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Published: September 12th 2008
Leech falls
Toby said the waterfall was nice and warm... and full of leeches who like it where it's nice and warm. Long time no post. We're still in Borneo, just haven't had access to good wi-fi for a while. We went to a place in the highlands called Bario because people told us it was "untouched" and had few tourists as it was only accessible by air. We hoped to hike from one village to the next and stay in traditional long houses which are (no duh) really long houses which can accommodate up to 50 or 60 families. They have one long room for hanging out, one long room with individual kitchens, and individual family sleeping quarters in between. But when we got there nobody lived in long houses. Apparently the government has encouraged people to stop building them for fire reasons. Okay, so I guess that makes sense but bummer for us. On the up side, the pineapple grown there was absolutely delicious and some cooler air was a nice change.
We did see quite a few long houses along a river that we boated up but we didn't get to trek around the area much. Toby caught a flu and we chilled out (literally) in a hotel room for 3 days until he recovered. We did get a
chance to take a short trip up to some waterfalls. Toby took a dip in the pool at the base and when he came out he had a stow away... a leech. Where would you never ever want to find a leach if you're a guy? Yup, on one of his boys. Maybe it was doing a rubber band impression. ;-)
Back in the saddle, we went to oil rich Brunei. They don't sell any alcohol there (though they let you BYOB a little) so it was a very short stay. The sultan's brother, the minister of finance, blew over US$1 billion on the self purported six star Empire Hotel. We went to see what it looked like and well, they didn't get much bang for their billion. I think someone un-feng shui'd it as the layout was really weird. The lobby was nice but not an OMG. Past the lobby and down some escalators to the right was a huge open atrium with at least 10 stories held up by marble columns. But you couldn't really see the whole thing from any angle so it seemed kinda useless.
We hiked to some caves loaded with bats and
swiftlets and cave paintings. But the best thing has been a few days on an animal safari in Kinabatangan National Park. We were so lucky to see some wild orangutans. There were dozens and dozens of probiscus monkeys, macaques, silver langurs, huge horn bills, and tons of other birds.
Off to do some diving for the next few days.
Ciao!
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George
non-member comment
No leeches for me.....
Continue to post I just love living the adventure vicariously,sans leeches of course. Take care of yourselves relative to health! I don't need to tell you there is danger out there. The pizza plate special is particularly daunting.