July 31st, 2pm, lift-off, Sydney Malaysian Airlines flight MH0122 I am really proud of myself - 17kg suitcase – even with my ‘non-essentials’ – the main ones being 3 packets of Toby’s Estate ground coffee and a travelling thermal cup-come plunger pot (an amazing sleek lightweight design by Sebastien Conran for Culinaire) … and a (big) hip flask of vodka. With 3 months ahead of me on the road – 2 in Borneo and 1 on mainland Malaysia – I would be a masochist to travel heavy.
Even with this lot, I am sweating at the thought … no need, the suitcase rolls easy (even weighed down by a backup bottle of duty free vodka- how to resist? RM55 at KL airport – that’s barely $20 Aussie dollars and a third of the price I pay at home (EXTORTIONISTS!) … how can I deny myself!?
Trip goes ok but it drags, which is remarkable given its ‘only’ 8 hours from Sydney to KL. I think even the 20 hour overnight trip through to Europe is easier on the bum, at least you get to – if you are lucky – sleep some of it away and stretch your legs on the stopover. Whereas now there are eight straight hours of being seated, eating, and watching TV … The service is, like most Malay people, gently smiling, discrete, respectful and helpful.
The great thing is that the torture will be over quickly – after leaving home in Sydney at midday, I will arrive in Kuching at midnight local time, (2 hours behind Sydney), after a further 1.45 minute flight. The Malaysian Airlines food on the domestic flight improves dramatically – I feel I am dining in a Malay restaurant almost – the rice and curry and condiments are a far cry from the fish sandwich I am served for dinner on the previous flight. I smell a rat … the locals would not stand for that food I bet – and it is precisely that, I learn later. The airline tried the same trick on the domestic market but they wouldn’t have a bar of it, revolted, and the sandwich dinners were withdrawn. The rest of the food on the international flight was ok, but the sandwich was a bit of a surprise.
Amazingly quick exit through Kuching immigration (despite the fact that I must fill out all the forms twice as the Malaysian states of Borneo treat themselves as different countries unto themselves!)
Forget Siberia , the Kuching airport must be one of the most freezing places in the world – which helps makes the real world on the outside an even greater surprise. Round midnight, and a sticky 28 degrees. Thanks to the Sarawak Tourism Board I do have some support on this trip – mostly with transport on the ground. Of the many local travel companies, Diethlem are very reputable, in the upper end of the market.
I ring ahead to the Fairview Guesthouse to find that the owners, Annie and Eric have set their alarm and are waiting for me, the angels. Like quiet a few places to stay in my Bradt Borneo guidebook, I am yet to experience this one first hand.
What to do as a travel writer when you are writing about a place you do not know ? Don’t bullshit basically. Do not pretend you know the place (unlike one quite infamous Lonely Planet guidebook writer who applied the converse rule to an entire country on which he authored a guidebook!) … stick to the facts, no frilly description, no pretence.
I felt that it was in the interest of my readers, to sometimes provide more accommodation (and eating and tripping) options across the board, than those I had experienced.
Funny how charming, personal places tend to infuse their own websites with their personality. The Fairview is just how I imagined it to be: an airy tropical old home in magnificent lush gardens on the edge of the city – just opposite the Sarawak Museum and the huge Reservoir Park . The house is worn, in a nice homely way, furnished with loads of character, it was the home of a former Sarawak government minister.
(The Fairview Guesthouse , 6 Jln Taman Budaya, T: +60 (0)82 -240017 E: thefairview@gmail.com www.thefairview.com.my) In 2 nights here, I met more people than I had just met in 6 months in Sydney ! Fascinating people – including a Singaporean born, Cambridge anthropologist who had just come down from the Bidayuh villages in the Borneo Highlands which are at the heart of a relocation battle as the government plans to dam their homeland. UNLIKE what was reported in newspapers such as The Times – Dr Liana Chua says the relocation is polarising the community – it is not just a simplistic case of the baddy Malay government vs. the poor, victimised locals.
