Deep in the Heart of the Jungle

Today, we ventured north to Bako National Park.  It was a 30 minute drive to a jetty where we took a boat another 15 minutes up a river to the park headquarters. The park is only accessible by boat.  Since this is monsoon season and the park is perched at the edge of the South China Sea, there were restrictions on the boat -- four passengers on a boat. With the rough seas, we also had a water landing.  Julie managed to slip and gash her foot while washing up. She's limping now but hopefully it'll get better.

We (the two of us, a Japanese couple, and an Aussie man) went on a one-mile (roundup) walk into the jungle to a small beach.  It was unbelievably hot and humid. I was swearing buckets.  We eventually did see some proboscis monkeys and a pit viper snake. But by the time we got back to hq, we were drenched.  The only other wildlife we saw were macaques, which epitomized the term "naughty monkeys." (There was actually a sign that used those words!)  Oh, we saw a few Borneo would pigs that weren't afraid of humans in the least. They looked imposing at first, but were eminently harmless in reality.

It's New Year's Eve tonight. We're eating a five-course meal at the hotel steakhouse.  It's pricy ($55+) but we skipped dinner the previous two nights after filling up on food at the executive lounge.

Anyway, Happy New Year everyone! While we'll beat almost all of you to 2011, it's likely we won't be awake here!  See you next year!

Annah Rais

The second part of today's road trip was a visit to Annah Rais, a longhouse used by the Bidayuh people.  These are one of the native groups here.  They are also known as the Land Dyaks.

A longhouse is actually a series of connected houses that stretch out in a line.  The house is raised off the ground by stilts with the ground below left for animals used for food -- chickens, ducks, pigs, etc.  As families grow, they add on houses, thus making it "longer".  The longhouse is predominantly made of bamboo, although all of the newer additions used aluminum siding for the roof.  While you do see modern incursions like electricity, satellite dishes, and television, the Bidayuh still lead a semi-authentic lifestyle.  They still farm the land to provide for the themselves and adhere to their traditions.

Other highlights included a ramp-ladder that was six inches wide. Also, there was a headhouse where they had skulls of defeated enemies (all of long ago).  All in all it was a nice cultural stop.

More Orangutans in Rehab!

We drove south today to Semenggih Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre.  This is another rehabilitation center for orangutans, similar to what we saw at Sepilok in Sabah.  Unfortunately, the fruit season was starting and we only saw two -- a nine-year old male and a eight-year old female -- come in for the free handouts.  They were very close though, and I took lots of pictures.  Here are a couple from phone, though these don't really do them justice.

It was interesting to see an orangutan get at a coconut.  He de-husked it and then smacked it against a tree to get the juices and meat.  Hopefully, I managed to take some good pictures of that. I tried video, but it's really hard to get steady, in-focus pictures with my camera. 

Now, we're off to visit a longhouse...

Now in Kuching

Not much to say here. We shifted locations from Kota Kinabalu to Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, the western Malaysian province on Borneo.  Kuching seems more developed than KK and there's a lot more evidence of construction.  Kuching means "cat".  The story goes that the first westerner pointed to the small town and asked its name. The locals thought he was pointing to the river or alternatively a stray cat and thus the name came about... 

The city is bisected by said river with only small boats available to cross it.  We only stayed on this side.  There are only a few things to see and we managed to see all of them in a few hours. Kuching first grew when given to the "White Rajahs" in the mid-1800s.  The first was a British mercenary who asked for and received the city when he helped put down a rebellion against the Sultan of Brunei.  So there are a few old buildings dating back to that era and a handful of small museums. I've never been much of a fan of cities, outside of Western or other really big ones...  Kuching has spread out a lot over the past decade or so, leaving the city center where we are relatively quiet. The city and environs have a population of 700,000.

We booked a couple of day excursions for the rest of our stay in Kuching.  Tomorrow we visit another orangutan rehab center as well as a traditional longhouse.  The day after we have a full day trip to Bako National Park.

Transit day in KK

Not much to post today as we just shifted locales from our resort out in the sticks to the fancy hotel in town.  So just beach time. We'll likely go a whole week (gasp!) until we spend time at a beach again.  I'll offer a couple of pictures of a Malayan water monitor lizard swimming in lieu of anything more exciting.

