Cannibals, Christians, & CouchSurfing in North Sumatra

Salutations from way out there! Hailing you again from Indonesia, here're your hosts of today's episode of Adventures in Asia: Travis and Sarah! [Applause.]

Today we'd like to take you along with us in a journey of thought and mind, a journey through a wild volcanic landscape of rivers and lakes, soaring through a variety of languages and cultures to bring you to the beautiful Indonesian state of North Sumatra. This journey will require many a bus transfer.
After we left the sulfur-spewing volcanoes of Berastagi, we proceeded to take no less than three crazy crowded smokey buses, veering wildly down the winding mountain roads to our final destination: the serene, gleaming volcanic lake known as Danau Toba. This magnificent monster of a lake is 100 kilometres long and 30 kilometres wide, and 505 metres (1,666 ft) at its deepest point (despite some local claims that "no one knows how deep it is"). When you compare this to all the other volcanic lakes in your mental repertoire, you'll undoubtedly find that this volcanic lake is bigger----indeed, it is the biggest in the world!
Some 70,000 years ago this super-massive volcano produced the biggest eruption the Earth has seen in 25 million years, creating the incredible lake we see today. This explosion was so big that it is believed to have caused a volcanic winter with a worldwide decline in temperatures, perhaps the event that killed most humans then alive, creating a "population bottleneck" in Central Eastern Africa and India that affected the genetic inheritance of all humans today.
All very interesting to geologists and archeologists, of course, but what's particularly fascinating today is the people living in this beautiful massive volcanic lake. They are known as the Batak and lived a relatively isolated existence in the mountains of North Sumatra, particularly on Lake Toba, for hundreds of years before the Dutch colonials made roads to their land. The story goes that the first Westerners to make contact with the Batak people somehow enraged their hosts and met their untimely demise at spear-tip. Then they were eaten. Yes, as you may have speculated from today's title, the Batak people were notoriously cannibalistic. Criminals, adulterers, spies, and the enemies of the warring Batak would be tried by a counsel of Batak elders in a circle of stone chairs by an ancient Banyan tree and if found guilty, they'd be lacerated with knives, rubbed down with chillies, garlic, and salt, and summarily cooked up. (And you thought the electric chair was harsh!)

Apparently in 1816 some very lucky Dutch missionaries arrived on the surf of a coincidental bountiful harvest, preaching the wonders of their Christian god, and the Batak people took this as a sign and added Christian elements to their extant animist beliefs. This marked the turning of the tide of cannibalism and there were fewer and fewer accounts until 1890 when the Dutch rulers banished the practice entirely (though there is a rumor that a jealous wife killed and ate her cheating husband on the island only a couple of years ago).

In this largely Muslim country, it is interesting to see the different culture of the Christian Batak people. Yet, coming from their traditional animist background, their churches and graveyards all have a unique traditional tribal Batak flair to them. Many of the churches have traditional Batak-style roofs, curved upward like the bow of a ship, as do many of their homes to this day. All of their structures have cool tribal designs with twisting lines (almost like Celtic knots), lizards, and faces. We rented a motorbike and explored Batak tombs and ruins, sailing up and down the roads past goats, buffaloes, and Batak houses galore. The air was ripe with the smell of flowers (between the fumes of burning trash).

We spent the better part of a week on Danau Toba, swimming, reading, playing Jenga, listening to sublimely chaotic traditional Batak music, and having a great time with the hospitable locals. Sarah learned to cook a delicious vegetable dish with a spicy peanut sauce called gado-gado from a wonderful lady named Fiona. I taught her son some basics on their piano. On Sunday there were swarms of school-children from all over North Sumatra trying to practice speaking English with tourists and we spent virtually all day with these rambunctious youths.
When it was time to leave we headed to Bukit Lawang on no fewer than three more buses and en route met a wonderful girl named Sonya who lives there. She rents a room from a family and invited us to CouchSurf with her (see CouchSurfing.org), which was a wonderful time. We stayed with them, went grocery shopping at the local market (everything so fresh!), cooked together, traded turns on my little guitar, and had a grand old time. We went to "The Bat Cave" hoping to help save Gothem City but we couldn't find our esteemed hero in the cave, only some stinky leathery beasts flying all about us.

One day Sonya took us tubing down the river! Jetting through the rapids, spinning wildly in the rocky river, was an unforgettable experience. As was seeing orangutans at the third of four orangutan rehabilitation centers in the world we've been to, which I actually do forget because I was sleeping when Sarah went there at 8AM  (I wanted to sleep in 'cause we moved to a hotel----family came to visit our hosts----and a band started playing at 12:45AM, resulting in a frantic search for an alternate domicile----late night).

