Travels I: Pontianak (Indonesia), Kuching, Bako, Kuching, Kota Kinabalu (all Malaysian Borneo), off to Sri Lanka…

[I am racing with time at the moment, attempting to get down as many thoughts as possible before my computer battery crashes. My computer plug and those in Malaysia don’t match, and my adapter is locked in the dorm room with the people we are sharing with, here in Kota Kinabalu. There is so much to write about, and so many quick changes that have occurred. With travel, unfortunately, much of your time is not your own…but finally, I have a chance to write.]

I left the Bear Center early in the morning of Tuesday the 7th of May. Leaving was not dramatic, as I was gone before most people were up. Agus, one of the wonderful bear keepers, came early to see me off, which was lovely, so it was a pleasant leaving. Thinking back, I am still sorry that it did not work out, and still glad I left when I did. So it goes…

And then I caught a plane to Pontianak! Goodness, I had no idea what to expect when I got there. No idea at all. Pontianak was where I lived for a long time when I was growing up, something like 3 years, and was the last place I lived before I came to America. The town, it turns out, I remember quite accurately. It is not pretty. It is flat and old and hot. It was never planned, and looks just the same as when I was there last, except that the market buildings have become more and more delapidated and some rather incredible malls have sprung up. All the staples of my childhood are still there: the Italian Steak House, the Harum Manis Supermarket, my old neighborhood. I spent my first day just exploring the downtown, a bit nervous about heading back to my old haunts and neighborhood. God, what a hot, dusty town

The next day, however, I headed to Jln. Karimun, the road where I grew up. Across the road, where there once was a noodle restaurant, there is now an internet café, but besides that, it looked just the same. The houses are small and close together, and although I could not place which house had belonged to which one of my friends, it felt the same. My house, as I had expected, had been torn down to make way for a more modern cement one; my old house had been made of wood and was old and falling apart. I did not see anyone I recognized, but finally asked an old woman if she remembered a western kid who used to live on the road. Of course, she did, and was amazed to learn it was me. She directed me across the road from my old house, where Bibi Jenap, who used to work at our house, was now working. Bibi Jenap used to take care of all our animals, including me, and cook and clean. She was old then, and I did not have too much faith that she would still be alive. But she was! still working, still active, still with a plethora of complaints about her eyes and legs. But doing well. As I caught up with her, old neighbors came and popped in to say hello and tell me that, although I had gotten bigger, I still looked the same. They were all so happy to see me, and it was really joyful.

[Ok, new time new place, with battery power… to restart…]

That afternoon, although already exhausted by meeting the old neighbors, I decided to try and find the people who I had lived with both upriver and the first time I that came to Pontianak. All I had was the street address of their house, no phone numbers, etc. So, I got a rickshaw there. A man I had never met was coming out of the house, and I stopped him to ask if the house was still owned by the family I knew. He answered it was not; instead it was owned by Tus Ovaang Mering, who was, in fact, one of my mom’s old friends, probably best described as my mother’s patron when I was here as a child. We had lived in his houses all over Indonesia, and I had no idea that he was in Pontianak. So, cheered, I went up to the house. Wonderfully, he was there, with his wife and their two kids, both my age-ish and who I had lived with when I was a kid in Jakarta. The next few days were like finding a huge extended family I had forgotten all about. Not only did everyone remember me, despite no news for ten years, they were overjoyed to see me, and me them. Hubung, the older girl, one year younger than me, took me all over town to visit the old relatives, including the Grandma who I had lived with upriver. I had been sure that she would have passed away, but she was strong and well, and cried to see me. She is wonderfully strong, still with the full tattoos of a Dayak lady of her years. Spunky. I got to see Felix and Dio, who I played with when we were all 8 and 9 years old. They are all so wonderful, and it was all so homey and comfortable. Hubung took me around town, took me shopping, we went to the movies. Like the preppy younger sister I never had.