Kota Kinabalu isn't the most exciting of cities.  It only has a few commercial streets that have any restaurants or shops I'd want to go into.  I guess it has a couple of malls with western shops.

KK is perhaps on the upper end of developing world cities in terms of cleanliness.  There isn't abject poverty, but industry and commercial activities aren't especially developed.  Tourism has a small foothold but there's a lot of untapped potential.

A walk in the park

Today took us north of the city to Kinabalu National Park.  It was a fairly low-key day, with a fair bit of driving.  We had a short walk in a botanical gardens which had a bunch of orchids though nothing spectacular.  After a Chinese-Malay lunch, we went on to Poring Hot Springs.

Before the hot springs, we took a walk through the canopy of the rain forest.  We had to cross over rickety suspension bridges fifty feet over the ground.  The planks were a foot wide and only six could go at a time.  Fortunately, there were rope railings with mesh on the side.  Of course, it was only waist high... The views were fairly nice as well.

Returning to the hot springs, we attracted quite a bit of attention as some of the few obvious foreigners.  We pushed the envelope on the clothing norms, especially Julie's swimsuit. Then again, even I did since even most guys wore shirts in the pool.  But we did manage to snag a private-ish bath and get some very nice hot water.  Oh, and can't forget to mention the five-foot black snake that slithered by as we left!

Right now we're driving back to the park, where we'll stay in a hill lodge. I'm expecting rustic again...

Egad Vampires!

Another fairly slow day. The only highlight was a hike in the park.  We went unguided for about two hours. It was wet and muddy and we didn't see any fauna. As for flora, we saw a few orchids.  And the trees blocked any views. So this hike was just about hiking in the rain forest.

So where were the vampires, you ask? Well, we managed to attract a few leeches. So now I've been exsanguinated in two places -- Madagascar and now Borneo.

Right now, we're in a taxi into town to meet our Aussie friend for dinner. The Intrepid portion of our trip is over and now we're left to our own devices.

Merry Christmas from Borneo!

So we returned to Kota Kinabalu by plane and back to the Nexus Spa and Resort.  We arrived early enough to manage a Christmas swim in the South China Sea.  The water was very salty for some reason.  I tried bodysurfing but the waves were flat enough that I didn't get more than a few feet.  There was a nice pool system with lots of families. It felt like the local beach equivalent of the Catskills.

Katherine came in from town to for drinks and a regular Christmas dinner -- steak and red wine.  Definitely not a white Christmas!

About today's pictures. One is the view from the room.  Another is the water monitor lizard that lives on the grounds.  Finally, here's a picture of the girls hosting their Xmas drinks.  That's Julia on the right, my travel buddy for this trip. I met her a couple of years ago on the Namibia trip.

Holy Birds' Nests, Batman!

We woke to the sounds of the river wildlife stirring, soon to be followed by the obnoxious crowing of a rooster outside the window.   Then we started out for the source of the river we went up, 27km upriver, to the Gomantong Bat Caves.  No Batman, though.  The floor of the cave is covered ankle-deep with bat guano.  The bats were sleeping upside down on the roof -- at dusk two million bats supposedly come out in a swarm! 

The cave we went into was about 300 feet high and 500 feet deep.  The maw was fairly large and there were holes in the one we went into, so it was relatively bright and airy... for a cave.

But the focus was the swift birds' nests on the roof.  Workers climb up a rickety rope ladder and pulley system to harvest the (old) nests on the roof.  These are sent out to a factory to make birds' nest soup. We think that there was an Amazing Race episode that went there.  The soup is very expensive, though people were saying it didn't taste good. Maybe I'll try it if I see it somewhere...

Back to Sandakan and the flight to Kota Kinabalu.

Oh, Merry Christmas from the jungle!

Turtle Island

We made it to our early morning flight to Sandakan, which turned out to be a 40 minute hop.  We took a short walk around the town.  They had a huge food market, which included lots of pungent fish products.  We're right on the edge of the Sulu Sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean. (What makes a sea a sea?) To set our geography, we're on the very eastern side of Borneo. In fact we are only miles by sea from the Philippines -- you can see some of their islands even.

