Borneo and Brunei!

We arrived to Malaysian Borneo hoping to see the world’s largest flower, wild orangutans, lots of jungle and animals… and we have not been disappointed! Borneo boasts the largest of many things, one of which is the rafflesia flower. This bizarre flower is found only in Indonesia and Borneo, and it only blossoms whenever it feels like it – no particular season, nothing. And since it doesn’t have its own plant to flower from (it’s parasitic!) you never know where one will burst (that is actually how they bloom; pop!). Fortunately, you have the Tourist Information Office to tell you. We walked into the office; saw a big sign that said, “Rafflesia in Bloom!” and hightailed to the National Park. Only twenty rafflesias bloomed throughout 2003… so we were pretty lucky.

The other thing that’s only found in Indonesia and Borneo nowadays is the orangutan. They used to be found all over Asia, but like most places, people are encroaching on the surrounding woods and wildlife. They have a reserve where they rescue the orangutans from all sorts of situations and then help them back into their natural habitat. Before the orangutans go back into the wild completely, the park feeds them twice a day. It’s during these feedings that you get to see them; then they go back into the jungle. The visitors get to “hide” behind some trees while the animals come up for food. We saw eleven orangutans!! Four of them were babies. It was fantastic! Orangutan means “man of the forest” in Malay. We’ve been on lots of hikes – they have about a billion National Parks, so we went to a few. We’ve seen loads of bats, lots of random brightly colored LARGE insects and even a wild bearded pig!

Since the day we arrived, Borneo has been celebrating the Gawi Festival. It represents the end of the rice harvest and it’s their biggest celebration. This means that all the kids have two weeks off from school and ALL Malaysians are trying to visit the same places we are! Other than the buses being full, this has been great! The people of Borneo, most of whom have grown up in longhouses (big, long communal houses with extended family), are extremely friendly. One night we got invited to a huge family BBQ and the Mom insisted that all six (!) of her little girls call Rob uncle.

In contrast, we just spent the last two days in Brunei. The people there are still friendly, but the country takes on a whole different feel. Brunei, one of the world’s smallest and richest countries, has an almost eerie quality to it; at least in the capital of Bandar Seri Begawan, where we went. The whole country has about 330,000 people living there and the sultan pretty much is their government. He is one of the richest men in the world – the sultan and Brunei get their money from oil, and we get our oil from Brunei!

While we were there we checked out a few museums, meandered around the city and peeked at a few mosques. The best part though was the speedboat ride through the Stilt Villages. Overlooking this modern capital is a village built on stilts in the shallow water of the river. The other side of the city sports the $350 million palace of the sultan. Complete with gold dome and everything. It’s pretty cool. We rented the boat for an hour and he sped us past all the sites.

Fun Facts About Brunei:

1. The country’s full name is Negara Brunei Darussalam which means, “Brunei – the Abode of Peace”.
2. Islam is the national religion and about 99% of the people there follow this religion.
3. Alcohol is not for sale (since 1991) and there is no nightlife.
4. They were a colony of Britain until 1984. Even then, they were reluctant to gain independence. And, when they are not pumping prayers through their radio stations, they are listening to London radio.
5. The sultan is no scrooge either. He appears to take good care of his citizens; everybody gets a pension, free medical care, free schools, free sport centers, short work weeks, subsidies for purchasing cars and, best of all… no taxes!

We are now in the northern part of Borneo, and will be here for another 2 weeks. Then we go back to Thailand for a few days to eat at our favorite Thai restaurants in Bangkok before we head off to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. We bought those flights the other day, so it’s pretty definite! It’s also definite that we will head through China, Mongolia and Russia before getting back to England for Carla’s wedding in October! Congrats, Carla!

Beautiful Bali!

Bali is one of those places you always hear about – a tropical paradise on the other side of the world. For me, the image it conjured up was exactly that, a tropical paradise. But the reality is that despite the fact that Bali is a tropical paradise, it exists in a country with more than its fair share of crime, corruption and poverty. Add to that the terrorist bombings of recent past and it becomes quite easy to forget sometimes that you are really in paradise, especially when you are in Kuta (where the bomb in the nightclub went off last year). There is a gigantic hole where the club used to be, plus the World Bank is sponsoring a renovation of the Kuta sewerage system, Indonesia style. The sewers are directly below all the sidewalks. They’ve got every sidewalk in the entire area torn up with giant holes everywhere. And, it appears that there are less than a dozen people working on the project. The work is so slow it practically looks abandoned!

