Sapi Island Borneo

Monitor Lizards in Borneo

Monitor on my Monitor

Ironically, the tropical city of Kota Kinabula which is a fairly popular tourist destination doesn’t have a single beach. What it does have are several outlying islands. For a few ringgits you can catch a ride on a boat that will take you to the island of your choice -which is exactly what we did on our first Sunday in Borneo.

The island and the beach were beautiful. The island had just the right amount of amenities without being overdeveloped.

We had been on the beach for a couple of hours and had just finished doing some snorkeling in the shallow waters near the beach when we saw something moving over by the picnic tables. It moved again. Oh my goodness, it looks like a small dinosaur! It wasn’t of course; it was actually a good sized monitor lizard. Two of them to be precise. I had seen pictures of monitor lizards before, but I was not prepared to encounter one face to face.

Once we realized they were more interested in eating picnic scraps more than in eating us, we warmed up to them. We didn’t exactly pet them, but we did get close enough to get ourselves in a couple of picture with them.

the flora of Mt. Kinabalu

on Mt. Kinabalu

Oh, so that’s why it's called a rainforest

Just over two hours north of the city of Kota Kinabula is Mount Kinabula, the tallest peak in Southeast Asia. Despite its height, Mount Kinabalu is very climbable and is a very popular destination among tourists. Even though we weren’t planning on making the ascent to the peak, we planned on spending two days in the National park on the slopes of Mt. Kinabalu. It is one of the most bio-diverse regions in the world and is listed as one of 700 World Heritage sites.

As we walked from our low-budget hotel to the park entrance, it drizzled. Once inside the park’s welcome center, we waited for the now-steady rain to subside. Finally we ventured out on our two-hour hike through the jungles of Borneo. It rained on and off. After our first hike, we bought thin, overpriced rain ponchos before heading out on our second hike of the day. They helped. A little.

Hiking in Mt. Kinabalu offers some of the most amazing views in Southeast Asia. We didn’t see a single one of them. For the entire twenty-four hours we were on the mountain, a cloud bank obscured the view.

After a morning of soggy hiking on day two, we sought refuge from the incessant rain by ducking in to the interpretive center (does anybody call them “museums” anymore?). Aside from the lonely attendant behind the desk, we were the only one in the small heritage museum.

Previously, we had gotten conflicting information from some locals about whether this was Borneo’s rainy season or whether it was the dry season. After we had had our fill of diorama’s of Malaysian fishing villages, we decided to take the opportunity to clarify just exact which season Borneo was in.

We asked the attendant behind the desk. She said it was the dry season. We told her that someone had told us earlier that it was the wet season. As politely as possible, she assured us that it was the dry season. Julie off-handedly joked that it sure was raining a lot considering it was the dry season.

I’m sure that what the attendant said next was in part a result of a language barrier. But, I suspect the other part was her attempt to help everyone involved –including the two people who had previously given us conflicting information- save face. She gave it a moment’s consideration and then responded to Julie, “Well, maybe the rules have changed.”

Well, whoever changed the rules, could you please ask them to change them back. I’d kind of like to let my feet dry out. And I wouldn’t mind catching a glimpse of that mountain peak everyone is talking about.

Neutralizing the Proton

One of the cool things about living in Asia is getting to see models of cars that aren't sold in The States. In fact, not only do I see unfamiliar models, sometimes I encounter entire car companies I’ve never heard of.

In Malaysia, I started to see Proton cars. A lot of them, actually.

In 1983, Malaysia’s long-term Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad decided that rather than importing other countries’ cars, Malaysia should produce its own car. With a little technological help from Mitsubishi, the first Proton hit the streets of Malaysia in 1985. In just three years, the Proton car had managed to capture over 70% of the Malaysia car market.

But it wasn’t all just national pride. To ensure the success of its first national car, the government slapped steep tariffs on imports and simultaneously offered rebates and tax breaks for the Proton. The result was that the Proton was priced 30-60% cheaper than comparable imports. No wonder they cornered 70% of the market. Since then, the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement -of which Malaysia is now a member- stipulates that as of 2008, large trade barriers like tariffs and preferential discounts are not permissible. The tariffs are now down to 5% and Proton’s market share has dropped to just 30%.

So much for national pride.

But at least they still have that cool stylized tiger in its logo.

Adrift part 2 of 2

The first half of our ninety-minute rafting trip we had the river to ourselves. Then we made the mistake of taking a short rest. Sham had us pull over to a wide rocky shore. We saw that a previous visitor had stacked some of the smooth river rocks. It looked fun and challenging. It turned what could have been and should have been a five-minute rest into a twenty minute stop. This gave all the other rafters that were behind us a chance to catch up.

Kota Kinabalu and Borneo are a popular tour destination –especially for Chinese tourists. It is popular among Japanese and Koreans as well, but they mainly fly in for the cheap golf. Our Chinese river rafters weren’t quite as enamored with stone stacking as we were and only stopped for two or three minutes –which meant they shoved off at the same time we did.

The second half of our river rafting trip we were surrounded by rafts full of Chinese tourists.

I am not sure who started it. I suspect it was one of the good-natured guides from one of the other rafts. Those blonde heads proved to be too irresistible. He gave our raft a playful splash. Before long the Chinese tourists were in on the action. Big laughs all the way around –well, except from me. We found ourselves in the midst of a spontaneous game of “Splash Whitey.” I noticed none of them were splashing each other, just us.

“Elise, don’t splash back. You'll only encourage them.”

As a bonus, this also gave them an opportunity to try out their two or three English phrases. Splash. “Hello!” Splash. “Nice to meet you!” Splash.

Ya, nice to meet you too buddy.

Ah, a bucolic day on the Liuli River.

Anybody have a towel they can hand me?

Adrift part 1 of 2

Whenever we have a chance to get out of Hong Kong for a few days, we always try to strike a balance between down time and activity, culture and nature, fun and educational. Sorry girls, but there’s always going to be some hiking involved.

On our recent trip to Borneo, Malaysia, one of our crowd-pleasing activities was to go white-water rafting for the day. I thought we could handle a level 3-4 section of the river, but my wife convinced me that since this was our girls’ first time, the level 2-3 excursion would be wiser.

A ninety-minute van ride, we were at the launch site at the edge of the Kiulu River. Life jackets, helmets, and three minutes worth of instruction and we were ready to go. It was just the four of us and Sham our Malaysian river guide on our inflatable rubber river raft.

Sham was a perfect guide. He was funny, informative, and gave a great ride down the river. The girls kept yelling at me because I wasn’t paddling enough and helping to control the raft. What they didn’t realize was that our paddling was superfluous and simply for show. Sham had complete control of the raft. Girls, do you think it was just chance that we gently bumped into that big rock on the right side of the river, spun ninety degrees clockwise, dipped into a swell, got hit by a big slash that doused us on the left side of the raft, felt like we were about to tip –but didn’t- and then popped back out? Sham was in complete control the whole time.