Malaysia

Straight into the heart of Borneo!
July 24th, 2007 (I know… it took me a while again)

Wanting to get a feel of real longhouse life, rather then the touristy ones near Kuching, Ian, Bertrand & I set off for a trip along the Batang Rejang river, which lead us deep into Sarawak. The journey was quite an adventure on itself, traveling on the roof of what to me looked like a home-made highspeed canalboat. After a 1,5 day river trip (with a stop-over for the night in Kapit) we covered over 540 km, to end up in the small town of Belaga.

Ian & I figured we deserved a drink. We were aiming for a nice cool beer, but our host was very enthusiastic about the local rice wine (tuak). Thinking this would be a shot, we ordered both a beer and a rice wine. Wrong, we landed ourselves an entire tea-mug full of tuak! Trying not to get completely wasted, we took our time sipping from our mugs. Fortunately the owner of the establishment filled this time with interesting conversation about Malay life & politics.

The next morning we set off to Kejaman Lhasa village with our guide, Hamdanni. With the small boat, the speed aloud us to enjoy the scenery a lot more. In Kejaman Lhasa, we were welcomed by Medon & her family. After some refreshments, we spent the afternoon playing with the kids. Having gotten quite hungry from the tennis and soccer games, we were quite anxious to eat, although I must admit that the menu sort of tempered my hunger. Medon had already checked if we would eat monkey… well why not? So off we went, satisfying our appetite with monkey. Did I like it? … check the picture The weather was intervening with our plans to go hunting (the whole idea of us hunting was a source of entertainment for our guide and the locals), so we spent the evening playing toc.

The next morning we set out on a fishing trip (again this seemed to be very amusing to our hosts). It was a beautiful trip on a small river, which lead us even deeper into the jungle. Of course the fishing was done by Paulus and Hamdanni, but our mere presence kept the fishies from swimming into the carefully placed net. So we came home with three tiny fishies that – to say it the Dutch way – wouldn’t fill my hollow tooth. Not ready to give up we accepted Telan’s invitation to go fishing in the river with small hand nets. While we were struggling to keep standing, Telan was happily catching prawns, while laughing at us the whole time. Thanks to Telan we added some prawns to the dinner, but were sincerely greatfull of our anticipating host, who had prepared us some chicken, just in case .

We also got a taste of the local sigo, which is the alternative to rice. It looks (and tastes) like the stuff you use to put your wallpaper up and takes quite a bit of practice to eat with the wooden split stick they provide with it… but once you got the hang of it and mix it with some of the dishes that accompany it, it’s not too bad actually.

The following morning Telan, my new friend – a 62-year old mother of 4, grandmother of 9 -, played traditional Kejaman music for us. Her version was beautiful, but again she couldn’t stop laughing, when she was trying if I would be any better at this, then I was at the prawn fishing. The idea is to put a leave in one nostril, while playing the flute with the other. Naturally I accomplished nothing else then blowing the leave out of my nose. The next instrument was played with the mouth, but my attempts seemed even more hilarious to Telan. After Telan’s preformance, we were supposed to set off on our return trip. But Telan invited me to stay with her and her family…. I didn’t need a lot of time to think about that!

So I stayed. Moved from the new longhouse to the old one (the whole village is building new houses, but my new host-family are still living in the old one) and settled in. If I was gonna stay, I needed to do some laundry. It took Telan 2 seconds to take it out of my hands. From there on Telan introduced me to the Kejaman lifestyle; teaching me how to do my laundry with a brush - although my mint green lace thong seemed a rather pointless asset to her – , bathe properly in a sarong - again my beachsarong seemed completely pointless to her, so she gave me one of hers -, tie a sarong properly - trust me girls, our efforts are only laughed upon-, showing me how to prepare the prawns I (well she actually) caught and so on.

