8 months down, 4 to go, & a field report from Borneo.

I never imagined myself in Borneo. It sounded like one of those places that only National Geographic photographers or very serious candidates for a PhD. in Zoology would be allowed to venture off to. But here I am, being neither of the aforementioned, in Borneo. How did I get here you ask? Well, Malaysia was part of our original list of countries to visit, and part of Borneo is Malaysia, or Malaysia is part of Borneo, or something like that. Let me explain.

Malaysia and its capital, Kuala Lumpur, are located on a peninsula, to the south of Thailand and north of Singapore, which is not the capital of Malaysia (couldn’t resist). Malaysia also claims ownership to a large portion of a giant island located to its east, that island being Borneo.  Borneo is made up of 3 countries, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Indonesia has the largest portion, about 73%, Malaysia the second most at about 26%, and Brunei just a tiny tiny bit, like 1%. Which is funny, but not really that funny. Back in the year 1400 it was mostly all Brunei, or at least the entire coastline was, as the interior was rife with headhunters, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Later on, the British and the Dutch got involved and divided up most of the island but left a little tiny portion, rich with oil, as Brunei.

So when Malaysia made our list of places to go, some traveller friends suggested we hit Borneo. When we arrived in Malaysia we read up on it and made a plan. One of the attractions in Borneo was the Proboscis Monkeys – the one in the photo. The Malaysian part of Borneo is thickly settled on the north east section. The capital, Kota Kinabalu, a city twice the size of Manchester, NH. It has about 5 nice islands right offshore. One day we took a short boat over to sap and spent the day swimming and reading and I even did a little jungle trekking.

We signed up for a river tour that more or less guaranteed us views of the Proboscis Monkeys and it didn’t let us down. We were on the boat less than 5 minutes when one of our guides spotted one. the boat slowed and stopped and we watched from a distance. We had about a half dozen sightings during our cruise. The monkeys are really interesting and they’re in the wild which is even more interesting. We learned a lot about their habits and their troops.

Speaking of monkeys this may be a good time to mention a recent encounter I had with a monkey in Malaysia. We were in northern Malaysia for a week on the island of Penang. There’s a national park there. We did a jungle trek through the national park all the way to the shore. Then we had arranged a boat to take us around the coastline and drop us off at “Monkey Beach” which had a trail, that may or may not be open, that would take us back to the park headquarters where we began. Anyway, after the boat dumped us off, we searched for the trail, but saw no monkeys on Monkey Beach. Funny I thought. Every Monkey Beach I’ve ever been to had plenty of monkeys and people feeding them. We found the trail and headed toward the jungle again. There, sitting on a wooden railing, looking quite burned-out, was a monkey. He seemed to pay us no attention, which is good, and we continued walking. Then I felt something pulling on my daypack. I turned to see that I was in a tug of war with the monkey, for my daypack. Without even thinking I turned, grabbed my pack and began to swing it off my shoulders as I didn’t want the monkey and closer, and I certainly didn’t want him to get the daypack, which had my wallet, keys, etc., inside. I yelled, raised my arm at him, and wrestled it away from him. He backed down. We back-tracked to the beach. The boat had already left. We had to go back into the jungle trail and pass the monkeys again in order to get back home or we could wait and see if another boat was coming at some point. The adrenaline was flowing. I took my daypack and shoved it under the from of my t-shirt where it would be out of sight from the monkeys eyes. I walked back toward the trail, toward the monkeys, confident that I had out smarted them. After strolling past them without incident we were high-fiving after a few minutes, but we did keep turning around to check. It worked!

The rest of our time in Borneo was spent exploring the local markets, a trip to another national park with a canopy walk, some various tourist stops, and a few visits to Starbucks. Yes there are Starbucks in Borneo! Tomorrow we head back to Kuala Lumpur, the capital, for a few weeks of city life. Mid July we head to Singapore for a few days lay-over before heading to Cape Town, South Africa for a month-long stay. After that we are planning to concentrate the remainder of our journey, the final 2 months or so, in Ecuador.

As of May 17th, 2018, the list was India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, South Africa, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia. 

Today it stands at India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Nepal, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Ecuador. 

It may change again, who knows? But right now Ecuador seems like a place we could settle into in nicely and explore. There’s plenty to do there. They’ve got a huge coastline, some of the tallest mountains, Amazon rainforests, volcanos, biking, hiking and kayaking, a 9000′ high capital located on the equator, and tons of culture. I know more Spanish than all the other languages I’ve tried to learn, they use the U.S dollar as their currency and the electrical outlets are the same as the U.S.

The decision comes after 8 moths of travelling that we prefer slow travel. setting up in an area and exploring. A couple of places, like India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and believe it or not Malaysia, we could have spent more time exploring. So instead of getting a taste of Uruguay, Peru, Columbia, etc., it’s off to Ecuador!