Things I Learned About Singapore In Thursday's Paper

Inone, one of the nurses who admitted me saw I doing well enough to be bored so she brought me a morning paper. I learned a thing or two.

You have to have a Certificate of Entitlement to own a car, the COE is sometime the same price as a car! The government is concerned that too many cars will gridlock and wear the road system - are you listening Hong Kong? New COE open up as cars are scrapped every year.

The transit system is fully accessible to the point where it was decided that the Asean Para athletes would use it instead of coach buses. What a Luxury!

Caning is still meted out for crimes - not sure which crimes exactly but I saw a couple of stories regarding sex assault. Hmmmm...

There is an air quality crisis here from raging forest fires in Sumatra. Rainforest has been logged to death then fires set to clear land for palm oil plantations. Local retailers are starting to boycott paper products made with Indonesian sourced paper in an effort to make the land clearing less profitable...now if only every could just boycott palm oil.

Voting is mandatory here. If you do not vote (and don't have a good reason) you lose your right to vote and the right to run but you can reapply to get back on the voter list. It costs $50 even if "gave birth" was your reason for not voting.

It's the sale of gum here that is illegal, not the chewing of it. This is what our town car driver informed us this morning enroute to the airport. He also said that his COE cost $75,000.00 SGD.  Woah!

I'm hanging out in the Kris Flyer Silver lounge at Changi airport with Jen, my medical escort. We have a flight to Tokyo at 5:50 am then a long haul to Toronto. Not quite the route I planned originally but given the bombs in Turkey (Ankara) perhaps this redirect is not so bad after all. 

For the second time in my life insurance has worked for me and worked well. Sherree and I have an annual package that we get with our credit card for about $120/year. It pays for itself after three car rentals but it also includes out of country medical for up to 28 days. This is sufficient for our typical US trips and when we do something longer we just get an extension. For this foray into the world I had to pay around $350.00 extra. I balked a little bit but decided it was worth it...and it was. I paid nothing out of pocket for my ambulance, one week in hospital, bag of drugs, medical escort, business class flight home, and town car home from airport. I can't stress enough the importance of this type of insurance. OHIP will cover a small portion but you, or in my case the insurance company, have to pay up front and recoup it later. Good luck with *that*!

One more flight left NRT-YYZ. Sigh, another fabulous travel experience comes to an end. And just in case you are wondering, my fractured pelvis hasn't deterred me one bit from thinking about doing this again but, definitely, no more upper beds, bunk, capsule or otherwise!

Happy Thanksgiving!

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Bye Bye Borneo, Hello Hospital

Decided to head to the airport early to many find a nice cafe or bar to sit and people watch before my flight. The departures lounge we passed through yesterday after arriving from Lahad Datu looked modern, even a little swanky, a great place to kill some time. Wrong. Air Asia flies out of a different terminal so I had 2-1/2 hours sitting in what felt like a cramped ice rink canteen except hot. The little duty free shop was more expensive than the LCBO, but I never really expected to buy bargain booze in a largely Muslim country. Fortunately I had plenty of time left on my data card and was able to play with my photos.

I thoroughly enjoyed Sabah. I'm glad I chose this part of Borneo to visit over the Indonesian Kalimantan. I saw a great variety of landscapes & creatures in a relatively short amount of time. Remarkable considering the challenging environment of tangled jungle as compared to something like open African savanahs or barren Antarctic islands (look, it's a penguin!) I also felt very well cared for by my various hosts. Borneo Eco Tours who I booked through (they own and operate Sukau lodge,) were particularly good at being on time and having excellent communication along the way. I would highly recommend them to anyone, even the most independent traveler who wants a little TLC for a change.

The ride from Changi airport in Singapore was amazing. A beautiful tree and pink flowering shrub lined boulevard, absolutely immaculate. Three hours later I was flat on my back in a chi-chi capsule hotel. After cycling  over 800 km and trekking over the knarliest of jungle roots I was taken down by bad design - the kind that sacrifices fashion over function: the ladder to the upper level capsules. I slipped and fell hard on my left hip and just knew that it was a fractured my pelvis. I got comfortable on my back on the floor, sort or preparing for a setubandhāsana pose, and waited..and waited...and pounded on the wall...and waited. After about 50 minutes the nicest young Aussie woman from Brisbane, Bec, came to my rescue. She insisted on sitting on the floor to keep me company till the ambulance got there - i knew it was pointless to try and get up on my own.

