan furniture and built-in furnishings to match. Beautiful woven ceiling, recessed lighting, brand new bathroom with “amenities” (more on those later), and the entire arrangment, whether intentional or not, had very good feng shui.

We rested up and then decided to bypass the less expensive canteen for the restaurant. Gorgeous. A bit like the upper-crust safari lodges in Tanzania, but with impeccable service and MUCH, much better food. I’m not usually willing to pay much extra for ambiance, but this place was worth every ringit. Even in Santa Barbara, this would be the sort of place you’d have to dress up a bit.

Alan decided to supplement his Pepsi with a bottle of their best local Lihing for a whopping 15 ringit (less than $4). Here, at this very classy restaurant, Kinabalu’s rice wine comes in a plastic 500 milliliter bottle with an Avery label probably fresh off the ink-jet. It’s cloudy yellow. Smells like it would strip the paint off your walls. I swear there were fumes. I knew Alan would love it.

We’ve been searching for it in the markets ever since. It’s wonderful. Sort of a fruity sake. We almost forgot our disappointment at not seeing Kinabalu. After dinner we saw a good video about the great granite giant and feared that would be our only viewing of the earth’s newest non-volcanic mountain.

Next morning, 5:30 a.m., video documentarian, Alan Irwin, rises to greet the pre-dawn light. And there it was before him: Gunung Kinabalu — right outside our front door. Reason enough to roust Harriet out of bed at this ungodly hour.

Not unlike other great mountains – Kilimanjaro, Fuji, Rushmore (sorry) — Kinabalu is easy to recognize by its shape. But unlike other more symetrical mountains or even more ”average” looking mountains, Kinabalu is a wild, mishapen, mismatched collection of weird thrusts and peaks and juts — like a mammoth half jaw of jagged, crooked, granite teeth.

Totally cool.

The two-day climb to the 4,095 meter summit is supposed to be only moderately difficult — and we could have done it — but frankly, it remains enshrouded in clouds almost the entire climb this time of year. We were happy to view it from the base. And by 8:30 a.m., the entire mountain had disappeared for another day.

Breakfast at the exquisite restaurant, another hike in light rain, and then we headed back to KK.

 Next up: FAQs, Health, Hygiene and other Trivia

We booked two days at Bako National Park. (Think Yosemite with no cars and rainforest instead of redwoods and granite.)

We hopped the bus to the small village of Bako. Side note: this was a nice, clean bus that drove along beautiful, landscaped highway. No chickens. No goats. No women with 30 kilos of something heaped on their heads.

From Bako we hired a boat to take us to the park headquarters. It was low tide so the 20-minute ride ended and we hiked to shore in warm, shin-deep water for another 15 minutes or so. 

We dumped our bags in our perfectly acceptable cabin (think Yosemite again, but not the Awahnee), and took our first hike into what finally felt like BORNEO.

The paths are relatively well marked (with a swatch of color on a tree every hundred meters or so). Our Teva’s were adequate but a decent pair of hiking boots would have made the scrambling up root-carpeted trails much easier.

Early on, we came across our first proboscis monkeys, the ones with those Jimmy Durante noses. (Alan has good video; I couldn’t shoot stills fast enough.)

We also stumbled, literally, upon a huge hermit crab. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that one, it was the size of a small fist, and two, it was at the top of a mountain! (This critter must have racked up some very, very bad karma in its last life.)

We hauled ourselves up trails (and I use the term loosely) lined with bamboo, rattan, ferns, orchids, lichens, pandans, and towering trees with corkscrew roots hanging from the sky and shooting upward from the moss and leaf-padded ground. There were at least another dozen people in the park but we saw no one on the trails.

Our first hike took us through the rainforest to a stunning, deserted beach with rough, young boulders the size of our house on Spring St. A second hike later in the day took us through a very dark patch of jungle to an impassable swamp of mangroves. But we were rewarded with another sighting of proboscis monkeys which more than made up for the hundreds of mosquito (or other insect) bites we’re still scratching.

Alan was great at sighting several pitcher plants, a few millipedes and some wild looking fungi. (We won’t be ordering the cream of mushroom soup that seems to be on a lot of menus.)

