 January, 2007
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Borneo Diary
Mashida R Haider returns from the ancient rainforests of Malaysian Borneo with a good mind to revert to the wild
photo by LAN
‘Powerful as your scholarly instincts may be, there is no matching the strength of that irrational desire to find a means of keeping your head upon your shoulders; of retaining your frontal appendage in its accustomed place; of barring 1,700 different species of parasitic worm from you bloodstream and Wagler’s pit viper from just about anywhere; of removing small, black, wild-boar ticks from your crutch with minimum discomfort (you do it with Sellotape); of declining to wear a globulating necklace of leeches all day long; of sidestepping amoebic and bacillary dysentery, yellow and black water and dengue fevers, malaria, cholera, typhoid, rabies, hepatitis, tuberculosis and the crocodile (thumbs in its eyes, if you have time, they say)
— Redmond O’ Hanlon, Into the Heart of Borneo.
October 15
The Borneo book hasn’t deterred my husband, Biko, from letting out explosive yells of delight in the middle of the night as he reads about Borneo’s wildlife and tribes online. He’s been e-mailing some guy called Uncle Tan, who runs a wildlife camp where we will be staying in Borneo. I look on bleary-eyed with sleep and feign interest. It’s not as if I am less excited but I am not really sure about worms and pit vipers, not to mention the plethora of charming diseases. He likes adventure, going to places unknown. So do I, but I am the worrier.
October 22
It turns out Uncle Tan is dead. But we’re staying at his camp which is now run by his nephew or something. I am stocking up on medicine—Odomos, Antacid, painkillers, inhalers, nose drops, saline, and one of those liquid things that make your hands sterile—I just got that because I like it. Biko buys batteries for the headlamps and the cameras. Of course, we pack in the last minute. There is a mad rush to get the bird books, the binoculars, Biko is trying out the tripod I scramble for forest wear, we wrangle about my shoes (we always wrangle about my shoes), and somehow we get to the airport, and are on the plane, where I sleep, refusing to eat the smelly chicken they serve on Malaysian Airlines.
October 23
Kuala Lumpur is our pit stop. In the weeks before we arrived, everyone kept referring to ‘the KL haze’— a smog of residual ash streaming in from the Indonesian forest fires. Our taxi driver refuses to talk about anything but the haze in the ride into KL from the airport. This ominous cloud of smoke that surrounds us does make everything look a bit pallid. Biko and I gape at the endless stretches of roads, the flyovers, and the buildings, with all of our Third World awe. And then the Petronas Towers rear into view and our awe is complete.
At the Pondok Lodge, where we are staying, I beg the manager for an extra sheet. Or five. We have a room with an air conditioner, which is literally ‘split’ between our neighbours and us with a cardboard partition in the wall. The controls are in the next room. The lodge is perfect for backpackers. It’s cosy, and incredibly clean, and incredibly cheap. It has shared bathrooms, something I have always been squeamish about, but the jet showers put my mind at ease. Contrary to popular opinion, backpackers don’t have long hair, or dirty fingernails, or smoke pot the whole day. They are just interested and interesting people, who like the world and make sure they see it. Through our window, we can see a huge billboard of Brad Pitt and he looks at us every morning, smiling mysteriously, trying to get us to buy an expensive watch we can’t afford or care for.
KL is sleepy in the afternoon, but slowly starts waking up, and when it is finally awake, refuses to go back to sleep again. The taxi driver had told us that everything would be open until four in the morning, and I had thought it was exaggeration. As the night proceeds, everyone starts getting out. The roadside Chinese restaurants, at least in the tourist hotspot of Bukit Bintang—where we live—are swarming with people, clamouring over white coffee and dumplings. I order what sounds to me the most exotic dish, but other people’s plates always look more appetising. There are Bangladeshis everywhere, migrant workers selling imitations of designer labels, shoes, wallets, belts. It’s organised confusion and we laugh giddily because every smell is new, and my camera doesn’t stop clicking as I take the most mundane pictures; I like being a tourist, people never expect you to stop being silly.
October 24
At the Pondok, I meet Nasir, a boy from Narayanganj who has been working in KL for twelve years. ‘I make so much money, just cleaning,’ he says. ‘I like being here: the freedom to do what I want, to eat chicken when I want, to send my mother money. She can wear five hundred taka saris now.’ Nasir lives in a room with five other boys, and his brother has just come from the village to make it six. There are thousands like him, holed up in their little apartments, in their rooms, working, praying, eating, loving, in anonymity. He’s incredibly happy though, and sys he’ll never go back for good.