This hotel is a retrofit into a small office building spread out over three floors connected by a micro-elevator so no chance of a stretcher. As i scootched over onto their carrying tarp a packet of laundry soap slipped out of my pocket. This complimentary packet of white powder was in a tiny ziplock about 1"x2" and looked perilously like something you would get the death penalty for here in Singapore. They all froze and i started my protestations! I made them smell it even and eventually we were all laughing.

I was skeptical of the four skinny E.M.T. guys' capabilities but they managed to carry me down in this bag like thing. I concentrated on maintaining my yoga pose so didn't see much. The sensation was like that point of view shot in Children of Men towards the end of the movie when a small group are fleeing furtively through some stairwells with guns firing and lights flashing.

One of the guys said he had been accepted at U of T med school but got called for his military service...and then i noticed the military badges on their uniforms. Interesting arrangement - makes sense to make the most of the military for public service especially in a small country. Triage was fast and efficient - I was x-rayed within an hour of arriving. Bec had hopped in the ambulance to keep me company but i shooed her away at 11p telling her she had a big balance in her travel karma account now. 

A couple of hours later the doctors verdict, yes a small pelvic fracture. I had a bed an hour later. Singapore and Toronto are about the same population but i couldn't help but think the process would take much longer in T.O. 

I'm on the gov't subsidized floor. There is no aircon but 7 ceiling fans keep the 6 bed ward quite pleasant and provides some nice white noise. Food is Chinese and since it's the cheapy ward there are no little extras.

Breakfast of champions!

 I don't think that the patients interact with nurses much even if they are not in agony. Everyone seems a little surprised when I say thank you or chat. It's the time of year when student nurses do their placement and it's been entertaining watching them - so serious and gawky at the same time.

The nurse in charge of them is a lovely woman named Barbara who comes and chats with me every day. She has friends in Toronto and is planning a drive across Canada next year(!) She says she finds that young asian women are very protected, spoiled even, and unprepared for this type of work so she is always reminding to think about others and tell the patient what they're doing. She also said admires how outgoing and independent "Caucasians" are...I pointed out the she doesn't get to see all the ones who aren't! :-P 

Several nurses have expressed their amazement at my traveling alone and how much they want to but are afraid. One woman said she was planning a trip to El Salvador/Nicaragua/Honduras but it was very expensive and maybe she should try backpacking this time. I suggested that maybe should should start her independent traveling with a less challenging destination - apart from the language, she is Chinese with a heavy accent on her English, Honduras is one of the most war-torn countries in the world!

Danum Valley

Far be it for me to complain about bugs in the rainforest BUT, one design flaw in this deluxe *room* of mine is that they have used a screening material in the windows that has about 1/8" x 1/8" spacing on the mesh leaving plenty of room for all sorts of bugs to make their way in. A bit much when there's no mosquito net. Sink and shower were full this morning. On a positive note, the screen did manage to keep birds and bats out! The solution from management, don't leave lights on. (You mean like my iPad?!) :-P 

Yet another early wake up - a very nice canopy walkway needed to be explored. There was enough moody mist for gorillas but alas no simians from any continent put in an appearance. Instead lots of bird calls, not so many birds and a fantastic walkway. There are five spans on this walkway - some trees had stairs connecting different spans. Wood platforms bear on radial wood blocks that are strapped to the trunk with steel cables. On some trees it looks like these blocks have been absorbed by the tree - the bark has scabbed over much like the openings in the Toraja baby burial trees. Spans are steel suspension supported like the platforms with a steel cable tension ring. The walking deck is plank with short cross pieces of wood every metre or so. Some trees have steel cable guy lines to the ground stabilize the sway but the whole thing is quite bouncy necessitating breaking stride...and hanging on tight!

The breakfast buffet was equally decadent to the dinner buffet - everything from congee to scrambled eggs. There was bacon, beef bacon(!) but as Sarah said put enough nitrites and salt on thinly sliced meat and you have bacon. Loving the fruit: FRESH mangosteen, mango, red flesh dragon fruit is a new one for me and the mountain apple which Sherree and I first encountered in Hawaii last Xmas.

