Borneo to KL

---

We arrive in Borneo at 8pm - very exciting! and hook up with oddbod Jerry - a fruit obsessed American from deepest bible-belt land, to share a cab into the centre of Kuching. Takes a while to find a cheapish place here, and we settle for hip and friendly Singasana Lodge, before heading out for our first Nasi Lamak, fried banana and sweet potato fritters at one of the waterfront stalls (we return to this place, run by a woman and her 2 teenage sons, time and time again and chat a lot with them!). We see some giant wildlife straight away - snails and moths! L fools M into thinking one of the many kitch cat statues is The Cat of Kuching (Kuching = Cat City) to avoid traipsing around all evening (!) and we return to Singasana to arrange a tour to see orangutans the following morning.

The big monkeys don't disappoint! A guy from the lodge drives us out to Semanggah lodge where they live wild but some come for food, provided because they have been rescued from poachers or sickness. After a few minutes of anticipation we hear them crashing through the trees and see around a dozen of them over the course of an hour, including a huge male and a couple of babies clinging on - ahhhh! Love the way they use their feet as hands and cleverly crack open coconuts. We leave when a group of c.100 school-kids turn up and freak them out - grrr. On return journey, we tell Richard we are surprised that people seem to speak English perfectly in Malaysia and he explains that there's been a move back to teaching in English since independence in the 1970s, when Malay became the "unifying" language; this never worked in a country with such a high % of indians and chinese. Lovely diverse and spotless Kuching, with its colonial buidlings, chinese shopfronts, indian streets, Sikh temple, bazaar and mosque, is no exception, we discover. It's red hot and we're becoming lime-juice addicts, which is fortunate as beer is very pricey except at odd chinese pavement places, one of which we discover but are too intimidated and confused to order food! We end up at a food court - these places are incredible in Malaysia! It's all Chinese seafood and veg, cooked to order, and after being assailed by all the waiters, we bond with a Malay woman who does very well at finding us a gorgeous meal for our budget. Once we find our way out (bizarre - only entrance seems to be via a 6-storey carpark), we go back to our new hotel - Singasana was noisy and windowless. Tune Hotels is owned by AirAsia and seems characterless from the outside, but here, amongst the staff, we meet some of the loveliest people on our trip. Loving the 5* bed, less the blocked shower and tiny-ness!

Up early for public bus to Bako National Park - we're really excited! There are several other tourists heading out so we can share a boat when we arrive in Bako village. The 20 min ride takes us past secluded beaches backing onto rainforest - Borneo! We do a couple of trails today and see the pot-bellied, long nosed proboscis monkeys found only in a couple of locations in the world, but even on site we see silver-leaf monkeys, naughty macaques (the ones which will steal anything out of your hand/bag/plate!), palm squirrels and impressively bearded pigs.The massive £1 buffet at the cafeteria is a bonus - mmm dosa canai! After boiling in the 95% humidity and 45 heat on a 2-hour trail, we strip down to undies and luxuriate in warm water at Telok Paku cove, surrounded by beautiful forest, until we have to leap out coz we see monkeys investigating our stuff on the rocks! They just call more mates and are very confrontational - scary little buggers: lesson learnt! When we get back, hot, stinging, stinky and soaked, there is no water for showers! Apparently the dam is empty as it hasn't rained for a while: great. It has to be said, Bako NP is incredible but the accomodation is extremely basic - huge room, not clean, with saggy campbeds and no loo flush or bucket...

Have to rise at 5.30 to see birdlife before it's too hot. It starts to rain but we persevere and do a mangrove/forest trail - it's pretty challenging and we don't see much wildlife, except pitcher plants & horseshoe crabs. It's a relaxing afternoon bird-watching from our balcony; we even wait patiently and eventually see some stunning red and colourful woodpeckers at the mangroves that evening. And walking back, proboscis monkeys right along side us - they are indescribably odd, like little old men! and a small, beautiful pit viper in the trees. We do a second night walk but see nothing again and give up when torrential rain comes - yay - shower! Next day though we have a true culture clash experience - with Gerry, the American! He has been following us about and asked if he could walk with us; Laurent expressed concern that he might be a hardliner (he does strangely resemble JC) but we can't shake him off. The beach is truly stunning but spoiled by the fact that Gerry really steps into crazed religious preacher mode on the return. The gist is that all one needs is fruit and god; poverty and oppression are nothing to moan about. Makes M simmer with anger, but we pity him too - total fruit-fuelled reality disconnect! Bus back to Kuching is a "shake rattle and roller" and incredibly hot, especially when driver nips out for 15 mins leaving the engine running.

Back at Tune Hotel we have showers of bliss and M finds a launderette - they can't weigh our stuff because it's too wet! When we head out later to the Sunday Market we come across Dean (he's a guy from New Mills, our neighbour from Bako NP) heading back, sweaty and defeated, so we decide to share a cab. Then we see a Gawai festival (tribal harvest festival) going on at the Hilton opposite so we sneak in and Loz gets immediately dragged into the ring of dancing by a yodelling guy in a head-dress, much to M and Dean's alarm, and OK, amusement! The market proves more relaxing and is pretty good for food, then we all go to Nomad bar for rice-wine and further chats.