At least one third of the families want to move – to be in a new area where there children will go to school just down the road, and not a 5 hour walk from their kampung . The issue is too complicated (and moi an undeserving authority), to do justice to it here, but if an editor wants me to cover this subject properly just contact me please ttgazette@hotmail.com as it is a fascinating story of tribal traditions on the edge of modernity; an interesting human story and illustration of changing tribal life, ethnology and demography and not just a political divide or football as it has been turned into.
Sitting at the big round dining table having breakfast at the Fairview is like sitting at Kings Cross station – I spend many hours at that table caught in conversation with people from France, the UK, Hong Kong, the Netherlands – most of them very cosmopolitan in their outlook, and their work.
Our hosts are the most beautiful people – soft faced, soft smiles, amazing wrinkle-less faces (I do believe the Malaysian climate has incredible rejuvenating powers, putting water back into the skin parched from the Australian sun) …. and the entire family are equally youthful looking.
Eric offers me ‘local coffee’ with my breakfast – I know better unfortunately, thus the Toby’s Estate in my bag … local coffee is ground, Robusta (low grade) made shiny with margarine. It is not my cup of tea. Much to my surprise, he then presents me with an espresso (mocha) pot to prepare it with – which they had been given by German guests turned friends. I imagine they have a world of such friends out there. I am adopted by the entire family – taken on my first night to a Chinese restaurant with Annie and her two sisters, Hilda and Evelyn, Hilda’s husband Eddie and son Nicholas, and Annie and Eric’s daughter who is trying to emigrate to Australia with her KL born husband. The world is full of amazing human pathways going round in all directions, criss-crossing, clashing and coinciding.
We finish our evening with a ‘Durian Party’ …. This is sprung upon me very quickly. The choice factor comes in but there is no way I am going to back out in front of this crowd – and Eddie is chopping up the smelly darn things right outside my room. There is nowhere to run.
Half an hour later, I am on cloud nine of durian land … I ate two pieces without vomiting and I THINK I would even go back for more. I have recovered from a 16-year long Durian traumatisation from my first experience with them in Thailand . And I am being told that Thai durian are innocuous, insipid compared to the Malay species, so I am doubly proud/amazed.
It’s the initial smell, that hits you in the face and nearly kills you – but it you can get past that – its really creamy, ice-creamy,
NEVER in my life been so polarised by a foodstuff – finding it both repulsive and kind of ok, even nice perhaps, in one hit. Eating it with a quivering, heaving stomach on the one hand, and on the other taste buds gradually warming to, I would not go far as saying liking it – but almost. They say people either love it or loathe it - I am doing both those things at once.
It is like a cross between crème brulee – ice-cream – with a bit of butter toffee and fairy floss thrown in … let’s not forget the rotten socks or rotting meat component. The fruit is a chameleon, a paradox of taste and smell, a taste-bud teaser, as I have never experienced in my life, a dual personality embodied in a fruit. Perhaps it is all just a matter of evolving your taste buds to it – is the Durian the domain of only the most sophisticated palate?
Even when you can get over the total revulsion stage to the fruit – it remains a serious physical menace.
British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace (author of The Malay Archipelago ), greatly admired the durian during his travels here in the 1850’s but was aware of its dangers (other than that of its noxious smell) having seen many a man struck by falling durian, which would not be much different than a brick falling from over 40m above on your head.