When we got to Medan, capital city of North Sumatra and the third largest city in Indonesia (population 2 million----a big ol' city), we again got to experience the wonders of CouchSurfing. Our host, Tonny, picked us up from the bus station, took us out to lunch, took us shopping for fabrics to send to crafty friends at home, arranged for us to speak to a group of teenage students at an orphanage, and invited a group of his wonderful friends to join us for dinner near City Hall, a fancy little colonial Dutch building.
The next day he took us to a huge Taiwanese Buddhist temple (getting pumped for our jump into a sedentary life in Taiwan come January), which had an amazing all-vegetarian restaurant attached. Unfortunately we were feeling a bit off after eating at a restaurant in a huge 5-story super-air-conditioned mega-mall (after having no problems all month eating at all these hole-in-the-wall leave-the-food-out-all-day local places where they might not even have a sink where they could wash their hands) so we didn't eat too much that night when Tonny arranged an awesome potluck [slash] karaoke party with his friends and the CouchSurfing community in Medan (I was awarded candy for 3rd place at Karaoke----still got it!). What a spectacular experience in a city that has been referred to by some (including the Lonely Planet Guide) as a major contender for the worst place on Earth.


Well folks, that's all for our program today but feel free to stop by next week for another exciting installment of adventures in Asia!

(Fun fact: "Orangutan" comes from the Indonesian words "orang" & "hutan:" people [of the] forest!)

Volcanoes Bluster Buster

Wow, we have been out for a long time haven't we? Just received some exciting news, my parents are going to come visit in December to Thailand! Looking forward to that for sure. So anyway, lots of people here seem to think Americans say "oh my God" a lot, and you know what? It's true. We do. Funny how traveling puts your own culture in perspective huh?

Last week we launched our assault on Mt. Sibayak, a volcano in Sumatra (still here) near a town called Berastagi (or Brastagi). This town, high in the mountains with spring-like temperatures year round (cold for us) was once a Dutch resort town.  The first day we tried we were doomed from the start, taking our very first wrong turn that we possibly could, despite having an excellent map. Not knowing this at the time, we walked for 3 hours, and upon seeing no sign of the entrance to the path up the mountain, we hailed a flamboyantly painted bus and asked if they were going to Mt. Sibayak. They waved us on, and we relaxed into the cramped seats. Forty minutes later we were still driving, and we asked a man sitting in front of us. Apparently we had been going in the wrong direction the whole time so we got off and caught a ride back to Berstagi, defeated. 

The next day we began again by catching a bus to the right path up the mountain. Although we were walking on a road, the scenery was gorgeous and there was almost no traffic. We hiked up, up and up, through the jungle. After 3 hours of hiking the road disappeared and became a shady jungle pathway. The foliage had grown over the path and formed almost a tunnel. We stopped for our packed lunch of rice, fried potato, and green bean curry. Energized, we continued onwards. We climbed upwards still, and the landscape became scrubbier. Soon it was hardly anything but rocks stained red and yellow. We heard a great whooshing sound and as we drew near, we could see huge vents spewing out clouds of gas and smoke. The smell of sulphur filled the air, and it sounded like a jet taking off. 

"Lets go closer!" Travis said. Of course we couldn't resist. The rocks next to the vent were stained bright yellow, like a bright, fluorescent, make-the-eighties jealous shade. We didn't get too close, the stench was overpowering. We decided to climb to the summit for the view. We carefully walked up the last crest, over slippery, sulphur stained rocks. The landscape here was strange and moon like. Baby earth being created! A huge vent belched below us as we heaved our way up the last few thigh-burning steps. We stood on top of the volcano and looked around at the marvelous view. We could see for miles and miles and miles! We could see Berstagi, several small villages, and so many jungle and farm clad hills. A moment later the wind shifted, blowing all the sulfurous smoke right in our faces. We hid behind a rock, and there we found the most massive and gnarly looking beetle I've ever seen. His jaws looked like they could open a walnut.  Strange, since there was no other life (not even plants) for about 500 meters in any direction. We speculated that maybe he ate sulfur. 

Presently, I heard a deep rumbling sound. It may have been thunder, as the sky was beginning to cloud, but in my mind it was the volcano. The wind gusted coldly and sharply on my face, and the vents raged below. All at once I was struck with a deep fear. "What the hell am I doing here?" I thought "A little old country girl from Queen Annes County, Maryland, doing on top of an active volcano in Sumatra?" An urge to get down, to get away from the top of this angry mountain coursed through me. I scuttled down as carefully as I could, large and small rocks slipping and tumbling down under my feet unnervingly. We reached the lower vents, then the jungle path again. I breathed a sigh of relief and stopped to take a celebratory photo of some wild orchids I had seen.