We took a 45 minute boat ride to Turtle Island, known locally as Palau Selingan. (Yes, it was longer than our flight here!)  This island is a national park where turtles come to lay eggs every night. The rangers take the eggs and put them in a hatchery for safekeeping.  They also release hatchlings. There are there islands in this park, although this island is the only one tourists can visit.

We spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach and snorkeling.  It was the first time since the Maldives. There weren't too many fish. The highlight was a family of clown fish (think Nemo) within sea anemone.

I'll close with a picture of the beach. More after the turtle activities of the night.

Orangutan: "Man of the Forest" (in Malay)

Today, we went to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehab Center. And no it's not for orangutans that fell off the wagon.  The center takes in orphaned and abandoned (i.e. ex-pet) orangutans and tries to rehabituate them to the wild.  After their childhood, they are left to freely roam the reserve.

We were greeted by a male right at the entrance to the reserve.  We were within arm's length!  After the requisite short video about the preserve and the plight of the orangutans, we walked out along the boardwalk to overlook the feeding platform.  Along the way we got really close up to long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques, types of monkeys.  Then it was a feeding frenzy, first for the orangutans and then opened up to everyone.  The reserve gives bananas to any orangutan that wants them -- as they get more adjusted to the wild, they manage to forage for themselves.

We had a good but slow meal at the Agnes Keith teahouse. She was an author who was interned by the Japanese during World War II.  Now we're off on a two-hour drive to a river lodge.

Turtle, get thee to a hatchery...

The night activities were something anticlimactic.  After dinner we waited until a nesting turtle was sighted on the beach. During peak season, they can expect up to 30 mothers each night laying up to 200 eggs each, but now there will only be low single digits of turtles. We were lucky in that this first turtle was sighted around 8pm -- in the offseason, they've had to wait as late as 3am once.

So they march us to the turtle on the beach with lights out so that we don't disturb the turtle. We stand behind her so she can't see us. While she's laying eggs into a deep hole, a ranger is behind her taking the eggs and dropping them into a bucket. The turtle is oblivious and will actually cover an empty hole.  I don't have any pics from my phone since we couldn't use flash. (There are some likely blurry ones from my slr.)

Then, we walked over to the hatchery and planted the eggs in a small circular hole fenced with plastic netting (so that the hatchlings don't escape).  The hatchery looks like a nursery of seedlings without the plants.

The final stop was back on the beach where we watched as they released hatched turtles onto the sand so that they could waddle to the ocean.  They are only about 2-3 inches in length.  Only about 5% survive those first few days in the ocean.

We woke to a thunderous rain shower magnified by the tin roof. Fortunately, it subsided by the time we went to breakfast.  Here's a picture of the tally for last night. Eight nestings for over 500 eggs.  Showcasing the white board is Katherine Knight, the third member of our Intrepid group. She's an Aussie who teaches IT at a university in Melbourne.

Now a boat ride back to Sandakan and then we're off to see the orangutans.

I'm a believer...

Monkeys and more monkeys. (The title of this blog entry is a Monkees' song.)  We got to our river lodge and took a siesta to get past the heat of the day.  Then, we went by boat up the Kinabatanagan River.  Along the way we saw more macaques as well as a new primate for us -- proboscis monkeys.  The monkeys were getting ready for the night so we saw a lot of them close to the river.  No opportunity for pictures from the phone for the blog, but I did get some nice shots with the 300mm lens.

We also saw a pair of mangrove snakes. They were level two venomous, meaning that you have a few weeks before it kills you. The Borneo pit viper we saw earlier was extremely poisonous.  We also saw a water monitor lizard, only about two feet long.

The river lodge is definitely rustic. We are only about twenty feet from the river.  Right now the rains have started for the night. We've really lucked out with the weather. It's only rained when it didn't matter for us.  Knock on wood.

These really do have the feel of journalist reports from the field in the 1950s as I have several posts accumulated in my outbox.  Hope someone actually reads this far...

The nicest, least appreciated hotel

We're in Borneo now.  We arrived in Kota Kunabalu with light rain and after sundown, so there wasn't much to see.  At first glance, does seem reasonably developed and not quite as rustic as we expected.

