Alan Irwin’s Blog

Part Satu (1): Kota Kinabalu
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, [...]

It was time. We had to get into the wilds of Borneo. Okay, well, nothing seems to be too wild here. (Alan observed that this is one of the few places we’ve visited where we haven’t been awakened by roosters.)
We booked two days at Bako National Park. (Think Yosemite with no cars and rainforest instead of redwoods [...]

Well, that’s how Nina described herself.
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 [...]

Alan (Dry, instructional component):
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 [...]

Dear Diary,
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 [...]