Sandakan Malaysia Borneo

We spent the day on Borneo yesterday—what a day! Borneo is the only island in the world that is composed of 3 nations. The southern part of the island is Indonesian, most of the northern part is Malaysian, with a little bit of the north cut out for the Sultanate of Brunei. The Sultan of Brunei is one of the richest men on earth from the oil and gas lying under his tiny kingdom.  He spends lavishly and has a car collection of 5000-7000 cars, housed in an air-conditioned garage. When Ferrari comes out with a new model, the CEO of the company checks with the Sultan regarding design and, when satisfied, the Sultan orders the new model in every color!

The Indonesian portion of Borneo is very poor and relies heavily on timber as their main resource—hardwoods and plywood. Unfortunately, good conservation practices are not occurring—new trees are not being planted and the rate of removal is too high to sustain.

The Malaysian portion is doing a booming business in natural gas right now, shipping most of theirs to Japan and Australia. Prior to the start of drilling in the ‘80s, the Malaysian portion depended on timber, which resulted in deforestation and, like Indonesia, has not been well managed.

Borneo is a botanist’s or biologist’s dream. The species here are, in many cases, unique and not found elsewhere in the world. The problem here is that, without adequate forests, several species are becoming endangered. Malaysia has established a number of animal rehab centers to prevent extinction. Visiting animals in the wilds of Borneo requires a lengthy visit. During our day here, we visited 2 rehab centers: the Sepitok Center for Orang Utans (local spelling) and the Labuk Bay Center for the Proboscis Monkey.

In both cases, the animals are lured to feeding platforms a couple times a day so they can charge customers large entrance fees and camera fees—both of which are worth it!

The Orang Utans live in the trees—almost exclusively. During the dry season, they occasionally need to come down to the forest floor to drink in a river. When they come down, they open themselves to predators: pythons (up to 30 ft. long), crocodiles and leopards. They travel through the forest tree-to-tree or, in this case, on ropes strung between trees and the feeding platform. This makes photography very difficult—it took a lot of lens to get these photos and several are not as crisp as we would like. Pictures 1-4 show some of the apes traveling among the trees. We saw a total of 7 apes and our only disappointment was not seeing a mature male.

Pictures 5 and 6 show a mother a baby, who arrived on the platform as soon as the ranger put down the food and stayed there the whole time, while the others would stop by to pick something up and then leave the platform.

The only other place where Orang Utans are found is on the island of Sumatra. Borneo seems to be doing a better job of encouraging growth in numbers of these apes and most experts think Borneo will be the last viable location for these gentle apes that share 96+% or our genes.

Proboscis monkeys are named for their large noses and rounded bellies. As the pictures show, the noses are good-sized and get larger as the monkey gets older. Picture 7 shows the alpha male—check out his nose! Picture 8 shows a younger monkey with a slightly smaller nose.  Picture 9 is much younger. Finally, Picture 10 shows a baby, with a small nose. They were playful and seemed to pose for the cameras.

Fortunately, at this sanctuary we actually got to see some other wildlife.  Picture 11 shows a Mud Skipper. The rainy season is over and things are starting to dry up. This fellow is in the remains of the water hole, which I assume will not be allowed to dry up. Picture 12 is the Oriental Pied Hornbill—what a magnificent fellow! Pied means black and white and he stood out among the trees. Picture 13 is a silver leaf monkey. These little fellows have no fear and startled a number of visitors by suddenly jumping on the railing.

The last picture is of a water village—fisherman who live above their business!

Larantuka and Ambon Indonesia

We stopped at 2 smaller ports in Indonesia and had an amazing cultural immersion. The environment was very foreign, but the people were some of the most delightful people we’ve met in our travels. So far, maybe the two most memorable days on this cruise….

Larantuka is on the island of Flores in Indonesia. Larantuka is a small town with few services. We chose to leave Larantuka to visit a remote village. Padang, was far up the side of the mountain and involved a rough ride over a Jeep road in a non-air-conditioned bus. We sat in the back seat, near the back door, which provided better airflow. We just had to be careful to not fly out when we hit a bump!

Our first stop on the way to Padang, was to visit a Catholic elementary school. No one had ever visited the school before and the principal became noticeably emotional when we presented him with our meager offering of pens and pencils. The children danced for us (Picture 1) and we visited a classroom. Indonesia has a very strict educational policy, mandating 10 years of school, but they do not provide adequate funds for supplies and teachers. In this school, the state provides for 3 teachers and the Catholic Church provides 3. There are not enough notebooks and books to go around, so they must be shared by the children. The children were delightful.

At Padang, we (13 of us) exited our bus just outside of town to walk in. The ENTIRE TOWN had turned out to greet us! We were first met by the welcome committee (Picture 2), that made offerings to us. Traditionally, guests are given betel nuts, local moonshine, tobacco and a locally woven scarf. One woman in our group served as our representative, touching the betel nuts and tobacco, taking a sip of the moonshine and accepting the scarf. We then walked into the town square, following the women dancers (Picture 3) and warrior dancers (Picture 4).