I left Pontianak after four days, knowing that it was not enough time there. I plan on going back for Dange, the harvest festival, in a few weeks, and going all the way up river.

I was so sad to leave them, but leave I did, and caught the night bus to Kuching, Malaysia. It was eight exhausting hours, including the boarder crossing around 5 am. When I got there I was snatched up by Valerie Mashman, and English-Italian woman one of my mom’s old friends and who has lived in Kuching for 20 years. I had stayed with her for a month when I was 15, right before I came back to America. Her beautiful life seemed much as it did when I was a kid; she has a lovely house, and is active with her church. Her son, Joel, was off at school in England, and her daughter Alena, now 16 years old, has grown to about 6 feet tall. Besides that, no changes. She was a wonderful host, and even brought me along for a few days with her family at a beach resort where I relaxed in luxury at the side of the beach and took hot baths. Although it was not quite the finding of new family that Pontianak had been, it was beautifully comfortable.

I also got some time in Kuching, another place I had spent a lot of time as a kid. I loved Kuching when I was little; it is so developed and comfortable compared to Pontianak, and was (and is) little enough to wander around without getting lost. It is still beautiful. Kuching has done a wonderful job of preserving the old English forts and old Chinese shop buildings, giving the town of a place with history. This often is not the case in Indonesian towns, where old things tend to decay and rot away in the wet heat. The waterfront at Kuching is especially nice, with Dayak designs worked into the cobble stone walkway, and a view over the Sarawak River, which still has small boats taking passengers across the river and back. I don’t mean to make it sound perfect; there is a bit of the artificial feeling of re-created, tourist-oriented cleanliness and niceness that you find so much of in, say, Singapore. It is perfect to relax and enjoy the clean, although I am not sure I could live with the rather fake feeling that sometimes exists. Or perhaps after Indonesia, everything that is not decaying and falling apart feels a little fake.

My time in Kuching can be divided into two different parts. The first was when I was with Valerie, enjoying her beautiful home, climbing up a mountain with her church group (and stopping at thirteen concrete crosses on the way up, each commemorating a part of Jesus’ walk towards crucifixion), and enjoying the Holiday Inn Damai Resort. The second part of my time in Kuching began when Trudy came. Trudy, the same Trudy who traveled with me in Cambodia and Thailand (with Tim and Alex), the one who works for the World Agroforestry Center, in the CIFOR compound, came to join me for a week. The original plan had been for her to come to the Bear Kawasan in East Kalimantan, but since I high-tailed it out of there, we decided to change locations to Kuching. When Trudy came, I said a thankful goodbye to Valerie and moved downtown to the St. Thomas Guest House, yet another place I had spent time in as a kid. It is a guesthouse originally intended for priests or visitors to the St. Thomas Church, but opened to other visitors when not otherwise full. As one might guess, it is austere, but with beautiful gardens and a jasmine tree under the window.

But, anyhow, Trudy came and we moved in. We had no plans of what to do with her week in Borneo, and spent an afternoon on the waterfront talking to Mormon missionaries from Utah and California, and deciding how to divide up her days. We settled on going to going to Bako National Park (yes, another place I frequented as a kid), for the first two nights.

The park was just wonderful. To reach it, you have to take a small boat from the mainland, along the coast, where it deposits you, depending on the tide, either in the shallow water at the end of a long beach or at a dock in the midst of a mangrove forest. The main area, with a canteen and some dorm beds, is inhabited by rude and nasty macaque monkeys and huge, absolutely huge, bearded pigs. The hikes through the park are though beautiful jungle, with many species of animals that are almost impossible to see otherwise. Starting off on our first hike, an hour after getting to the park, we had only walked a minute of two into the jungle when we saw right above us a proboscious monkey, a human-sized red monkey with an amazing huge nose. It sat above us, looking down at us while we stared, open jawed, up at him (I think him…). Both the forest, and then, further up, the scrub-land forest growing in white, chalky and sandy soil, had wonderful plants and animals. The first day we ended up at Teluk Pandan Kecil, a beach where my mother and I had camped when I was little. It is a small beach surrounded by huge limestone cliffs, red, white, yellow, and brown. Boulders have fallen in and dotted one side of the beach with interesting caverns. A small river, dyed brown with the fallen leaves, runs down the side of the beach, turning the sea brown where they meet.