On my second day with Telan’s family I got invited to a picknick. We returned to the stream I visited with Bertrand & Ian, but now with a group of about 30 people – of whom most seemed to be family. Pretty soon there was a fire built, rice cooking, fish caught & a wild pig was shot and barbecued. The ladies of the group tried to teach me how to pack the rice in the leaves (picked from the jungle) but I (as with everything else) did a pretty lousy job. I learned by the way that the part of the rice we through away (the part that gets stuck to the bottom of the pan and forms a big “cookie” there, is considered a treat in other parts of the world . Before lunch I respectfully declined the offer to feast on the pig’s brains. But once lunch was served it turned out that this was not the part of the pig that needed avoiding. My new friends Emilda, Ross & Nancy, noticed very quickly that I was trying to eat around some parts of the pig we don’t exactly consider food . Thoughtfully, they landed me some more food with only meat in it this time.

Apart from preparing and eating the food, the rest of the time was filled with fishing (attempts to teach me how to throw the net of course were as pointless as everything else I tried this week), playing some form of volleyball and swimming or rather floating with the strong current of the river … trying to avoid the huge boulders was not as easy as it looked Everybody seemed to be very concerned if I was having a good time, but they shouldn’t have worried, life (& traveling) doesn’t get much better then this!

The rest of my days, I spent most of my time with the ladies of the family. Visiting or bathing (when the water at our house wouldn’t run) with Sidom (one of Telan’s daugthers), watching the women make the most beautiful things out of beets, bamboo hats, playing toc with the children, fishing for prawn, practicing English with Telan or Shirvilia (9-years old and very capable of basic English conversation), chewing beetlenut – I’m pretty sure my dentist won’t be very pleased with that (sorry Hielke) – and of course sitting on the porch… A lot of sitting on the porch!

Life in a longhouse is entirely different from what we’re used to. The living space is turned into the bedroom at night, where everybody sleeps in the same room on mattresses that are rolled out on the floor. The cracks in the floor are not a nuisance, but very handy for spitting through (chewing beetle nut, with tobacco, produce quite a bit of red saliva) or losing the dust after sweeping. The bathroom is on the back porch along with the toilet and outdoor kitchen (this one is for the open fire – the indoor kitchen is for the gas). The back porch of course is open, which is why the sarong comes in quite handy while bathing. Although I was not completely in the clear. Trying to copy from Telan how to bath in my sarong, I bathed bare chested like she did. That the rest of the female part of the family happily walks in and out of the “bathroom” made me feel a bit weird, but when Telan’s 15-year old grandson walked in, I was really thrown of. As she didn’t seem to mind, I decided to keep my mouth shut and adjust my position as best I could (of course it was 3 days later when I realized the younger ladies keep their chest covered while bathing ).

Even though there is a table, breakfast, lunch & dinner is served on the floor. Again I proved to provide a lot of entertainment, still not coping to well with all the spicy food, incapable of sucking the snails from their house and trying to pick the bones out of the little fishes, where everybody else eats them whole.

The toilet is of course a sort of squad version which is also located on the back porch. The “door” – a piece of wood – your supposed to put in the doorway left a crack big enough to fit a 3-year old through so even on the toilet privacy is very scarce.

Now please don’t start thinking that Telan & her family is some backwards group of people that got stuck in the jungle for too long. The Kejaman have a rich history, beautiful culture, very warm family ties and a strong sense of community. Almost everybody speaks at least a few words of English – and if they don’t they’ll find other ways to communicate with you. The younger people are working really hard on their school and further education – give Emilda (Telan’s youngest) 3 more year’s and she will have a degree in accountancy. To me it seemed like they have found an amazing way to adjust to modern day life, without forgetting to cherish their traditional lifestyle.

Telan & her family offered me a very special opportunity to take part in this rich culture and their family life. For me personally this meant I got to have the experience of a lifetime and make some unforgettable friends. So it was straight from the heart of Borneo into mine!

