Borneo

Arrived a few days by plane into Kota Kinabalu Borneo in the state of Sabah. Just the name Borneo often gives people visions of towering mountains above dense jungle filled with strange creatures. Borneo is home to the fabled head hunters as well as the most unique rainforests in the world. It has more endemic species (species found nowhere else) than anywhere else in the world. The orangutan, the proboscis monkey, flying snakes, flying squirrels, flying frogs, flying foxes, just to name a few of the unique species. pygmy elephants, pygmy rhinos. It's the least unexplored terrestrial area on earth outside of antarctica. A recent expedition into an area only recently explored found over 100 new species in just 1 week! It has the tallest mountain in SE asia in the huge granite mass of kinabalu. It also has white sandy beaches and one of the top 3 dive spots in the world. When I first planned a post college trip I had only wanted to go to Borneo and Indonesia, but then when my parents gave me the lonely planet on a shoestring guide I decided to go for longer and see some other places. But this is the place I really wanted to go. The place I have been dreaming of forever and especially after Mr. Adams showed us a video on bornean geology and nature when I had his geology class in 8th grade. It also though has the worst logging rate in the world so it won't be around for long which is why I wanted to make SE asia my first destination

But with all its unique wonders and great possibilities, it has mainly been frustrating to me so far.
Arrived in late at night and shared a cab with a couple of people as the busses were done. I ended up just staying at the hostel where those people had booked, which was a nice place. My guidebook had send that independant travel here is more difficult than in the rest of malaysia and I quickly found that out. Everything seems to be run by these private resorts and companies, so you have to book directly or through tour agencies, of which there are hundreds around town. This makes prices really high b/c you have to book packages which include transport, food, lodging, etc, so it makes everything much more expensive b/c you can't take the cheap bus or eat the local food or what not. I spent my first day in borneo, walking around KK all day trying to find good deals, looking at tourist agencies, going to the local tourist agencies, etc. And I found it to be true, that it was going to be much more expensive here. And I also had some bad timing. One of the things I wanted to do was climb mt. kinabalu. 2 years ago it cost about 50 bucks for the guide and fee and then 15 bucks for the dorm halfway up and then you brought your own food. Well, now one company has a monopoly and they are including food. The guide and permit is the same at 50 bucks, but a room in a crappy mountain house that is just one big room with 60 beds is an outrageous 120 bucks for one night. For that money you could spend a week on a gorgeous all inclusive thai beach resort. The other bad luck thing was I wanted to go to pulau tiga which has a fancy resort, but also a local government run dorm. HOwever, they are building a new jetty, so the dorms are being used by the workers. I was quite frustrated. And then the tours to the untouched jungle areas are upwards of a 1000 bucks for 5 days (our 7 day trek in taman negara was about 100 bucks). And then it makes it even worse as a single traveller b/c all the prices are listed for twin sharing, so I have to pay an extra 50-100% if I'm by myself. I'm looking for other travellers, but most people here are in a couple or a group. The only good thing of that day was I met up with Jenny (the swiss german from the hide in Taman Negara) for dinner as she had just come back from the mountain.
The next day, after getting some advice and figuring out how to do it independantly and believing with the help of local people (as they've been so helpful) it was possible, I set off for pulau tiga (famous for its sea snakes and mud volcanoes). I got to the bus station a little before 7am, as I'd been told by several that's when the first bus leaves and you need to be in kuala penyu to catch the boat before 10:30. Well at the bus station, no one had any idea where the bus was to kuala penyu and wanted me to hire a taxi. They sent me to another bus station across town, which no one knew either. They sent me to a 3rd, which did have a bus that had left at 6:30am and the next was at 10:30am. This, I had been told would be too late to catch the ferry (in the end there was no ferry at all!). So I took what was called a shared taxi that is basically a 7 seater SUV that waits until its full before it goes. It was pretty expensive, but promised to get me there by 10 (it didn't, not that it mattered in the end). It dropped me off at a jct 10kms from town where they had all told me busses come by every 10 minutes to town. After waiting over an hour, I was definitely wondering about this. A guy drove by and gave me a lift to town and said there were no busses and you just have to take cars. So I finally made it to the jetty around noon. The place where you hire a boat was closed until 2:30 for lunch. It was run by pulau tiga resort, the only resort on the island (there was another one, but it was closed). But people told my it was 500RM to take their boat (equals about 150 bucks!). That was outrageous to me as the island is only 15km's away and fuel for that should be less than 5 bucks. Of course if I had the group of 10 they said could fit in the boat, it would only be 50 a person. But I was obviously the only white guy in the town and one of the only ones they'd seen as most people come quickly through here on a package tour. I spent a couple hours going around asking locals and fisherman how much it would cost to take me to the island. They all pretty much said 350 ringitt (100bucks) for one way. I was about to give up on going to the island (and wondering where I