Morning hike was a 1.2 km climb up to the lookout over three lodge. Jules tempted leech-fate in shorts and T-shirt whereas I had long pants, leech socks, Adidas kampong shoes, neck gaiter, long sleeved shirt and hat. Again, lots of bird calls, a few birds and a flying lizard who flew a couple times for (away from) us. Lots of colour, texture and patterns in the plant world to keep me amused...

An off shoot to the main path near the top took in a cliff/cave burial site with human bones and remnants of coffins. Not unlike what I'd seen in Toraja.

...and we hadn't gorged on a buffet in about 5 hours so, lunch!

Jules returned this morning leech-less so I decided on shorts in the afternoon. Besides, with my hyper-white skin, it would be easy to spot any freeloaders!

Since there was a dearth of mammal sightings in the morning I think our guide took it upon himself to wind us up a bit to make things interesting. He feigned, we decided, concern over the presence of elephants and then kept saying how he didn't like the trails he picked for our hike. (Ta, ever so!) I got tired of this and dropped back with Jules. She was telling me about her and Candy's attempt to cycle from Mumbai to Katmandu when in their 20's when a wild boar cam scampering along the river edge - it was so fast couldn't get my camera out! How cool is that?!

Tarantulas, owls, frogs and the tiny mouse deer featured in the night walk. Sarah and Claire were trying to make out how to survive a night in the rainforest without a 5 star resort. They say layer a bed and cover of leaves in the crux of strangler fig roots, a say stay awake all night standing up in a clearing!

 

At all three resorts one could not just wander off on any trail at any time. You needed a guide or a ranger with you. (Lest we forget the tourist trampled by elephant...)

The canopy was entered from the main access road as so this was one was that could be done unaccompanied. At 6:30 on our last morning the five off us headed off for another misty walk. 

Lovely!  

Just as we returned Sarah though she saw some serious tree movement (sure sign of monkeys,) but nothing materialized. We still had time for one last trail after breakfast though.

Jus in the nick of time a few gibbons but in an appearance at the head of the hornbill trail. Fuzzy, cute and energetic. They chose not to pee and throw monkey poo at us as the ones at Tabin had done...probably because we were standing in the road and not under their tree. Phew!

The resort offers a blood donor certificate to anyone bitten by the Danum tiger leech however all the talk was seemingly for nought. Half way through the walk the guide found one heat seeking little bugger. They hang their elongated wormy bodies off of leaves innocuously but when heat is sensed they writhe and ""inch-worm" around hoping to hook a ride with either end of their body from a what I could see. Ronald offered his hand to our solo leech so we could see how they move saying his skin was too tough for it to grab onto...

...but there was a definite wince when it made its way to his delicate wrist! They sting a bit when they latch on then stealth feed. The problem is the anti coagulant they use makes the bite bleed a long time. Medically they are used on reattached appendages to draw the blood through and jump start the circulation.

Given the how energetic this one was, had it been rainy season there could have been trouble shorts or not.

Definitely got my money's worth at this lodge :-D

The ride back to Lahad Datu was uneventful but we did get to drive across the river bed at the suspect wood bridge. Haven't done that since our Australian outback adventure :-)

The tiny airport barely had enough room for the luggage scanner. The posted forbidden articles sign included nunchucks, fire extinguishers, stone mortar and pestles and, hockey sticks (!) I couldn't see where the sign was printed but I'm fairly sure it wasn't Canada. Makes you wonder what has transpired in this equatorial country's airports to prompt such a ban...

Flying in over KK one could see every little hill top grooved with concentric steppes in preparation toe oil palms - looked like hundreds of fingerprints across the landscape. At least it's going to be green eventually. The palm trees have a life span of 10-20 years depending who you talk too. As the tree approaches the end of its use a new tree is planted beside it to take over. One wonders what is going to happen when the market falls out of favour with this product - they, Indonesia more than Malaysia, have a lot of eggs in this not so healthy food basket.

In Rantepao at the beginning of my trip I had been talking to a research biochemist at my guest house about alternate energy and he said that bio fuel from algae had lots of promise, more so than palm oil. Tending an algae bed need seems a little easier than displacing the oldest rainforest on the planet. Let's hope that something shakes up and wakes up the market to this folly.