The walk back down was a joyful 2 hours, Travis and I a bit high on the adrenaline rush of our adventure. A troop of Thomas's Leaf Monkeys leaped adroitly through the trees as the sun was setting on our way back. Our legs hurt, but our minds were happy.

Sumatra Simmers

After leaving Pulau Weh, we headed South to the interior of Sumatra. We hopped on the bus from Banda Aceh to Takengon and as soon as I did I saw something terrifying: a baby. This horrible little demon proceeded to cry every 20 minutes of our windy, bone-rattling bus ride through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery I have ever seen. Ten hours later we pull into the station in Takengon, a quaint town in the Gayo Highlands. The town is set on the shores of a beautiful lake, formed by volcanoes eons ago. The air is cool from the altitude, and pine trees rule here. We found a becak (a motorbike with a sidecar) to take us around the lake the next day.

At 9:00 AM we met Indra (our driver) for our scenic drive around the lake. The day was cool and cloudy, and we wore our sweaters. Funny huh, so close to the equator and we were chilly. Surrounding the lake on all sides are steep peaks, giving the impression that we were in a vast bowl. The color of  the water, the chill of the air and the scent of the pines reminded me of Loch Raven, just for an instant. The becak rattled and fumed on the bumpy roads. We stopped by the lake to take some photos and a horde of teenagers descended upon us. They all wanted to take our photo. In some places in Asia being white is like being Justin Beiber I think. We had individual shots with them then combinations of friends. Ah the golden age of cameraphones.

We stopped at a waterfall surrounded by coffee plants and bushes with tiny chili peppers growing on them. A perfect dichotomy of Indonesian preferences: amazingly spicy food and strong local coffee (at any time of day or night). The waterfall was nice, the air there felt so fresh and clean, quite a world away from the hustle and smoke of the Indonesian cities. It seems like everyone in Indo smokes the kretek cigarettes. Amazingly some people here actually think that smoking is good for your health (no joke). We left the waterfall feeling refreshed and were ambushed by a different,even larger group of high schoolers, all requiring photos. It was so fun, we felt like celebrities again.

Next we went to lunch, at a restaurant on stilts right over the lake. Indra proceeded to order the most expensive thing on the menu, as we had agreed to pay for his lunch as part of his fee. Suckers. During lunch he asked us why we were vegetarians and we managed to explain the ecological principals using pictures. Success in communications! After lunch we went to these caves that had cool stalactites in them. I hit my head on one. But I'm OK the happy bat doctor fixed me all right up! WHEEE!!! That night we had dinner with a local named Faisal, the only person in town who could speak English fluently.

The next place we went was Ketembe. Luckily the babies on this ride were quiet, but the man next to us smoked incessantly the whole ride. Yuck! Another 10 hours later and we were in Ketembe, and checked into a cozy bungalow. We spent 2 days there recovering from the flu which came and went quite unexpectedly. Soon we were ready for our 2 day trek into Gunung Leuser State Park. The Lonely Planet guide says "Be prepared for extreme terrain, hordes of leeches, and swarms of biting insects." A bit dramatic, but we did encounter all of these things; the jungle was so beautiful it was worth it.

The trail was muddy and steep in places, and the trail was small and almost hidden sometimes by jungle plants in a thousand shades of green. The forest was pristine old growth, never been cut. Our first day we struck a leisurely course for the campground. Our guide, Sowardie, was a pure champion. He carried all of our food, tent, and cooking ware through the jungle the whole time. From time to time we would catch a glimpse of a big hornbill soaring through the jungle, his honking calls trailing behind him.

At some point we came to a great tree. I have never seen a tree like this in my life. It was huge,and the roots grew down in two sections, so that it resembled legs. Hanging down from dozens of feet above was a vine that Sowardie grabbed onto and swung out over the hill (it was all hills in that jungle) to our amazement. "Tarzan tree!" he said,upon his return. "Want to try?" Travis was like hell no, but (maybe stupidly) I said yes. I gripped the vine, swung out, and felt my hands slip. "Oh God, this is the end" I thought as I plummeted 15 feet or so onto the side of the hill. Quickly scanning my body I realized that no damage was done, to my amazement. Not even a scratch. I had landed on a patch of soft peat. If I had fallen off even a second later I would have landed on some rather hard,large twisting tree roots sticking up out of the ground. Travis and Sowardie, terrified, rushed down to me. They thought I was crying but I was actually convulsing with laughter. The worst/best part is, there is a video of this event. YOU'LL NEVER SEE IT!!!! After my ordeal, Travis decided to try it too. Now it is a running joke that he is the worst one, that even though I fell that he went anyway after he saw me fall.