Consumerism breeds more consumerism. And KL’s mega-malls are gargantuan shrines to consumerism. With a rapidly growing Chinese community controlling the markets (the only holiday in the year is the Chinese New Year and not Eid), and the malls, all connected to each other, so that you don’t know when you walk into one and walk out of the other, its shoppers’ paradise. It makes your head ache after a while, so many things, so much to choose from, all so appealing. Throngs of people crowd the malls, and its easy to get lost, as I do, many times, running around like a mad woman, to find Biko waiting, half worried but mostly amused.
My needle phobic husband does not watch as I have my belly button pierced. A Chinese lady, with a hole in the wall shop showing many gory piercings, chooses the most rudimentary one, sticking a needle in my navel. ‘Don’t look!’ she hisses, at which I automatically look. A needle of mythical proportions is dangling through my belly. There is a buzzing in my ear and as I faintly try to say that I don’t mind needles, everything around me starts to fade. Chinese lady and assistants squawk and bring eucalyptus oil for me to smell. Trying to be brave, I look at Biko for consolation. He looks paler than me. Tomorrow we are off to Sandakan, in Malaysian Borneo.
October 25
When we arrive at Uncle Tan’s we are not in the best of moods. Groggy from an early morning plane ride, a two-hour wait, a bus ride, and then a speedboat to get to the camp, a heavy rucksack which has given me a neck cramp, I feel defeated as the bus brings us nearer to the forest and all we can see are oil palm plantations. The oil magnates have made sure that KL has become a First World capital, but at a heavy cost. Borneo’s magnificent rainforests, thousands of years old, have all but disappeared, except for small pockets such as the one we are going to.
We reach the camp at the River Kinabatangan in twilight. As I make my way through the jungle, not even looking up in case I miss my footing and fall, I mentally curse Biko. Everyone strides along just fine, big Europeans and Americans with their big rucksacks and long strides, and we small Bangladeshis struggle.
After nearly fifteen minutes of walking, and nearly on the verge of collapse, we reach the clearing where the camp is set. Wooden huts, with netting on the front and sides, and mattresses to sleep on, and no electricity. No running water. An open dining room. Dark little squat toilets. Swampy. My skin crawls. I think of all kinds of insects and shiver. Biko is not talking much. I think he’s also scared.
And then Lan makes an entrance. He’s the head guide and manager at Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp. He gives us a little pep talk, outlines the plans for the excursions—morning boat trips, night safaris, trail walks, night walks—I can’t think straight. After a hurried dinner, I go into the room, crawl around in my headlamp, shake my mattress (one visitor had found a rat snake in her bed two years ago), bundle up my blanket into a pillow. ‘Let’s brush our teeth,’ says Biko, faux bravado in his voice. I ignore him.
The darkness is all encompassing. Here in the middle of the forest, hundreds of kilometres from civilisation, it’s the same when you open your eyes as when you close them. I keep mine closed, the only sensory receptor is my nose getting adjusted to the mustiness of the mattress. Outside there is an orchestra in progress. Thousands of frogs croak, crickets chirp, monkeys chatter, wild pigs snort. Everything creaks. It seems as if someone is trying to break in through the door but I am too exhausted to care.
October 26
By the time I am up, Biko has already gone on the morning safari. I am the only one left at camp. I stay in my room, still wary. And then I see him: Beckham’s father. He’s the resident bad-boy-monkey (a Long-tailed Macaque) of the camp, named after Beckham because, like the footballer, Long-tailed Macaques have their spiked along the centre of their heads. They come in a line, the monkeys, Beckham’s father (because he has fathered most of them) in front, followed by females and babies. Hidden under the mosquito net, I watch as look for things to steal from the room. These monkeys, I have been warmed, are the local hoodlums. They get into the dining room, steal coke, beer, condensed milk, and scatter medicine from the box all over. In the days that follow, every morning they steal a can of condensed milk from the breakfast table. Beckham’s father acts as a decoy, while the other monkeys swoop down and snatch the can away. Their other daily ritual is to get into Lan’s room, to steal his Kopiko candy and sometimes even his condoms and to leave it in a mess. Lan hates them with a passion. He has written to the local wildlife service for Beckham’s father to be taken away (read killed).
