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Ahoy!
Just to remind you my name is Richard I study and like philosophy and my lifelong dream is to kill a man and make a soup from his bones. Im spending 101 days in Asia this summer in the following order: Singapore > Malaysia > Indonesia > Malaysia > Thailand > Cambodia > Thailand.
its been 8 days away and I have an afternoon spare so I will now enlighten you lucky people on my hijinx.
Short version:
Singapore: ok. Borneo: excellent. Items lost: 3. Locals offended: 1. Interesting people met: some. Wildlife spotted: none.
Long version:
The flights were pretty bad but managed to get do some reading even tho i got no sleep. If I ever own a plane company I wiill train my cabin crew in hypnosis and just after they explain how to put on your seatbelt they will hypnotise everyone into a deep sleep that lasts until the plane lands. or instead they can just hypnotise people and implant memories of a good holiday, will save on carbon and a bit like Total recall both very good things.
My first few days on Singapore were spent wandering
Nigel
Is he crazy or is it everyone else thats insane? (answer: he is crazy)from shopping centre to shopping centre which is actually how most Singaporeans spend their lives. The two main attractions are shopping and eating and I like eating so it wasnt all bad. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trawling the city going from shop to shop looking for the ultimate hiking gear which sucked. I shouldnt bad mouth the shopping centres though because in one of them they had a dance off between the power puff girls and some cruddy rockers called Puffy Ami Yumi. I thank christ everyday that the power puff girls won the contest (and my heart).
I did most of the tourist stuff in Singapore. The Asian civilisation museum is awesome. The botanic gardens and the zoo are top drawer but just like everything in singapore feel really artificial.
The temples are beautiful though and every religion has a temple that looks like it was inspired by Monster in my Pocket.
Its a strange city/ country/ island. Everything is sterile and the people seem a bit lifeless. The locals tell you that they are proud that Singapore is so clean but its a bit like saying your proud of
White tiger
Probably the best tiger in the world your son because he is punctual. Give me dirty and interesting any day. I hung around with the people from my hostel a bit, and met some interesting people along the way. While leaving one not very nice shopping centre and asking for directions to a slighter better one I got talking to an Australian called Nigel who filled me in on all the government oppression in singapore. Nigel seemed a very interesting chap and we ended up talking for ages. I met him again few days before I left for a meal and a few drinks. He works laying optical laying cables on islands and travels around Asia getting freelance work. He had an interesting take on life which turned out to be just plain nutty. Some of his more crazy theories is that the world is controlled by intergalactic reptiles and they were close to taking over the world 2000 years ago. Luckily Jesus who is a 9th dimensional being (he didnt list the dimensions) thwarted their plans. Nigel was a fruitcake but he seemed like a happy fruit cake so I didnt point out that he was batshit insane, instead I just ate my nice food and
smiled.
2 days ago I took the bus from Singapore to mainland Malaysia and then flew from there to Kuching, (a town in Malaysian Borneo). BTW if anyone thinks Borneo is a country it is definitely not and you are definitely stupid. I was relieved to have arrived somewhere a bit less fake than singapore and was overjoyed to see my first cockroach. You leave England learn from other different cultures but Singapore has just taken the worst part of our culture (materialism) and made refined it into an art. BLah!
Kuching has been excellent. As soon as I arrived at the hostel before I was shown my room I was met by the bartender Peter and handed some rice wine and told "Welcome to the Jungle". Its a pretty good line so im sure he uses it on all the guests. Kuching is the biggest town in Sarawak with about 500,000 people. The owners of the hostel (which is just above the bar) are from the Iban tribe and so most of their family still live in Longhouses (a big communal house where everyone sleeps in one big long room) out in the jungle. Compared to
Mr Nicotine
Chewing gum is banned but apparently the Singapore government dont mind tobacco themed childrens snacks Sarawakians Singaporeans are lifeless, people here are much more open and friendly and though there is some gawking, most people especially the yout are pretty savvy.