One place in Bali that still does seem like paradise is the town called Ubud… where we spent five days! It’s tropical in all the ways you would think of – complete with monkey forests, temples, and palaces. One night we went to see the traditional Monkey Trance Dance, which was cool. And, you get to stay in traditional Bali family homes. These homes are big tropical gardens where the whole extended family lives. In the ones where the tourists get to stay, the families still live there but they add a couple of rooms for extra income! There are all sorts of intricacies about the traditional home as well; it is shaped like person - with a head, body and anus… that’s where they put all the trash and the compost heap. There is always a giant doorway complete
with grimacing statues to keep out the evil spirits. Also, the little paths leading around the family complex and to the rooms are extremely curvy and practically overgrown with tropical jungle. This is to confuse any evil spirits that make it past the grimacing statues! And, apparently evil spirits can’t make 90 degree turns, especially if they can’t find the path in the first place.

After soaking up the atmosphere of Ubud, Rob and I and a Nepali Peace Corps Volunteer named Trey, rented a car for two days to avoid the typical tourist extortion. We wanted to go to the wreck of the U.S. Liberty and hike up one of the volcanoes. The wreck was fantastic, and I only went snorkeling! I think it is one of the few wrecked ships that can actually be snorkeled. Rob and Trey went scuba diving and said it was the best dive site they have ever been to. It is an American cargo ship that the Japanese torpedoed in World War II. The Americans towed it to shore so that the Japanese wouldn’t benefit from its contents. It sat on that eastern Bali shore until the force of nearby volcanic eruption tossed it into the ocean. It plunged just far enough so that it is entirely immersed under water. It is now home to an abundance of coral and fish! You can have a look at Rob’s website if you want to see underwater photos from the wreck.

After going to the ship wreck, we spent the day driving to the volcano and all the while admiring the unbelievably gorgeous views of the ocean, volcanoes, and rice paddies galore. The road map we bought was very unspecific and the roads we were driving on were virtually unmarked, so we took many wrong turns. We even thought that we went to Bali’s most religious site which is perched halfway up a volcano at the end of a road. But, as we found out from a local when we stopped for directions all the roads go in the area go halfway up the volcano and have a temple perched at the top! Of course they do! We just chose the wrong road.

That night after NOT going to Bali’s most religious temple we went to the volcano and were accosted by the local volcano mafia. There is only one road into town and when we arrived at that intersection there were THREE men on motorcycles there waiting. We promptly ignored them and carried on trying to find the hotel we found in our guidebook. Those three motorcycles followed us the whole way yelling, “We are not mafia! We only want to help! We will show you a hotel!” Sure, we believe you. They tried to block the road, they tried rolling down the windows, etc. but fortunately Rob just plowed through them. Our hotel was renovating their restaurant, so they let us eat on the balcony of the room… and sure enough… who comes sauntering in eating food provided our hotel but the most persistent of the moped drivers. Trey chased him out.

All of the touts have gotten together and forbidden hikers to go up the mountain without a guide – and you can only get a guide from the mafia. When we tried driving to the parking lot where we intended to start our hike from, the same thing happened, only this time the mafia moped man (MMM) prevented us from finding that parking lot and from actually climbing. He told us that we’d fall off the mountain if we didn’t use a guide and then proceeded to show us photos of bloody people being carried off in stretchers because they didn’t use a guide. And (even though he claimed to not be mafia) he threatened to have fifteen of his friends block the road if we didn’t pay him as our guide. After at least an hour of driving and getting followed, we decided to just enjoy the scenery that was near us and went tromping through the lava, going no further than 10 feet from the road while Rob stayed with the car. The best part was, one of the Swedish tourists we picked up from the side of the road (miles from their destination) actually spoke Indonesian! She talked to MMM and eventually he drove away. All in all it was still a fun two-day road trip, but I can’t say I’d recommend it!

We have just happily arrived to Malaysian Borneo for the next few weeks!

Love, Alison

Greetings from Indonesia!

In my last newsletter we were about to board a bus to go visit a giant volcano and crater. The bus was scheduled to arrive at our destination at 2 in the morning… but upon further inspection of our guidebook and lengthy discussions with our Indonesian friend in the row in front of us… we decided not to go. Like many places here, it is not really safe. It’s not an unusual situation, but the bus station is known for being really shifty and we were going to have to wait there until daylight, since that is when the first bus departed to the gunung (volcano). Lucky for us, the bus was headed to Bali, and as it turns out – so were we! As soon as we got to Denpasar’s bus station (Bali’s capital) we took another bus out to the port town. We decided to spend the night there since we had already racked up about 20 hours of traveling time.

