Malaysian Borneo

When we were in Spain we met some Kiwis (who I think as a country are the world's most likable travelers) that told us their favorite travel experience was a wildlife camp in Borneo. It seemed like an unique experience so I put the name in my phone and a few months later when we got to southeast Asia we decided to do it. The flight there was surprisingly cheap and the camp price fair, plus when else were we going to have the opportunity to go into the Borneo jungle?

Our flight took us into Kota Kinabalu (or KK, as it is often referred), the main city on the Malaysian side of the island of Borneo, and then a few hour bus ride brought us to Sepilok where the base camp was located. Near the base camp is an Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, where you get to see injured or orphaned orangutans being trained/rehabilitated to be released back into the wild. It was incredible seeing them up close - far more so than I expected it to be. I've been to zoos before, and watch a lot of David Attenbourgh, but it was something else to see them so up close in real life. How similar they are to us, and how graceful and easy they move through the trees was a really special thing to see. Here's a video of one of them:

Later we headed out to the wildlife camp, which involved an hour and a half car ride to the Kinabatangan River, where we boarded a boat that took us about 45 minutes upstream to where the camp was located. Along the way we stopped numerous times when the guide spotted some orangutans and other wildlife in the trees along the shore. Over the next three days we would be spending a lot of time in that boat cruising the river for wildlife.

Kinabatangan River

bigfoot or an orangutan

The camp is what you expect a camp in the middle of the jungle to be like: basic. It looks like any sort of camp you've been to except there's no running water, doors on the cabins or roads to/from the camp. It was a different kind of humid than what I've ever experienced. Not the most humid necessarily, but maybe the grossest humidity...if that makes any sense. Of course, lack of AC or fans makes it feel pretty gross. But I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining because this is what we expected it to be. We didn't come to the Borneo jungle for the comforts of the Borneo jungle, but instead for the Borneo jungle-ness of the Borneo jungle.

Over the next three days we saw some crazy animals, including: crocodiles, Gibbon monkeys, huge lizards, insanely massive dime sized ants, way too large spiders (bigger than your fist), beautiful kingfishers, hornbills, thousands of little fucker monkeys, and the amazingly repulsive proboscis monkey.

crocodile

Gibbon monkey

not sure its name. basically a dinosaur.

hornbill

owls

Macaque monkeys, aka little fucker monkeys. These bastards are everywhere and are real pains in the ass. I had already had my fill of these guys before we even got to Borneo. The locals also hate them since they steal whatever they can, from electronics to crops. Our guide called them the "jungle mafia."

The most memorable animal for me was easily the Proboscis monkey. They are one of the largest monkeys in Asia and are memorable for a couple of different reasons. One being their huge noses. For males the bigger the better - some even have noses even hang well below their mouth. Another aspect is their pot bellies, which contain about a quarter of their body weight and makes them all (males and females alike) look permanently pregnant. But for me their most memorable feature has to be the male's permanently erect red penis. It's kind of hard to miss. Proboscis monkeys live in groups of usually 12-20, that consists of one male, his "wives", and offspring. It was really something watching them for a while. They look so big and awkward from afar, but then one time we saw the male get mad, honk at the rest of the group for a while and then peace out and jump ever so gracefully to what seemed a very far distance over to another tree. Wish we had a video of that.

We somehow even saw a solar eclipse while were there:
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After three days of sun, humidity, mud, mosquitoes, and river water “showers” we were about ready to head back to the air conditioned and running water world. A long few hours late we make it back to KK for a few day of loitering before our glorious flight back to SF. We didn't do to much in KK in those few days, aside from walk around town, stopping in air-conditioned malls whenever we saw them. Not a lot of pictures to share, but here are a few, including some very memorable South Indian banana leaf rice and curry.

We were so excited to be heading back to California, literally counting down the days. It made these last few days go extra slow. Being at the end of the trip we were pretty worn out and excited to be heading somewhere familiar. I couldn't wait for that burrito that I'd been thinking about for the last 7 months, and of course we were excited to see friends and family again.

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more Borneo photos

That time I lost my passport in Indonesia

Have you ever wondered how to ruin 5 days of a trip to a new country? It's quite simple, I'll break it down for you.
Step 1: Lose your passport. How to add some extra turmoil to the situation? Don't notice until you have taken an hour flight away from the capital and a 3 hour bus ride to your destination.
Step 2: Spend hours trying to contact airlines and buses in hope of finding said passport to no avail. Step 3: Lose sleep and wake up at 4:30 am to fly back to the capital where a new passport can be obtained.
Step 4: Skip seeing the sights you were most looking forward to seeing to procure new passport.
Step 5: Spend money unnecessarily to purchase an expedited passport.

So yeah, that's how I broke in our Indonesia trip. It sucked. The process of getting the passport was actually pretty painless, it was just the stress to me, Joel and my friend who was helping me that was the big downer. Now that I've moved past the lowlight of the entire trip I'm glad to discuss the highlight of Indonesia, which was seeing my friend, Asra. I met Asra 12 years ago via the Bjork chatroom. Remember, chatrooms? Those were the days (also the days of AIM)! I first met Asra and some other bjorkers from the chatroom in San Francisco. Asra ended up being a generous and kind guide, showing me San Francisco sights. Over the years I came to share lots of memories with Bjorkers in San Francisco, with Asra leading the way taking us to great restaurants, coffee shops, etc. About 8 years ago Asra moved back to Indonesia and I hadn't seen him since, until now!

He's still the same generous and kind person, of course. It was really special to get to know Jakarta, Asra's city. He patiently translated for me and helped get me get my passport. As you all know, I love food, and Asra took us to some great Indonesian food. My favorite was a restaurant that made food from Asra's home region on Sumatra.