While wandering around a buddhist temple yesterday I got talking to a local buddhist. He happily explained the ins and outs of buddhist afterlife in perfectly good english. He explained the theory of karma and how it stops you getting tortured in the afterlife and this guy must have the best Karma in the world cos he then took me for some lunch and despite my protests paid for my meal. Turns out his brother channels spirits. Every saturday people come round to see him with their problems and he goes into a trance and channels the appropriate spirit and either gives a blessing or tells them that they deserve punishment for something they did in a past life. If anyone is doubting his skills listen to this:
There was this woman who had this big lump in her neck. She dismissed western medicine and went to see this guys brother. He went into his trance and channeled the spirits and hey presto after 3 months the lump went away. I will trust
this story has satisfied all possible doubts you may have had about this mans powers. SHUT UP!
So tonight im going to go round and check one of his trance sessions and have a meal with this guy. Im taking along a couple of peeps from the backpackers in case we need to fight off evil spirits or weirdo psychics.
Anyway that brings me up to yesterday and to last night which definitely counts as the most interesting encounter so far. The fun started after I returned from a hard days exploring the city of Kuching and sat down to a beer with the other backpacker folk. Everything was pleasant and the locals were in high spirits because it was a friday night. Peter John Jaban the bartender and Jade a 29 year old dreadlocked Australian girl had just returned from a wedding they had gone to together. Then at about 12:30 the evening took a turn for the worse when out of nowhere Jade ran outside onto the street outside the bar with Peter chasing. Peter grabbed her dreadlocks and threw her to the floor. Me and a couple of locals ran outside to seperate them. Peter
Peter
The Robbie Williams of Borneo was shouting "Thief, she stole my phone". Even though there were 3 people in between he was still trying to grab her.
She started walking off but Peter chased her. I got in between but he grabbed her and I tried to seperate them. He was after his phone which he said she had stolen. His friends came to stop him and delayed him enough so she could run off and throw his phone in a nearby street bin. He was a bit behind so he didnt see and she told me to not to tell him anything and to trust her. She implied it was related to something to the criminal world and I should keep my mouth shut until she explained. I was pretty confused and so thought I would go along with it and wait for her to explain.
Meanwhile Peters friends convinced him to go back to his bar. Me and a Borneo native: Martin went for a coffee with Jade to make sure she was alright. She didnt explain the phone thing but it was while sipping on a coffee that the whole sordid affair was revealed. First a bit of background on
Peter. Peter came from a traditional village in Borneo and sports the tattoos to prove it. He is a small guy but very charming. The most bizarre thing is that he used to be a pop star. About 20 years ago he moved to the city and started singing in clubs, his gimmick was that he was the first ever pop singer from a traditional Borneo tribe. The gimmick paid off bigtime as he had one smash hit and sold quite a few albums (by Borneo standards I guess). At the toilet of his bar (the one under the backpackers) is a newspaper article about him back in his heyday with a photo of him lounging in the recordigng studio and one of him on stage in a scanty loin cloth. apparently even now when he goes back to traditional villages he is treated like Michael Jackson but now his singing career has died down and he has bought a bar with the profits and has been living the high life ever since.
Anyway the whole drama started when Jade flew from Australia to Borneo. the truth is quite depressing actually as she was married to an aboriginal in australia and he also used to beat her. She had had enough and jumped on a plane to anywhere. She had only been in Kuching for a few days when she ran into the charming Peter who seduced her with boasts of the gentle nature of Bornean men. By the time I had arrived she had been in Borneo for 2 months and had spent 3 weeks living with Peter in his families village in their longhouse. She thought that they would live happily ever after.
The dream got shattered just about the time she discovered that he already had 6 wives and 16 children. Peter was a player and while Jade was deeply in love with him, I think he saw her as another interesting notch on the belt. Jade told me that the night before the incident he had invited 2 of his wives to the bar as well as Jade and spent the night shuffling between the three. he did this alot she said and he would see which girl became the most upset by this and then accuse her of being disrespectful and leave with the other two. Jade also said that Peter had beat her before.