At the campsite Sowardie fixed us a well-needed lunch of mie goreng (noodles!). We had a rest and then went animal-looking. We didn't find any but it was fun just seeing such cool jungle. We ate dinner and went to bed early in preparation for hiking again the next day. After a cold night (no blankets!) we emerged into the bright sunshine of the next day to find our campsite invaded by Italians! Actually a nice couple and their guides had arrived and we all ate breakfast (banana pancakes!) and swam in the cold river together. Then we hiked for an hour through even more muddy, hilly jungle and arrived at the hot springs! The springs were right under a river and when mixed with the cold water the scalding geothermal vent gave us a warm, soothing, and sulfurous-smelling bath. We froliced and played under the waterfall and climbed on the rocks nearby up to warmer and warmer springs. The day flew by and soon it was time to leave our "stinky paradise" as Travis called it.

It grew dark under the canopy and began to rain. A light drizzle at first, cooling us and creating a very rainforestey ambiance, turning the leafy foliage a shiny palette of a thousand shades of green.  The drizzle gradually increased to a warm downpour. Donning our frumpy plastic ponchos, we quickened our pace. At one point Travis saw some trees shaking. A few moments later Sowardie called us excitedly ahead. We looked up to where he was pointing and saw a big male orangutan striding through the trees! We only saw him for a few moments but it was so amazing to see this endangered animal in the wild. We were lucky to spot this one, as our hike was almost over. Thrilled with our sighting, we finished our hike by hitch hiking back to town. Hey, it's still hiking right?

Well, Sumatra has been very, very good to us so far. It might be the best place, but then again, I always think that the country that I'm in is the best place =) Can't wait to see more of Indonesia!

Paradise, thy name is Pulau Weh

Eureka! we've done it! We've, within only the penumbra of doubt, discovered the best place on Earth. That's right: paradise, the perfect place, as described in all the far-reaching fantastical literature of religions and mythologies throughout the ages. Verily, this is a land where existence is positive, harmonious and timeless. It seems that lo after these eight months of nomadic wandering we've stumbled upon the perfect community: the pristine tropical island of Pulau Weh, in the Aceh State of Sumatra, Indonesia.

First a little back story on Indonesia: This is a singular nation that defies all odds and expectations. Now this nation is composed of over 238 million people, the 4th largest in the world (after China, India, and the great U.S.of A.), speaking over 700 different regional languages spread out over more than 17,000 islands. It is very diverse. We flew from Malaysia into the city of Banda Aceh, the furthest northwest city in Sumatra, the furthest northwest island of Indonesia. Aceh State has the highest proportion of Muslims in the decidedly Muslim country and is the only state in Indonesia to adopt Sharia Law, basing their laws on Muslim teaching: no alcohol, no pork, and 100 lashings (or worse) for adultery (including pre-marital relations----good thing we're married!).

Much of Indonesia is seismically active and Aceh has received a lot of attention in the Western media for the 2004 Boxing Day (Dec. 26) tsunami. Approximately 170,000 Indonesians were killed or went missing in the disaster and approximately 500,000 were left homeless; the destruction is unfathomable, with waves up to 100 feet high! While in Banda Aceh we witnessed several huge boats that were thrown as far as 4km inland; one boat landed squarely on top of a house! But the restoration efforts over the last 7 years has been incredible and you would never know that most of the regions infrastructure had been washed away.

After dropping our passports off for "a week" at Imagrasi for visa extensions, we headed from Banda Aceh to the beautiful tropical island of Pulau Weh. After a series of curving roads, past ramshackle houses and conniving monkeys, we arrived at Iboih Beach. The beach itself wasn't too much to look at: a small rocky stretch of sand covered in broken coral, but even when we first got there the people were incredibly helpful and open. After securing a beautiful bungalow with an epic view of the water, we moseyed on down to the local dive shop and signed up for a PADI Open Water Scuba diving course.

Then we met Salim A. Salam and our lives were forever changed. He taught us how to fly and convene with the myriad magical maritime mirages as their brilliant colors and patterns surrounded us against the backdrop of the deep blue. Whereas most people learn to dive in the bland confines of a swimming poop, learning to clear your mask, recover your regulator, adjust your buoyancy, etc., we were soaring through a spinning kaleidoscope of tropical fish.

Here's my first entry from my Dive Logbook: "Woah! What an incredible first dive! Salim showed us so many animals: sting rays, lionfish, pipefish, cuddlefish, clownfish, garden eels, oriental sweetlips, butterfly fish, mantis prawn, and so any more! It was so exciting to fly weightlessly through this shimmering technicolor wonderland." The lionfish have crazy striped swaying angelic wings that are venomous; cuddlefish look like crazy cow alien spaceships; curious clownfish playing in their anenomies peak up at us; pipefish are so long and thin (like a pipe, hey!); the aptly named garden eels look like blades of grass blowing in the great golden plains, sticking only their heads out of the sand; oriental sweetlips are unreal black and white striped swishy fishies with yellow fins; and the mantis prawn is a super-colorful shrimp that can deliver a punch with its tiny front legs strong enough to break a snail shell (or a diving mask!). And this was only our very first introduction to scuba diving!