would stay as there were no more busses and no place to stay here either) as well as on capitalism in general. I couldn't believe someone wouldn't at least lower the price a bit. I mean think about how much money they'd make considering it would take them 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back and just cost a little bit in petrol. In the philippines, they'd do anything to make just a small buck. You could always bargain it down to just above the price of the petrol and they'd gladly do it b/c they'd rather drive their boat and make some beer and karaoke money, than just sit there and twiddle their thumbs (most fishing is done at night or early morning). I even contemplated swimming (that's how close it was). I could have made it in a couple hours by kayak if there had been any around. And what also baffled me was wondering if the people using sabah parks area, like I was, really paid over 200 dollars for a return trip and then only paid 9 dollars for the dorm or 1.50 for the camping. Finally after walking a couple km's in the hot equatorial and humid sun I reached the end of the land and the last fishing boat. They offered 200 ringitt b/c they said that one of the fisherman there wanted to go anyways (their big mistake to say that, or actually not really) But now I knew they were going and could for sure bargain. I ended up getting it for 100 ringitt (30 bucks), which was still a steal for them considering there were already going. But they were a fun group and I won't easily forget the stench of their hardly flating vessel. They told me the boat would leave at 3. So I went to buy food (pb and j and ramen noodles) for my meals while there. Well when I got there at 3 they had an engine problem so we didn't leave until 5. When we got to the island (it's also called survivor island b/c apparently it was where the first american surivor was filmed way back when). I asked the sabah parks guy, faisal, if I could stay in the dorm. He said it was all full, which I knew. So I asked him about camping. I said I didn't have a tent and would need to rent one. Well, the tent was going to cost more than the dorm and 2 nights of rental would cost more than I saw the tent cost to buy new in KK. So I told him I couldn't pay that much and would just sleep on the beach or on the dock. He was a really nice guy though and told me that I could sleep on the deck of the chalet they had. The chalet was actaully a really nice place and would be a decent price if you had 4 or more people to share it with. But the deck was good too, complete with lights and an electrical outlet. Fiasal lent me a bowl and a hotwater heater (I was going to just eat the noodles raw style) so I even got to have hot noodles. I set up my little mosquito net and hung my food and then watched the glorious sunset. The island was pretty and the campground area was very nice and well kept.
The next day I took the resorts much more reasonable tour to snake island and then to another sand spit island for snorkelling. The snake island was a main reason I wanted to come b/c it apparently has sea snakes on it by the 100's who come to shore for breeding and sleeping. The island is tiny, so they're supposed to be easy to find and they're not dangerous b/c they have small mouths and their teeth are in the back of their mouth, so even though they are 3 times more poisonous than a king cobra, the only place on a human they can pierce skin is the part of the ear where the earlobe connects and the skin between your fingers. Well, along with the jetty they are building on pulau tiga (which means in a few years cheap ferries will go direct from KK...wouldn't that be nice), for some reason, I guess to show off the snakes, they are building a huge jetty on snake island. Well the length of the jetty is easily longer than the circumphrence of the island, if that tells you how small the island is. So why build a jetty anyways? Well the result of all the building is that most of the snakes have been scared away and left. So now you don't always see one, let alone the hundreds, but they have their fancy jetty. We were lucky and saw two, and the guide even caught 1 so we could touch it.
The next island sand spit we went to was gorgeous and had nice snorkelling.
In the afternoon I took some of the trails through the rainforest to go around the island and see some of the beaches and also two of the mud volcanoes for which the island is famous. The mud volcanoes for those who have been to yellowstone are more like bubbling mud, though although these are bubbling, they are not thermal. On the walk around the island there were thousands of hermit crabs everywhere! On the beach it was like a highway of them, and they were even inland in the jungle. The island is actually crawling with creepy crawlies (which is a bit unnerving when camping): giant monitor lizards, sea snakes, hermit crabs, ghost crabs, a smaller cuter looking rat, small lizards, geckos, just to name a few. There are even several groups of monkeys running around. After going around the island, I walked back to the first mudvolcano to go for a dip.
Swimming in the mud volcano was by far the best thing of being in borneo so far. It was so cool and felt so amazing. The pool of mud was about 4 feet deep if you stood, but it was really hard to touch the bottom b/c you floated so well. It was great! I think it must be how it feels to be weightless and float in space. So much different than floating in water. I mean it water, you still have to try a bit to stay afloat, especially your limbs. But in this, you just bobbed right on top, yet it was different than being on solid ground like a mattress, b/c you couldn't really feel anything pushing up on you. It was really just the most amazing feeling. I had some fun just floating (and wishing my bed was made out of that stuff, and of course here I was just sleeping on the boards of the deck) and also swimming in it. It just felt so weird and cool.
