Borneo is proof that God does not butter his bread evenly

The title sums it up.  We stole that quote from our guidebook (please don’t sue us Lonely Planet) and it says all you need to know about Borneo.  From steamy tropical jungle filled with wildlife to a semi wild sanctuary for endangered Orangutans to one of the top ten dive sites in the world loaded with sharks and turtles, the Malaysian part of Borneo offers everything a nature junkie could ever want and then some.  It was a great place to spend the last few weeks of our trip and we are so glad we changed our course to end up there.  

From Bangkok we hopped a plane and headed south to Kuala Lampur on mainland Malaysia for a short layover before boarding a plane to the island of Borneo.  It turns out Borneo is the third largest island in the world and three separate countries lay claim to different portions of it: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei.  We would have loved to roam the rest of the island, but our 2 week time schedule limited us to the Malaysian section, and a small part of it at that (we only visited the state of Sabah).  There is just so much to see and do, it’s the type of place we’d go back to in a heartbeat (if it wasn’t for the crappy food that is).  It’s also the only Muslim predominant country we visited which added an interesting cultural perspective to this nature lover’s paradise. 

We landed late at night and were greeted by a downpour during our 2 hour taxi into Semporna, a harbinger of things to come (who knew it rained so much in a place covered by rain forest?).  We spent our first day trying to obtain permits to scuba dive at the famous Sipadan island (in an effort to conserve this unbelievable site, they limit entrance to 100 scuba divers/snorkelers per day, making permits tough to come by last minute) and trying to minimize our time in this fairly awful neck of the world (Semporna is a shady town and you do not feel welcome as a foreigner…and it smells like hot garbage).  We soon realized diving was not going to happen on our timetable, so we made a reservation for 8 days later, spent a second regrettable night in Semporna, and headed inland by bus early the next morning.

We made our way to Sepilok, the home of the world’s largest Orangutan sanctuary.  We stayed in an awesome jungle retreat, located outside of town and just inside the “jungle” (the quotes belong there because this part of the “jungle” was surrounded on 3 sides by palm plantations that drive out wildlife and biodiversity, a sad fact of Borneo where around 70% of the jungle has been razed to make way for palm (where palm oil comes from)).  It was there that we met our friend Nina from Germany, who would soon become our travel companion for the next 2 weeks.  The theme for this part of our trip in Borneo was “Monkeys Galore”.  We spent one day at the Orangutan sanctuary where they adopt injured and abused Orangutans and return them to a semi wild state, the non-wild part being that they are fed a bunch of fruit twice per day in front of a huge audience of tourist spectators.  The Orangutans are free to roam anywhere (there are no walls or cages), but they generally dig the free meals so they show up pretty reliably.  Before going we were given the great tip to hang around a little after they eat and leave, at which point all the tourists typically leave, and then a few Orangutans usually come back to clean up the scraps.  Along with Nina and a staff member (there to make sure the Orangutans tolerate our presence and we don’t do anything stupid), we had some private time, three of them and four of us.  The word Orangutan is translated literally as “jungle man” and their mannerisms, facial expressions, and interactions with each other are all you need to see to understand why.  Borneo is one of two places in the world where Orangutans live and we were fortunate to see them again, only in the wild the second time, a few days later. What amazing animals. 

Our room in the "jungle"

Actually yawning, not growling.  Doesn't it make you want to
yawn? I just did

Orangutans call this triple fisting

Yep, monkeys really do love bananas, that's an
entire banana in her lower lip

Nope, she doesn't know who the Denver Broncos
are nor what a super bowl champ is.  She just liked the shirt.

We went to see more monkeys the next day.  This time we went to the Proboscis sanctuary, another place where they rehabilitate and feed monkeys (and make a lot of money).  Indigenous only to Borneo, the Proboscis monkey is a caricature of an animal and it’s impossible not to laugh while watching them.  The males have bulbous noses, oversized potbellies, and a habit of loudly passing gas, it’s hard not to think of the proverbial alcoholic uncle while watching these guys.  The males also have the curious trait of having a … uh… erection, for a good part of the day, something both the ladies and he himself (and us) find entertaining.  The feedings also attract other species of monkeys and they feed the Silver Leaf macaques right on the viewing platform where people stand as they are pretty docile (as long as you don’t try to steal their green beans!).  We got up close to the Silver Leafs (some people actually had their hair cleaned by the monkeys) a great way to end our two day monkey binge.

