We mentioned in our last posting that the Sungai Kinabatangan was a fruitful, and environmentally sensitive place from which to observe Sabah's wildlife, and this is undoubtedly the case. However, we were also sad to learn that one of the main reasons this river is such a good base for spotting wildlife is that, because of de-forestation, increasing urbanisation, and the ever-encroaching palm-oil plantations everywhere, the jungle that remains intact is mainly in smaller and smaller 'corridors' of un-cultivated land along the banks of Borneo's rivers, particularly the Kinabatangan. Certainly, in all of our road trips through, and plane trips over, both Peninsula Malaysia and Borneo, we saw thousands and thousands of acres of palm-oil plantations, and this fast-growing industry is now one of the biggest threats to wildlife: although it looks lush and green, and tropically exotic (from the air, it's like looking down on a whole country full of pineapple tops!), the lack of bio-diversity in these vast swathes of 'orchards' - and, I guess, everything else that goes with this industrial-scale farming, like insecticides for example - means that it cannot provide the conditions to sustain insect-life, bird-life or mammals.
We also learned a bit more about the issue we'd discussed with a few of the Chinese and Indian people we've met, about the 'positive discrimination' in favour of indigenous Malays which pertains in their country. Apparently, in 1970, a 'New Economic Policy' (NEP) was brought in by the then government, purportedly to establish greater economic parity between the different races here, and thus achieve a greater sense of Malaysian identity, following some savage inter-ethnic riots during the 1960s. The NEP set a target whereby 30% of Malaysia's corporate wealth had to be in the hands of indigenous Malays (or the bumi-putra) within 20 years. The term bumi-putra is sometimes translated to mean 'sons of the soil', but more bombastically as 'princes of the land' - a meaning which inflames the passions of many Chinese-Malay (baba-nyonya), and Indian-Malay (chitty) people, almost as much as the positive discrimination measures of the NEP itself. And still now, 42 years on, many of these positive discrimination measures remain in place - for example reserved quotas, large discounts, hugely favourable terms for the bumi-putra in such things as the awarding of public works contracts, or the sale or letting of housing or business developments - because the original targets set in the NEP have still not been met. Now, some of those we've heard from about this situation, have suggested that one of the reasons for this is because, even where the bumi-putra own businesses, they tend to employ cheap labour from the Phillipines and Indonesia, rather than providing more employment for their fellow bumi-putra, because, so they tell us, most indigenous Malay people are both lazy, though greedy for higher wages.
Perhaps not surprisingly, there's quite a debate in Malaysia at the moment about how the votes will stack up in the forthcoming General Election here, given concerns that - partly beause of these NEP measures, some would say - political parties are almost entirely split along race and religious lines. Indeed, there was just last week one of the country's first-ever televised live political debates between the governing party (Barison Nasional) and one of the parties supported by a majority of Chinese and Chinese-Malay people, about this whole issue of race and political affiliations. And these ethnic tensions are further aggravated by a belief amongst opposition supporters that the governing BN party, and some of its coalition partners, whilst claiming to represent the interests of both Islamic and non-Islamic people, are becoming increasingly Islamist, or at least to have within their membership increasingly fundamentalist Islamic factions. One example cited recently was the call, by the youth leader of one such faction, for the government to legislate to 'regulate inter-actions' between Muslims and non-Muslims. In his speech, this youth leader had supported a recent, fairly brutal, police raid and break-up of a religiously-mixed public gathering inside a Christian church in Penang: he saw this police response as entirely legitimate - to protect those Muslims who'd had the temerity to attend, from the 'proselytizing' Christians. This youth leader has also called upon the government to outlaw the celebration of Valentine's Day in Malaysia - this being very dangerous to Muslims, encouraging, as he believes it does, un-Islamic behaviour, such as un-chaperoned 'close proximity' between couples, leading to the danger of the 'Devil's work' taking place - intimate or even sexual relationships forming between 'courting' (which is also un-Islamic!) couples!
Equally depressing has been recent, and sadly not entirely critical, newspaper reports of pronouncements from the Malaysian branch of the Islamic 'Obedient Wives' Club'. The women 'elders' in this club (of which there are a growing number in every Muslim country of the world, apparently) have recently issued a pamphlet explaining that it is a Muslim wife's duty to obey and submit to every whim of her husband, however violent or sexually depraved, and however much the women has to suffer: it is, they say, the best and only way to satisfy men's 'natural needs', and will also help the greater good of society, by obviating the 'need' for men to turn to prostitutes and child abuse!