Biko, meanwhile, has seen one of the most special primates in the world: the shy, elusive, and magnificent, Orang Utan. As the morning safari people return I get so excited that I ask everyone if they’ve seen one. They have. Little do I know that as the week progressed, people just coming into camp would see the Orang. People staying just a day, would end up seeing one. And I wouldn’t. It would become a joke, because no matter how hard I tried, I never saw one.
October 27
I beg Lan to take me on a boat trip, and he does, and there’s a blur of red as something scampers up a tree. We get off the boat and climb up the muddy incline. But no Orang Utan. People coming into camp ask me if I’ve seen one. I didn’t see any during my entire in the forest, and eventually comforted myself by going to Sepilok, an Orang Utan sanctuary, where we watched the Orang babies play. They have old, weary faces, and long arms and look so vulnerable. I fell in love. Orang Utan means people of the forest. Lan belongs to the Orang Sungai tribe, because they are people of the river.
October 28
I feel like I’ve lived in this forest all my life. I can manoeuvre through the trails, I have been wearing the same shorts for the past 36 hours (and will continue to do so through my stay), bugged the German nurse Sonja for antiseptic cream for my stomach, made friends with a Dutch couple, and I think the feral Bearded Pig the size of a house that is wallowing in the mud two feet away from me is a normal sight. The area around the camp is crawling with scorpions, and last year the International Tarantula Society discovered that Borneo has its very own species of Tarantula. Even this fails to faze me.
Suddenly, waking up in the morning and going on river trips to see hornbills, kingfishers, darters, and a variety of rare birds is normal, even though I gasp every time I see one. The forest is teeming with birds this time of the year. Having a 5-foot long monitor lizard live right under the kitchen (I kid you not) is not a big deal either. I have developed a sixth sense to keep a lookout for my possessions because of the bloody monkeys. I see monkeys I’ve never seen before, long nosed Proboscis Monkeys, rarely seen Silver Leaf monkeys. I think it’s normal to bathe with water from the river, out in the open, with a millipede watching my activities with only moderate interest.
October 29
Lan and his boys make Uncle Tan’s camp so special. He is quite a character. He runs the camp with endless energy, knows the name of every bird and plant and animal, can spot them from unbelievable distances, cooks, cleans, plays the guitar, has a beautiful voice, and has the strength of ten men. All the guides do all these things and do them well, but Lan, with his humour and good looks, stands out. I have only seen this man of the river get fazed twice: once, when the monkeys took his Kopiko candy, and when he got a bit drunk and tried to convince some forest department people to put a stop to the cutting of trees. Looking at his red eyes, and his young face intense with anger, I understood his attachment to his forest even though it’s not something we would ever fully understand.
I went to the bathroom late at night while it was raining and was in the middle of doing my thing, when I saw a huge black Jumping Spider wriggling inside the hole. Imagine this: me, wearing a headlamp, half squatting, half jumping, my arms splayed out, stuck in some macabre yoga posture, while the spider, oblivious, does a jig. I suddenly, badly wanted to go home. But the next morning dawned clear and sunny, and we stayed. I asked Lan about the spider.
October 30
On our last day, Lan took us fishing. I had thought that we would sit by the oxbow lake and hold hooks over the river, but soon realised that this too was going to be done Hard Core Borneo Style, the adopted motto of Uncle Tan’s boys. We walked barefoot through the forest, Lan, slinging a five kilo fishing net over his shoulders, Biko with the camera, and me, as usual, trying to balance.
We walked into the river. Algae made the water murky and red, and reeds and vines and compost squelched under our bare feet as we half walked, half swam, through the lake. Biko helped Lan hold a bucket, and Lan threw the net, over and over again, trying to catch King Prawns. We weren’t in a hurry. After forty or so attempts, and half a dozen King prawns, Lan gave up. ‘Vigo,’ he said in his funny accent, ‘If I was a fisherman my family would starve today.’ Over and over again, when I think about Borneo, the forest, and its people, I think of that moment, with the sun overhead, the water cool, and the wind gentle. If there was ever a moment in my life when I was totally content and at peace with the world, this was it.