We had a bit of a scare on our third dive though: "The dive itself was awesome! We saw so many colorful schools of fish! But te current was so strong it swept us away from our departure point and we had to wait for an hour and a half for our boat driver to find us." Salim said in the 10 years he's been diving, he's only lost the boat once before----how unlucky for us! But it was a great lesson in staying calm in the face of the abyssal open blue waters and no salvation in sight. There was a fishing boat nearby but they were impervious to our calls for help, probably thinking it was just something divers did for fun.

We also went snorkeling many times (as diving is pretty expensive) and rented an underwater camera one day! We saw a little white-tipped reef shark in the clear shallow barracuda-infested waters whilst diving with a sunshiny hippie-dippie New Yorker named Rene who now teaches yoga classes (good to get loose again!) on Pulau Weh and her sweet poofy-haired boyfriend, Indra, originally from Jakarta, Java, Indonesia. Another time we were swimming with another American world-traveling couple, Donny and Brooke, and saw a crazy little undulating octopus that would shift its shape and color to match the coral it was sitting on. A little damsel-fish was coming up to it like, "Hey, what's up? You want to play with---AHHH" then the octopus would strike out at it with one leg, "GO AWAY!" Unperturbed, the damsel-fish said, "Hey, wait! I just wanted to talk! There's no need for all this viole---AHHH!" as the octopus lashed out again, "I SAID, GO AWAY!" Well this last time the little damsel-fish took the hint, "Hey man! You're crazy! I didn't really want to talk to you anyway!" swimming away.

The waters of Pulau Weh held so many amazing wonders. For our last two dives for our class Salim took us to an underwater ship-wreck-----fish flying all around the gnarly rusted coral-covered boat-----and an underwater volcano, which was actually a series of geothermal vents that made awesome relaxing warm bubbles on the bottom that smelled so strongly of sulfur that we could somehow smell it whilst breathing from our scuba tanks underwater. After these 5 amazing dives we were addicted and decided to stay on Pulau Weh for an extra 2 weeks and do another 7 dives. Very good decision.

The diving was great but I think the best part of Pulau Weh was the people. There was such a great community! When we got to Pulau Weh, we quickly discovered the gem that is Uden's restaurant. Uden is such an amazing person, with a permanent smile and great taste in world electronic music-----Buddha Bar and Thievery Corporation playing while we ate his delicious (spicy!) vegetable curries. Uden's cousin Ewan is the man. His most distinguishing feature is his full-faced blooming smile, welling up like a newborn blue whale taking its first breath from beneath his swarthy mustache. I'll never forget what Ewan told me: "You can cut your hair; you can cut your beard; but never cut your heart." Despite Ewan's calm and agreeable demeanor, a lot of drama seemed to surround him (hey, paradise ain't perfect).

On Iboih Beach they rent snorkels, fins, and life-vests and used to have a fixed price: 15,000 rupiah each (less than $2). But people in town started lowering their prices to get more business, against the rules, which made others lower their prices and was causing deflation. So our friend Ewan posted signs all over town that you could rent them from him for only 5,000 rupiah-----way under price. Then he closed his shop. People were coming to all the rental places in town and pointing out that his price was lower and asking them to match it, so people were making no money. They agreed to call a meeting and Ewan insisted that he just lowered his price to get more business, though everyone knew it was just a sly way of pointing out how fighting amongst themselves and lowering prices was hurting everyone. So they all re-agreed to the fixed price and it lead to a grand reformation. Huzzah!

Our next contestant for craziest guy we met through Uden's restaurant is: Mus! (pronounced "Moose," so Sarah gave a moose sticker to both Mus and his 3-year-old son, who wanted to be just like Dad.) Mus, in his ever-joking nonchalant demeanor, told us how he valiantly climbed a 50 foot coconut tree to pick the pile of coconuts on the restaurant floor-----no big deal, of course. Oh yeah, and he tried to tell us that it's better to smoke unfiltered clove cigarettes if you're sick because they'll make you cough up all the bad stuff. Everyone in Indonesia smokes like a freight train. They must get their obsession with smoke from the countless smoking volcanoes across their nation, which probably also inspire them to have daily fires with leaves and rubbish, including plastic-----oh the smell of burning plastic in the morning shall always remind me of Sumatra.