Padang style

Us at the aforementioned amazing Sumatran restaurant

We had the good fortune of being in Jakarta when one of Asra's several bands (Efek Rumah Kaca) was playing a show. It was so awesome to see the venue packed and the crowd singing along and passionate. Additionally, we got to meet several of Asra's friends and chat it up. We even stayed out until 4am, a very late night for "Old Lady Ramirez."

crowd surfing at the final Efek Rumah Kaca show

We ended up spending 5 days in Jakarta thanks to my passport woes. What's Jakarta like? It's a massive city and holds the title of worst traffic in the world. I can attest to the insane traffic, it can be astounding. Note: Asra is a badass driver. In a city with so much traffic one must be decisive and aggressive and Asra rocked it. A subway system is under construction so it will be interesting to see how much traffic is reduced. We stayed in Kemang which has lots of restaurants, shopping, and was very lively. We didn't actually see sights in Jakarta since we took some days to recover from non-stop Vietnam travels, and just hung out; it was really nice. It's different to visit a city, spending time with a friend, rather than racing around trying to see a city. Of course, we'd like to see more of Jakarta at some point, but we enjoyed our time there.

Bogor Botanic Garden

Bogor Botanic Garden

I also have to mention the weather. It's the rainy season which means that there are these amazing downpours that last hours. I love watching and listening to downpours, from the safety and dryness of the indoors, of course. We got to witness lots of great downpours and the accompanying humidity. Lots of 80-100% humidity days which my California-dry-weather-body was not a fan of but I'm much better at tolerating after 8 weeks in Southeast Asia. I actually found myself thinking, "It's pretty good weather for 80% humidity." Never would have said that before.


Bali

Goa Gajah

Bali wasn't our first choice of places to visit in Indonesia but they had the cheapest flight, by far, to our next destination so we ended up going to Bali. It's the most visited island in Indonesia and attracts hoards of tourists. We didn't have much time on the island so we only got to spend time in 2 different cities, Sanur and Ubud (Ubud is famous for being that place where Julia Roberts finds love in Eat, Pray, Love). Bali is beautiful, of course, but we didn't find it all that interesting since it is so touristed-out. Still, we had a good time walking around.

not sure. as seen on the streets of Sanur

Saraswati Temple

evil macaque monkeys as represented in Ubud street art

Observations:

• KFC is suuuuuper popular in Indonesia. Like 2-story-restaurant-24 hours-popular. 
• No surprise here, I blend right in with Indonesians.
• Joel can generate a B-list celebrity status crowd (see video below)
• Whats that smell? You know, that smell I've never been to place all these years. It's durian! Turns out I do not like the taste or smell of durian. 

Next stop: Malaysian side of Borneo.

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Jakarta photos
Bali photos

The whole town's made of iron ore

The obvious musical reference sure, but a classic and one that I couldn't get out of my head for nearly all of our 14 hour layover. But unfortunately the lawless sailor town that this song describes is long gone (probably never existed) and instead we found an extremely clean, organized, and very sterile city filled with skyscrappers, businessmen, closed circuit cameras, and insane (and insanely strict) laws. Which is very different from the other Southeast Asian countries we have visited. A sampling of these insane law include being a gay man, chewing gum, spitting, not flushing the toilet, using someone else's wifi signal, feeding pigeons, and of course drugs...which will lead to "hanging on the Tuesday after you are convicted".

Singapore is a city-state, meaning it is a country that is made up of only the city of Singapore. It's the only country in the world to be given its independence against its will, when it was booted from Malaysia out of fear of its too large Chinese population. Going back to its early days as a sailing town, Singapore has long been an international city with a melding of Malay, Chinese, Indian, Arab, and western cultures, but at the time the Malaysians worried that the majority Chinese population would undermine the Malay rule and opted to expel Singapore it from their country. Singapore sure showed them though because the city-state is now one of the wealthiest, cleanest and most educated countries in the world – although it is also criticized for being a boring, stale and uninspired place (something the government is trying hard to counter).

We landed in Singapore in the afternoon and caught the subway out as soon as we could to make the most of the limited daylight we had. The subway is, as you would imagine, super clean and efficient and yet still cheap!

We had planned on seeing a lot more than we ending up seeing, but our first stop of the Gardens by the Bay was far larger and more impressive than we had originally expected. It is filled with beautiful and unusual plants, but the most iconic part are its solar powered "supertrees", which light up beautifully at night.

Planet by Marc Quinn - a massive naked baby sculpture in the Gardens by the Bay

We also ventured into the Cloud Forest, which is an Academy of Science-esque indoor tropical rainforest.

We then got some food at one of its hawker food stalls, which offered a range of foods from Indian to Costa Rican. Afterwards we headed over to the nicest Chinatown on the face of the earth. We never really enjoyed visiting Chinatowns but we always seem to go anyways. I didn't like this Chinatown much either, but for an entirely different reason than any other one I've visited: it just seemed like a boring douchebag bar area. It was super clean, empty and mostly consisted of lounges, wine bars, etc. You get the picture.

Chinatown

Chinatown

This was the extent of the non-airport Singapore that we saw. We had hoped to see Little India, which we read was more interesting, but we had to catch the subway back out to the airport before it stopped running.

The airport is probably the nicest airport in the world. It has a free movie theater, swimming pools, orchid garden, koi pond, and a 40 foot slide. It was a great place for a long layover, and would have been a great place to sleep at, if the cleaning crew didn't follow us around to steam vac whatever area we happened to be trying to sleep. We had to move several times and never really got more than an hour of sleep at a time – but so it goes with airport sleeping...even in the best airport in the world.