In a correspondence with Sir William Jackson Hooker , printed in Volume 8 of Hooker's Journal of Botany, 1856 in 1856 he wrote: (see http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/wallace/S027.htm .. edited by Charles H.Smith)
“The Durian grows on a large and lofty forest-tree, something resembling an Elm in character, but with a more smooth and scaly bark. The fruit is round or slightly oval, about the size of a small melon, of a green colour, and covered with strong spines, the bases of which touch each other, and are consequently somewhat hexagonal, while the points are very strong and sharp. It is so completely armed that if the stalk is broken off it is a difficult matter to lift one from the ground. The outer rind is so thick and tough that from whatever height it may fall it is never broken ... As a tree ripens the fruit falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not infrequently happen to persons walking or working under them. When a Durian strikes a man in its fall it produces a fearful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very heavy; but from this very circumstance death rarely ensues ... “
Wallace classed the durian and the orange as the “King and Queen” of fruits respectively, and said durians were best when eaten fresh from their forest fall. Whether he was seen over some near-dead man’s body collecting durians to eat is not revealed, but he did write “A Dyak chief informed me that he had been struck down by a Durian falling on his head, which he thought would certainly have caused his death, yet he recovered in a very short time.”
…. Other than conversation with other guests, my Sunday is taken up finishing a story for an in-flight magazine on a totally different subject (the history of espresso culture in Italy), and a trip to the amazing Sunday market – pasar Minggu - a myriad of stalls and smells, cultural colours and human interaction extending for about 1km along Jalan Satok. This area itself is about 2km from town centre, in a bustling popular area - I like it because you see the real daily life of Kuching, and not just the tourist parade which marks the waterfront bazaar. (Though the riverside area is absolutely enthralling, in its Chinese town hues, its temples and mosques, the reflections of the city along the Sungai Sarawak river, and the mesmerising movement of the sampans boats with their Lipton’s tea signs from one side of the river to the other). … On the second night, I am also offered incredible hospitality – invited into one of the trio of sister’s homes for dinner. I suggest we forego the Durian party for a night in place of a ‘Vodka Party’ – the local limes I bought at the Sunday market are the best squeezed into vodka, I should have known Annie has a garden of them.
I have to pinch myself at the incredible warmth, open-ness of spirit I am shown here – I know it from previous trips but every time it has my heart and soul expanding into other horizons.
Day 3 I leave Kuching for Bako National Park , said to be Sarawak ’s number one park for the diversity of wildlife – the Proboscis monkey are the main draw card. A huge part of the wonder of Bako is the watery environment, and the boat trip in there – Taman Bako is not on an island, but its way out on the end of a peninsula, north of Kuching.
Bako has a spell-binding quality, perhaps due to its astounding diversity of landscapes. From Tanjung ( Cape ) Rhu to Tanjung Po and all the beaches and bays in between it sweeps through mangrove, heath, and mixed dipterocarp forest, sandstone cliffs and sea-eroded coastal formations.
As we boat in, we go past Malay fishing villages on a very wide stretch of river – in the backdrop are the silvery, sun-obscured silhouettes of Mount Santubong on the neighbouring Santubong Peninsula (Damai beach area).
Bako has a spell-binding quality, perhaps due to its astounding diversity of landscapes. From Tanjung ( Cape ) Rhu to Tanjung Po and all the beaches and bays in between it sweeps through mangrove, heath, and mixed dipterocarp forest, sandstone cliffs and sea-eroded coastal formations.
The chances of seeing proboscis monkey as you wander along the many well-marked trails are high, especially early morning or towards dusk, with a population of some 280 in the park.
Within 15 minutes of arriving at 11.30 and knowing I have no time to spare if I want to get in a good walk, I hit the walking trails … under a punishing sun (take plenty of water) … and end up doing some 6 of the trails before my return at 5pm.
The waterfall walk is ok – to reach it you are doing mostly inland trekking – and the scenery is not the most spectacular (for me it is the coast here, the beaches, coves, rock ‘stacks’ and mangroves which are the most beautiful) … I am horrified at how so called nature loving tourists have turned the ‘change cabins’ near the falls into a rubbish deposit instead of bl … carrying it out themselves – CHIENS! I will never cease to be amazed by such ignorance, indifference, arrogance, carelessness, and laziness people are showing to the place which should be, if they had any senses, transporting them to other realms – to which they should be eternally grateful. Unfortunately I have seen so many signs of this same kind of ugly tourist attitude in less than a week here, it is painful. I have heard westerners judge Malaysia for its backwardness on environmental concerns, for the pollution in the cities – this is a cultural difference and though it might be hard to witness, we are not ones to judge by our own standards ... especially when tourists who should know better come here and use the country as their rubbish tin!