Reading such newspaper reports and hearing these conversations has been both interesting and depressing at times. Fortunately, however, there ARE plenty of voices from more moderate Muslims being raised in the press and in private conversations against what one Malay academic here has termed the rise of 'Islamic Fascism'. We certainly found that the overwhelming majority of people we've 'inter-acted' with on our travels through Malaysia - Muslims and non-Muslims - are amongst the friendliest, most welcoming and helpful we've met anywhere,and we really hope that the voices of reason will prevail, and that these mainly wonderful people manage to retain these very best of human qualities, irrespective of their political or religious differences.
And, on that hopeful and optimistic note, here endeth the lesson (or at least the lessons we've come away with) - and here endeth, also, this blog! But what a wonderful four months .........!
That's mostly what we've been doing since we arrived in Sabah, the eastern state of Borneo, on 10 February. Well, jungle it has certainly been, though the 'camping' has not been under canvas, but in more of the lovely wooden cabins we've enjoyed before (and not mildewed!
), from where we've now seen some fantastic wildlife - though not, sadly, the pygmy elephants or pygmy rhinoceruses. The rhinocerus particularly is a very rare sight, and so we weren't at all optimistic about sightings of those. The elephants, however, were only a stone's throw away from the jungle camp - until a few days before we arrived! We did see some fairly fresh dung, by way of proof, but the local villagers reckon that the herd has moved further up-river this week, after some very heavy rainfalls which have seen the Sungai (river) Kinabantangan rise fairly spectacularly, and very speedily, despite it now supposedly nearing the end of the rainy season. (Actually, even though temperatures have remained fairly high - in the high 20s mainly - we've seen more rain and grey cloudy skies since we arrived in Borneo than at any time in the previous 3 months.) Some people we've met since we left the Kinabatangan, who did travel further up-river, DID get a sight of a herd of pygmy elephants, and we're VERY envious!
Our time in Sabah has been spent in its eastern-most region, firstly and lastly in the town of Sandakan, and in between times, at the Sepilock Forest Edge Reserve several kilometres inland, and then its sister organisation, the Kinabantang Jungle Camp, both run by the same couple, Robert and Annie Chong. The Forest Edge Reserve
is set in a beautifully maintained undulating garden landscape, surrounded by jungle forest, and is in walking distance of the world-famous Sepilok orang utan rehabiliation centre, and the rainforest discovery centre, with its tree-top canopy walk, both of which we visited (and did at last manage to see 3 adult orang utans and 2 babies at the rehabilitation centre's feeding station). 
The Jungle Camp sits much further into the dense jungle, a 2-hour bus-ride, and then 45 minute boat-ride down the mighty muddy-brown, crocodile-infested Sungai Kinabantang, Sabah's longest river, at 560km from its source deep in the south-west jungle to the marshy delta on the Sulu Sea.
The heavens had opened only 15 minutes into our boat-ride to the Jungle Camp - in a very small, uncovered wooden boat with outboard motor - and we arrived in an absolute deluge, more like puttering through a waterfall than merely rain, both of us and our two travelling companions soaked to the skin, and with our backpacks and suitcases also drenched! But the staff were absolutely wonderful - rushing us straight into our 'long-house' style accommodation, providing extra towels, and helping to sort out wet clothing, particularly for one of the two young women we'd shared the boat with, who'd arrived with no change of clothes, having decided that she could cope in the same clothes for the two days she was planning to stay there.
But we have no real complaints, because it was here that we saw a veritable menagerie of wildlife, spotted mainly from the same little wooden boat we'd arrived in, helped by our eagle-eyed guide, Eve and the boatman, Sam. (Oh, but what a time for Andy's sophisticated camera with zoom lens to pack up!! Still, at least he didn't actually cry!! But Canon have a lot to answer for ....)
During several trips along the river - about the most environmentally sensitive way to spot the wildlife, since we don't actually set foot on their territory - we at last had three separate sightings of orang utans in the 'wild' wild: one HUGE, hairy male, swinging lazily through the tree-tops, a large, equally hairy female, busy making a nest for the night (something they do at a different location every night) for herself and her baby, whom we hadn't spotted initially, but who was waiting in amongst the tree-tops until mum was finished, and then suddenly leapt out from hiding and into its ready-made bed, making us all laugh with delight. We've also seen dozens and dozens of long-tailed and pig-tailed macaques crashing through the tree-tops; several groups of the Borneon proboscis monkey, including one dominated by a very large male who mated with three females - who were literally queuing up to take their turns, and making it VERY obvious what they were waiting for! - whilst we looked on from the boat.
