Borneo - part 1
Borneo - part 1
I'm not sure where the idea to come to Borneo came from. It just popped into my head one day in December and the decision was made.
Now, I'm aware that most people don't even know where Borneo is, so I'll provide a quick lesson. Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java, Indonesia, right in the geographic center of south east Asia. The island is divided among 3 countries; Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei (I'm in the Malaysian part). It's claims to fame are orangutans, Mt Kinabalu, and the very first season of survivor (yes, I'm going to the "survivor" island while I'm here). It also is home to the world's oldest rainforest and it's reported that since just 1996 over 360 new animal and plant species have been discovered here (cool!!)
Although not far from Australia, it was a bloody effort to get here because there aren't exactly an abundance of flights (let alone a direct one from Sydney). So, it was a red eye to KL, a 4 hour layover at 3:30am and then a 2.5 hour flight to Kota Kinabalu. Thankfully both flights were half empty so I was able to stretch right out and sleep, but it was still a long trip.
I'm on a tour while here, but I arrived 1 night early, so had some time to do some exploring on my own in Kota Kinabalu ("KK"). KK is a strange place. It has the feeling of any other Asian city, only without all the people. It's a pretty quiet place - not much seems to be going on. At all. The only tourists seem to be chinese; there are hardly any white folk around. I think it might just be that KK is just a jumping off point for bigger and better things, so no one hangs around. Also, the 'small' war going on in the eastern part of the island (between the malaysians and some Filipino terrorists) probably isn't helping either.
I "splurged" and stayed in a nice hotel on the waterfront until meeting up with my tour ($100 per night - crazy money for KK standards). The view is gorgeous, but KK seems to be a fishing town, so everything smells kind of fishy. Not horrible, but not great either. I kept myself busy quite easily though; since everything is so cheap it's easy to find activities to do.
The first day I had a 2 hour massage for 80myr ($25). I have no complaints about the massage itself - for 25 bucks she did a great job sorting my back out. The weird thing though was that she kept belching throughout the massage. Like 'beer drinking' loud belches. Every time she was very apologetic, but it just killed the mood a bit. She probably let 5 or 6 go in the two hours.
The second day I went out to an island just off the city to go to the beach. The sand was nice and the water was lovely, but one again it was a bit weird. A bunch of Chinese tours showed up (probably 5 or 6 groups of 30 people) and proper banquets were set up on the beach - like covered chairs with bows as you may see at a tacky wedding. Another mood killer.
My tour group is interesting. Everyone is really nice and are keen to do things and go for a drink and such, but there is one odd ball. I don't even know how to describe him other than by saying that he isn't quite right in the head (which is ironic a bit because apparently he used to work as a cook at a mental health hospital). He is british and extremely loud. He turned up in KK and apparently didn't even know what country he was in; he just knew he was Borneo. It then turned out that he didn't bring any hiking gear to climb Mt Kinabalu (which we are doing later this week), and asked our guide if he could hike in his black shoes. I'm willing to venture a guess that he also didn't bring any warm clothes and is going to end up freezing when we get to the summit at 6am, which is 4100m above see level (update to follow in next post). He also announced to his poor roommate first thing that he snores quite loudly. Before this, he was in Nepal for 3 months, but didn't do any trekking, which is strange. He did, however, meet a nepalese girl (his first ever girlfriend) who he plans on going back to marry. He has been traveling for a year off some family inheritance, so something tells me that this impoverished Nepalese girl may be after something more than just his winning personality. He may not be my cup of tea but he does keep things interesting.
On my 3rd day we left KK and headed North to a home stay about half way between KK and mount Kinabalu. I quite enjoyed seeing how local people live. The house is quite basic, but its clean and has proper clean toilets. The woman who owns the house gave a demonstration on how to make coconut oil (it's actually quite a long process) and some local teenagers came by and did traditional dance. Afterwards they stayed to chat (it helps them practice their English) and I enjoyed that most, as it was interesting to be able to learn about their lives. Most come from families of 7 kids or more and none of them have ever left Borneo or even been out of their town much (where there are 30 houses). Quite a different lifestyle.