"What do I do with this thing?"

"I'm sexy and I know it"

"That's right ladies, look what I got going on"

Nina striking a pose with a silver leaf macaque

Going in for the lick, the macaque seems unimpressed

From Sepilok we (Nina and us) headed further inland and up the Kinabatangan River.  The river is the lifeblood of this part of the island and is surrounded by lush jungle, mostly secondary jungle but still very dense (secondary meaning it had been razed in the past, untouched primary jungle is hard to come by on Borneo).  We spent three great days and two not so great nights at a jungle lodge, but unfortunately lost some sleep while being terrorized by a huge jungle rat (in one night/day he ate through our toothpaste, ate a hole in Todd’s bag, chewed through a water bottle that then leaked all over, chewed Maggie’s sandals, and generally wreaked havoc on our world.  They moved us to a different room the next night after a well timed loud scream by Nina when she tempted to use our bathroom only to find our jungle friend there to greet her We were then rat-free but still kind of traumatized).  We went on several “safaris” up the river in boats, spotting ever more monkeys, innumerable species of birds, a giant crocodile, a wild Orangutan making a nest as shelter from the rain, and on and on.  We also went on two hikes through the jungle (and deep mud), one during the day and one at night.  The jungle was absolutely crawling with wildlife; we’ve never seen so many great animals in such a short period of time, it was like visiting a zoo without walls.  But, while we enjoyed our time in the jungle, three days of insect bites, constant rain, deep mud, crappy food, and rat visits were enough for us and we were ready to leave. 

Leech

Leech on the move

 We made our way by bus back to the town of Semporna, and unfortunately had to stay another night in that not-so-nice town.  The next day, though, was what we had been waiting for and the big reason we went to Borneo.  We convinced Nina that she should learn to scuba dive, so the three of us took the boat provided by our lodge out into the Indo-Pacific Ocean and to the island of Mabul.  A tiny speck of an island north of Borneo, Mabul is home to many scuba outfitters (it’s not possible to stay on Sipadan) and a thriving fishing village.  We stayed in a lodge right over the water (the significance of this will be apparent soon) and had a great time at Uncle Chang’s.  We finally got to dive Sipadan, only for one day though as permits are crazy expensive and hard to come by, but it was absolutely worth it.  We would like to retract the statement in our last blog post that Thailand is the best place we've ever scuba dived, Sipadan now takes that title, by a wide margin.  It was simply amazing, from the tiny nudibranchs, to the 15 foot eel shark, hawksbill turtles, white and black tip reef sharks, and swarms of barracuda, all three dives were the most action packed we've ever had.  After Sipadan, we had two more days of some very nice diving around Mabul and some of the surrounding islands, but nothing compared to Sipadan.  A bar has been set that will be very difficult to reach again. 

Serious seclusion living over water with no one else around

15 foot Eel shark, hard to get perspective
on how large this guy was

Us in our hammocks from Thailand

Nina and Maggie with rum and cokes in the hammocks at sunset,
a tradition for those 6 days

This and the next six are all different types of Nudibranchs

Two cuddlefish, very interested in what were doing.  They can rapidly
change the colors on their skin to blend in with what is behind
them.  Sometimes they're very hard to spot

 Featherstar on the move

The frogfish.  So well camouflaged they can be very hard to spot
and almost never move

This frogfish looks like he might spit fireballs

It was our second to last night on Mabul (out of 6) when the craziest incident of our whole 4 month journey happened.  We were sleeping soundly after throwing Nina a scuba shower (long story short: she didn’t know what a baby or bridal shower was, they don’t do them in Germany, and after describing it she requested a scuba shower, and we said “why not?”) when we awoke to water pouring into our room through the ceiling.  Not knowing what had happened (other rooms had flooded on earlier nights and many times the storms were very loud) we quickly moved our things to the one dry side of the room and then looked out the window.  We were surprised to see that the balcony where our hammocks had been hanging only hours earlier was completely missing.  Then we realized this was much more than just a leaky roof.  We went outside and found our lodge had been badly damaged with the entire balcony ripped off the decking and the roof of our building completely torn away and nowhere to be found.  We had flooded because there was just a thin ceiling between the heavy rain and our room.  It turned out we had been hit dead on by a cyclone (basically a tornado over water).  Because Nina’s room was spared, we moved the rest of our things over to her room and went back to sleep very thankful to be alive.  The next day the damage was even more dramatic and we couldn’t help but think that we were incredibly lucky to escape alive, uninjured, and, least importantly, with all our electronics still working (but all of our luggage completely soaked).  What a crazy night!