…. Bako was an adventure in every respect. My favourite part of the walk was a dip down into Pantai Kecil – a beautiful beach deep set in the bay …it took me about half an hour from the main trail to descend via a series of cliffs and ladders. I was alone on this trail … most people boat there and back from Park HQ. On the last leg of my return, as I came back through the mangroves – a troupe of what I initially thought were macaques monkeys, jumped up from one side of the mangroves, over the railings onto the boardwalk to head over the other side - they were Proboscis!!
I had my best ever views of these generally shy animals, which seem to have grown remarkably comfortable with human company in Bako - the only thing stopping me getting closer, and perhaps a Magnum shot, were the mangroves. I would have been up to my ears in mud if I had hopped over to get nearer. Their faces are enigmatic – fine chiseled almost human features, small bright eyes, like wise men in China Town – all they are missing are the spectacles resting on the nose. They seem to be laughing, chuckling among themselves.
My next close encounter with the wildlife came at breakfast – a macaque lept onto my table and whipped off with my carton of Tasmanian milk …. I was happy to have had my morning coffee – why shouldn’t they have theirs!
The macaques are real trouble makers in Bako – very tourist-cunning and cheeky! In my 24 hours in the park, we have no water (reduced to a drip) and the electricity cut out at 8pm with a power failure. I could have cooked a loaf of bread in my room – a hostel room without a fan … I am used to roughing it, and this is about as rough as you get. The cleanliness of the rooms was very average and the food was the same. I think with the tourist numbers they are getting they could lift their game a bit on these things, without undermining the adventure … however I would much rather see tourists lift their game first on respecting the place, than expect only the tourism infrastructure to adjust to them!
Day 6 and I am back in Kuching. I am staying at the Wesberly apartments – an amazing self contained bright, spacious set up in the same area as the Sunday market.
(Wesberly Apartments , Lot 2812, Block 195, Rubber Road Barat (West), T: 082-246197 Fax: 243521 E: enquiries@wesberly.com.my www.wesberly.com.my ... located north of the city centre, the 5 apartments have botanically-inspired names, modern-Asian furnishings and some local crafts ... there is an art gallery downstairs, and the Jalan Satok shopping stretch alongside).
The Wesberly is run by Irene, a lovely young architect, who like many Sarawakiens of her generation, has a British university education. (The era of the white Rajah’s has left huge British cultural imprints in Sarawak in particular) … The apartments are a little bit off-centre, but that of course can be a bonus. You do not get this kind of space nor peace in the center – for a family they are an excellent choice, with the possibility of cooking (though who really wants to or needs to in Malaysia with the food choices and prices as they are)? … It is nice to be able to prepare breakfast, and just to feel at home for a few days. (And to do my washing!) So much at home, that I had a party last night – vodka party (no durians allowed!) and invited all my new found friends from the Fairview . It was a real thrill to be able to return some hospitality to them, though they came laden with picnic baskets which far outweighed my efforts to serve up spaghetti aglio olio (garlic and oil). With these people who I have known for a few days, I feel I am among the oldest and dearest of friends – such is their warmth and generosity and down to earth manner. Malaysians are very much the Australians of Asia in this regard – they will invite you home for dinner barely after meeting you, laugh and crack jokes, pitch in and help like a team, and offer you their friendship for life.
On that note, I will finish – and thank Eddie and Hilda for doing nearly all the washing up! Ou-ah! (or OOOHH-AHHH) … that is how they say cheers here … our next party will be in Damai, my next stop.