As we walked, people would rush out to shake our hands or have their picture taken with us. Many people had not been out of the village or seen “white” people. As I shook hands, I was amazed at their hands—hard and calloused, obviously the hands of people who work very hard. My lotioned, soft hands must have felt very strange!

Once in the main square we were treated to coconut water, which is common in this part of the world. On other occasions, however, we were given straws to ease the drinking. Not here! As you can see in Picture 5, we drank it directly out of the hole on top.

We then had a show that included more dancing and a demonstration of a traditional marriage ceremony. Flores Island is Catholic (one of a few left in Indonesia). A couple is first married in this traditional ceremony and then is married in the church. Once the couple decides they want to marry, they tell their parents and the parents meet to discuss the dowry, which is given by the man’s family. It usually includes elephant tusks, goats and/or money. In Picture 6 you see the couple standing between their families and getting ready to share their first meal, which included rice and a chicken that was propped up to look like it was alive. The woman’s family then presents the couple with some of their beautifully woven cloth and the woman leaves to join the man’s family in their home.

Speaking of the beautiful cloth, Picture 7 shows one of the women weaving. The women take the cotton “balls”, remove the seeds, spin it into thread, dye it with indigo and tree bark (which makes the red color) and, finally, weave it. Yes, there’s cloth coming back to NC….

Finally, we followed the dancers, shown in Picture 8, back to our bus. There was more hand shaking, picture taking and waving before our bus could depart. This is the first time “outsiders” had visited the village—they thought it was wonderful and so did we!

Our second stop was at Ambon City on Ambon Island. In the 1990s, Ambon was a regular stop with some cruise lines. From 1999-2005, however, Christian-Muslim fighting took it off the tourist map. The Muslims “won”, although there are still a lot of Christian churches and Christians also have seats in the legislature. There seems to be a respectful truce. A couple cruise ships returned in 2012 and we’re the first one in 2014.

Our first stop as we headed out of town, was the WWII Cemetery (Picture 9). The Japanese took this island and created a small landing strip for airplanes. In an attempt to retake the island, almost 700 military men, mostly Australians, were captured and put in a prison camp here. Most were beheaded by the Japanese and are interred in this cemetery. It’s a lovely, tranquil place. In school and through our parents we learned about the war in Europe, but we weren’t taught about how far-reaching it was. We have yet to visit a country that was not touched in some way. It truly was The Great War.

Then it was off to remote villages. Bali subsisted on rice for its carbohydrates; Flores, on its corn. In Ambon, carbohydrates come from sago. After cutting down a sago palm tree, a sharp implement is used to scrape out the interior, which is a substance that resembles sawdust. It is then washed in river water and is then stored as a pasty substance, shown in Picture 10. After drying, it is baked as bread and, with a little brown sugar on top, cakes. Picture 11 shows a woman making cakes and baking them over a wood fire. They also produce alcohol from sago and a still sat next to the fire for the cakes.

Picture 12 shows a group of men doing the Bamboo Dance. 7 men carry a large piece of bamboo and are chased by a man carrying a lit torch. They move together to avoid the fire.  As a man gets exhausted, another man jumps in and replaces him. To keep in time, another man beats on a drum. Exhausting just to watch….

Our final stop was in a small village, where we visited the sacred eels. As we entered, we were met by the local brass band (Picture 13). Rick found the instrumentation interesting! They followed us, playing, to the hot spring, where the eels reside. (It’s also where the local people bath and wash clothes.) The eels are lured from their hiding places by fresh eggs. As you can see from Picture 14, they are good-sized—this one is a good 4 feet long.

Picture 15 is the view of Ambon from our ship. You can see the roof of the largest mosque. You can also see the tightly packed downtown area of Ambon. As we got ready to sail, a thousand or so people gathered on the dock to sing and dance for us. We got an amazing sendoff.

I hope you can sense from this entry how delighted we were with our visits to these ports. Big cities are just big cities. But to visit the smaller towns and villages and see how the people live is a truly amazing experience. We have wonderful memories of the people of Indonesia.

On to Malaysia!

Komodo Island Indonesia

Too wonderful! How can you not love seeing these big, ugly lizards, that

occasionally snack on people!

Picture 1 shows what it’s like approaching the dock by tender from the ship. You land directly in the National Park and are immediately met by a guide and ranger. You cannot wander the island on your own—for obvious reasons! The ranger carries a long stick that’s forked on one end (Picture 2). If a dragon starts to approach people, they first tap a tree with the stick and if it keeps coming, they press the forked end into their snout and that seems to be successful. We did not see a guard do that, but saw several poised as a dragon approached us.