We've also had fairly close-up sightings of several more of the oriental pied hornbills, a couple of black hornbills, one bushy-headed hornbill and - my absolute favourite, and the national emblem of Sarawak - three magnificent rhinoceros hornbills with their huge white-and-orange curled beak-top (so, that's four out of the eight types of hornbill to be found in Borneo. 
We've also seen several of two different types of kingfisher, several lesser sea-eagles and crested snake-eagles, some brahminy kytes, bulbuls, purple and white herons, and dozens and dozens of white egrets, who seem to have been 'standing sentry' for us every 50 yards or so along the river, some of them taking off as we approached, and then swooping down gracefully to fly very low over the river surface in front of the boat, like military 'out-riders' clearing the way for our approach.
The jungle camp itself was a lovely place - very low impact, environmentally, but also VERY humid, especially after the rain on our arrival day. Indeed, it proved impossible to dry all of our clothing and shoes, despite hanging them up under cover for the 3 days we were there, and we're now back in Sandakan (where we spent our first two days in Sabah planning these jungle trips), in a VERY posh hotel, with a swimming pool, though crap internet connections, with our damp clothes and shoes draped all over every bit of furniture in our, fortunately, very large bedroom and bathroom.
During our first two 'planning' days in Sandakan, the former capital of S abah before that honour moved to Kota Kinabalu, but a town now with few highlights, we'd found time to visit the old, two-storey wooden stilt villa which had once been the home of Agnes Keith. Agnes was an American author who came to Sandakan in the 1930s with her British husband who'd been appointed Conservator of Forests. Agnes wrote several books about her experiences here, most famously Land Below the Wind, immediately the Japanese invasion during WW2. The house itself was destroyed during the war (actually, so was most of Sandakan, mainly due to the Allies: firstly, their 'scorched earth' policy as the Japanese invasion became inevitable, and then by bombing during 1945 to get the Japanese out) . However, the house was re-built by the Keiths after the war, and is really enchanting. And perhaps Agnes's most poignant book is Three Came Home, which chronicles the gruelling prison conditions of her own and other ex-pat families' time as Japanese POWs in both Sandakan (Sabah) and Kuching (Sarawak) for 3 years. It was from here in Sandakan, too, that thousands of mainly Australian POWs met their deaths on the infamous 'death marches' in 1944-45, when, after their 3 years' occupation, the Japanese became aware that, with the Allies now closing in, they had insufficient staff to guard against a rebellion in the camps. They therefore decided to cut the prisoners' already starvation-level rations to weaken them and cause the disease and death rate to rise, to give them tougher and impossibly gruelling work to do, to execute some on dubious charges, and then to march the remainder 250km through the steaming jungle to Rungau. Of approximately 2400 prisoners who started the marches, in several batches, only 6 Australians, who'd managed to escape, actually survived. In fact, more Australians died here in Sabah than during the building of the infamous Burma Railway. Tragically, it emerged after the war that a rescue attempt had been planned for early 1945, but intelligence at the time suggested that there were no prisoners left at the Sandakan camp.
On a lighter, but related note, there is now a truly delightful English Tea House and Restaurant in the grounds of the Keiths' former home, where we had a VERY English tea on our second day here: Scones with cream and jam, served on a beautiful Doulton bone-china tiered cake-stand, and English Breakfast Tea for Two served from a matching tea-set with its pretty, flower-covered teapot. Absolutely spiffing! In fact, we enjoyed the place so much that we went back there on our return to Sandakan for an evening meal. We found on the desserts menu a 'special promotion' for banoffee pie, together with, in a monthly newsletter of theirs, an explanation of the history of this popular pudding - created in 1972 by Ian Dowding and Nigel Mackenzie of The Hungry Monk Restaurant in Jevington, East Sussex, no less! In fact, we had known this already, and have promised ourselves for the past 12 years that we'd go there for a meal some time, but have still not managed to get there. So, we now have a good reason to splash out, to show owner Nigel Mackenzie (assuming he's still there, of course) that his restaurant is now famous in Borneo!
Now, though, after our brilliant time in the Kinabantangan jungle, we're relaxing in Sandakan's only (and therefore expensive) hotel-with-a-swimming-pool, before flying back to KL on Sunday, to meet up again briefly with Adrian and Michelle: the Bornean couple we first met in the funky Classic Inn from where we began our exploration of Malaysia at the end of December, and with Maya and Hannes, whom we met in Sarawak. After overnighting in their friendly little hotel once again, we'll catch our flight to Heathrow just before midnight on Monday, 20th Feb.
