Malaysia, 1 Nov 2006 --

I usually try to make my writing concise, so when I look at the rambling of my previous post I cringe a bit.  It’s impossible to summarize all the great things we experienced on the week or so we spent in the Kelabit highlands of Borneo, so I’ll try a summary list of why the Kelabit Highlands are great:

• Transportation is exciting:  The one and only way into and out of Bario is by 6 seater twin otter aircraft.  It takes 3 weeks to walk to the closest major city.  The pilots keep the cockpit door open, and if they’re in a good mood and you ask nicely they’ll fly you by some of the local mountains on the way in.  I also enjoyed watching the pilot steer with one hand and gesture animatedly with the other while talking to the copilot.  Ba’Kellan is a bit more connected, and you can take a 5 hour rollercoaster 4×4 truck ride instead of the airplane to get in and out.  Oh, and I have some pictures of dogs sleeping on the runway in Ba’Kellan…which is great.
• The Food:  I haven’t eaten as well as I did in Bario and Ba’Kellan in a long time.  I think it’s a longstanding Kelabit tradition to stuff visitors as full as possible with fresh rice, jungle vegitables, fried chicken, and tasty tapioca cakes as possible.  Our guide, Walter, told us that when Kelabit people visisted relatives in another village it used to be the tradition that they would eat every meal with every relative.  Apparently you’d finish your first breakfast only to find your next relative waiting for you at the door to take you to his house.  In the jungle, our guide picked and cooked us a dinner of fresh jungle spinich and jungle fern with some rice from his hometown of Pa Lungan.  We were lucky enough to arrive in Ba’Kellan for a wedding (a British guy met a girl from Ba’Kellan while they were both doing missionary work in Kosovo…and the rest is history) and we were welcome at all the pre-wedding festivities.  They even slaughtered a pig.
• Walter, our guide:  This guy was awesome, he took us to his hometown of Pa Lungan, fed us, and had us stay with his brother.  He made a great jungle cook, and was always chopping down random jungle plants with his parang (machette) and showing us we could eat them.  Apparently, when he’s not guiding tourists he prefers to travel the jungle without a trail because it’s faster.  Also, he helped me find a left handed parang (they’re only sharpened on one side) of my own to buy.  He told me a used one would be the best bet, since I was looking for one I could use…not just one to look pretty on the wall.  Oh, and Walter can cut perfectly straight planks from jungle trees with a chainsaw…which I think is pretty amazing.  Walter’s had some bad luck lately, and he really liked my jungle shirt from REI, so I got online today and ordered one to be sent to him.  I hope REI can figure out how to ship something to Bario.
• Walter’s Brother, Mado: This guy was really smart.  We stayed overnight at his house and he told us stories about the WWII Japanese occupation of Malaysia and the 1965 ‘confrontation’ with Indonesia over the border.  On both occasions the Brits and the Aussies parachuted soliders in to Borneo to help prevent the invaders from attacking the Kelabit, and for that reason the white man is held in high regard with the Kelabit.  Nice to see westerners doing something right for a change.  Also, Mado filters his own water and uses solar panels he installed himself instead of the standard generator.  I think he has the smallest eco-footprint of anyone I know.
• The Kelabit People:  The traditional greeting for travelers passing through a town translates something like “Hello, where have you come from, where are you going,” and everywhere I went I heard people greeting me.  We passed briefly into Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) on the trek to Bario, and we came to a village where they were building a new church.  A string of something like 40 men walked past us on the trail, each carrying a giant fresh cut plank from the jungle on his back…amazingly each man paused to shake Walter’s hand, my hand, and Cara’s hand before continuing on to the church site.

So, I’m sure this doesn’t do it justice….but I’ve been at this webcafe for far too long now, so that will have to do.  I posted many more pictures today, as well including…

A few last pictures from Singapore:

Pictures from Kuching and Mukah in Malaysian Borneo:

Some from Bario, Ba’Kellan and the Jungle in between:

And finally, we also have a point and shoot camera with us that can go some places my D70 can’t.  Though they’re a little out of sync with the rest of the pictures, here are a few from the b-reel:

Categories photography , Malaysia