First off, while I really do appreciate all the emails I’ve received over the past couple weeks concerning my (apparently far too well documented) love-life, I will say that commenting on the site itself is far more helpful at times — in terms of site-traffic and my own reading (given my constant traveling on and off the grid).
Anyhoo … right now, I’m still in Borneo. Malaysian Borneo, to be precise.
After leaving Brunei, I flew into Kota Kinabalu, the largest of the Borneo airports, where I stayed/slept overnight before taking a connecting flight to Sandakan, which is known for its proximity to one (1) of four (4) of the only natural orangutan preserves in the world.
After meeting up with my friends in Sandakan, we made the hour trip to the jungle preserve, where we stayed for two (2) days seeing all kinds of neat shit — orangutan’s, macaque monkeys (mean little fuckers, they are), monitor lizards, hornbills, and the ever elusive Honky-Tonky, Winky-Wonky Monkey.
From there, we went off the grid for a couple days, heading to the Kinabatangan River in southwest Malaysia — which, measuring 560km, is the longest river in Sabah — where we took stayed overnight for a river tour through the forest.
It was really nice. We saw wild elephants, proboscis monkeys (the ones with huge noses), pig-tailed macaques again, and a whole bunch of other great shit. I usually don’t go in for the whole ‘set-up safari’ kinda thing (preferring to instead just hire a boat and do it myself), but I was with friends and it was a fun time.
We left yesterday morning, traveling all day via 3 separate buses, and arrived here — in Semporna, Malaysia — yesterday evening. There’s finally phone and internet service again, so it’ll be nice to catch up and take care of some business that I’ve been neglecting over the past couple weeks.
I’ve yet to get a bead on this place. It’s a port town, and it lies on the border of three (3) countries — Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines — so it’s got that dodgy ‘port-town’ feel. It is best known for its amazing diving (according to some, among one of the best in the world) … and for its international piracy (due to its location, its an almost ideal smuggling and/or escape route from/between Malaysia, Indo, and the Philippines). So there’s a HUGE military presence here.
Yet despite this, and the ubiquitous tourist vibe due to the whole diving scene, the place also has a great vibe. Unlike Indo, where it’s almost expected and/or frowned upon to hav a cursory knowledge of Indonesian, when they hear my limited Malaysian (the same language, but for slang — sorta like the US and the UK) here, the faces light up, they laugh, and they try to help me with the next sentence. It’s still unique, I think, for them to see foreigners who speak even a little Malay in this part of the country.
Ironically, I’ve avoided this part of the area since there’s no surf here, and it turns out to be one of the nicest places I’ve visited in Southeast Asia so far.
In two (2) days, we’re going diving — taking a boat out to an old converted oil-rig, on which we’ll be staying for four (4) days diving our brains out (9 dives in 3 days, I think). I’m not sure if they have internet on the diving rig, so after tomorrow, I may be off the grid again.
We’ll see how it unfolds.