While we were there we revived their lost tradition of having super-awesome-fun-fire-filled BEACH PARTIES! The alcohol was expensive (so drinking was limited) but the company present were so great that no one minded. Good music too. Everyone was dancing and throwing their limbs aruond to hip-hop, funk, and dubstep around the fire-----even Bogey, the little black dog, was jumpin' up and getting rowdy! When the night got late we busted out our acoustic guitars and traded turns serenading the crowd, all sitting together in a circle. We were truly sad to leave Pulau Weh, maybe the best place ever. But we stayed for nearly 3 weeks, nearly 3 times longer than anywhere else on our whole trip. Alas, there's so much more of Indonesia to see so, like a bird that flew, we sailed across the blue.

Theivin' Monkeys and Jungle Crabs

Kuching, the capital of Sarawak (Bornean Malaysia), is known as the "Cat City". Why is this? No one is quite sure originally, but now the city has been adorned with large cat statues in various poses, and has it's own breed of street cat, a smallish cur with only a 1/2 length tail. Where most other SEA cities have packs of mangy looking dogs, Kuching has hundreds of surprisingly sleek looking cats prowling around. I guess the residents here give homage to their city by leaving their curries a little less guarded than they usually would. Complete with a rather nice Cat Museum (we quite enjoyed), this kitty capital's got class.

Only an hour away lies the biodiversity mecca of Bako National Park. After a slight transportation malfunction that resulted in us waiting for 2 hours for the bus, we arrived at the ferry to the park a little late in the day (around 3 PM). We met a group of international students also going to the park, and we caught a ride on their boat. We had Germany, USA, Kenya, Iran and Australia represented amongst the 9 of us. It was a fun boat ride to the park. We had a dorm bed booked for 2 nights so we weren't worried about time too much. On our way to the room, a troupe of macaques appeared. These thieving little monkeys saw my plastic bag full of dry noodles and fruit and wanted some o' dat! There was a faceoff and the human was the winner this time. I was the scarier primate. Only a few moments later I saw the same group of macaques run up to a girl, rip open her plastic bag and steal so many biscuits. She was terrified, it was hilarious.

After checking in, we went down to the sprawling beach in front of the lodge. The tide was out so we could walk very far down the beach. We stopped to look at a tide pool. Inside this tiny pond we found 3 kinds of fish, 3 kinds of crab, a barnacle, a clear shrimp, a lizard nearby and a hermit crab. I knew for sure that this was a special sort of place. We walked further down the beach and found some more hermit crabs climbing on the rocks. I conducted a science experiment to see if it hurts when a hermit crab pinches you with it's claws, resulting in a definite "YES OH GOD GET IT OFF". After convincing him to let go by dunking him in the water, we turned around to go back and found that the tide had come in so much we had to wade back part of the way around some of the megalithic sandstone formations. Needless to say, the tide pool was underwater. I hope the animals in it didn't drown. Further down the beach we saw a crowd and we walked over to see what they were looking at. 3 huge boars had come out of the forest to forage on the beach. We watched them dig crabs out of the sand as the sun set. So romantic. 

After dinner, we signed up to do the night walk. This was a short hike in the dark to see some nocturnal animals. We saw so many spiders, so so many. Some of them were as big as my palm and others even bigger. I definitely don't want those on my face. We saw a small pool brimming with catfish, and a friendly terrapin. On our way back, we saw the coolest animal: a flying lemur, or Colugo. The cute little guy was just sitting up in a tree eating leaves and sap, not even caring about the dozen-odd people taking photos like he was Britney Spears in hotpants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunda_Flying_Lemur

The next day we decided to hike to the waterfalls, about 2 1/2 hours away from the lodge. We set off and jaunted through a mangrove forest, uphill through the jungle to the kerangas, a scrubby forest. Along the way we saw lots of pitcher plants, a type of carniverous plant that catches flies and eats them! The ones we saw were small, there is no way a human could be eaten by them, don't worry guys. We got to the waterfall, where we ate lunch and shared with the fish below us.  We walked down to the beach nearby, and then walked back, seeing even more pitcher plants and some proboscis monkeys! That night we hung out with two South Africans that we met, Mike and Adrianna, who we ended up sharing a boat ride back and having dinner with the next day.

Our last day we woke up early (kinda) and went for another hike. It was very hot this day, but as we hiked upwards there was a noticable shift in humidity (down) that made the heat more bearable. Whilst in the jungle we found some hermit crabs, which I didn't even know lived in the jungle. Seriously we were at least 2 km from the ocean and yet there he was, sitting in his little moss covered shell. Weird. The most surprising things in life are not the things you never thought you would see, but it's the things you never thought about seeing or not seeing. There are things in this world you can never even conceive of conceiving until you see them.

Anyway, we hope you are all enjoying these blogs, as much as we like we don't have time to send individual emails to everyone so hopefully these blogs make you feel a little more connected to us, as we would not like to come back and find our friends know nothing of our lives for all this time! Well that being said we know not that much about your lives excepting a few so email me back and let me know! To all the people who aren't reading our blog: YOU SUCK!