Sounds. Wow. This is a bit difficult to describe. Imagine some bad jungle movie on television. You hear lots of crickets and cicadias and hissing, maybe some rushing water, right? Okay, now, imagine you’ve just cranked up the volume as high as it can go, started a blender, and then put on a shrill, whistling tea kettle. You’re there. It was just that loud.

The monkeys in the photos here are macaques. They’re all over the place and travel in large troops. Those of you who will be joining us for Thanksgiving will hear the tale of Alan (a.k.a. Tarzan, but on another continent) rescuing Harriet from one angry male macaque in his most manly, quick thinking, could’ve-been-an-Eagle- Scout manner by shouting ”Harriet, move.” (He is soooooo brave. – H) 

There’s also a hairy boar (not to be confused with some people we need not mention here) that wanders around the camp canteen, and a couple of vipers that snooze in the branches on the way to our cabin.

The viper, (species: Runaway Fastus) is the second deadliest snake on the planet. The king cobra is first. Evidently there are a few of those in Bako and I would prefer to believe it was just a tale to keep hikers on the paths and in their cabins at night. (It worked.) It takes 3 minutes for the viper venom to kill. I don’t know how long it would take a cobra to kill you — 2 minutes, 30 seconds, who cares — but it seems like 3 minutes to death is enough for a close second in the snake bite olympics.

We eventually headed back to Kuching for iced kacangs, a quick visit with Nina to hear about her experience at a longhouse (she brought a soccer ball for all the village children to enjoy; her German counterpart brought the equivalent of a toy aisle at Wal-Mart), loaded up on lots of satay and Thai rice, and prepared for our flight to Kota Kinabalu the next morning.

Next up: Gunung Kinabalu

We’ve only seen, let alone met, one American in Malaysian Borneo. But she is more interesting than a few dozen backpackers combined.

Nina is about our age and hails from San Francisco. She works as a freelance, um, development mercenary, that is, she works as a contractor for large development organizations (e.g. US AID) who pay her to implement, evaluate and/or monitor international projects. She has worked as an election observer (the sort of thing you hear about Jimmy Carter doing) in Peru and most recently just came from evaluating an A.I.D.S. program in East Timor. (Laura, Amanda, we want to lock you in a room with her for a couple of hours. This is the sort of stuff we think you may want to do someday.)

Over the past 20 years or so she has worked and/or lived for an extended period in Angola, Burma, Cambodia, Haiti, Malaysia, Madagascar, El Salvador, Bolivia (yes, she’s fluent in Spanish) and countries we’re too embarassed to admit we couldn’t locate on a map. (Deb, Karen, don’t worry, she also claims she could never live in Peace Corp conditions and recently hung out in the most opulent digs with a good friend in Brunei working for the Australian ambassador.)

In addition to giving us great insight into international development issues, Nina introduced us to iced kacang (pronounced ka-chong). The ingredient list: soft gelatinous gummy worm-like things in green and red, white pearls of some other tapioca (maybe) sort of stuff, beans (not unlike your basic pintos), yellow corn (not S&W, but definitely out of a can). Then you heap on a bunch of shaved iced (Hawaiian style) and shape it into a cone, pour a half can of evaporated milk over one half and a brown sugar syrup mixture over the other half, and then dig in. Sounds (and looks) pretty disgusting. Sort of a chunky, milky snow cone that quickly melts into a sweet soup. It was pretty weird at first. Then we got hooked.

For those of you joining us for Thanksgiving, I’m afraid without a shaved ice machine we won’t be able to make this the year’s special beverage. Sorry.

We will definitely stay in touch with Nina. She is a gem.

Next up: Into the Jungle

We have been in Kuching, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. [CORRECTED 9 Nov] In 1957, the Malay peninsula formed a federation made up of newly independent colonies. In 1963, Sarawak and Sabah (also former English colonies) joined Malaya, along with Singapore, to create the modern country of Malaysia. In 1965, Singapore left the federation to become an independent country. In 2007, Malaysia is gearing up for a huge celebration of the 50th anniversay of the creation of Malaysia – a good time to think about visiting (hint-senior niece, Janice & Colin, Debbie & Tom, and anyone else looking for a wonderful, EASY, and tasty trip).

