How Ann Taylor met her fate

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Ann Taylor. Master of fashion. Fabulous designer. Clothes. Bags. Sunglasses. My sunglasses. My ex-sunglasses. You know how sometimes you get attached to an article of clothing or a piece of jewelery that just "becomes you" or "makes you complete?" Well, at the risk of sounding shallow, materialistic, or snobbish, I had one of those such items. My Ann Taylor sunglasses. Silly, indeed, I know, but these shades fit me. They fit my face, they framed my face, they looked good, and best of all, they were ON SALE when I bought them. Ah, the things that make a girl happy!

How Ann and I first met.....

A few years ago I walked into an Ann Taylor Shop in my home town. Mind you, I am NOT a shopper and still have and wear clothes from my college days. But, there was this pair of sunglasses on a shelf with my name on them. I remember the moment well. They were originally priced over $100.00. Ok, for a pair of designer sunglasses, UVA and UVB rated (I don't dink around with my eyes!), that probably isn't a lot of money, but for a frugal person such as I, it was too much to spend! BUT, the news gets better. They were part of a 50%-off storewide sale AND even better, they were resting on a shelf marked for an additional 30% off the already-reduced price! Everyone loves a bargain, right? Well, at this point I couldn't resist, and so just had to purchase them. The cashier rung them up, but much to my dismay, the register didn't come up with the 30% off. It turned out a customer before me must have picked them up, and inadvertently put them on the shelf marked for the glasses for the additional 30% off. Well, luck was in my favor that morning, as "the customer is always right" policy came into play, and because of this nice, unsuspecting woman before me who laid the glasses on said shelf, Suzi got her specs for the additional discount. I walked out of the store a very happy customer indeed.

From that moment I was rarely out of doors without them. I grew quite fond of my shades, and in return, they have traveled a good bit of South East Asia with me the past few years. Until a month ago. When they disappeared into the crocodile-infested waters of the Kinabatangan River in north east Sabah, on the lovely island of Borneo. I would like to say Ann Taylor met her fate with a far more exciting story ending, but sad to say, someone shouted "BIRD!" and all of us in the boat looked up, not to find a hornbill, eagle or some other rare bird only found on Borneo...noooooo....that would be too perfect an ending for poor Ann. As it was, it was, it was, it was.....just a bird. A plain, boring bird. My head shot up, my glasses, which were resting on the top of my head, flew off, and I whipped my head around just in time to see them disappear over the side of the boat. And for anyone out there who has ever traveled on this river, you know the last thing you want to do is stick your hands outside of the boat, for fear of never seeing this appendage again. Crocs do exist there. Many crocs. We were traveling at a good clip, as night was fast -approaching, but, nonetheless, the boat driver, bless his heart, spun the vessel around and went in search of the now-for-sure-drowned AT's. They were gone. Drowned. Dinner for the crocs, no doubt. Sorry designer extraordinaire, Ann Taylor, you are now sitting on the bottom of a big murky, muddy river. Bummer. Big bummer. I was very sad at my loss.


Where the river meets a jungle camp....

"The Kinabatangan Floodplain in the east coast of Sabah is one of Sabah's most splendid natural treasures," according to one brochure I picked up. "This includes a freshwater swamp and lowland dipterocarp forest and home to some of the largest and most diverse concentrations of wildlife species in Borneo," the article continued. Ok, I was hooked. I, like so many others travelers that come here, wanted to see wildlife--in the wild! I decided on a highly recommended two night / three day stay at Uncle Tan's Jungle Camp, where ecotourism meets the wilderness. It is quite the heavenly area if you can manage to rough it a few days. This was no Hilton, the cabins basic and bare. Mattress on the floor with a provided mosquito net. Nothing else. Then again, it's how I am used to traveling so it didn't bother me one bit. The mozzie net was a luxury item for me.

Spotting wildlife here in the jungle is quite easy, though finding anything larger than a monkey is rather rare. I did manage to see a few wild orang utan, though. During the few days I was there, a mama and her baby had made camp in OUR camp, unfortunately just high enough up in the trees to be out of focus for most point and shoot cameras, including yours truely. We did manage to see one on an early morning boat ride, however. She was swinging from tree limb to tree limb above us, just like on the nature channels. Yes, they really do that in the wild! I managed to get some of her actions on video.

THE Kinabatangan River is about 560 KM and the longest river in all of Sabah, full of enchanting wonders of nature, in the form of wildlife, bird species and flora, some indiginous to only Sabah. Oh yeah, and my sunglasses. :-) There are some Bornean elephants and rarely seen Rhinos that exists out there, but the closest we came to seeing any were some monstrous footprints of an 'phant! Close enough for me and far more than so many get to witness!

One western gal had been staying at this remote camp deep in the jungles 7 months already, volunteering, but I'm not exactly sure what she was doing. She went out on a couple of nature hikes and river boat trips with us but short of asking her, I never did know exactly what it was she was doing out there.

Our little group of 11 split into two for our daily organized jungle walks and jungle river boat trips; it was enjoyable to only have 5 or 6 of us on each trip. We managed one evening in the near-full moon to see a gibbon swinging from tree to tree just off the river. Our guide told us he usually sees gibbons 2-3 times a year so to consider ourselves lucky! Gibbons are part of the ape family (as are orang utans), and not monkeys, as many people tend to wrongly classify them. They have extremely long hands and feet and can swing from branch to branch distances of up to 50 feet at speeds up to 35 MPH! Most gibbon species are endangered mainly due to deforestation and illegal logging.

During these few days at camp, I saw monitor lizards, crocodiles, orang utan, proboscis monkeys (last two only found on Borneo and on Indonesian Sumatra), macaques (those cheeky little bastards....), a gibbon, tarantulas and rare frogs. I saw rare orchids growing wild in the jungles and many, many different types of birds including eagles, herons, kingfishers (what unbelievable colors these small birds have!), hornbills, and owls. It was a trip well worth the money and I highly recommend the trip to anyone coming to this part of the world!

BANANA LOVERS AND FINDING NEMO.....NEXT!
STAY TUNED...................

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