Technically, these are monitor lizards. If you read our blog from Eden Australia, we showed a picture of a goanna lizard, which is a smaller (5 feet) version of this. Komodo dragons are up to 12 feet for males and 10 feet for females and weigh up to 300 pounds. The ones we saw maxed out at about 8 feet. They have a very long white tongue, shown in Picture 3, which is a sensory organ.

They lay eggs—15-20 at a time. The Mother digs a hole in the ground, lays the eggs in the hole and then covers it with dirt. She then digs several fake holes, disguised as egg nests, because other dragons have been know to dig up and eat eggs. She guards the area for about 5 months and then gets bored and leaves. The eggs hatch at 8-9 months. The babies, which are less than a foot long, immediately climb trees to avoid adult dragons, who like to eat the young! They search for a particular type of palm tree that has a hollow core and houses other types of lizards and snakes, which provide food for the baby for up to 5 years.

Pictures 4, 5 and 6 show some random shots of this lizard. Note the wound on the neck of number 6--made someone unhappy! We found 7 lizards, most at a watering hole. While a couple just laid there, most were more active. Picture 7 shows a rear shot for completeness!

It appeared that several of these had recently eaten. The distended stomach in Picture 8 is evidence. They eat deer, wild boar and water buffalo—animals that are feisty and can be bigger than they are. The method of hunting is interesting. They sneak up behind an animal and bite it. They have venom- and bacteria-laden mouths that cause blood poisoning and eventually death. The dragon has to be patient—it can take up to 2 weeks for the animal to die, but death eventually occurs and a feeding frenzy among several dragons begins. They can eat as seldom as every 1.5 months. They have been known to attack and, at least a couple of times, eat people, but that is rare.

Pictures 9 and 10 show the only female we saw. How do we know she’s a female? She’s prettier! Seriously, we couldn’t tell, but our guide knew it was a girl.

Picture 11 was taken as we sailed away from the island—a few of Indonesia’s more than 17,000 islands.

Bali

From Australia, which felt somewhat like home, we’ve traveled to exotic Indonesia—an archipelago of over 17,000 islands. Our first stop was Bali Island—hot, humid, colorful and noisy. We chose to leave the cities and retreat to the rural part of the island. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto….

We started at the market in the village of Tulikup, shown in Picture 1. The people in rural villages shop every day, because 90% of them do not have refrigerators. In addition to the fruits and vegetables we’re used to seeing, we also saw more exotic fruits like Mangostene (purple fruit that looks kind of like a tomato) and Durian (smells disgusting, but tastes wonderful—so we’re told!).

While the predominant religion in Indonesia is Islam, Bali remains predominantly Hindu. We visited the second largest Hindu temple in Bali: the Pura Kehen Temple from the 13^th Century. Figure 2 shows the stairs leading to the first gate. In total, there are 3 sets of stairs, each ending in a gate. Hindus are constantly making offerings to the gods and Picture 3 shows one wall of the temple, where dinnerware has been donated—older Chinese porcelain. When you reach the 3^rd level you find many different altar-like structures (Example shown in Picture 4), where people leave offerings during festivals.

Our next stop was a cultural center, where children were taking Sunday English classes (schools are generally closed on Saturday and Sunday). We brought school supplies for the class, so they reciprocated by singing “If You’re Happy and You Know It”. They’re 7-11, really cute and are doing a pretty good job of speaking English (Picture 5).

We then strolled through town and into the rice fields, where we enjoyed a wonderful lunch. (Picture 6). Most houses we saw were really compounds for multiple generations. Unique to each one is the gate—a typical one is shown in Picture 7. They are generally narrow to keep out evil spirits and most have been modified with a ramp in the center of the stairs for their motorbike. The kitchen is usually a separate building from the living area and much cooking is done outdoors. 95% of the homes in rural villages still cook over wood fires—there is no electricity and bottled propane is very expensive (these families live on an average of $2 per day).

Sexual equality has not come to this part of the world. When a boy is born, his umbilical cord is placed in an under-ripe (yellow) coconut and placed in the ocean, so he will go out in the world and be successful. A girl’s umbilical cord is placed in a container and buried outside the kitchen, so she’ll be successful at home.

At the front of every home you’ll find a small structure for offerings. Picture 8 shows an example. Offerings are often constructed of woven plate-like bases with flowers on top. People can make these, but there was a brisk business selling these in the market.

We also saw the cookware salesman walking through town. (Picture 9)

Rice fields are everywhere on Bali. Picture 10 shows an example. They plant and harvest 3 crops of rice each year and none of it leaves the island—it is for their consumption. They estimate that the average person eats half a kilo (a little over a pound) of rice PER DAY—breakfast, lunch and dinner. Rice approaching maturity is shown in Picture 11. The seeds at the end are the rice kernels. The brown husk is removed: by machine or pounded off by hand. The brown husk is fed to pigs. So I’m wondering where the nutritional value is….

Following lunch we had a demonstration of Indonesian dancing (Picture 12). Foot and hand/finger placement is very important. They bend their fingers in such a way that amazes—our old fingers couldn’t’ come close!