We had a 30 minute ride to our resort hotel, and that became less appreciated once we discovered we'd have to leave for the airport at 5am.  It's a really nice hotel and we have an oceanfront room -- the ocean heard but barely seen at this hour.  But... we'll be back here on Christmas day, so we'll be able to give the hotel its proper due when we return.

Tomorrow our Intrepid trip starts and we fly off to Turtle Island, where we'll get to see turtles laying eggs and hatchlings being released to sea.  I've seen both before -- the Galapagos and Cancun, respectively -- but it's always nice to see nature up close.

A few hours in Singapore

Another "quick" post as we kill time before we head to the airport.  I got in the hotel at 3am and actually got a few hours of sleep. I'm hoping jet lag won't hit me, but usually the second day kills me. The hotel is very nice. I think I'm going to be spoiled -- Julie booked everything with points.  We had breakfast in the executive lounge which had great views of Singapore.  There seemed to be hotel and bank skyscrapers everywhere with cranes building more in every direction.

We took a short walk to Raffles, a legendary colonial hotel that's still very swanky. Julie wants to get a drink on its veranda on our way back through Singapore.

Afterwards, we met up with Bernard, an old friend from MIT. He took us to a hawkers' food court for some good local fare. Duck, fish, chicken, and sugar cane juice. Here's a picture of Bernard ordering food.

We took a short walk but we didn't last long. We still have to get used to the humidity.  We're off to Kota Kinabalu (aka KK) on the Malaysian part of Borneo and then our descent off the beaten path begins. (kinda). Wish us luck...

Off to Singapore

This is just a short post to make sure I still remember how to post from my phone. I'm on a plane first to Tokyo and then on to Singapore.  It's been a year since I've flown overseas (in economy at least -- my last trip was a business trip), and it seems like the seats here have shrunk!  The first movie was Eat, Pray, Love.  It was fairly boring. Now I'm on to Salt.

So some info about this year's trip in brief.  Singapore is just a gateway city that we are spending a day or two in on each end of the trip.  The bulk of the trip will be on the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo.  (Fun fact: the language spoken on Borneo is the closest language to Malagasy, the language of Madagascar.)

The trip will be a combination of time in the rain forest to see the orangutans and pygmy elephants and some time out in a resort for snorkeling/diving.  Lots more stuff in between but you'll have to stay tuned -- I haven't read the guidebooks yet, so I don't quite know what we'll be doing.

I'll probably post next from Singapore where I meet up with my travel buddy for this trip -- Julie, whom I met two years ago on my trip to Namibia.  I'm also hoping to meet an old MIT friend for lunch there.

Back to Salt...

... Okay I'm back. An eleven-hour flight seems even longer when it's the middle of your day.  So blogging is a good way to kill time. I finished Salt (Decent action movie though with an implausible yet predictable plot.), and then moved on to Despicable Me -- an entertaining animation, though I don't think it'll achieve iconic status like Toy Story or Kung Fu Panda or Cars. Finally, I watched Four Christmases -- your pretty generic Xmas fare.  I guess you generally don't get great movies on plane flights. Or maybe it's that there aren't many great movies out there anymore.  I was expecting to suffer without an AVOD (Audio Video On Demand) -- all US airlines' planes seem to be old -- so I was surprised that I hadn't seen any of these movies...

I guess I'm rambling now. Too much time to kill. Sayanora once more.

Stuck in Iceland

Very quick post here while we wait for our car. We´re now stuck in Iceland. The ash seems to have followed us here. They offered to bus us 5 hours to the northern part of the island to then fly to Glasgow and then on to Boston or New York. But we decided to hold out one day here to see if the ash clears -- that itinerary would just be a nightmare. So we´re renting a car and driving around a bit to see this corner of Iceland. There´s a big geyser and we´ll probably see the lava. Then we´ll go to the Blue Lagoon. Hopefully, the airport will be back to normal tomorrow and we can get home...

Hello... from Iceland!