So, apart from a post-script to this blog, this will be our last posting. We hope you've enjoyed being with us on our trip, as we have enjoyed all your comment, on- and off-blog, and look forward to seeing you back in 'Dear Old Blighty'. So, could one of you be a dear, and turn up the thermostat over there for us ....?
We've spent a very sociable 9 or 10 days in the state of Sarawak, Borneo, mainly thanks to all the staff and fellow travellers we've spent time with at the Singgahsana Lodge in the capital, Kuching, and those we've shared boats with, exchanged wildlife sightings with, eaten meals with, shared travel ideas with, or learned about local customs and traditions from. Loads of Aussies, 4 Nigerians in Sarawak to study engineering, a French couple living on Reunion Island but thinking of relocating permanently to Sarawak, a retired English couple whose home is their boat moored currently in Turkey, which they use on alternate years for lengthy voyages to exotic places, and which they rent out on alternate years in order to do more overland travelling, and a young German couple, Maya an Hannes, who we've spent quite a bit of time with. Quite a bunch!
One delightful encounter was with an elderly English gentleman with clipped moustache and of obviously military bearing, whom we chatted to for a while in the streets of Kuching one day. We learned from him about the time when he was stationed here with an airborne division of the Army in the run-up to Independence for Malaya and Borneo. A little-known part of the history of that time is that British troops were asked to stay on to help repel attacks from the Indonesians, who'd seen the British withdrawal from Malaya as their opportunity to take over Sarawak and Sabah. This ex-logistics officer told us quite a few anecdotes about his time there, and about the one-time fears that the British army would actually be overrun by the Indonesians, and how this had emboldened him to propose to the young Chinese girl in the Ting & Ting Supermarket - still here in Kuching today - which was at that time supplying most of the British army's foodstuffs. Over his 3 or 4 -year professional relationship with her, he'd slowly fallen for her, but she'd kept him very much at arms length. In the end, though, he managed to persuade her that, should the British be forced to withdraw, her life might well be in danger as a 'collaborator', and she and her family finally agreed that she should marry him, so that she could go back to the UK with his regiment. All these years later, they both live still in the UK, surrounded by their children and grandchildren, and come back to Kuching regularly to visit what remains of her family. What a heart-warming little piece of personal history, mixed in with some fascinating world history!
Amongst the Borneon people we've learned from have been those from the wide range of Sarawak tribes who help to staff the town's museums and the Sarawak Cultural Village set in the jungle forest of Damai/Santubong village, about an hour's drive from Kuching. The Cultural Village is also where the now annual Rainforest World Music Festival takes place every July - might need to put that one our list! The place reminded me, in its scope, of the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Bromsgrove (where daughter Cath and son-in-law Math had their wonderful wedding and celebration, nearly 14 years ago now: good grief!) The similarity is that the Sarawak Cultural Village is spread out over a vast acreage, and has 'living' examples of typical tribal homes, artefacts, and musical instruments etc. from just about every one of Sarawak's indigenous tribal peoples - including the head-hunters! We certainly saw one large, round, wooden headhunters' house with a number of of real heads (well, skulls now) hanging up in the roof, the relics of battles in the not too distant past apparently. Though head-hunting is now illegal in Borneo, some people believe that the practice does continue occasionally, deep in the interior, where 'enemies' come face to face in unpoliced areas.
We'd been to the Cultural Village on our first full day in Kuching, by way of a quick introduction to Borneo, whilst we were waiting to embark on our weekend trip in Bako National Park. This trip to Bako turned out to be a wildlife experience par excellence - which was just as well, given the disgusting, mildew-ridden, litter-strewn wooden chalets we stayed in there, and whose 'disgustingness', though legendary amongst travellers and locals, is seemingly not acknowledged or understood by the National Park staff who run the place.