B/c I was camping and b/c of the jetty workers around, they advise you to keep all your stuff of any value with you at all times (which I usually do anyways). So I had all my stuff up at the volcano, on a bench they have there. Well, I had taken out my camera to take a picture of the mud volcano and just left it on the bench. Who knows if there was a tremor or it just slipped or what, but the camera fell off the bench. Never a good thing for a camera to fall from a bench, but into wet mud...Luckily it's still working right now as I tried my best to clean it later, but dust and dirt can take a while to work it's way in. You have to walk the 1.5km from the mud volcano back to the ocean to clean off. On the way back my sandal broke (that's number 5 for the trip). I eventually made it back to clean off in the ocean. One of the jetty workers that was staying in the dorms that I always waved to, was very nice and invited me in for dinner and drinks (the hospitality that I knew would happen once I got here, b/c that's how malays are). He also gave me some mosquito coils and a lighter for sitting on my deck and gave me some que tips to help clean off my camera. That night I cleaned my camera and then worked on untying the nasty know on my swim suit. That morning before the tour I had gone into the bathroom to pee and I couldn't undo my knot. I tried and tried and it wouldn't budge. This amazes me b/c I have an anklet that I tie on that always comes lose no matter what knot I use, but here a simple shoelace knot becomes impossibly stuck. I had no scissors or kife to cut it, nor did I want to ruin my swimsuit, so I just kept it knotted the whole day and when I had to pee, just went into the ocean like you do if you're diving anyways. Of course that night I had to do more than pee. Luckily, I was able to use the file thing on my nail clippers to finally get the knot out. The other thing of concern was that faisal, who was so very nice and helpful had had to run back to the mainland for an unexpected reason. He had told me I could take that boat he had taken in the morning to go for free back to the mainland instead of using the resort boat. But now he was gone and so was the boat. Well, the nice man who gave me dinner, although he spoke little english, told me some of the workers were going in the morning back to kuala penyu, and they would take me.
Woke up early today and the nice man, gave me breakfast and coffee before sending me off in the boat. Caught the bus to KK (actually caught a BUS which was nice) and got here at a decent time. Found out that my small pocket on my backpack had been open and my sunglass case had fallen out, but luckily I had my sunglasses on, so it was easy enough to replace the case in KK. Looked for some sandals, which as always is difficult with my big feet in asia, and also spent the afternoon looking at some other tour agencies and emailing agencies (this is the one place it would be nice to have the cell phone that all the flashpackers have as pay phones don't work so well here and there is no number to leave to call back). Still the same frustration of the prices of packaged tours. It's just so sad, b/c there is so much to see here. The prices probably aren't really that bad, but once you've been on the asian indepenant budget, it seems outrageous, and if I did everything I want to, I'd run out of money in a month and have to come home (not that I don't miss it). Prices are probably similar or even less than the same thing in the amazon, or gorilla trekking in africa, or a wildlife safari in alaska. Actually talked to an agency today that hires out the guides that national geographic, discovery, and animal planet stations use. Now that would be cool! But it comes out to about 200-400 per day. And one other further frustration, which hurt me even more. One of the good reserves I wanted to go to, which hadn't reached national park status yet, well I found out is no more as it has completely been clear cut and oil palms planted. So it's destroyed.

Checked into a different hostel today, the one jenny had stayed at before b/c it was cheaper. The one thing here is that the hostels are very nice. They give free water and coffee, include breakfast, have big common rooms with TV's and have free internet and very friendly staff.
I also went and booked my night at laban rata to do the climb. It was difficult for me to do, so I did what any good American would do, and paid with plastic as it seems to hurt less (especially when the internet is too slow here to open up my chase account so I can't even see how much I owe). I was trying to decided to climb it or not. Part of me said no, b/c it's too expensive and for the money of one night in a crappy hostel I could spend several days at a fancy beach resort somehwere else and also b/c of the principle of supporting a monopoly that is completely overpriced. If I do it, a cheap budget backpacker, than it is certain everyone will, and they'll just keep the price high. But the other part of me wanted to do it b/c I was already this far down and it's only money and who knows if I'll ever be back, and also b/c I'm a mountain boy, and I love mountains and they're in my blood, and anyone who knows me, knows I'd rather spend 2 days climbing up a mountain than sitting in a chair on a beach. And who knows, maybe I'll do one of the other things b/c borneo is trully one of the last frontiers left on earth. One of the reserves here has only been 20% explored. That's crazy! And they're always finding new things.
So, tomorrow this time I'll hopefully be fast asleep as I'll be waking up at 3am to make it to the top for sunrise as that's the only time, if you're lucky, you'll get a good view before the clouds come in.