Don´t Hit Your Head on the Hanging Skulls

Well howdy there partners, prepare for another wild adventure into the Borneo frontier!


So apparently we've washed up in a little town in Sarawak, the north-western state of Malaysian Borneo, that you can only access via river. That being said, there are a surprising number of cars here (shipped up the river) and it's unquestionably more modern than many places in other S.E.Asian countries (for example: all of Laos). We've been here for 3 days just kicking it around town, mostly eating at the same restaurant (because the food and people are amazing). Our original intention for coming here, though, was to visit a longhouse: the traditional domicile for natives in Borneo in which an entire community (maybe 150 people) live under one enormous roof. As the name implies, the house is very long. We managed to make it to one today, hiring a guy named Henry, who our new friend Presca, a Chinese-Malaysian girl we met here knows, with a van who "knows the villagers" to take us (turns out he´s only been there twice).

He showed up and, unfortunately for the sake of communication, couldn't speak English nearly so well as anyone I've met at any restaurant in Malaysia but he was a nice guy. He told us that they didn't know we were coming, which can be a faux pas and is therefore unideal. The roads there were, unsurprisingly, also less than ideal: windy as a Burmese python and a lot less docile, making for a bumpy ride; pretty country though (and loads of banana trees en route). Well we arrived and they were kind enough to invite us in, though, again, communication was a bit of a problem. I asked a tattooed old man in purple shorts, sitting on a plastic chair with its legs chopped off, and he said that there are about 200 people who "live there," though many are away, working in other towns (like Kapit, where we're staying now. One girl named Agnes said her husband works 5 days a week in town, only 45 minutes away, and comes home only on the weekends).

Also, there were a large collection of human skulls hanging from the ceiling! These skulls were darkened with age but grinning wildly from a tangle of woven rattan----from the tribe´s former head-hunting days (murder was later made illegal, much to the disappointment of the Iban tribe). Henry told us that they were over a hundred years old but the old man said they brought that particular batch in when he was little (showing a hand at waist level) and he couldn't've been that old. Well we had an all right time sharing the fruit and biscuits we brought as a present and sort of talking to the adults there. But the real fun was definitely playing with the little kids! They were ridiculous and, without the drain of modern media, super easy to rile up! So we ended up alternating kung-fu fighting and dance partying, with conga lines and explosions galore!
They did charge us 50 Ringet though ($50÷3), which we weren't told about and were a bit put off, considering we just came to meet these people and see their house for like an hour and we brought them food gifts. But I've heard the tourism industry has long exploited their hospitality, bringing groups of tourists and leaving them to sleep on their veranda and giving them no pay so I can see where they're coming from. Plus they have real human skulls there, which is a big tourist attraction.

Well we're at the Internet Cafe now (which has turned the internet from something we "get on" to something we "go to") but our new friend Jeffrey, whose mom owns that awesome restaurant we've been eating at, is coming to take us out on the town! So nearly every meal we get a chance to talk to him about life in Malaysia and how different life is for Malays, Indians, Chinese, and the many different tribes living in Borneo. He´s a super nice guy. And yee-haw! Here he is now!

[Later:] So Jeffrey and his amiable cousin Wesley took us out for a night on the town. They showed us the Malay village, the Chinese quarters, and took us on a winding road to a hilltop view of the whole (admittedly small) city of Kapit! We then went out for some Tiger Beer (we´re getting paid for advertising here), where we met some of their friends and had a lovely evening. It´s nice to have friends again. So we´ve now departed from Kapit, with the weird vegetables in the market and the friendly faces all around, and are continuing along on our lone adventures!

Primate Heaven

Borneo: for those of you that haven't heard of it, it is an island consisting of 3 parts: Eastern Malaysia, Indonesia and the tiny kingdom of Brunei. It's name conjures up images of steamy rivers, jade colored mountains dense with jungle, and headhunters! It is a land of mystery and excitement, where strange animals roam unfettered through the untouched forest. That's what I always thought anyway. It hasn't been exactly like that, as in, no headhunters anymore, and huge swathes of the forest has been turned into palm plantations but nevertheless it is certainly an interesting and rewarding place that we have been exploring.

We flew into the capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, on July 26. We chose Malaysia Airlines over Air Asia this time thankfully. We got pink guava juice and a full meal of Indian food: paneer, dahl and rice! We only ended up staying one day in KK before heading to Sandakan, a town on the East coast, for an Eco Film Festival. This event was really cool, it was a bunch of awesome nature/film lovers all coming together for lectures in the afternoon and then film screenings and musical performances at night. It was all free! A guy named Roger Munns from the production company Scubazoo gave a talk on underwater filmmaking and showed some clips of humpback whales that he filmed for the BBC documentary "Life" episode "Mammals". He told us that the most important thing about filming animals is to know your subject. He said that divers make better underwater filmmakers than trained cameramen because they understand their subject better.