KK seems like a booming metropolis now. On my first night here I noticed this in a window. It looked like a creepy science experiment. The mantis prawn is known for being able to slice open its prey with its razor appendages. The farmed ones are raised in pop bottles to void the farmers loosing fingers and from eating each other before people can. Looked cruel but I had wanted to try one before I leave. Alas between the worms and Chilli Vanilla I have been thwarted yet again. My KK farewell meal was a less daring pasta dish and another chilli garnished cocktail!

Selamat Tinggal!

Tabin to Danum Valley

Woke up this morning to find I had a picked up a parasite in the form of intestinal worms. The good thing about this (good, say wha-at? you may ask,) is that it made the spectre of the heat seeking Danum Valley leeches pale quite a bit. 

There's no telling where I picked this up, could even have been in Canada but I suspect it may have been one of our roadside Sulawesi places - must check with the others. I asked the manager to have the driver find me a pharmacy before I was dropped me off for my final lodge transfer so I could get some meds.

Now English is widely spoken in Malaysia but I had no sense of how big the transfer town, Lahad Datu was so I spent a good portion of the bumpy ride going through my phrase book hoping it wouldn't turn out to be a "Monty Python Hungarian Tobacconist" scenario. You know the skit, the foreign visitor wants a  pound of tobacco but the book translates his request as "I want to fondle your bottom, etc." There was a cheery looking Chinese lady behind the drug counter with a scrum of Muslim women in front. When she smiled at me I asked my now fluid phrase of "anda bisa besara bahasa engrris?" To which she answered "oh yes, I speak English, I can help you in a moment" with a perfect British accent. Un-phased by my request, she offered a one time, chewable,  two pill solution that lasts three months. I hope it will cover me till I get to my home doctor. No side effects, she promised. Later, much later, I discovered that the drug, as packaged,  not approved for consumption in Canada and does cause headache and fatigue. Oh, well, I can think of worst places to be sporting those symptoms!

At the cool, quiet Borneo Rainforest Lodge office I was ready for a nap when the office filled with boisterous female voices. My first thought was "Aussies!" but it turned out to be Brits and only four. Sarah came over and introduced herself, offered a sweetie and immediately became my new best friend. Her sister Claire and friends Julie and Candy completed the "troop" Joy, my guide from Sandakan/Sakau a few days ago had escorted their transfer so I got to say hi/goodbye again.

The women were a very fun and very easy fit - all about my age, I think, and very well traveled with great tales. Claire now works in Hong Kong and the other three, based out of the UK, I gather, met up there and headed to Sabah together on hols. Because I was lumped in with a foursome it threw off the balance and we were assigned two fairly new 4WD vehicles for our ride into the wilderness - as opposed to the rattly van type vehicle I  had with Tabin. Most of the 2-1/2 hour ride was on gravel road - hardly noticeable, for the most part, with the upscale suspension. 

Our first wildlife sighting at about the two thirds point was a pair of fire butt pheasants, I'm paraphrasing here, and then, a radio crackle from the lead vehicle alerted us to an elephant sighting. There was a great big male, big even for this Pygmy species, grazing on the left side of the road. He came out with a little coaxing from the lead car's horn.

Very cool!

At a wood bridge, and I *do* mean wood, we had to stop and walk across as a precaution. The lady back at the office had warned us about this. She insisted it was a concern about the vehicle and not our collective girth after I enquired as to whether we were to go one at a time. There were three concrete pylons that were spanned by a series five or six logs (BIG logs) then crossed with smaller members. The surface was completed with a pair of three-board tracks parallel to to traffic flow for the vehicle wheels. A similar design to our Sulawesi bridges except better constructed! Given the girth of the main logs I think we were fine to ride but it did add to the sense of adventure.

Sukau was tertiary forest, Tabin is secondary and Danum is primary, virgin rainforest. The trees and greenery are magnificent. The scale is astounding - I feel like a small child by comparison. Both physically and in the sense of having an BIG adventure.

The lodge has a main building with open air dining, bar, aircon briefing room, boot cleaning area, gift shop etc. connecting to the rooms by raised boardwalks. 

I had unwittingly booked a delux room last October. Not sure why I did this but the Brits got a laugh out of the fact that I had a two person bathtub on my balcony. Just could not see myself soaking in a steamy tub of hot water in full view of the neighbouring cabin, surrounded by countless bugs and suffering from intestinal worms. No, luxury would have to wait.

