…across the world’s third largest island.

Taking off from Lahad Datu, east coast of Sabah, Borneo

Mangroves, coastal protection and the nursery for so much sea life

The death of irreplaceable rainforest, the birth of monoculture oil palm and wealth and your soap

What was there before the oilpalm – rainforest and a remarkable biodiversity

 

Coming in to landing at Kota Kinabalu on the west coast

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I had a load of fun over at Sia’s Blog. Although I didn’t imagine that we’d end up talking about cockroaches. Anyway, you can see the conversation in the comments section here.

And here’s a few more photos from Borneo Rainforest Lodge.

Imagine, you are hot and sweaty and have almost been wiped out by a falling branch….

And then you arrive at a place that looks like this:

Our guide, Edmundo Cafe, keeping in touch with his crew via walkie-talkie

While I was away in Borneo, my husband was away attending a meeting in Cairo – in fact we went out to the airport together.

Internet reception was lousy at the rainforest lodge, so it wasn’t really until I came back that I realised he had been gone for five days and there was no email from him or any other form of communication –  to anyone. In fact, his email account hadn’t been opened, and usually he does keep in touch. So I started to get a little uneasy. I chatted to my daughter on Skype and she said she’d try telephoning his hotel in Cairo. While she was doing that, I continued the conversation with her partner, P.

The conversation went like this:

P: You’ve lost your husband!
Me: Yep. Saw pygmy elephants though. And orang utan. Had a fabulous time – luxury accommodation in the middle of nowhere, my own jacuzzi on the verandah…

As it turns out, husband was fine, but internet connection was beyond paying for in the hotel and he was never free to look elsewhere.

But here’s what daughter posted on Twitter later:

 When P. said ‘You lost your husband!’ my mum’s reply was ‘Yes, but I saw some pygmy elephants in the rainforest.’ My family is nuts!

On the very same project I am now working on, we were once offered free rooms in the staff quarters of a tourist site*. The only rooms available (for my two male colleagues and me) were ones no one wanted.

And no wonder no one wanted them. Shared bathroom facilities with no hot water (and we were at 5,000m asl –— oops, that should have read 5,000ft, as has been pointed out to me: 1,560m). The shower head was missing. Bathroom was basic cement in tones of grey, with no working light. No bed sheets, no curtains, no towels, no nothing…

Someone had bashed a hole in the bedroom wall. Someone – perhaps the same person – had written in lettering half a metre high above my bed: FUCK OFF. I shared the sentiment. (Mind you, the view out of the window was stunning.)

And then there’s Borneo Rainforest Lodge, where I have just spent a couple of glorious days:

View from the verandah dining area

My balcony jacuzzi…

One of the chalets

River view from my balcony

Another view from my balcony

The main lodge building overlooking the river

The Borneo gibbons woke me every morning, followed by the Rhinoceros Hornbills flying in to the trees opposite my room, on the other side of the river.

Sipping my early morning coffee, I drink it all in… Yep, it’s all worth it.

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*Not, I hasten to add, the same site as the one pictured above!

…we pulled the boat into the shore…

…near this dead rainforest tree…

…drowned when the dam was built…

…which has bamboo lashed to the trunk…

…by the indigenous people of the forest area…

…to form a ladder…

 …to raid a nest (probably of a Hill Myna)…

…and there we waited…

…as they keep in touch with one another…

 Those of you who have seen my rainforest pictures before know that I have a love of the small things you can find there. A leaf. A pattern. A play of light and shade.

 Here’s a photo of giant bamboos above. Take a closer look and the true beauty of the individual stems…

And then, in the water, a flotilla of living torpedoes, all facing the same way, motionless and equidistant from one another…Startle them, and they scatter like leaves in a fickle gust of wind, darting away in random directions.

Look closer, and you see them reassemble a minute or two later, ordering their group life. They appear to have no discernible mode of locomotion, until you look closer still and realise that their back appendages are whirring away to power their movement, pedalling like mad even to maintain them in one spot.

Water boatmen.

Trees on a ridge.

Look closer and see the marvel of their patterning..

 

The problem with going away to a lovely place is that you have to come back. And when you come back, you have to do stuff. You know, like dry the tent, do the washing, clean your muddy boots, air your sleeping bag, write a book proposal, write a book, do a copy edit … and write the trip report. Yep, this was a working trip. I have another such working trip this month too.

A closer look at some of the simple accommodation of Royal Belum Park, Perak, Malaysia

One of the orang asli (indigenous people) villages within the park

The team at work. Mount Titi Basah in the background.