"If you've spent years dreaming of
Borneo, of longboat trips down murky rivers, of jungle trails green in tooth
and claw, of smoky longhouses and drunken dances, of strange creatures and
hidden caverns, of blowpipes and head hunters, rest easy. You've just
found what you're looking. Sarawak is 'classic' Borneo par
excellence, and
few other places will reward a little adventurous spirit so grandly."
AH,
Lonely Planet. How did you know I've spent years dreaming of Borneo, why
do you use such lofty language, and why are you always saying 'par
excellence' ?
Today a
self-described skinny Asian man told us the popular guidebooks should be called
"Lying Planet." Okay, I
haven’t spent years dreaming of Borneo, until I got here I think I only
associated it with the orangutans (which we saw, btw, and they were awesome…although
also really touristy). One of the
only reasons we even came to Malaysia was because we saw a commercial in Nepal
produced by the Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, and it looked cool. So we booked a flight and bought a Lonely
Planet guide. Then when I was too
overwhelmed by Kuala Lumpur, we booked a flight to Malaysian Borneo, because it
sounded more exotic and less developed than its peninsular counterpart. So here we are in Sarawak, paying $9 a
night each for a bed in a 12-person dorm (it may sound cheap, but we’re used to
paying $2 a night each for a double room with attached bath in Nepal), using
the free wireless, and dodging high-speed traffic whenever we venture out of
our hostel. We did just come back
from 4 days in Bako National Park where we experienced ‘jungle trails green in
tooth and claw’, and we saw a lot of wildlife, but the park was basically
overrun by tourists during the day.
Which is fine, it’s great that tourism is doing so well here, but I’m
still adjusting. I don’t even know
where I’m going with this blog entry, I guess I’m just complaining, and I
should stop… all I know is I’ve spent way too much money in the past 2 weeks,
eaten way to much food and junk food (Malaysia is the first country since the
US where we’ve observed rampant obesity), and complained way too much about
such things as spending money and the excesses of modernity. SO, I’m hoping this little blog entry
will get it all out of my system and I can just enjoy my last weeks abroad
before returning to the US and really having to deal with spending too much
money and being overwhelmed by consumerism. In fact, maybe I should view Malaysia as a kind of
transition back home…okay, will do.
I
think I feel better know. Not that
I didn’t feel good before, I think I just felt like making fun of Lonely Planet
in solidarity with the skinny Asian man and then started blabbing. We are making one last attempt at
escape from overdevelopment and have booked a flight to the Kelabit Highlands
in Borneo, where the rest of the dreams Lonely Planet projected onto me should
come to fruition. I hope to hang
out with tribal people in their longhouses, drink their rice wine and dance
drunkenly with them, and avoid at all costs McDonalds, KFC, and Pizzahut
(coming in the near future: a video montage of Michelle singing a childhood
song about these fast food joints in front of various fast food joints around
Malaysia...hey, if we weren’t laughing, we’d be crying…). The Kelabit Highlands has no banks or
ATMs, and supposedly it’s possible to hire a guide (granted, an expensive
guide) and disappear into the jungle for a few days, staying at various longhouses. So that’s the plan. Wish me luck in the wilderness again…