At the appointed hour we loaded up into the back of a truck again for a night drive. Our guide Ronald is a Philippine-Chinese-Malay who enjoys talking about wildlife, camera lens and also, himself. He did a half decent job of spotting creatures for us though. Some giant red flying squirrels, a Sunda flying lemur (not related to the Madagascan ones,) lots of bugs etc.

The red flying squirrel like the flying Lemur looks like it has a broken neck but I guess if you're a tree clinger, you adapt. This one is looking over its left shoulder with its nose at the far left - the two light spots on the head are ears.

I was mostly enjoying the stars - all the constellations are askew here near the equator. The Sumatran haze had lifted making it clear enough to see the Milky Way - such a treat for an urban dweller. At one point an Italian lady asked if we could have the truck turned off so we could just listen in the dark which was lovely...for a few seconds. Ronald decided to fill us in on something or other which I managed to block out as the stars were magnificent.

Back at the buffet there were so many choices it was practically hedonistic. A desert bar, a salad bar, hot dish bar with two styles of rice and various curried/grilled/sautéed veg/fish/lamb/chicken, a grill bar, a soup station and something with crushed ice and coconut/fruit. Fortunately, with my long lasting deworming pills, I figured it was safe to eat anything including a little taste of local ceviche style fish and all the lettuce I wanted! Bar items were extra but that was expected - they still managed to have a decent selection here in the middle of no where.

Dining as I mentioned was open aired on the second floor with a view over the river. At night some site lighting kept the bugs distracted from the diners. It was lovely sipping wine, enjoying the cicadas and mocking the trip advisor whiners who complained about all the bugs here, right here, here in the rainforest.

Can't wait to see what the morning brings!

Tabin

While checking out the resident pit viper by the staff room, the gibbons decided to put in an appearance this morning before breakfast adding another simian to my growing list. They breezed in and out so I didn't get a sense of their personality - they seemed very fuzzy.

A river bed walk yielded a snake bird, (a cormorant really, it just resembles a snake when it surfaces with a fish,) lots of small pretty birds and a well camouflaged frog. Guide Maui doesn't speak much English but he obviously enjoys his job and is proud to be showing us his turf. He's a Lahad Datu native but his two sons and wife live in KK as his wife has a banking job. He, along with most of the staff here, work every day and get four or five days off a month - less in high season. A tough separation but he makes the most of his time off and takes his sons out fishing when they do get together. 

He was astounded when I told him about the east Sabah travel warning issued by Canada, the UK, Australia, etc. He, as I am now, can't see how remote Tabin with a guarded road, site security and, miles of wilderness would be a risk for a tourist. Another guest who had to spend a night in conservative Lahad Datu was told by his guest house to not go out after 9pm. I think he took it as a warning to a whiteness but in retrospect, I think they were just concerned for his safety from militant offshore kidnappers. The staff is more reserved here but no less considerate than at Sukau.

The lodge is on the edge of Sabah's largest reserve. The access road divides it from a green wasteland of oil palm plantations. I shouldn't be so critical given that Canada mowed down the prairies to plant wheat, it's just that the rolling hills look naked and ravaged compared to the lush greenery on the other side of the road. So many ziggurat stepped hills suggest previous open pit mining but on second look, the steps host evenly spaced palm babies like some alien incubator. In time you won't even notice the forced pattern.

An observation tower and waterfall were our post breakfast destinations. I opted for (complimentary) wellies and leech socks for this hike. Always hard to know what to dress for. It was a good choice given the muddy spots and the river. I left my swim and bike gear in KK so settled for wading in my wellies while some of the others swam at the waterfall...not sure if the water was flowing fast enough for my health minded satisfaction anyway.

There were some interesting rocks and...

...my first leech.

The first real (torrential) rain of my trip was well timed after lunch and left us with clear skies for a dusk drive in search of elephants. Highlights were two ginormous monitor  lizards just walking down the gravel road, an endangered stork (less than 500 left in the world) and of course, elephants. Forty or so shy Borneo Pygmy elephants - the same bunch I saw on arrival were still hanging out on the edge of the plantation at the entry gate. 