November 1
Our bus ride to Kota Kinabalu on Borneo’s west coast is nothing to write home about. Actually there is plenty. On our way, we get seats beside the toilet, with the stench of drying urine threatening to suffocate us, and I actually make two trips to put Savlon down the toilet myself. Sometime in the last twenty minutes, a young man goes rushing in, and when he comes out there is a stench foul enough to be marketed as a lethal biological weapon. The whole bus cringes and digs their faces into their shirts and jackets, but not the man, so relieved is he at being relieved.
Kota Kinabalu is worth our miserable bus rides. It’s a beautiful island, with mountains overlooking the South China Sea. It’s easy to get to the other five islands there are, which are said to be snorkelling and diving paradises. We try our luck with the Manukan, the biggest of the islands. I have never snorkelled before, and as I step off the jetty and see the clear water with shoals of fish, I feel like screaming out loud in delight. We rent snorkelling gear and get to it.
We try on the flippers. It’s hard to walk with them. I say I don’t want them. Biko goes back to return them, stepping through the sharp coral. I try swimming for a while, then say I want a life jacket. Biko goes back again. Finally, we are set. We dive into the water, and everything is magnified. And then I am so startled I gasp under water, and choke on my snorkelling pipe. Fish in all shapes and sizes swim towards us, gently nudging the mineral water bottle that Biko holds, stuffed with dried bread. The colours are iridescent, bright, and there are fish with sharp teeth that bite occasionally. I squish sea cucumbers by mistake, and tiny fish, scared out of their coral homes, flee in all directions. Tears roll down my cheeks. I am laughing and crying, gasping, sniffing. I can’t control it. I have never seen such beauty in my life.
November 2
We head to another island, called Sapi, this time with life jackets. We go far out into the water, and suddenly aquamarine turns deep blue, and the water is at once mysterious and menacing. We plunge on ahead. After six ours of snorkelling we’ve had our fill. On the boat back, I start to feel ill, as we wait for the Bangladeshi guy who went with us to turn up. Half an hour passes, as the boat rocks gently, and I feel waves of nausea, and he doesn’t show up. Typical Bangladeshi, I mutter under my breath, half heartedly hoping sharks have gotten him. I feel ready to die.
Its sunstroke.
Biko and I, being proud of our dark skins, didn’t bother with sun block, but the sun does not discriminate. I am sick, Biko has angry red welts on his shoulders and we spend the next day sitting at home, watching television, reading, and chomping on baked buns from the bun shop around the corner. We’ve made our home in a backpacker’s lodge called New Horizons, run by a friendly young couple, Shawn and Fergie. They started the lodge earlier this year, having pooled their savings and sold off everything expensive they owned to do the lodge up, and business hasn’t been picking up even though the place is so clean, you could eat of its floors. We spend a lot of time with them, and they take us out for dinner every night (we’re not cadging off of them, we go Dutch). Biko eats Ba Kuteh, a delicacy made of pork and all its entrails in a soup. My stomach does a slow flip flop, and I demur to have it, relying instead on Choi Sim, because the leafy vegetables doesn’t have body parts. I make up by having pork jerky instead, wolfing down huge proportions. Kota Kinabalu, we both agree, has great food.
November 3
On our way back from KK to Sandakan, we get good seats on the bus (not next to the toilet), but this time the bus is full-on vomit fest. We sit next to an old man, who is guzzling away at all sorts of nasties, like maki (great, but not great for bus rides) and red bean and soy milk. He manages to keep his food in. But that is not the case with the baby Malays, whose over-enthusiastic mothers have fed them rice for breakfast. As the bus moves along the high mountain range, Biko gets green around the gills, and the bus is filled with retching sounds and rolling vomit. I try to convince Biko that its not vomit dripping off our knapsack that was lying at our feet, but the half-digested rice that is dripping off it gives me away.
Back at Sandakan, on our way back to KL, we make a small detour to visit Agnes Keith’s house. I have been reading her books and am intrigued to visit the house of this American who came to Borneo before World War II. She painstakingly details the history of the people of Borneo, there culture, the wildlife, and she talks about all of it lovingly, without any colonial condescension. I spend a lot of time in the house on the hill overlooking the harbour, feeling strangely nostalgic about the person who the locals still talk about. The house is tranquil, the hilltop a place for poets and lovers. I could live here.
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