The next morning we went and took a look at a rubber tree at the homestay and learned how to tap it. Rubber used to be Borneo's largest source of income, until synthetic rubber was invented. Now it's palm oil. The process it quite similar to how they make maple syrup. We also went down to a river and did some swimming which was nice.
Today we arrived at Mt Kinabalu park, and are preparing for the hike which starts tomorrow. We also stopped at a war memorial today, to honour those Aussies and Brits killed by the Japanese in the Sandakan death marches. This is a part of WWII which (growing up in Canada) I knew nothing about, but apparently it's Australia's worst ever war disaster (worse than Galopili). All but 6 of 2000 POWs were starved, forced to march 250km and then either killed or died of starvation/disease right at the end of the war after the Japanese had lost. Really interesting - terrible, but interesting.
Some other observations thus far
- I'm kinda a big deal here. Given that there are hardly any white people around at all, my skin and hair make me a real novelty. While at the beach, some of the guys working on the island were trying to take my picture as I lay in the sun in my bikini. Not impressed. I have been getting a lot of creepy "hellos" as well (which in Malay is "Halo").
- It's fucking hot here. Humidity like I've never experienced - dripping wet, clothes stick to every inch of your body, unable to walk more than 10 meters kind of humidity.
-The malaysians seem to be quite honest people. While they still try to rip you off, the margin they try to rip you off by is significantly less than in other places (Egypt, Bali, Thailand, etc). So that's nice.
- KFC is very popular
- Borneo got it's name because some Portuguese dude couldn't say "Brunei" properly. The island used to be an important trading hub (centered from Brunei) due to it's location, and when a Portuguese navigator came and settled he butchered the name Brunei as Borneo and it stuck.
- I feel quite safe here. I had no problems walking alone in KK and never felt at all threatened or concerned (despite the creepy "halos").
Tomorrow the the mountain!
I'm not sure where the idea to come to Borneo came from. It just popped into my head one day in December and the decision was made.
Now, I'm aware that most people don't even know where Borneo is, so I'll provide a quick lesson. Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java, Indonesia, right in the geographic center of south east Asia. The island is divided among 3 countries; Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei (I'm in the Malaysian part). It's claims to fame are orangutans, Mt Kinabalu, and the very first season of survivor (yes, I'm going to the "survivor" island while I'm here). It also is home to the world's oldest rainforest and it's reported that since just 1996 over 360 new animal and plant species have been discovered here (cool!!)
Although not far from Australia, it was a bloody effort to get here because there aren't exactly an abundance of flights (let alone a direct one from Sydney). So, it was a red eye to KL, a 4 hour layover at 3:30am and then a 2.5 hour flight to Kota Kinabalu. Thankfully both flights were half empty so I was able to stretch right out and sleep, but it was still a long trip.
I'm on a tour while here, but I arrived 1 night early, so had some time to do some exploring on my own in Kota Kinabalu ("KK"). KK is a strange place. It has the feeling of any other Asian city, only without all the people. It's a pretty quiet place - not much seems to be going on. At all. The only tourists seem to be chinese; there are hardly any white folk around. I think it might just be that KK is just a jumping off point for bigger and better things, so no one hangs around. Also, the 'small' war going on in the eastern part of the island (between the malaysians and some Filipino terrorists) probably isn't helping either.
I "splurged" and stayed in a nice hotel on the waterfront until meeting up with my tour ($100 per night - crazy money for KK standards). The view is gorgeous, but KK seems to be a fishing town, so everything smells kind of fishy. Not horrible, but not great either. I kept myself busy quite easily though; since everything is so cheap it's easy to find activities to do.
The first day I had a 2 hour massage for 80myr ($25). I have no complaints about the massage itself - for 25 bucks she did a great job sorting my back out. The weird thing though was that she kept belching throughout the massage. Like 'beer drinking' loud belches. Every time she was very apologetic, but it just killed the mood a bit. She probably let 5 or 6 go in the two hours.