Yes, amazingly enough we are now in the mouth of the dragon so to speak. Since, Reykjavik is West of the volcano, the airspace over the airport is perfectly clear, ironicly enough. (The English must really hate Iceland -- first their banks failed and now the volcano spewed ash on them... leaving Iceland uneffected!). Since our flight through Frankfurt was cancelled, we didn't want to have anything more to do with Germany -- there was the risk of getting stuck there. So thus, Iceland.

Strangely enough, today (April 22) is the first day of summer in Iceland. At least that's what they said on the airplane -- I'm half wondering if they were pulling our leg. Then again, they did give us free ice cream. It's only a smidge above freezing; we actually saw snow flurries in Stockholm when we left! Summer... huh.

We actually got to see the volcano that caused all of this mess. It doesn't look too big from the sky, although then you see that plume of smoke poking out of the glacier. I'll include a photo or two from the camera phone, but I'll probably have better pics from the point and shoot.

In general, the view from the plane was amazing. You can see glaciers, tundra, craters, and lakes. It was like one of those flights for which you pay (then again I guess we are paying for the flight, but you know what I mean). Just from the sky, I want to come back. I imagine there will be some nice adventure trips here.

We're on the bus to our hotel right now. We have about 24 hours before our flight to Seattle, so we'll try to make the most of it. More pictures later, too.

Wandering through Scandinavia

Well, I haven't acceded to refugee status, but it's just a matter of time. My work trip to Stockholm got extended, but in some respects it was a moot point. All air travel is indefinitely grounded because of the ash from the Iceland volcano (Don't ask me to spell it here!). So unless the ash clears by Thursday and flights are back to normal, I will become yet another refugee. I've been listening to other people toss out ideas on how to get back to the U.S.; some are quite outlandish. The simplest are to take trains or rent cars to Rome and try to fly from there. Others talk of getting a Russian visa and leaving from Moscow. One idea is to take a boat to Iceland and go from there. For uws there is no point to speculate until it gets closer to our departure.

I decided to go to Helsinki to visit an old friend who I hadn't seen in almost 7 years (in Madagascar no less!). Both ways I took a 12+ hour ferry. For me that was always the plan; but there were a lot of businessmen who normaly would have taken the 1 hour flight.

Helsinki was nice and relaxing. It was a nice change of pace and I got to hang out with locals, a welcome contrast from business trip life in Stockholm. I'll put up some pictures later on. We went to a couple of musuems -- it was interesting to see the Natural History Museum with my friends who worked there.

Here's a picture of one of the islands of the Finnish archipelago. Yes, that is snow there. The temperature has ranged from the high 30s to the 40s. Brrr! I packed warm clothes for this trip at least. The days are getting longer, too -- I couldn't imagine coming here in the dead of winter. I'd freeze in the dark!

Speaking of cold, it's getting cold sitting here on the boat. Let me get a sweatshirt -- at least this time I have a cabin. More posts when I'm back on dry land!

Off to Sweden!

Okay... let's bring the blog back to life since I'm travelling! I'm off for a week for work to Stockholm. Hopefully, it won't be too cold -- spring has definitely befin here in the Bay Area. Anyway, I'm about to board my flight, so I'll sign off here -- keep an eye out for more posts from Scandinavia!

SF Ferry Building based on Giralda in Seville...

Sudha pointed this out:

The Giralda has several sister towers. The same architect, Jabir, who built the Giralda also built similar towers in what is now Morocco. The tower of the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakesh served as a model for the Giralda and its sister, the Hassan Tower in Rabat. Several church towers in the province of Seville also bear a resemblance to the tower, and may have been inspired by the Giralda. These towers, most notably those in Lebrija and Carmona, are popularly known as Giraldillas. Several replicas of the Giralda have been built in the United States: one, now destroyed, in Madison Square Garden in New York and another in Kansas City. The clock tower of the Ferry Building in San Francisco is also based on the Giralda.

Compare this picture with the picture of Giralda earlier in my blog.

Street hike to the beach in Carlsbad

My mom and I did a short hike along the street to the beach. This track is via MyTracks on the Droid. (Click on the red icon for more info.)


View Carlsbad walk to and from beach in a larger map

And here's a picture from the hike:

Sunset in Carlsbad

Just a few minutes too late…