borneo baby

Borneo’s been epic.  Sitting in the airport now waiting for my flight to KL where I’ll just kick it for a couple days before flying to London for the Rally.

So I flew into Kuching, in Southern Malaysian Borneo, almost 4 weeks ago.  Kuching was pretty sweet and I was blown away by the infrastructure, cleanliness and friendliness/honesty of the people.  Like it's almost scary how honest and genuine is here.  I guess I was expecting more of Vietnam or something.  Malaysia’s a cray cray blend of natives, Filipinos, Chinese, Indians and other nationalities so obvi the food is money.  Like it’s so money AND it knows it too.  Noodles, curries, Chinese roasted pork, laksa, etc…so good.

From Kuching I went to Bako National park where I hiked through pretty awesome jungle for a few days.  Saw some monkeys tide hunting on the beach, a bunch of wild boars and the night hike was cool too. 

Went back to Kuching after Bako and went to an orangutan sanctuary.  Nice seeing them in the “wild” technically but after about 10 minutes around 100 tourists showed up so I bounced.

A couple days later I road a speed boat up river to Kapit, a logging town that’s about 1 square kilometer.  I wanted to hang out with the infamous Iban people, the headhunters of ancient lore.  But I didn’t want to pay for some stupid tour and I heard two things.  First that some drunken dickhead runs all the tours and charges about 10x too much.  The other is that the Iban are so hospitable that it’s possible to get invited into their longhouse and end up paying nothing.  I opted for the latter.  It sounded more legit.  So I spent about a day doing what I had read online – cruising through the market, sparking convos at restaurants, etc…it all seemed pretty weird and I didn’t get very far.  I mean, like WTF is supposed to happen?  “Oh hi mam, how much do you sell your eggplant for?  Why of course, I’d love to come stay with your family and eat your food at your longhouse!”

So anyway I bought a couple bottles of rice wine and some cigarettes (supposed proper gifts for the Iban) and caught a minivan ride out to the most popular longhouse thinking I could navigate from there.  Well, showed up and it was completely torn down with a new concrete longhouse next to it.  So I was all like, “Nah brah, take me 15km that way, drop me off at the end of the road, and I’ll walk an hour upriver to this other place I heard of.”

He pretty much told me I was retarded, which I guess is fine and then took me to the end of the road.  He talked to the family at that longhouse and they informed us that the longhouse family up the river had gone in to town for the day.  I could spend the afternoon with them waiting for them to return to guide me back to their longhouse. 

Well the afternoon turned into evening and it became apparent that they weren’t returning (which was normal I was told as often the villagers spend the night in town instead of trekking back).  So yeah, got invited to stay with this guy’s family.  It was a modern longhouse, but in talking with them, no one really stays at wooden longhouses anymore.  The family was really awesome and generous…they took me around to different longhouses and I got to meet their extended family, had food, tons of tuat (homemade rice liquor).  They took me over to a famous wooden house with skulls and all, which promptly charged me 65RM (like $22) for just being there.  So, yeah, then I got a real sense of what the few remaining wooden houses are doing.  They still had satellite TV, toilets and cellphones though.  Their tats were awesome and scary at the same time. 

Went to various longhouses where we were continually invited in for more tuat and assorted foods.  Someone had killed a wild boar earlier that day so I sat out in the back with the men picked at roasted pig head and downing the rice swill.  Then more visits, more chatting, more boozing and then a huge feast with 30 some odd Iban.  Borneans, and especially the Iban eat with their hands so it was a pretty messy affair for me. 

Went back to the dude’s longhouse (I really had no idea what his name was) and someone there had also killed a pig so we had a second pig roast.  The whole while the dude and his family are offering me more of everything, told me they don’t want my money and that they’re just happy to have me there.  I was the first foreigner at this longhouse they said.  

After pig roast number two and pretty sloppy by this point, we went and “showered” in the river while the dude’s dad hunted frogs along the riverbank.  Got back to the house and figured it’d be a good time for a sleeping pill and I’d call it a night.  Oh no no no.  Then they called me out for dinner – 100% hunted or foraged from the jungle.  Different jungle plants, fried grubs, fish, etc.  Pretty good.  “Cool, now time to brush my teeth and peace,” I thought. 

Nope again.  One of their neighbors was having a “going away” party which in Iban culture is a blend of pagan rituals and well I guess western customs of getting wasted.  So in I went, at this point half drunk and pretty spacey from the sleeping pill.  The kid was sat in the middle of the room with about 40 of us in a circle around him.  An elder brought me two bowls of cock blood (rooster not penis, thank you) and I had to spoon one into the other.  Then the elders smeared the blood on the kid’s hands and forehead.  They then took turns waving the bowls of cock blood over his head and then brought in a live chicken to do the same.  This was followed by wiping his hands with cock blood, placing money in them, and then hard boiled eggs on top of that.  He then had to eat the eggs with mouth only and then the ritual was complete. 

Next day I went out hunting grubs much like Timon and Pumba in the jungle which consisted of digging through rotting logs.  Cool to do it once but pretty happy I don’t do that everyday. 

So yeah, spent the remainder of the day just laying around I guess, as they do there, and then bounced.  But right before I left the dude’s uncle came over who apparently is the head of that longhouse and said that I had to pay 50RM per night…it was “longhouse” rule.  Sounds like he just wanted money.  So yeah, that left a pretty sour taste in my mouth after the dude and his family repeatedly told me I was their welcomed guest and that I wouldn’t pay.  Even upon paying the guy and his family apologized and said they had to listen to the uncle.  Watev. 

So from Kapit I went to Niah where I did a hike to a cave full of maybe a million bats and swallows.  Pretty cool.  From Niah went to Miri which felt kinda like the Jersey Shore. 

With a few days before I was to meet up with Kank and Lily in KK up north, I decided to bounce from that armpit town and head to Brunei.  Cuz I mean, what the heck is in Brunei?  Well in short, nothing.  There’s nothing in Brunei.  There’s mosques and a mall.  I watched two movies in two days.  But I DID go diving, which was reallllllly nice there…dove a wreck of a WWII American minesweeper that had thousands of barracuda circling overhead.  Even found some bullets among the wreckage.  Ironically it was sunk after it hit a mine.  So yeah, the diving was well worth it.  The staff and other divers really made the trip…they were awesome. 

From Brunei went to KK and met up with Kank and Lily.  Ate for like 3 days straight, just powering through fish, crab, shrimp, softshell crab, etc…thuper good.  Fave was the curry leaf fried softshell crab and grilled stingray.  Then went over to Semporna, dove for a few days.  Sipadan blew my mind.  The following is just a count of the things I saw to help jog my own memory.  Unless you don’t have much else to do, it’s ok you skip it:

-       Hawksbill turtles

-       Green turtles

-       Clownfish

-       Crocodile fish

-       Schooling Jacks

-       Schooling barracudas

-       Great barracudas

-       Banded sea krait (top 3 deadliest snakes on earth)

-       Whitetip sharks

-       Black tip shark

-       Moray eels

-       4 kinds of puffer fish

-       pipefish

-       bumphead parrot fish

-       cleaner shrimp

-       dove a sunken oil rig

-       cement ship

-       American minesweeper

-       Seahorses

-       Giant grouper

-       Stonefish

Had a lot of fun with them out on the islands basically boozing, eating and chatting and then now working my way to KL.