PS: if you’re wondering why some of the pictures are so much more beautiful then my pictures normally are, that is thanks to the courtesy of my friend Bertrand Linet, a photographer, who was kind enough to allow me to use his pictures for my story!

Discovering the other treasures of Borneo
For two days the rain prevented me from getting out of Kejaman Lhasa, but then I finally was able to catch a jeep across the very scenic logging road to the junction of roads, where I could get a bus to Miri. I spent the one day I had in Miri to visit the Niah caves with a really nice Dutch couple. The Niah caves is an amazingly beautiful cave complex, where you can easily fit in a football stadion. Unfortunately I wasn’t completely able to avoid all the bat droppings

From Miri, I flew to Sabah, where I decided it was time for some action. So I went on a white-water rafting trip. The Malaysian people I was with seemed to find the rafting the ultimate challenge, but to be honest, I expected it to be a little more exciting… I soon solved that problem by riding the rapids on the point of the raft, but when that got boring, lost the boat completely and went body rafting … Now there’s excitement for you! The guides were completely thrown off that where the Malay girls kept screaming at the slightest rapid, this tiny Dutch women kept jumping of the boat to body raft through the “washing machines”

While making my way to the most southern point of Sabah, I made a stop in Kinabantang National Park for some more “playing Jane”. After a short visit to yet another Urang Utang rehabilitation center (they are just so beautiful to see in their natural environment), we took a boatride to Uncle Tan’s jungle camp. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the really wild Urang Utangs, but the crocodilles, fish eagles, silver back-, probiscus- and heaps of other monkeys made up for that. The probiscus monkey is called the Dutch Monkey… greatly offended because I don’t have a massive nose, I set out on the dusk safari to see how they came up with this name… well I have to admit, there is a slight resemblence with the Dutch beerbellied, Jenever-nosed guys you find in the genuine Dutch bars…. but uhhhhh I’m quite pleased the real Dutch beerbellies don’t do everything just like the monkeys – check the picture closely –

Diving, diving, diving!
Two days in the jungle made me want a change of scenery again, so I set off for my original goal in Borneo: Sipidan. This tiny little island in the south is the top of a vulcano in the sea, which is the first stop for anything coming from the ocean. After so many good stories, I never figured that it would live up to it’s name… but I was sooooo wrong. It is absolutely amazing to dive here. The amount of sharks (white tips, black tips, grey reefs, leopard sharks – you name it) are uncountable and so are the turtles. As if sharks and turtles will ever get boring, there is enough other stuff to see, just in case. Such as: barracuda’s (even saw a barracuda tornado), giant travellies, napoleon wrates, scorpion (leave) fish, trigger fish, and heaps and heaps of reef fishies, not to mention the beautiful coral gardens. While I was diving so much, I landed my Advanced permit in the process..

.. the down side of Sipidan is, you can no longer (thanks to the hostage situation in 2000) stay on Sipidan, so you have to stay in the “ever sunny and exciting” town of Semporna (or stay on one of the small islands for desperately in love couples – which requirements I don’t exactly fit). Semporna is freaking boring; nothing to do and it rains more than in a decent fall back home

Fortunately my evenings very quickly got brightened up by two mental Belgiums I met… Apart from the lively conversations and loads and loads of jokes (of course the Dutch-Belgium ones were inavoidable), I even got serenaded by two men in the local Karaoke bar… although I’m pretty sure that the staff was quite ready to call the mental health department

However hard it was to say goodbye to the diving in Sipidan, I was on my way to continue diving in Indonesia… so I found myself back on the road again…. check it out under Indonesia…

Just to let you know I’m safe
June 11th, 2007

Two days into the trip with Bertrand & Ian , a Kejaman lady, Telan invited me to stay with her and her family. Of course I could not resist. As soon as I have reached a city with proper internet connection I will tell & show you all about this amazing experience. For now, I’m safe & sound, trying to make my way out of the jungle – which has proved harder then I thought…. I am allready trying for 2 days, and so far have only made it to the small town of Belaga!