We'd arrived at Bako by bus and then boat, the boat dropping us at a beach near to the National Park's Headquarters, where we needed to pay for a visitor's permit, and behind which the chalets and dormitories were situated in amongst the mangroves. Andy and I immediately embarked upon a 5-hour trek (one of 14 to choose from - between 1 and 16 hours each). This trek was fairly tough, mainly given the heat and humidity, and took us high into the dipterocarp forest and over limestone rock formations, the whole time requiring us to scramble up and then down huge rocks and boulders, over tightly-knitted tree roots, and across a couple of wooden swing bridges. This meant spending much of the time watching our feet rather than watching the forest for wildlife, or the tree-canopy for birds, and so we had to stop every few hundred yards or so to take stock. So, we sweated around the trek for the 5 hours, bodies running with sweat, clothes sticking to our bodies, eyes stinging from the salty-sweat running over our brows, and, in my case, glasses steamed up from the humidity. And, after all this, we finished the trek having seen precisely NO wildlife or birds anywhere!! Not surprisingly, we got back to base feeling extremely disappointed and a bit grumpy - only to find, all around our chalet, in the trees and mangroves nearby, just loads and loads of wonderful sights: several fairly shy silver-leafed monkeys, and dozens of very cheeky long-tailed macaques scampering around, all of the latter looking for any opportunity to steal things from the visitors. I even saw one leap up from the forest floor, rush across the cafeteria decking as quick as a flash, and grab a cake from a young woman even as she was putting it into her mouth! We also saw several large, adult, bearded pigs, trailed by about a dozen of their piglets, all rooting around in the soil and sand on the beach and around the chalets, and these, along with the macaques, seemed to be an almost permanent fixture around the Park HQ and our accommodation. That evening, we saw our second flying lemur of this trip, only about 10 yards from our chalet, and it stayed there, hugging a large tree-trunk, for well over an hour. The following morning, we woke up to find about half a dozen of the rare proboscis monkeys (found only in Borneo) crashing around in the tree-tops immediately above our chalet; this sight made us a good hour late for breakfast, as we couldn't tear ourselves away from their antics. We also saw a medium-sized, bright-green, tree-snake, which slept on a branch near to where the lemur was parked, and didn't move a muscle for a full 24-hours. On the mangrove floor, at low-tide, we saw loads of very small crabs about half-an-inch across, each with just one huge right claw almost twice as large and much bulkier than its body, moving along in a kind of 'scissors' movement, throwing this huge claw forward, and seemingly using it to haul its body towards the claw. All absolutely fascinating!
Unfortunately, during the trek I'd managed to jar my back badly, and so the second day I hung around the Park HQ and the nearby beach whilst Andy went for a short trek with his camera. Once again, however, it was the sedentary tactic which worked best in terms of wildlife spotting - though, admittedly, more sightings of things we'd seen the previous day, which were nevertheless a real treat. My bad back, however, did mean that we had to abandon our plans to go on a three-day jungle/homestay trek to a fairly remote Iban longhouse, which was being led by one of the trip organisers at the Singgahsana Lodge. Instead, though, at his brilliant suggestion, we took ourselves off to a wonderful, very chic and stylish hotel with swimming pool, owned and run by the same family as the Singgahsana, nestled right in the middle of lush countryside at the foot of Mount Santubong. This place, called The Village House, was built only 4 years ago, and, though it's made use of modern building materials and very trendy bathroom fittings and tiles, white linens, and beautifully coloured 'accent' walls, is roughly based upon the style of an Iban longhouse, and was only a short walk away from Santubong Village and a fairly unspoilt, hardly-visited beach where we witnessed some absolutely stunning sunsets. Such a relaxing way to rest a bad back...!!
Our big disappointment of our stay in Sarawak was when we got up early, the day after our return from The Village House, to go to the Semenggoh Orang Utan Rehabiliation Centre. Having lost the opportunity to see any of our ginger-haired cousins in the 'wild' wild, we thought we'd try this 'managed' wild place- a 37-acre reserve, home to more than 20 orang utans rescued from domesticity or danger, where the rangers provide food at a feeding station twice a day to supplement the orang utans' natural diet, as they learn slowly to fend for themselves. And, twice a day, for one hour only at a time, people are allowed, under strict conditions, to come and watch the feeding station from a short distance away. So, after a 45-minute mini-bus drive and a lengthy briefing by the Reserve's rangers about the dangers of annoying the males or irritating the one nursing mother, we waited by the feeding station at the appointed hour for the next hour - to see precisely NONE of them! Apparently, it's the fruiting season in their part of the jungle, so there's plenty for them to help themselves to at the moment, and, of course, as far as the Centre staff are concerned, it's a huge success that these Sultans of Swing can fend for themselves at least part of the year. So, never mind the Wild Man of Borneo and all that, we ourselves were pretty peed off too!
Still, there's every chance for a second bite at the cherry this coming week, as we begin to explore the jungle in Sabah, Borneo's eastern State, where we'll also be on the trail of their famous pygmy elephants. Fingers crossed ......