Borneo (the island) has 3 countries. Malaysia (the other half is on the Thai peninsla), Indonesia (distributed over several islands), and Brunei (exclusively on Borneo).

I now return you to the way more interesting part of the blog.

Harriet:

History… yes, yes, all very interesting. I’ll share a few other tidbits and those of you who would prefer a more in-depth study of the geo-political-historical aspects can write directly to Alan.

Kuching is a very pleasant, walkable city. There are a fair number of conferences happening and a number of Malay tourists are enjoying the town. There are very, very few “round eyes” and, with the exception of Nina (more on her later), we haven’t seen any Americans. The Brits and other northern Europeans are here escaping the cold, but primarily, we’re seeing Malays, some Japanese and Chinese.

We visited several spectacular museums and usually had them all to ourselves. (And they were all free.) We explored the open air markets bursting with fresh produce, meat, fish, plants, hardware, clothing and food stalls so we could keep up our shopping energy.

In addition to the traditional, “exotic” markets, Kuching is full of high-rise shopping malls selling EVERYTHING for stunningly low prices. (Anyone need a watch for $2?) The big U.S. chains are here. 7-11 is everywhere (Alan is very happy). KFC is everywhere. Burger King is around as are Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Famous Amos, and my favorite, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (yes, THAT CB&TL headquartered in Camarillo).

In the evenings, we usually stroll along the waterfront and eat fabulous, cheap food. Our breakfasts have been typically Malaysian and taken in one of the nearby food stalls. A basic breakfast is usually a noodle soup or fried noodles (wheat or rice, different widths) with any combination of meats, sprouts, veggies, egg. Malaysian Borneo has so many culinary influences, it’s difficult to have something purely Malay. Breakfast, including Alan’s morning cola, for the two of us averages about $2.50.

Our lunches and dinners have been truly “fusion” in nature –Thai, Chinese, Indian as well as Malay. And then there’s the snacking: waffles with chocolate or peanut butter, little cupcake-like things, steamed pork buns and other dim sum sorts of dumplings, roti (Indian crepe), baked peanut butter buns, lots of ice cream (Nestle’s drumsticks) spicy chicken puffs, fried bananas, little buttery English muffin sorts of things (see photo), satay everywhere, and, thankfully, Pepsi and Coca Cola for you know who.

One night, we took ourselves to a large, open seafood restaurant next to the river. It took us awhile to figure out we needed to select our own fish and negotiate its preparation. We ordered snapper, prawns, an oyster pancake (see photo) and some vegetables. We didn’t have a clue as to the volume that would appear at our table. There was a family of at least a dozen people nearby. Evidently, we ordered enough food for them as well. (The photo shows Harriet with the remnants of our meal.)

There was a basket of prawn crackers to snack on until the huge dishes started arriving. The fish was an entire, huge Red Snapper; the oyster pancake was easily 12″ across and stuffed with small oysters; the gigantic garlic prawns numbered more than a dozen; the spicy fried noodles had shrimp, calamari, beef, bbq pork and vegetables; then came the platters of baby bok choy and mixed vegetables. It was all good, but frankly, we were so overwhelmed by the volume we barely made a dent and felt like disgusting pigs.

The whole tab came to $21.

Our other stupidly expensive meal was a traditional “Steamboat” at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. It’s basically shabu-shabu. They schlep a propane tank to your table and hook it up to a combination soup pot and grill. Then you help yourself to the raw fish/meat/veggie buffet and cook your own meal at the table. It’s a fun idea and because we were hanging out with a new friend it was nice setting. But really, did we fly half way around to globe to cook our own food? I think not.

Total tab for the 3 of us: $37 (including tax and drinks). Outrageous expense.

Between meals, we took a day trip to the Sarawak Cultural Center. It’s a sort of Disney-like approach to learning about the different tribes and cultures of Borneo, but the setting is spectacular and it was really quite interesting. Between our visits to the different tribal houses, we enjoyed the staged show of music and dancing. Ornate costumes, graceful dances, native music (gamelan, drumming, some string music) and a blowpipe dance/demonstration where the dancer blew darts 50 feet or so, over the crowd, to pop balloons.

