In the Borneo jungle with George and Bungle
Melaka turned out to be a small, nice, quiet city. Very relaxing. It has a history that involves the Portuguese, Dutch and yes the English too (we were everywhere man). Infact, 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Malaysian independence from guess who?????……yes, the English. Many building styles are in evidence here. The first night here I got hammered in a bar with three Malay trainee Doctors (Warning - V Expensive beer here). They wanted to play pool and I kept winning (I was at the point when you have had just the right amount of beer). Then some Chinese lads wanted to challenge me, but for a beer per game to the winner. I had a real lucky run and won 5 or 6 games in a row and started to get really pissed when I finally lost one. It was a good laugh and put me at ease with the country which is actually a really good place to visit - very pleasant and friendly. To sobre myself up a little, I went to one of the 24hr coffee bar things which have a very Arab feel about them. I met this lad who worked there and he said when he finished at 0800 we can get some more booze from the shop and go to his house to drink it! You know me - I’m like ‘No bother - let’s go’! So off I go to meet his family over a beer and meal! It was good. The Father wore one of those Muslim hats and did his prayer thing now and then. It was quite an experience. We slept all day then I walked back to his coffee bar at 2000.
I took a walk along the city river with an ex-Royal navy geezer to see the ‘Kampungs’ (traditional Malay villages with houses on stilts) and we saw more than we bargained for. As we approached the village, the mudbanks of the river was swarming with mudskippers (like the things from the Guiness adverts), but more impressively, massive Monitor Lizards! These things were as big as a man with big fat bellies. They were totally wild and it was a relief they were more scared of us than we were of them! They were perfectly at home sheltering underneath the houses and swimming in the dirty river. All this is to a background sound of hypnotic Islamic chanting from one of the many Mosques. These chants are amplified through loudspeakers and occur at regular intervals during the day - it was a first for me.
I took a bus to Kuala Lumpur (KL) the capital of Malaysia. Four nights here spent drinking and trying not to choke on the traffic fumes. I visited the Batu caves - huge limestone cliff caverns where Hindu shrines and worshippers are in abundance. Soon there is a festival here where approx one million people come. I am told that some men pull weights along the ground by means of metal hooks hooked into their skin! I think this is to show their faith or something! The omnipresent Macaque monkeys reckon they are really hard. I visited the Petronas Towers - two hugely impressive silvery/glassy/shiny structures linked by a ’sky bridge’. I was too late to go up the things but it was enough to see these man-made giants from the bottom.
It was with much joy and relief that I boarded an aeroplane and headed out of this sprawling metropolis. I was headed for Borneo and the adventures therein. I spent 2 nights in Kuching with quite bad flu (bloody air-con in KL). I still felt rough when I went to Bako National Park for the next 4 nights. Anyway, despite the illness, this place was mint (I am running out of superlatives as I wax lyrical about all these locations). I saw among other things: Pitcher plants (the ones that eat insects and small mammals), Proboscis Monkeys, Silver Leaf Monkeys, Macaques, Bearded Pigs (you get these in the Bigg Market too), numerous Snakes (couldn’t identify the buggers), Bats, Rats, Squirrels, loads of multi-coloured birds and enough vegetation to keep David Bellamy occupied for years. Insects also like it here - they are here in their billions, big ones, little ones, biting ones and worst of all those mosquitoes - aaahhhh.
I went on long hikes everyday to waterfalls, secluded beaches and hill tops for glorious views. These hikes were exhausting. I did 11km one day but it feels like 20km in England. The heat and humidity make you sweat like some kind of weird alien creature. The effort is worth it though as you find yourself alone, miles from any human, deep in the dark, dense, steamy, exotic, scary but thrilling rain forest. These places are giving the name ‘rain forest’ because it rains very much………funny eh? To say it rains ‘a bit’ here is like saying Simon Cowell is ‘a bit’ gay. All the clothes I have been wearing stink to high heaven. I have washed them but they don’t dry properly and then you stink them out again within 5 mins anyway. My hiking boots??? Don’t even try to imagine what they smell like.
I did a night-hike with my two torch-owning Swedish room mates. I called them ‘George’ and ‘Bungle’ but they had never seen Rainbow. We hiked deep into the jungle with its deafening night chorus and then switched our lights off. What happened next was magical. Many of the decaying leaves were luminescent in the pitch blackness of the night. We didn’t expect this - beautiful. We saw many fire-flies doing their intoxicating nightly dance which was an honour to witness.
All in all, these 4 nights in the jungle have been one of the greatest experiences of my life. Next I want to head up the Batang Rejang river and see some tribal shit.
Ciao (Italian for Bye)
Tags: 1