On Sunday, we went to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. This is a really great place where they take orangutans, who have often been orphaned by the pet trade (who wouldn't want a sweet little orangutan swinging from their chandelier?) and train them in their forest reserve to live life in the wild again. The Sepilok reserve is 5529 hectacres, so these apes are basically living in the wild, apart from their daily feedings, which for only 30 Ringitt (about 10$) anyone can come and see. There are around 60 apes living in the reserve, but only a few show up for each feeding. They swing and jump through the trees adroitly and onto the feeding platform, where they have bananas, cucumbers, and oranges waiting for them, and all the tourists (including us) are delighted and snap hundreds of photos! The website for this amazing organization is: http://www.orangutan-appeal.org.uk/
 

The next day we headed to Uncle Tan's Nature Camp for our 3 day jungle safari. It was a bit of a splurge for us, but when in places like this sometimes you have to treat yourself to an amazing weekend of exotic wild animals. Heading up the Kinabatangan River in a motorboat, we started spotting animals before we even got to the camp. Silvered languars, brahminy kites, macaques, and white egrets were our animal appetizers. After we got settled in, we went for a nighttime boatride, where we saw frogs, saltwater crocodiles, owls, and civets. When we got back to camp, I saw another civet only 12 feet away! Beautiful stripey weasel. We began the next day with a morning nature cruise, where we saw lots of birds, like Kingfishers, egrets, crested serpent eagles, oriental pied hornbills, and the craziest monkey ever: the Proboscis Monkey! More on him later.

Kingfisher

 All of the guides at Uncle Tan's were very knowledgeable about the animals and were really good at spotting them. They could see a small bird or a still monkey from 100 meters away, in a tree, sometimes in the dark! It was amazing. On our afternoon nature walk our guide Leo spotted a frilled tree frog sitting on a trunk that I couldn't even see when he pointed right at it with a stick, not for a few moments anyway. That evening we went on a sunset cruise on the river, where we saw thousands of flying foxes departing their roosts for the night. The sky was thick with them for around 15 or 20 minutes, these huge bats taking flight to gobble jungle fruits all night. Quite a sight!

That night, after an amazing dinner, we had the option of taking either the "hardcore" trek or the normal one. After hearing rumors of thigh deep mud on the hardcore trek, I decided to go on the normal one, while Travis, always up for a challenge, went on the hardcore one. We set off on our hike and after spotting a few gigantic spiders, a weird elephant insect, and a few colorful sleeping birds, we hit the endangered species jackpot. The other guide (of the normal hike) called to our guide and sounded really excited. We all slogged through the mud to see what was in the tree. I got mud up to my knees but I didn't even care. Up in the tree was...A SLOW LORIS!!! I was so thrilled to see one of these in the wild, not only is it very cute, it is also very endangered. Our guide said they only see them once or twice a year! I was positively glowing as we headed back to camp.

Two hours later Travis still hadn't returned from the hardcore hike yet. I was just going to ask the cook if everything was ok when I heard the hardcore group come back. Indeed there was mud involved. From the looks of it, lots. Apparently they had gotten a little lost in the swamp. "What did you see?" I asked. "Oh, a lot of kingfishers" said Mr. Travis. "How many?" I said. "Around 5 or 6, but some of them were the same one. Also a baby tarantula." Mud up to his thighs, Travis sat with me in the dining area drinking by candlelight with some of the other people at the camp. Erin, a fellow yank, was so sad that she didn't get to see the slow loris that she went out with one of the guides after midnight to try to find it, but no luck. "The animals wait for no one" said Lon. I mean, he's called a slow loris, not a stationary loris. On my way to bed, the palm civet frightened me again in the dining room.

This wildlife camp was so much fun, surely one of the highlights of my trip. Who knew Borneo would be so good for me to see animals? I had a sneaking suspicion...Today was another epically awesome day. We were so excited about seeing the proboscis monkeys at the Kinabatangan that we decided to go to the Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. We arrived and it was heaven. There were wild monkeys everywhere! Proboscis monkeys are one of the strangest species I have ever seen. The males have huge noses, they use them to attract mates. We got to be so close to them too! And some of the silver languars that were hanging around had cute little orange babies clinging to them. We also got to see some hornbills up really close.

Proboscis Monkeys: #1 Weirdest Monkeys

Sabah, Borneo: paradise for nature lovers. It has been wonderful seeing so many animals in the wild. I have never been on a safari before. Maybe next time: Africa! What a dream for us to get to go to Borneo. This is a place of my dreams, and I am here now!