In my first newsletter I mentioned that most people had been really nice and very helpful – but unfortunately that was because we were in relatively non-touristy areas. Since then people have done nothing but harass us… trying to sell us everything under the sun… and in Indonesia everything IS under the sun! It was so bad a couple of times that they wouldn’t even tell us which bus was the public bus that we wanted. Nothing was really posted with signs, so we were at their mercy, and they like to charge about a billion times the going rate to tourists. Once we paid a negotiated fare and the other time we just didn’t go!

One of the major reasons we came to Indonesia was to see the Komodo Dragons – the largest monitor lizard in the world. But, keeping in mind some of the transportation issues that we have been having… it seemed like a nightmare to spend 3 days getting somewhere, only to spend two days there. Also, they discontinued the ferry service we were going to have to use for the last leg of the trip… so you have to go fours hours PAST the island and the charter a boat to take you BACK to visit Komodo… and then reverse the trip!

While on the first leg of the three day trip, it just didn’t seem worth going to Komodo, so we abandoned our trip and decided to go to a place called the Gili Islands… and the best part was – we were almost there!

That was an absolutely fantastic decision! We spent 10 nights because we liked it so much. It was like a vacation from traveling! Carla – it was like our trip to Club Med Tahiti last year… except the hotel cost three dollars a night! And, despite the fact that you can walk around the island in less than two hours (including time for two swim breaks and one beverage break) there are great restaurants and a good nightlife. Almost all of the restaurants and bars are all located one little part of the island and the rest is virtually empty except for the village in the center. Other than the tourists only one hundred people live there.

There are no motorized vehicles on the island. There’s not a moped to be found! No engine revving and no fumes. All travel around the island is done by bicycle or horse and buggy (even the trash removal). It’s hardly considered an inconvenience, given that there is only one dirt road around the perimeter anyway! There are also no dogs. This has lead to the proliferation of many, many cats. Apparently, it is considered good luck to feed the cats. No one claims actual ownership of the cats, but they are all very well fed and groomed. A cute little kitten curled up in Rob’s lap one night while we were watching a movie at a bar. That bar was great – they had these Japanese like floor cushions in a semi-private setting with your own TV and DVD player. You could choose from the couple hundred titles they had. Not only are there no vehicles or dogs - there are also no police on the island. Had I been an avid drug user, I would have anticipated the plethora of available drugs on the island… but I’m not, so it never occurred to me! I have never been offered so many drugs in my whole life.

Random Things About Indonesia...

1. Most Indonesians learn to make kites when they are children.
2. On buses in Java a group of “professional” musicians will generally climb aboard to play two or three songs and then most passengers will give them a few rupiah. One band included an instrument (worn like a harmonica in front of his mouth) that was a comb nailed to a piece of board.
3. Tourism has dropped since the World Trade Center bombings in New York, and then dropped even more when the bomb exploded in Bali in 2002. The level of visitors has fallen 75% of what it used to be. I hear that the numbers are headed back up again, but after the visa changes, who can tell!
4. We met a guy on a ferry whose brother works for the United Nations in Indonesia. His job relates to education and he visits different islands doing whatever he does. The government places education so low on their list of priorities that the UN has to pay the government every time they hold a meeting with them. Also, the UN bought thousands of books to give to schools and they are currently sitting in warehouses unused. The government doesn’t wan to waste their resources distributing them… they say that if the teachers want them, they can come pick them up on their own. But, most teachers don’t know about the books and if they do, they can’t afford to come and get them in the capital city.
5. In Bali, the beach town of Candidasa was very up and coming and had a beautiful coral reef. So, they started building some big hotels there so they could accommodate more people. In order to get limestone for the concrete to build the new buildings they tore up the coral reef – which contains limestone. The reef acted as a barrier to prevent beach erosion. Without the reef, the beach disappeared. Now there’s no reef and no beach! Apparently they have constructed some large concrete barriers in the water to build the beach back up. I wonder if they used coral for that concrete…
6. They are Hindu in Bali and make constant offerings of these tiny little banana leaf trays filled with rice, flowers and miscellaneous biodegradable pretty looking stuff. They put them in every doorway, at the crossing of every street, and lots of other places. You have to be careful where you step!

Regards, Alison