Take care!

How do you know your in Borneo??
June 1st, 2007 <!–jeansrw–>

Well I’d say this is a pretty good give-away!

How unexpected life can be……
Having needed more time in Kuala Lumpur (see “Malaysia”) then I expected I arrived in Kuching (Sarawak – Borneo) 1 day later than I originally planned, in order to join a local festival at the traditional longhouses. The festival already having started it proved impossible to arrange for a trip out there. It looked like today wasn’t gonna be much of an interesting day. Deciding not to let my head down, I hooked up with Chris & Nils – from my guesthouse – to visit the Urang Utans this morning. We got up early to make the feeding time and got lucky. As we’re walking down the trail a mummy with baby showed up along side the road. A bit further down there quite a bunch of them around, showing off and joking about in the trees. Finally making it to the feeding place the show was completed by a mail swinging graciously through the treetops, on his way to enjoy his breakfast. With a huge grin on my face I decided it wasn’t gonna be such a bad day after all.

Returning to the hostel we ran into Bertrand & Ian – also staying there – and the three of us decided to spend the afternoon like proper tourists visiting the slightly corny, but interesting, cultural village. We had a very enjoyable afternoon, so decided to join forces and try and arrange a trip into a longhouse after all. After pushing our luck by trying to beat the odds during the festival days (which means everything is closed), we came up with a plan. Early tomorrow morning we’ll set off deep into the jungle of Borneo so we can experience the real longtail house life.

This trip was actually my original plan, but proved to be a little bit to much off the beaten track for me to undertake by myself. Having landed not one but 2 strong men to protect me, I started grinning more, thinking my luck must have really changed. And I guess it did, cause as I was getting online to let you guys know I’ll be headed to the jungle again, I just got the news that I’ll be getting some Dutch company next month! So no way that grin is going anywhere tonight

Me, Jane!
May 29th, 2007

After one day of checking out the Taman Negara jungle from the safe touristy canopy walkway and well-walked paths near the Park Headquarters, I decided to go for the real thing. So off I went on a 4 day trek which lead me much deeper into the jungle.

The first day started with a 2 hour boat trip followed by a 3 hour walk with a short break at a huge bat cave (the sounds nice, the smell… not so much!). The day ended with a campfire dinner in the cave we were staying in and (as if 1 hike a day in these tempratures isn’t enough) a nightwalk through the jungle. Allthough I completely missed the point of staying on the trails during the day, and cutting straight through the forrest when we couldn’t see a thing… which is always nice when somebody just explained to you in detail how many dangerous creepy crawlers there are out there (and they are MASSIVE – f.e. the ants were as big as my thumb)!

The second day consisted of more hiking, a very questionable river bath and a stay in a hide near a drinking pool. Off course seeing animals involves people being quiet for more than 5 minutes. Waiting for all the chatting and joking to quiet down, just treated me to a lot of snoring, so even during my night wake I didn’t see anything but one pair of undistinctable eyes.

The longest hike was on the last day, which got us to the Orang Asli village. Staying in one of the huts (which equalled a carbage dump – they don’t seem to get the fact that what comes from the supermarket and not from the jungle will not desolve on it’s own) was really nice, untill the rain came and the spiders decided to use our hut for shelter. When I counted the 7th (I remind you in the Taman Negara everything is MASSIVE), I decided ignorance is bliss and tried really hard to convince myself… My hard earned peace of mind was gone when one of them started showing off it’s jumping skills on my guides head and landed me a complete heart attack…. suprisingly I did manage to get some sleep somehow!?

The impression of the village was really nice and the fire making and hunting skills the Orang Asli demonstrated very interesting. The genuine feeling of this, however, dissolved when 2 busloads of other tourists showed up in the morning

Even though my experience of the local wildlife (which includes a.o. tigers, bears and eliphants) consisted solely of rats, bats, some eyes in the dark, spiders and leeches, loads and loads of leeches, it was really gorgeous adventure into the (sometimes scary) beauty of Mother Nature.

