Brunei and the Borneo Jungle

Hey everyone, a few Mt. Kinabalu pictures are posted! Check out the photographs section!Sorry there arent that many but i have to load them 1 at a time.... and I don't have that much time! BTW this is a long post....

Since my last post i went to neighboring Brunei, more specifically the capital Bandar Begawan or something. BSB for short. To get there I took 1 boat to the island of labuan, a 3 hour boat ride that made me a little seasick eventhough I dont get seasick and I didnt eat breakfast. I think it was all the crying babies next to me and the fact that my HUGE backpack got me stuck in the doorway on the way into the boat. It was only midly embarassing. Next, i sat on the island (posting my last post) for 1.5 hours and proceeded to take another 1.5 hour boat which i slept though to Muaras, Brunei. Once in Muaras I took a bus for 2 Brunei dollars to BSB centre. A nice cab driver pointed me in the direction of my hostel, Pusat Belia youth centre. Naturally i got lost getting there and a nice muslim woman walked me there claiming that she was on her way to pick up her son anyways. She asked if I was married and naturally she said yes of course (I have picked up a wedding ring, its a cultural thing). Pressing me for details about my new marriage I spluttered out that I was married to Scott 6 months ago.I had to make up something!!!! Once there, I met a nice chinese girl named Summer and we had dinner for 3.50 Brunei dollars which is about 3 USD (Brunei is EXPENSIVE)!

The next day I walked around the very small capital city of Brunei and booked a wildly expensive tour (130 USD for 1 day) to the heart of the Borneo forest. The tour was amazing and im glad i did it but shit it was expensive! I saw 9 monkeys, 1 GINORMOUS crocodile (2.5 meters, about 7 feet long), 1 huge ant, many birds, and many scary plants (photos will be posted with this). First the tour started out with a boat ride from BSB into the Temburong region of Brunei (it is a national park). On the boat ride I met 2 nice dutch woman (I see a lot of dutch travellers and very few americans) whom i traveled with for the next couple of days. Once there we disembarked and then got in a van provided by the travel service which took us to their disembarkation point for another boat ride in a long boat. This house/structure was very interesting, it housed long boats, a school, dorms, and many local critters among other things. The ride was short and beautiful. Our non driving guide gave us a little information about the Temburong region of Brunei. Brunei is divided into 5 regions of which Temburong has the smallest population, a mere 10,000, but the largest land mass. It is comprised almost entirely of impregnable forest and local tribes people, the most predominate of which we would visit, the Iban. Next they provided morning tea (aka breakfast) complete with local delicacies. I had fried bananas (I could never spell that), a local cake that had a delicious peanuty spread in between layers, and another Iban specialty whose name i forget. In essence, it is rice with brown sugar and coconut wrapped in a taro root leaf held together with a stick. Is that not living in the Jungle or what!

Next on the itinerary was a longboat ride down the river to the entrance of the Temburong park. The only way to get there is by boat through the beautiful jungle. Needless to say i took LOTS and LOTS of photos while attempting to shield my camera from the water flying up the sides of the boat (powered by a yamaha motor...). We arrived at the park, had a "wee" as the British seem to put it, signed ourselves in, and proceeded 5 more minutes to the beginning of the trek. The boat ride was particularly awesome, the water was clear, and I could definitely have drifted much longer than 45 minutes! The trek began with steps as everything seems to here. In fact, the entire trail was steps; muddy steps, crooked steps, stone steps, uneven steps, rotting steps, etc. Lo and behold a flashback. It had rained a lot and was VERY muddy so they had fixed permanent ropes to hold on to. Dejavu anyone? Oh Mt. Kinabalu, how i miss you NOT! In actuality it was rather a pleasant 30min hike complete with many scary looking plants, pretty butterflies, and rests to drink water as i was soaked in sweat in about 5 minutes flat. Once at the top began the highlight of the days tour, the canopy walk. In essence you scaled 250 ft of scaffolding to behold the never ending Borneo forest from above the trees (insert footnote, see pictures/video). Many were frightened by the mildly sketchy ascent to the canopy walk, but not I. In fact, I did it twice! Needless to say I became a camera whore the 2nd time, altering my camera setting and took endless photos of myself in "super vivid color."

The ride back down the river (after swimming in it that is) was very pleasant and uneventful until it rained. We got caught in the most epic of rainstorms. It rains this way every day i was told, but nonetheless i videotaped it. I truly felt in the jungle as i ate the local cuisine and watched as it poured and drowned all living things. Lastly, we rode to a local Iban longhouse (local tribe equivilant to the Cherokee, Sioux etc as far as I understand). The Iban live in longhouses litterally. The structure is one long rectangle and when i say long i mean really long, obscenely long AND they park their cars underneath the structure! (Check out the photo) The entire front section is a shared living room. Each family then has 1 door off of this room that is there house and each house is actually rather large as the Iban Longhouse is very wide/deep. The dutch girls even bought some handmade baskets from them! I hope they make it all the way back to Holland not too crushed.... In the end i was back in BSB to spend 1.50 USD on dinner by 530pm.

Sooooo yesterday i took a 45 USD bus back to KK from BSB that took 8 hours. The route of the bus had us hopping back into and out of Malysia and Brunei 5 times. Therefore everyone had to pass immigration checkpoints 10 times. Needless to say i now have 2 pages full of Malaysian and Brunei imigresen (as they say) stamps! It was rather trying. Today I merely got a fantastic 70 minute massage for 15 USD and had the best lunch ever at an Indonesian place that made this bread thing kinda like pita that you get on the street in Turkey but better. It comes in many different varieties, kind of like pizza, but it also has a fantastic curry dipping sauce. MMMMMMMM i think its called Roti Chia or something.

Tomorrow I leave at 6:40 am to go on a 3 day jungle river trip. I sure am spending a LOT of money in Malaysia. I will have to be much more frugal, Scrooge like frugal in the future. But how often are you in the Borneo forest with the opportunity to see Lemurs, Leopards, Orangutangs, Proboscis monkeys, and be eaten by crocodiles and leeches. Not to scare you dad.

Love to all,
Jordan