I told Jade she should just get on the next flight back to Oz but there was one slight complication: she said she was pregnant with Peters child. this is about the moment when you really need Jerry Springer to come in and sort it all out, but there was only me and Martin the local and we were tired and confused. I dont know whether to believe her about the pregnancy but things are still pretty fucked up regardless. The whole incidient that night had started when Peter had spent the night with Jade but was constantly texting his other girlfriends and wives. Jade being more than a little tipsy got sick of this and grabbed his phone and ran outside and this is when I first entered the situation. After piecing together the story from her drunken ramblings I realised that the phone thing was an attempt to regain some power in the relationship. She kept saying she didnt care and that you cant spend your life worrying but there was a real sadness in her eyes that betrayed her tough words. I felt really sorry for her but she was a strange girl and seemed like she had brought it on herself by coming into a world that wasnt meant for her. The idea of a malaysian girl grabbing her mans phone and running away is utter lunacy. I didnt want to seem like I was siding with the woman beater but was scared of Peter (Martin told me I should not cross him at all) and didnt want to be caught in the middle so I told Martin where the phone was. After this Jade said she wanted to go back to Peters bar for another drink. Somehow this seemed like a good idea (I dont know why) so we got the phone out of the bin and headed back.
Once we got back there things got even stranger. The bar was now full and the music was blasting. Peter was still fuming and instead of apologising for trying to grab and hurt Jade he was angry at her for stealing his phone and seriously angry at me for aiding and abetting a thief. He didnt think that he had done anything wrong and was really really angry that me and the others had tried to stop him grabbing Jade. He said that he had reported Jade to the police and said that he reported me as an accomplice. I was pretty sure this was bullshit but it was scary nonetheless.
He kept saying to me that I was in the wrong as I had tried to protect a thief. He told me about 50 times that no-one does this in Borneo and that I should respect the rules of his country. I was amazed at his arrogance and while I wanted to stick up for Jade I was way out of my depth so I just agreed with him. Once Jade was back in the bar she seemed to do her best to piss Peter off. She would just stare him menancingly in the eyes which was obviously her best attempt to fight for the power in the relationship. The other backpackers were at the other side of the bar and I didnt think that me sitting by Peter and Jade was really helping so I sidled over and left Martin to keep the peace. Martin was really good to me and he told Peter that I was in the right and he should not be so rude to me. I even got a half hearted apology and more importantly free drinks for the rest of the night.
Strangely enough the evening turned out really good. The atmosphere wasnt spoilt and Jade seemed to forget about the horrible situation (though im sure she didnt). A group of young malaysians with perfect english befriended us (me and another brit backpacker and his dutch girlfriend) and turned out to be some of the coolest people ive met so far. The young Borneans love Blur, Kula Shaker, Oasis and Dire Straights and by 3am everyone was singing along seriously badly to the music.
Im not sure what will happen with Jade and Peter. I just found out that she is flying out in 5 days but Im not sure if its gonna end there. she did seem deeply in love with the crazy guy so who knows what will happen. I hope you dont mind my long ramblings but i thought the story must be told!
Anyway that takes me to today. Tommorow I am going off to trek the national parks and see the more rural Borneo. ive been really lucky because one of the people in the same hostel as me has just trekked the Kelabit highlands and that is where I am heading next. He gave me the number for someone who can contact a local guide who knows the route from Long Lellang to Bario. Its a 6 day trek but I probably have enough high tech gear to see me through and apparently they can arrange you to go hunting with a local tribe: The Penan. Sounds like literally the best thing in the world!
Hopefully that will work out alright and then after that im flying (sorry Earth) to Kota Kinabalu to climb the ball bashing Mount Kinabalu and then off for some Orangutangs and some diving before heading down by ferry to Indonesia.
Also in case your wondering I havent just been finding the weirdos in each town I have met many nice normal people who arent worth mentioning.
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humfrey
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