Turning 32 could be worse!
Together with a Dutch guy (I’ve met more Dutch the past 2 weeks than the past 6 months), Ivo, headed in the same direction I went for the white beaches of the Perhintian Islands. Apart from one dive, I’ve celebrated my birthday doing absolutely nothing but trying to get a tan, eating ice-cream and having a beer at sundown! As you can see on my homepage unlike me, Ivo, jointed by another Dutchie, did some exercise on my birthday. So I spent my 32nd birthday watching 2 men getting on their knees for me on a white beach. I’d say life could be worse!

Sparkling city
From the peace & quiet of the beaches I went to Kuala Lumpur. A buzzling big city, with an amazingly small feel. Muslims, buddists and hindus live, work and enjoy life together in this inviting city.

Having to sort out al sorts of shit I spent most of my time running all over town. After sorting everything out and six months of travelling I decided it was time for some serious spoiling me So it was time to shop! I bought a pair of jeans, new shirts and after that treated myself to a cold glass of white wine (yeah yeah of course more than one). Philip (yet more Dutchies) topped that of by inviting me to a late birthday dinner Saturday, including goose liver, lamb and french cheese of course accompanied by white, red and even port wine.

Almost feeling like the me I know back home after all this endulgence, I decided to try another haircut. Well, you know how you should quit while your ahead?

I’m sure you guys remember my last haircut where for 2 euro’s the woman managed to cut of basically everything that made my hair look nice…. well I sure did, so I made it really clear there would only be cutting and NO trimming like the Asian women love so much. I even took the scissors they use for this, waved them in his face and said NO! Well he got the point no trimming… but since he now had no clue what else to do… he ended up charging me 10 times what the Thai women charged me, for making two little aimless cuts with his normal scissors and then blowdried it to mask that it didn’t look any better then it did when I walked in. So that’s it! I’ll have Martin, my very well-deserved much trusted hairdresser from Groningen figure out the hair thing next year… but I’m doing no more haircuts untill then!
Not quite the start I hoped for
May 14th, 2007

So the eyes got infected in Koh Lipe and instead of starting to feel better after my lazing about there, I only started to feel worse. That made the hospistal my first touristy stop in Malaysia, where I learned that somehow I also landed a sinus infection. With a complete pharmacy and the advice to take lots of rest I ended up spending my first week in Malaysia mainly in bed. Being fed up with all the creepy crawlers and feeling completely bored after seeing nothing but my shabby hotelroom, I decided I deserved a treat. Keeping the rest-thing in mind I did something I haven’t done so far on my trip. I put down my credit card and got myself a fancy room in a resort on a private island. After 3 days of nursing my body and mind (travelling by yourself is a lot less fun when you find yourself in bed for a week) I returned to Penang and arranged to finally move on and discover Malaysia.

Peace and quiet combined with a nice touristy circus!?
My first stop was the Cameron Higlands. I did the whole touristy thing and visited all the local strawberry-, insect- (by the way that thing is not some toy!), honey- and who-knows-what-other farms that are neatly arranged for the tourists up here. Off course a visit to one of the huge tea plantations and factories could not be missed on that little list. Even though the touristy trips are usually not my thing, I have to admit I quite enjoyed myself. Finish up with scones and a nice cup of tea where the perfect ending to this somewhat “western” day anyway

This morning I went to see the other “side” of the Cameron Highlands and made a beautiful hike through the dense forests and along the lush green hills that the Cameron Highlands are made up of. Hardly running into anybody at all, that gave quite a different and very relaxed feel to this place. Apart from that it’s a good practise run for my next stop in Malaysia…

New conquest
I updated the last week I spent in Thailand and informed guys on my latest conquest, having started in Malaysia. Tomorrow I will be headed for one of the oldest jungles in the world and will hopefully do a trekking there… so I’ll say hi to Tarzan!