Next afternon, Des from Tune Hotels takes us to Annah Rais longhouse for the Gawai festival. He gets a bit lost and stressed and then seems to flout longhouse protocol by taking us in rather than awaiting an invitation. The Chief is warm but firm and makes it clear that tourist day is in fact tomorrow so we tell Des he's going to have to bring us back tomorrow. Oops! Car conversation is interesting - Des is surprised we aren't married and says how surprised he was by a survey which showed Chinese girls had slept with an average of 1.2 people ie. more than one - how amazing! He is gobsmacked when we explain that some westerners sleep with hundreds and that furthermore, I know some of them! We tell him about how we need to find a wedding to incorporate into our wedding video for Rachel and Justin and amusingly, he says today is a day for Chinese weddings as they only take place on "lucky" days and Gawai is one. Surreally, we then gatecrash a wedding and get some photos and footage before being invited to stay as guests of honour! We decline - they are all wearing glad-rags, and opt for pizza hut and cinema - Night at the Museum 2 - love it!

Next day we escape the overpowering drain smell at Tune Hotels (some teething problems) with Des for Take 2 at the Longhouse. We are early so spend time with Dayin, who works at Tune (so does his mum and bro) and is from here. He takes us to his uncle's home - also a small homestay for tourists - where we consume far too much rice-wine, Tuak and cigarettes! It's an anything goes attitude here in this tourist-friendly longouse, but still traditional in some respects including the house for storing the enemies' skulls... Finally, we eat to soak up some of that moonshine, Loz tucking into the fat pig we saw in body just last night :-( We watch some performances and all the VIPs, including the chief introduce themselves to us: they are a line of men in patterned fancy silk shirts! We promise to send photos and meet Dayin tomorrow. But when we rise, his mum laughs at our hungover states and tells us she has had 1-hr sleep and him too - he's not coming. We take a boat across the river instead and walk on the north side through pretty and friendly kampung, where we eat rice cooked in bamboo and some Malay tourists take photos of us with them. It's our last night and we head bravely out to Nomad bar again, where the owner introduces us to the manager of Tune Hotels and his mates sitting in a corner: 1 drink becomes 6 when we don't realise that finishing your drink means they have to fill your glass again - literally! He's very full of himself and we hint that we think the staff at Tune are fantastic and underpaid - they get R450 per month in the cafe...Next morning, it's bye to our lovely friends there and we promise to return before transfer to the airport for Kuala Lumpur.

Landing in KL is dramatic with acres and acres of palm plantations - land stripped for profitable oil. East train and bus into town but end up in Petronas Towers' maze of a shopping centre and walk around the very pedestrian-unfriendly expressways, car parks and dead-ends of town trying to find somewhere affordable. We give up and take a cab to cheaper Golden Triangle - all the one-ways so takes ages then have fight with taxi driver who charges us for luggage. Alpha Genesis hotel pretty crappy and unfriendly - KL seems to suffer somewhat with capital city syndrome - but area is lively with lots of bars and close to Jalan Alor, a street where you can eat chinese cheaply at street cafes.

Next day we explore Times Square and Lot 12 shopping centres where we also both have Toni & Guy appointments - much needed. Amusing how people queue for 10am shop openings and flood in. Lots of pricey Western shops and some cheap fake-brands. Then we take the tiny 3-car monorail to Central Market - bit disappointing despite the pretty Victoria market-hall. Walking back via bustling Chinatown is more interesting. We end up at a huge internet centre until the banging games soundtracks, music and youth becomes too much for us! Gorgeous evening meal at posh Bijan restaurant - fish, tapioca roots and fern salad mmm.

We want to visit Petronas Towers properly for the supposedly amazing view so we leave early in the morning to queue up and just get in the 4pm slot. Meantime we visit Kampung Baru Malay area which seems quieter and more traditional than the Chinese and Indiian areas, with wooden homes and its huge mosque. Interestingly, there seem to be many more veils worn in KL and we think English spoken seems far poorer than Sarawak or Penang. Hot and exhausted we buy gorgeous buttery roti from Rotiboy to eat in the park where M is immediately whistled at and admonished for lying down in a public area! After enjoying the views from the Towers and the exhibition about how its basically not the tallest building any more, we rush to collect our bags and only just catch the 6pm airport bus - public transport in KL isn't joined up so you end up walking a long way.

We're booked into our favourite at the low cost carrier airport -Tune Hotel! Better than 4am start tomorrow. We get fastfood at Marry Brown and hang out a bit at the airport, a bit reminiscent of Kath n Kim at Tullamarine, we think. Next morning, its a good job we like hanging around in airports because our flight to Bangkok is cancelled. Good job also we were on an early flight as we have our Bangkok-Hong Kong flight this afternoon! Twas always a risk. We plead with Air Asia to be put on next flight instead of this afternoon and - this would never work with Ryanair! - they do so. Still have 3 hours to bus it over to Cathay at the other terminal to find out about whether we can transfer in Bangkok (we can't). Arrive in Bangkok in time anyway, thank the lord. Duty Free is equally rubbish - no clothes or electronics. Can't wait to get to Hong Kong and see what the real city that never sleeps has to offer!

---