At the end of the show, they invite the audience to come up and join in the dancing. So a couple dozen people (certainly not us) just hopped up on the stage and started gyrating around to the music. (Santa Barbararians might equate this to “Dance-Away” with a camera-toting audience.)

Our other outskirts-of-town outing was to see the famous Kuching Cat Museum. “Kuching” means cat in Bahasa Malaysia and there are several stories about how the city came to be so named. There are hokey cat statues all over the place. And then there are the awful souvenirs with cats…

 Anyway, we went to the museum because we thought it would be a mildly bizarre thing to do… and it was.

First off, it’s housed in an enormous mosque-like center that serves as North Kuching City Hall and it takes up half of the first floor. The guards didn’t look armed, but they were there to protect the museum as well as City offices.

The entrance was wonderfully tacky. The first exhibits were a combination of bad taxidermy (stuffed cats suitable for bad horror movie sets) and odd commercial collections of all things feline (keychains, mugs, painted rocks, purses, and a lovely photo opportunity). The subsequent exhibit halls were divided into cultural/historical references — the history of cats in different cultures (Egypt, Japan, China, etc.). Then came the rooms of cats in the movies (or movie titles), cats in porcelain, cats in paintings, cats in advertising, cats on plates, cats in cartoons, cats in poetry and literature, famous cat lovers (did you know that Sir Isaac Newton invented the cat door?), cat proverbs, cat food, cat fish (yes, an entire wall devoted to the very, very distant piscean cousin) — it just kept going.

Did I mention the huge glass case devoted to cat burglars?

Of course there was a room devoted to explaining EVERY fricken breed of domesticated cat and homage to the Malaysian organization that hosted the Cat World Cup or whatever the hell they called it.

There was a cat cave but the lights weren’t working, so we listened to various cat calls/growls/screeches coming from shadowy sculptures of, we presume, cats.

Admittedly, the whole thing was amazingly well done. And we feel that, as dog people, we have more than bent over backwards to show our respect, admiration and appreciation for our feline counterparts.

Next up: The Development Mercenary 

I invaded Alan’s blog today. He insists a blog is not a diary although he writes his activities and thoughts in it almost every day. He’ll admit to “journaling” but just barely. When did one of the favorite activities of 10-year old girls and women in support groups get co-opted by techno dudes…?

Enough blog bashing…

After a couple days of shopping and snacking in Singapore (because that’s pretty much what one does in Singapore), we finally arrived in Malaysian Borneo. Lest you imagine a Heart of Darkness-like experience, let me just say, Kuching, the capital of Sarawak state, is a clean, modern city with paved roads and new cars and high-rise hotels. (Hilton, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, etc.)

We’re easing — very, slowly — into our typical travel mode. (i.e. I am not my usual, stingey self) by staying on the 12th floor of one of those high rise hotels for about $32/night. The Harbour View is Holiday Inn caliber. To balance out those outrageous expenses, we’re eating in little food stalls and restaurants, averaging about $2 a meal for the two of us. And we’re stuffed. And we continue to snack. (4 skewers of satay with fabulous peanut sauce for less than 10 cents a skewer, fried noodles with chicken and vegetables for about 65 cents, gigantic Indian buffet meals with drinks for $3 for the two of us…) We’re thinking about springing for one of the “expensive” restaurants tonight. Maybe we can rack up an $8 tab if Alan orders a few Diet Pepsis and we tip heavily.

We’re looking forward to seeing some more sights just outside of town, and then the big Sunday market (more snacks, more shopping) and then, at last, we take the plunge into the jungle. We’ve booked a couple days at Bako National Park and hope to get our first glance of orangutans and other critters. From there, it’s on to points east, probably a long-house or two, some caves, some wild looking peaks, perhaps a quick spin through Brunei (where we’ll give our regards to the Sultan and to Michael Jackson), and on to Mt. Kinabalu.

Alan just figured out how to hook up my camera so future posts should contain a few more photos.

Salamat jalan,
Harriet (and Alan)