The second night, Trudy and I were told that there were no more beds in the park’s dorm rooms, and besides, we wanted to camp. So, took a different hike, but ended up at the same beach, which had a large area above the tide-line which was perfect for camping. We had borrowed a tent from Valerie, which was adequate, although lacked a rain-fly. The night, however, was perfect. We made a small fire (totally illegal, tell no one), and cooked instant noodles in used corn tins. The corn had been eaten for lunch. It was utterly silent of human noises, except those of Trudy and me, and we fell asleep by the fire, under the stars.

Some hours later, I was unpleasantly awoken by little drips of water falling on my nose. Rain. It was only a drizzle, so Trudy and I picked up our stuff and made our way to the tent. Despite the lack of rain-fly, it was dry inside and we fell asleep. Until I woke up in a puddle. The rain had gotten worse and was pouring the unprotected tent. I flew to all the electronics I had at the bottom of the tent, and put them in a bag. Then I sat in a dryish corner of the tent, exhaustedly wishing the rain would stop. It got worse. The dry spot stopped being dry, and although Trudy seemed to be out of the worst of the puddles, I was sopped. I jumped out of the tent and ran to a small, wall-less hut that had been built, and then had since collapsed on one side, making it severely tilted. A few minutes later, the puddle reached Trudy, and she too ran for the hut. The storm was now at full power, and the rain blew in sheets through the non-existing walls. We were sopped, and so cold. We sat, shivering in the rain, falling asleep for 5 minutes at a time, until dawn. Finally, around 8am, the rain let up, and we did our best to dry some things before giving up and hiking back to main camp. But lordy, the food and drinks at main camp felt incredible.

While camping, we had given some thought to what we were to do next. There was much changing of minds and counting of days, but in the end we decided that Trudy was to ask for a few more days off, and that we were going to fly up to Sabah to climb Kinabalu, the largest mountain in Southeast Asia. So, after another night in Kuching, we fly up to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, and a few hours from the mountain. We joined up with an Australian girl and a girl from New Zealand, who we had met in Kuching, as well as a guy from England, who we met on the bus to the park, to share the cost of the guide.

While they seemed like lovely people, Trudy and I never got to know them too well, because they climbed far faster than we did. Happily, neither Trudy nor I are in perfect shape, and we took the same slow amount of time to climb. The hike really is amazing. It is only 8.7 kilometers in distance, but rises over 2000 meters, to put you at 4,095.2 meters at the top. This means the hike is unrelentingly vertical. The first, perhaps three, kilometers are through tropical jungle, with steps leading through the rock and dirt slope. I wish I knew more about tree and plant identification and could write about in detail about everything that I saw, but I can’t. But it was lush and dripping with lichens and ferns. Above perhaps the fourth kilometer you reach an area that is covered in cloud more often than not. The plants change. I will post pictures. It is too frustrating not to have the vocabulary to really describe what I saw. The trees, which have whitish bark, are twisted and bent like large bonsai trees, and look forever blowing in a strong wind. There was flower, small bushes with white blossoms which are low, but cover the mountain for kilometers up. The trees are draped in slight green moss, almost fluorescent. Added to this, there is the fog, the cloud that we hiked through. It swirled around, often making it harder to see further than a few meters ahead. The thickness of the fog shifted in the wind, often changing how far I could see every second. It was magical.

