Backpacking in Borneo

ah! auntie! since i am your hero, the next trip you must come with me!

i'm sure all of you think i am crazy to be wandering alone in suchuen's weird island. to be honest, you guys aren't the only ones. so many ppl i met along the way gave me the stange look ' are you ok?' or the kesian look ' aiyoh this girl got no friends'. i don't know which i'd prefer, but travelling alone can be both boring yet liberating.

to summarise my trip before i start rambling:
I MANAGED TO MAKE IT TO THE SUMMIT!!! JUST IN TIME FOR SUNRISE. i nearly boiled with frusration when it was raining the night before ascending to the peak. it was 2004 mt kinabalu replay all over again. ridiculous i tell you. i was sitting in bed, unable to sleep, praying, and debating if i will ever come back to this mountain if i did not manage to go to the summit.
to my immense relief it stopped raining at 2am, only to start again at 2.30, just as we were leaving. the guide said ' kalau hujan lagi lebat, kita kena PATAH BALIK' those horrible words. its bad enough not reaching, worst if you have to PATAH BALIK.
anyway, thank God, it did not get heavier, and after hiking in the pitch dark for 3 hrs we finally conquered the mountain.
descending was another challenge in itself, and i must say, a very fearful one. worst that climbing up.

my diving plans we foiled due to a combination of rain and my laziness. i wish it did not rain! darn.

hence i ended up wandering in kk: taking a bus to tanjung aru and sutera harbour and lying on their private beach. wandering through town looking for a backpackers lodge. taking a speedboat to manukan island, lying on the beach and reading a book. eating tausapau and seafood noodles at a kopitiam alone. haha. talking to crazy angmoh backpackers who were travelling for 7 months, and spending 3 -4 weeks of that in SABAH. siao. i met many nice people, one 'dodgy' boatman who wanted to bring me snorkelling at mamutik island and took my handphone number. (i don't know why i gave it to him). talking to the hostel owner until the middle of the night. sharing a dorm with 7 other crazy smelly travellers, one of them a 60 year old canadian woman travelling alone. one nice old sabah guy who brought me to this coffee shop with superb tau sa pau.talking to bus drivers and other travellers and some dusun/kadazan locals.

okay, kk was fun, at the end of 5 days there i was freaking broke.

then i boarded the plane to visit our tribesman in kuching. our iban headhunter friend decided to crawl out of the long house and drive a car instead of rowing a sampan. hence, i spent 2 nights in kuching, partying gila. tribesman played at a gig he organized and the after gig party was lagi syok. old skool music clubbing. and no need to worry about transport. (unlikeKL) on the contrast, i had to wake up at 730am to go to church. after partying til 330am.
oh, if any of you go to sarawak, you must eat the laksa. ahhh...the laksa is a cross between penang laksa and curry laksa. awesome man. i had WAY too many bowls of laksa.
tribesman's family are, such nice ppl you wouldn't think there are related. as his father is a headhunter, there were skulls hanging outside the door of the house, and crates of 'tuak' in the storeroom under the longhouse. mind you the house is really very long. and every room has a different occupant. also a lot of spears and solimpopon around. babi hutan is the signature dish in the house. the language is very different, not malay, not english, but some native language that originated from china.----hokkien. hah!
(P/S: the skulls are but a part of my imagination)

so there, after 8 days, im back back back in civilised KL where the trafic jams rule the roads instead of trees and monkeys, mountains and ibans.

nana:if you want to watch tribesman sing with his solimpopon, head down to berjaya times sq on the 5/8 or to labodega KL on the 6/8.