Deb's Adventures in Asia 2011: BORNEO

Beautiful Borneo butterfly!

I'm back from the rainforest and in the world of wifi again. I'm in Kuching now and taking a day off from adventure. I slept in, watched TV, and now sit in a coffee shop with a Chai latte and free wifi.

Borneo is amazing.

It is the world's 3rd largest island and is shared by 3 countries: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. I just spent the last 3 days in Malaysia-Borneo in the which is divided into 2 states: Sarawak and Sabah...I am in Sarawak(It actually has it's own immigration). This place is the perfect vacation spot for the adventure traveler...so much to see and do! Borneo has the world's largest untouched tropical rainforest. Sadly, it has been hit hard by the logging industry and the expansion of tree plantations and oil palm plantations. Malaysia's deforestation rate is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world.

I spent the last 5 days in Sarawak. The first 3 days were spent in a homestay located in the rainforest. It was accessible only by boat about an hour from the main city if Kuching and close to the Indonesia border. Sarawak was occupied by the Japanese during WWII and became a British colony after the war until the 1960's. The food here is really good and has a very Chinese taste to it due to large amounts of Chinese immigrants that were encouraged to settle here which today make up 26% of the population. Christianity is the largest religion here, second to Islam. You see far less Muslim women here compared to Kuala lumpur.

My favorite dish so far is Laksa...it is a noodle soup that has rice vermicelli, shredded chicken, shrimp, spicy broth and garnished with a coriander lime to squeeze over it...very good and cheap: you can buy it from the street vendors and eat it on the side of the road on a little metal table for less than 1$! My first taste of it was yesterday at lunch when I was absolutely starving and out searching for food, this older man saw me looking at his cart and insisted I try Laksa stating I would love it. I had no idea what I was ordering but was bordering on starvation so took his word for is and hoped I wasn't getting intestines or something! Ha ha, I was pleasantly surprised to get this delicious bowl of soup! My second favorite is Mee Goreng...similar to chow mien. I also fell in love with this coconut jam they had at my homestay that you put on pancakes, its called Seri Kaya: it almost custard-like and made with coconut milk, eggs and sugar, I bought 4 cans at the local market!

The best coconut jam!!!

I saw so many things in the rainforest this week. The couple running the homestay I stayed with were Lars and Lisa. Lars is from Norway and met Lisa, who grew up here in a small village, in Kuching where he spent several months recuperating from malaria he picked up traveling in Indonesia. They ended up marrying and living several years in Norway before moving back to Sarawak and building their dream house on land that belonged to Lisa's parents and opening their homestay. I was picked up from the airport by Lars, along with Maya, another traveler staying with them on the same dates. In order to get to their house it was an hour drove to the village where Lisa grew up then a 30minute boat ride into the jungle. Lisa is an absolutely fabulous cook and taught us how to go jungle shopping...we walked through her garden and the rainforest picking edible plants and fruits. Tapioca leaves(sauteed with wild lemon grass), fern heads cooked in garlic, tapioca root (fried- tasted like potato wedges) water apples, sugar cane, pineapple, aubergines, these leaves that tasted like lemon to season food, bananas, peppercorn plants... I lost count of it all. They even have coffee plants and her mom actually roasts the coffee beans and her uncle made the best rice wine. I ate very well there!

On the bridge into the village.

Trees reflected into the water.

Boat dock at Lars and Lisa's house.

Trekking: that's Maya and Lars ahead of me.

My funny shaped mini pineapple!

Lisa cutting sugar cane for us to chew on!

Lisa, Maya and Lisa's sister bending the water apple tree for some high up fruit.

Bridge into the village to get to the boat.

VIDEO: On the boat heading down the river from the village.

Boat ride down the river.

Lars and Lisa's house.

Lars took us trekking through the rainforest and caving the next day. I saw so many bugs that blew my mind....very national geographic! I saw caves full of bats circling over head, millipedes that were 6" long, huge spiders, colorful spiders with horns, frogs, incredibly colorful butterflies, thick rows of ants marching in line like a highway, lizards, pretty birds and snakes... I remember seeing this huge spider in a cave and commenting on how big it was before Lars just laughed and said it was a small one! We even swung on vines like Tarzan. We came home muddy and wet! A lot of the trek was through streams up to our knees...very refreshing in the hot weather!

Horned spider...they came in different bright colors.

Another horned spider

BIG spider, bigger than my hand!

Giant centipede.

Giant millipede.

Ant party! We were hiking and Lars, who was ahead of me, says "don't grab this tree" I asked "why?" he says "you'll see" then I poke my head around the corner to see a million ants.

VIDEO Long highway of ants marching en masse in the same direction. Up and down several trees, down the path and into the jungle.

When we were on the boat coming home from our trek I was in the most incredible rain storm I have ever experienced. We had heard the thunder for a few hours in the distance but our sky was still clear then after getting into the boat Lars pointed out behind up that it was raining down river...the rain was coming down about 50 meters behind us hard, like a wall of water that literally stopped at one point. It looked like a Hollywood movie set where there was a rain machine going that only hit a certain area. When we went a ways up the river, about 5 mins from home, there was another shower ahead of us...we were perfectly dry surrounded by 2 torrential rain storms that stopped on either side of us like a wall. We drove the boat right up to the edge of the rain and stopped...sitting dry as a bone before a wall of water, we put our cameras and stuff in waterproof bags, he said "are you ready?" and into the storm we went. Huge rain drops pounded on us...it was like standing in the shower. It was extremely cool. When we got back to Lars and Lisa's house we were soaking wet!

VIDEO: THERE WAS SO MUCH RAIN COMING DOWN THIS SHOWS THE FORCE AT WHICH IT HIT THE DOWNSPOUTS! SORRY IT'S SIDEWAYS!