A bunch of people from the EAPSI group went to Siem Reap, Cambodia last weekend, but I'm planning to travel there in two weeks, so Nick and I decided to fly to Borneo on Friday.
[[Quick geography: The island of Borneo is held by three countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei. Malaysian Borneo is called "East Malaysia" and is divided into two states: Sabah and Sarawak.]]
We flew into Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak. It was a bit eerie to fly Malaysian Air the day after their second tragedy of the year. But everything went smoothly, and we even got served dinner on one of the flights (we had a stopover in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia). Because Sarah wasn't with us on this trip, we hadn't planned anything, including a place to stay when we arrived around 10:30pm on Friday night. Nick had looked into a potentially cool hostel right on the river downtown, but promptly forgot the name as soon as we got in the taxi. Our taxi driver insisted on the idea that we wanted to go to the Treehouse Hostel and dropped us off in some quiet, industrial part of town. We started wandering and ran into a group from Melbourne who pointed us to the more central part of the city.
Temples lit up through the city
As Malaysia has a large Muslim population and Ramadan is underway, Kuching was fairly quiet at night. However, the part of town we stayed in (Jalan Green Hill) held all the cheap accommodations, so naturally there were three rowdy clubs right outside the hostel window. It reminded us too much of going out in Singapore, so we walked down the road to a relaxed, outdoor bar and a bucket of Tsingtaos.
Our hostel was advertised as a bed and breakfast, but breakfast consisted of white bread and instant coffee, so we ate a pad si-io breakfast of champions at a nearby food stall instead. Before heading to the national park, we had a time and a half at the grocery store trying to decide on meals for the next day. We ended up with ten eggs, a pepper, cherry tomatoes, two bottles of wine, and several variations of kaya bread.
Dinner and dessert for breakfast
Kubah National Park is just 20km outside of Kuching. We originally planned to stay at the forest hostel near the park headquarters, but our taxi driver dropped us off at Matang Wildlife Rehabilitation Center (inside the park, about 15km away from the headquarters), so we just decided to stay there in the longhouse.
Longhouses are pretty much how they sound. There is usually one long central hallway and small rooms lining one or both sides for individual families to use. Many indigenous people in Borneo live longhouse style, where an entire community will reside in the same building. Some Bornean tribes are even still nomadic, living off the land and practicing molong or 'never taking more than you need.' However, many of these tribes have seen their land destroyed by deforestation or have been settled and superficially converted to Christianity or Islam.
The Matang longhouse
Although Kubah is home to a variety of jungle species, it can be hard to spot animals throughout the park, simply because it is huge and the animals are shy. The park will also close certain trails when groups of orangutans are in the area in order to avoid encounters (this was the case with the trail to the waterfall when we arrived). However, Matang Wildlife Center is the perfect place for animal watching. Matang supports many injured or sick animals that have been found in the park or confiscated from illegal trading/ownership operations. Some of my favorite animals included the stork, the clouded leopard, the bearcats, the orangutans, the gibbon, and the sun bears. OK that was pretty much all the animals, except for the gharials - those things are freaky.
Scary crocs
Stork!
Orangutans are critically endangered in Borneo due to increases in deforestation coupled with a flourishing illegal trade market. Bornean jungles are primarily being removed for timber, mining operations, or to make way oil palm plantations. Additionally, young orangutans can fetch a few hundred dollars when sold as pets, and orangutan skulls are usually worth about $70. The increased deforestation gives poachers even more access to endangered animals once living deep in the jungle.
At the rehabilitation center, young orangutans are trained to climb trees independently, build nests, and find food. They are slowly brought deeper and deeper into the park until they can be released back into a semi-wild state. However, some orangutans become incredibly attached to their trainers and other people and will return to the wildlife center whenever possible. Sometimes Matang even breeds orangutans and releases small family groups. Aman, one of the dominant male orangutans, is famous for having his vision restored by bilateral cataract surgery in 2007. Watching him move through his enclosure with such grace and strength, his long dreadlocked coat swinging back and forth, was a mesmerizing experience. With his wrinkled hands and shaggy mane, he looked like a cross between Chewbacca and the kind of old, tired hippie you might find at a Panic show.
Aman spent quite a bit of time staring at us like this
Working on a nice hole in the ground
Sitting in strange positions
Swimming hole
Sunset at the river
We ate dinner on Saturday in the longhouse with Tom and Tina and their son Eliah from Germany. Eliah is two years old and has been traveling his whole life (Tom and Tina left Germany by car two years ago and drove all the way to Cambodia). They have one more year of travel planned before returning to Germany when Eliah starts school. We played rummy and drank gross wine while bats flew around our heads scooping up mosquitoes.
On Sunday afternoon, we took a bus back to Kuching. We wandered the main street, walked around the enormous mosque, and browsed the food stalls. We ended up with a picnic dinner by the river consisting of rambutan fruit, peanut and molasses pancakes, and various meat on a stick - possibly chicken, fried sushi, and fish (although it could have been pigeon, rat, and/or cat).
Muslim temple
Sarawak river (most homes are on the opposite bank - frequent ferries to cross to the city center)
Getting down on some mysterious street vendor food
After an awkward encounter with immigration at the Kuching Airport (we had somehow immigrated into Western - peninsular - Malaysia and not East Malaysia, so we didn't have crossing stamps and of course I had already thrown out my old boarding pass), we managed to make it back to Singapore in one piece with money left over for the first time. We had the luxury of all the chocolate and coffee we wanted in the airport!
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Note: My camera died at the beginning of this trip, so props to Nick for being a huge dork and taking lots of pictures with his iPad.
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