The second day I went out to an island just off the city to go to the beach. The sand was nice and the water was lovely, but one again it was a bit weird. A bunch of Chinese tours showed up (probably 5 or 6 groups of 30 people) and proper banquets were set up on the beach - like covered chairs with bows as you may see at a tacky wedding. Another mood killer.
My tour group is interesting. Everyone is really nice and are keen to do things and go for a drink and such, but there is one odd ball. I don't even know how to describe him other than by saying that he isn't quite right in the head (which is ironic a bit because apparently he used to work as a cook at a mental health hospital). He is british and extremely loud. He turned up in KK and apparently didn't even know what country he was in; he just knew he was Borneo. It then turned out that he didn't bring any hiking gear to climb Mt Kinabalu (which we are doing later this week), and asked our guide if he could hike in his black shoes. I'm willing to venture a guess that he also didn't bring any warm clothes and is going to end up freezing when we get to the summit at 6am, which is 4100m above see level (update to follow in next post). He also announced to his poor roommate first thing that he snores quite loudly. Before this, he was in Nepal for 3 months, but didn't do any trekking, which is strange. He did, however, meet a nepalese girl (his first ever girlfriend) who he plans on going back to marry. He has been traveling for a year off some family inheritance, so something tells me that this impoverished Nepalese girl may be after something more than just his winning personality. He may not be my cup of tea but he does keep things interesting.
On my 3rd day we left KK and headed North to a home stay about half way between KK and mount Kinabalu. I quite enjoyed seeing how local people live. The house is quite basic, but its clean and has proper clean toilets. The woman who owns the house gave a demonstration on how to make coconut oil (it's actually quite a long process) and some local teenagers came by and did traditional dance. Afterwards they stayed to chat (it helps them practice their English) and I enjoyed that most, as it was interesting to be able to learn about their lives. Most come from families of 7 kids or more and none of them have ever left Borneo or even been out of their town much (where there are 30 houses). Quite a different lifestyle.
The next morning we went and took a look at a rubber tree at the homestay and learned how to tap it. Rubber used to be Borneo's largest source of income, until synthetic rubber was invented. Now it's palm oil. The process it quite similar to how they make maple syrup. We also went down to a river and did some swimming which was nice.
Today we arrived at Mt Kinabalu park, and are preparing for the hike which starts tomorrow. We also stopped at a war memorial today, to honour those Aussies and Brits killed by the Japanese in the Sandakan death marches. This is a part of WWII which (growing up in Canada) I knew nothing about, but apparently it's Australia's worst ever war disaster (worse than Galopili). All but 6 of 2000 POWs were starved, forced to march 250km and then either killed or died of starvation/disease right at the end of the war after the Japanese had lost. Really interesting - terrible, but interesting.
Some other observations thus far
- I'm kinda a big deal here. Given that there are hardly any white people around at all, my skin and hair make me a real novelty. While at the beach, some of the guys working on the island were trying to take my picture as I lay in the sun in my bikini. Not impressed. I have been getting a lot of creepy "hellos" as well (which in Malay is "Halo").
- It's fucking hot here. Humidity like I've never experienced - dripping wet, clothes stick to every inch of your body, unable to walk more than 10 meters kind of humidity.
-The malaysians seem to be quite honest people. While they still try to rip you off, the margin they try to rip you off by is significantly less than in other places (Egypt, Bali, Thailand, etc). So that's nice.
- KFC is very popular
- Borneo got it's name because some Portuguese dude couldn't say "Brunei" properly. The island used to be an important trading hub (centered from Brunei) due to it's location, and when a Portuguese navigator came and settled he butchered the name Brunei as Borneo and it stuck.
- I feel quite safe here. I had no problems walking alone in KK and never felt at all threatened or concerned (despite the creepy "halos").
Tomorrow the the mountain!
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