Before cyclone

After cyclone

After from behind

Despite the damage, Uncle Chang’s was still a great place to hang out.  So we spent one more night and the better part of the next day relaxing over the water and drying out our clothes and packs.  We then hopped the afternoon boat into town and, in an attempt to avoid any more time than necessary in Semporna, jumped on an overnight bus to the capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu.  Because we got in so early (about 3:45 AM) we ended up getting a pretty decent night’s sleep on some benches in the airport.  We then flew out of Borneo back to mainland Malaysia, had a small layover, and made our way to the last stop on our adventure, Singapore. 

Singapore is about as opposite to Borneo as any two places could possibly be.  Singapore is the most futuristic city either of us has ever visited and it was quite a shock to leave nature-overload Borneo for this capitalism-on-steroids shopfest of a city.  With lit up video walls everywhere, seven story underground shopping malls, an incredibly efficient and clean subway system, and escalators to whisk you absolutely anywhere you want to go, we really felt we had stepped into the future and were disappointed there were no flying cars.  We had a great few days in Singapore, although if we had stayed any longer we would have come home in bankruptcy as it is a very expensive town.  We saw the city from on high with a ride in a giant Ferris wheel at sunset, strolled through the immaculate and huge botanic gardens and visited the world famous orchid gardens, ate wonderful food in this world culinary capital, and did a lot of mall walking as that seems to be the main thing people do in Singapore.  We also had a great night out with a woman from Singapore that we had met in Borneo and graciously offered to show us the less touristy side of Singapore.  All in all we had a great time in the future, but unless one of us develops a thing for high end shopping (Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Armani, etc. are all over the city with multiple shops), once is enough and we don’t see a need to go back. 

Only in Singapore do they put a boat on top of skyscrapers

Not sure they are but they just look futuristic

The top of the ferris wheel

Extremely futuristic light show, the whole thing is
projected onto a jet spray of water

Get ready for a ton of orchids, seriously

And what better way to end our trip in Asia than coming across
a photoshoot for what appears to be anime characters 

 We left Singapore on May 21^st and, after stopping in Tokyo and Los Angeles, arrived to Denver 20 hours later and completely exhausted.  We were greeted by family and friends with a nice BBQ at Todd’s parents’ house.  It was a bit rough getting accustomed to life in the US again, but we’re both now over our reverse culture shock and life is back in full swing.  Maggie went back to work teaching 5 days after we got back and has since been to two bachelorette parties and two weddings, a busy month.  Todd started his residency in Internal Medicine last week with orientation, and then had this week off because of Brittany and Will’s wedding.  He officially starts at University hospital this Monday.  So, life in the US is back in full swing, and we’re already counting down the days until we can do another trip like this again.  We learned and experienced so much over those 4 months that we know we’ll never see the world (or each other) in the same way.  Travel, particularly extended travel, is a mind opening experience and both of us feel incredibly privileged to have been able to take a trip like this.  We’ve made a lifetime of memories in a very short time and even though it’s already getting hard to remember everything, the lessons we learned will stick with us forever.  So, that’s all for this blog until our next big adventure.  Until then, you stay classy America (we certainly will). 

 Top things we’ve never done before this trip

1)  Scuba dived with a shark (a bunch of them actually)

2)  Had our roof torn off by a cyclone and lived to tell about it.

3)  Nearly sat on a 5 foot giant hawksbill turtle as they are surprisingly camouflaged.

4)  Had white rice and chicken for almost every meal for 2 straight weeks.  Okay, not actually a top ten, more of a bottom ten.  We’ll be all right if we never see white rice again.

5) Explored the future in Singapore.

6)  Threw a Scuba shower

7)  Spent a bunch of time figuring out what Kiblat (or kiblah, or qibla, or qiblah, kibla, or kible) is.  It turns out it is the direction of Mecca and is marked on the ceiling of all hotel rooms in Malaysia to point the Muslim faithful in the right direction for prayers.

8)  Hitchhiked to save walking on a scorchingly hot day

9)  Made our way from India to Singapore by planes, trains, subways, busses, cars, mopeds, motorickshaws, human rickshaws, bikes, parachutes, ferries, boats, canoes, camels, elephants, scuba flippers, and our own two feet.  What an adventure!