And the fun wasn't over. On our night walk Maui found a bat hanging on a thin tendril in the middle of a path, some very colourful lantern beetles, 

...a stick insect, a morphing stick insect and a sambar deer - surprising as I never associate deer with the tropics. This one was slightly smaller than our our white tailed version. I think Maui was more excited by this sighting than we were...and *that's* a lot!

Sukau to Tabin

I always love when a hike briefing starts with "Due to a guest being killed by a male bull elephant..." The outcome of the incidence is that now we can takes pics if we spot elephants but then have to hoof it back to the vehicle. Our vehicle is an open air truck which bears a striking resemblance to the one I barfed in in Burma at the Golden Rock, but I digress. I've left the Kinabatangan river area and am in Tabin wildlife reserve now.

Yesterday I had a day off but at 9:30 I got a tap at my door. I was Suhali with news of a male Orangutan near the boardwalk. So the better part of my day was spent hanging out on the boardwalk listening to birds, watching Orangutan sleep and the macaques get into trouble. An afternoon river cruise took in swiftlet nests (made with minimum spit,)  a swimming monitor lizard, macaques and tree lurking pit vipers. A number of rope (and repurposed fire hoses) bridges crisscross the tributary rivers to help Orangutans extend their range. The orangs rarely come down to the ground and can't swim so with the reserve land basically hugging the Kinabatangan river, the bridges can really help...it just seemed that the macaques used them more!

At dinner I sat with a Swiss couple who had just come from eleven days of diving at Lankayan island. One of the eastern off-bounds-to-Canadians coastal islands that I had wanted to dive. They said the visibility was terrible which made me feel even better about sticking the west side at Gaya island.

This morning the day started with a lovely breakfast on the river front deck at Sukau. 

I said "selamat tinggal" to the staff, one of whom was a young woman from Montreal doing a placement for her hotel and hospitality studies, and was off in a boat then a van. 

A short while later while I was wearing a face mask, leech socks, hat and my jacket and was standing next to a dung heap of festering bat guano in a dark cave swarming with cock roaches and poisonous centipedes, I realized that I had truly arrived at the last place on earth where Sherree would want to be. The Gomantong caves is the home to a whole whack of bats and colonies of swiftlets who provide the "spit nests" for that extreeeemly spendy delicacy, bird's nest soup. Great dramatic lighting if you can stand the pee-pee soaked heck hole smell, (apologies to Kent Brockman for stealing his line yet again.) 

White nests retail for about $2000/kg USD - collection is done is narrow rope ladders. This ladder bundle gives a sense of how high nests are:

The nests are indeed made of pure bird spit, dissolved in broth and consumed by wealthy people in China, Hong kong and San Fransisco  There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that it is "good for the skin" but it does contain vitamins and minerals found in bananas...hmmm, I'll take the banana please!

The road to Tabin resort was billed as "gravel" but is in fact was a dirt road embedded with numerous large rocks. The van took a beating but very surprisingly, did not blow a tire. As we neared the gate of the reserve heaps of poop appeared on the road and then heaps of elephants! Yes there were a good dozen of the endangered Borneo Pygmy elephant having a graze through the edge of a palm oil plantation. They are adorable miniatures but not to be messed with as evidenced by our hike guide's opening remarks.

My guide is Maui, my cottage is cosy. I face a small river and have my own balcony the door to which must be kept closed due to the mischievous macaques. Maui led us on a sweaty 2 km hike through the secondary rainforest to a mud volcano that acts as a salt lick for various critters. 

Saw some some sun bear claw marks, wild boar digs and some barking deers barked for us. Our perch in a nearby observation tower did not yield any sightings but on the truck ride back some pig-tailed macaques got into a dust up at the side of the road.

The night safari was...interesting. Our group was in the barf-mobile truck and I was on the back bench which had no back and no tailgate but did have a steel bar...that I could slip under. The two guides were at the front behind the cab dressed in camouflage pants with bandanas on their heads and faces as the bugs are attracted to the spot lights they were brandishing. Felt a little like a scene out of Apocalypse Now as they started driving along flashing the lights though the thick growth. And there I was in the back with a moonlit road and buzzing cicadas all around. Saw a couple of civet cats, an owl blind in one eye, a raptor eating a snake.

Life is good!