Reminders

for some reason today i just suddenly remembered one day in the danum valley when we tried to trek to a waterfall with the guys from the forestry department. it was so hot and humid deep in the rainforest and we hardly had any water so we wimped out and turned back after about a half hour. there was only a ragged grown over remnant of a trail so the guys all had machetes (i still remember how weird it was sitting in the back of a land rover on these crazy mud rut roads with machetes just stuck into the back seat pockets). they didn't even seem to get hot or tired at all in the hike and i felt like such a wimp...though annie and hillary were exhausted as well. all our faces were beet red. redder than any sunburn. it was that hot. i was carrying a pretty heavy backback full of camera equipment and i think i had another one strapped to my front, though i can't remember on that specific trek. all i know is it was probably the sweatiest i've ever been in my entire life. the trees, the plants, the bugs, everything were HUGE. jurassic park style. there were huge birds that flew over too...and i kept imagining they were pterodactiyls. man i miss it.

More Palangka Raya and Nyaru Mentang

i have spent the last three days immersed in orangutans. i can't really even begin to explain the experience. today i held babies as they slept and played with them when they were awake. they love holding hands and biting hands and being amazing and sweet. i also went out into the forest with bigger ones who were agressive and intense. i'm in the weird little internet place in town, but i hardly have any time, so if you want to read more, just read annie's blog:
anniemusselman.com/blog
she has pictures up there too. i'll post some when i get home, whenever that is. i kind of feel like i live here now. it's really hot. really really hot. we usually go home for lunch (home is this fancy weird resort we are sharing with a member of the indonesian parliment) and take a swim in the pool before we go back to the orangs. i'm writing such dumb stuff....i have so much more to say, but maybe i can do it when i get home. hillary leaves tomorrow, and annie and i go to bali the day after tomorrow...for a week i think? time rushes and stands still here. we drove by a motorcycle helmet store and a minaret store and a motor oil store and a honey store. everything has it's own store. everything is wildly different. i will be sad to leave borneo. very sad. but bali should be grand....right?

Palang Karaya (but also Jakarta, Lahad Datu, Sandakan...more)

i'm typing now from a hot internet cafe in palang karaya, central kalimantan. on borneo. since the last time i wrote i did so much i can hardly even remember it all, but we did spend three days deep in the rainforest, trekking through the jungle, learning about reforestation efforts, swimming in a waterfall, tubing down a rainforest river, getting leeches all over us, eating strange food in a open air kitchen that had been sitting out in the heat all day, meeting super nice caring people, seeing elephants walk by through a river with their babies, seeing orangutans in the wild, also red leaf monkeys, gibbons, lots of other animals, a flying lemur. i have so many more details to add later, but i just landed back in borneo again after being in jakarta and kuala lumpur and other places. i'm tired. but insanely happy. i think the hotel we are going to in a few minutes has a pool. my clothes are entirely covered in mud and drenched with sweat and humidity, i need to wash them stat. bye.

Sandakan.

we flew on a prop plane this morning from kota kinabalu to sandakan in sabah. it was the first real taste of borneo it seems like. everything is different now, i feel so different, so unlike myself after the things i saw today, the rainforest, monkeys...and clear cut palm oil plantations as far as the eye could see. i need to learn more, do more. i didn't expect to feel this way. this place is being destroyed so fast and it is unbelievable how much there is to lose if it goes away. and we only saw the tiniest bit of it. tomorrow we drive 7 hours on a dirt road to the heart of the jungle and see even more. this morning we met with the sabah forestry department, in a government meeting room, maybe 12 guys talking about sustainable forestry. i did my first real assistant work after hillary interviewed them, holding lights outside in the soupy air getting eaten alive by jungle mosquitos. the trip finally feels real, like what we are supposed to be doing, instead of just a tourist thing. but i'm kind of freaking out. alot. it's so strange and important and huge and confusing and i feel like a tiny little inconsequential nothing. i might just be really exhausted. well i am. but i don't think that's all it is. maybe i'm just too focused on myself right now i don't know. this might be the last internet i have for days. bye world.

Later, City.

ok well it's time to leave singapore now. going to kota kinabalu, or kk as the people here call it. whatever, it's on borneo! this afternoon i'll be there...we hung out with locals yesterday and went to little india for dinner and had amazing indian food at a place called mustard. oh i guess they weren't really locals, but people who live here now. one was from france, one from nyc, and then there were some austrailians later. we went to a touristy night club area after dinner which kind of seemed like navy pier, but with these ufo things flying around and about ten times as huge. also a dance club...which was very weird. i haven't been to a dance club in a million years. i was underdressed. ok that's all. off to the unknown. again.

Singapore

we arrived in singapore finally, after an insanely long day of travelling. two days actually...chicago to phoenix to san francisco (where we almost missed our flight due to weather delays. the people at singapore airlines were SO nice, staying open late for us and escorting us through a special security so we could sprint and make our flight. we got on the plane at 1:00am and it took off at 1:05!) to hong kong to here. strange and wonderful singapore. we are staying at a fancy hotel in a fancy and not so fancy shopping area. shopping is some sort of national past time here. there are malls everywhere, even in our hotel. designer malls and cheapy malls. we couldn't avoid going to both. back to yesterday, we got to our hotel around 3pm and wandered around the neighborhood, finding a hindu temple and methodist church with a little hidden bistro behind it where we got refreshments, and then found a vegetarian noodle shop where we got some sort of bland noodles...we went back to the hotel where hillary was napping to pick her up for dinner around 7pm, but ended up falling asleep for the whole night, skipping dinner and waking up this morning at 8:00am finally feeling refreshed. we walked outside and tried to find a breakfast cafe, but learned that things in singapore don't open until 11am, so the city was strangely deserted, it was twilight zoney. we did eventually find a place and had eggs and coffee outside in this atrium area with a crow. after that we came back to the hotel and took a dip in the rooftop pool and then explored the arab district, where the calls to prayer were broadcast over speakers and it felt so different and exciting. there were all sorts of silk and textile shops, lesley would have gone crazy. also small buildings, all painted in bright colors, with shutters, and mysterious insides. and a weird hip shop with plastic round radios and phones from the 60's. right now we just finished having high tea in the international club, where they have computers. we payed 100 bucks to join this club but it seems worth it, because we get free breakfast, high tea, internet, and other things that i forgot. tomorrow we leave singapore for kota kinabalu, malaysian borneo. it sure seems like we didn't have enough time here, but i'm glad we got to explore. oh tonight we are meeting up with hillary's journalist friend here for dinner somewhere and then going out with some austrailians. that should be fun. bye for now. i'm glad i'm here on the other side of the world, it's pretty freaking fun. the end.

Hong Kong sleepy.