Then, finally, exhausted, we reached Laban Rata, the rest house, right above the tree line. You have to spend the night partway up the mountain so you can get up at 2 am to hike the last few 3 kilometers to catch dawn at the top. Getting up this early also means that there will most likely not be clouds at the top, and so you can see the view, which when it is clear, can reach to the Philippines. We met up with Richard, Kate, and Sarah up at the rest house, and spent the evening eating food that had been brought up by porters—

Side note on porters. Everyday, I do not know how many porters—mostly women— make their way up the mountain carrying 35 kilo sacks of food up to Laban Rata. While the tourists, myself, included, huff and puff their way up the mountain side with their little backpacks, these amazing people speed walk their way up, and then fly back down, their packs reloaded with trash. They have the most incredible legs I have ever seen, and my admiration forever.

--- So, we ate food brought up by porters, and looked out over the wonderful view that had cleared since we got up there. I went raspberry hunting. The top of Mt. Kinabalu is one of the only (the only?) place in Southeast Asia where you can find wild raspberries. They are not as sweet as in America, but still wonderful. I clambered amongst the bushes until it got too cold. It was very cold—about 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s freezing if you have been in the tropics for the last year.

We all went to bed by 8pm so we could be up to start hiking at 2:30 in the morning. We were sleeping in unheated huts—much cheaper than the heated guest house—but happily the blankets kept me warm enough to sleep. Or maybe I would have slept through anything after a hike like that one. The next day we were up at 2am, and after drinking down a pot of hot coffee, started up. We were dressed in winter hats—actually balaclavas, but we rolled them up for coolness’ sake—, garden gloves, and all the layers of clothes we could fit on. The early morning hike is grueling. You cannot see a thing, but ahead there are more steps, and more climb up. Once you hit the real tree line—no more scrub bushes and raspberries—there is a rope you can use to pull your self up the face of the cliff. The air is thin up here, every few meters of walking it is necessary to stop and take some deep breaths of air. Of course, since you cannot see anything, you cannot see how much further you have to go. Below, the towns are like tiny dots of light, like the stars above. Happily, when we climbed, there was a bright moon, lighting up the way.

Finally, finally, finally, about 5:45, when the light of the sky was just beginning to brighten up the east, Trudy and I began the last bit of almost vertical cliff leading to the summit. At this point we could hardly breathe, and I was more exhausted than I can remember ever having been. Still, with the peak in sight, it was just enough adrenaline to push us to the top. We got up there right before the sun rose, as we had aimed to do. Amazing! The summit was a little crowded, but still we all watched the sun come up. The sky turned from deep red to pink to yellow and pink, to blue and yellow and pink until the sun itself came up over the horizon. The mountains were in deep dark silhouette in front of all the color. It lit up the rock faces all around us, leaving the deep gully, thousands of meters into the ground, dark and mysterious. The rock faces are all different shades of grey, lighting up differently as the sun caught their different angles. Below, even the clouds looked tiny, and the towns invisible. We stayed until everyone had taken their pictures at the top, and then started slowly down.

The walk down was everything that the night time walk up had not been. The sun warmed me up and I walked down; the top had been truly freezing to the point of real pain. The sky was perfect blue and there were absolutely no clouds. We meandered down, Trudy taking pictures, and me taking some but staring more. There was so little perspective; the huge rock faces looked small until you made out a human figure, ant-sized, half way up it. Again, I will post pictures.

Then down. All the way down. We got back to the half-way point around 9am, had some food, and then made our way down to the very bottom by 4 that afternoon. We flagged down a fluorescent pink bus and got back to Kota Kinabalu by 6pm. Then food, rest, internet. Found out I did not get into Yale, which was a slap in the face. [Next day however, I discovered that Michigan had offered me a full scholarship with a stipend of $15,000 a year to go there, so I felt better.]

The next day was a lovely day. Trudy left to head back to the office, which was sad. She is a lovely travel companion. But the rest of the day was very very good. That night, I caught a plane to Kuala Lumpur, and the next morning to Sri Lanka, where I am right now….

But more on that later.