Nov 2008

"Are you carrying any liquids or drugs and do you happen to be an Arsenal supporter"
"No", I said. "I support Portsmouth."
I then had a 10 minute conversation about how well my team are doing this season with the very freindly customs officer in Malaysia. He waved me through with a quick stamp of my passport not realizing that I had not answered the first two questions. I was leaving the country so I suppose it didn't matter.
The arrival into Indonesia was a different matter. Gone were the casual football questions, only a surly customs officer who pored over my passport looking for the page where I admitted to being a terrorist or diamond smuggler. He even went to another officer in a more official shinier uniform who gave it just as much attention. May be I should have answered those questions in Malaysia. Just as I was preparing to see latex gloves snapped on and being asked to bend over, he waved me through with another quick stamp of my passport. Sue got no such attention and could have waved a brick at the guy and he would have stamped it. Welcome to Indonesia.
After these last last few months in S.E Asia, Indonesia welcomed us like a Uncle who you'd only ever known as a child and are now meeting him for the first time as an adult. The same recognizable edge but starkly different from what you already knew. Not as frantic as the Philippines and not so straight forward as Malaysia Indonesia at a first glance held a familiarity to us.
Jakarta is a bustling city. The capital of Indonesia on the island of Java. 120million people share and somehow coexist on a plot of land about the size of England. Not all of Indonesia is as heavily populated as Java but it still holds a population of over 200million.
The first order of business was to try and get a Indian visa from the Indian Embassy in Jakarta. Bureaucracy rules in India and the Embassy takes it cues from the homeland so getting a visa would require filling out a few forms, hours of queuing and a five days of processing time. We left our passports in the hands of the Embassy and prayed to the numerous Hindu Gods that we would see them again with Visas attached.
We took a local economy train to Jogjakarta. A town 9 hours away from the capital with an incredible Buddhist temple and a few old palaces thrown in for good measure. The train took 12 hours in the end. It was cramped, stuffed full all of Jakarta and just as many people walking up and down the isles trying to sell you something. You could buy anything. Food, books, toys, statues, hats and kitchen equipment were all being peddled up and down the train. This went on with no respite for the full 12 hours. Sue tried to get some sleep but was woken by one of the many singers who strap a speaker to there person, blasting out some Indonesian pop tune while they sing through a muffled microphone to gain a few notes from the seated punters. If you tried to sleep through it you would get a poke with their free hand to depart you from your money. It was hard work. The ladyboy singers were a highlight adding at bit more peppery spice to this already hot mixing pot.

Turtles, monkeys, apes, fish of all different shapes and sizes and a bush pig that has a beard. All these things can be found crawling and scurrying about Malaysia and we managed to see a great deal of them.

Our first encounter with the very famous Orangutans was at a rehab center (to rehabilitate them back into the wild not off booze and drugs). You get to have a good look at the "wild men of the forest" during their twice daily feedings.
Unfortunately you and about 200 other people try to share the same view from a platform a few meters away from the feeding site. Some people got so excited at the prospect they would start shouting and elbowing people. The Orangs didn't seem to mind the noise or the crowds so it was well worth it. The Orangs are semi wild. It's up to them if they want this free feed and sometimes they won't show up at all, normally if the jungle trees are fruiting and all the money these crowds bring in helps these ginger jungle nomads to get back to the jungle. We were also extremely fortunate to see some wild Orangutans while on a river boat trip with some Christian twitchers in Sukau.

We saw amazing aquatic wildlife diving off Sipidan island on the east coast of Sabah. It was the most spectacular diving we've done and definitely worth the reputation as one of the top five diving sites in the world. We swam with white fin sharks, hundreds of hawksbill and green sea turtles, huge shoals of baracuda and jack fish to name but a few. You have to get a permit over 2 months in advance to allow you to dive there. As obviously very few people are that organised, the dive companies give you the name of someone who booked 2 months ago for you to be when signing into the island. So the island rangers don't cotton on, you have to memorise your name and Nationality before arriving. Dan was French and me a Sweed called Joan. In another 2 months, I wonder who'll be us?

We visited another National Park in Sarawak called Bako, where the wildlife literally comes to you. There's a resident crew of bearded pigs around where you stay; a pit viper in a bush next to our sleeping hut that didn't move at all the time we were there; a troupe of silver leaf langurs came sweeping through the park, with the mums clutching their bright orange babies; and best of all, we saw lots of proboscis monkeys, which are extremely rare and only found in Borneo. Some came really close to the boarded walk round the mangroves and the male gave us a good look at his huge bulbous nose - very sexy to the lady proboscis! You can smell where the proboscis are long before you see them - must be all those digestive juices produced to help digest the inedible leaves they feed on.

We did some walking round the park which has loads of pitcher plants everywhere. We hiked to a nearby beach in the midday sun and enjoyed colling down in the green waters. We also decided to get up at 5am and hike quite a steep trail to another beach for sunrise. Well worth it, as a monitor lizard and then a troupe of Macaques came down to the beach to join us.


By far the most significant thing that happened to us Borneo, was becoming and auntie to Molly Emma. We splashed out on the only beer we've had in Malaysia to toast her entrance into the world!