Cambodia Diaries - 17 June 2010

Malaysia truly Manchester!

Living out here, we get three ‘new year’ celebrations so if your resolutions of 1 January fall by the way side early on; there are always the Chinese and Khmer versions to allow another chance to make amends. By the time the Khmer New Year comes round, the cool months have gone to be replaced by days when we stop counting once everything hits the 90’s and the humble expat reacts by scampering to the airport and boards a plane out of the parish for a couple of weeks.

The upshot of a morning cycling with my mate Mark was the bagging of a couple of tickets to the nation now rebranded as Malaysia Truly Asia (‘MTA’). Well actually to what some old colonials call East Malaysia but which the locals call Sarawak. Despite purchasing a guide book several weeks before, the book was first opened on the flight into Sarawak whereupon we decided to wing it instead.

Now if you are one of only a dozen people in the world not to have seen the MTA advert campaign that has been running of late, we Brits granted the Malays independence in 1957 and it is nothing like the Asia I have become used to with sensible driving within clearly marked lines on the roads, not turning left from the right hand lane and something we don’t see an awful lot of in PP, rubbish put in dustbins located around the city as opposed to throwing it on the pavement.

Sarawak, which features heavily in the adverts, has a long history tied to the British or more particularly, the Brookes family, who were granted the land in 1841 by the then sultan of Brunei and which they continued to govern for three generations. They became known as the white rajahs of Sarawak until after the Second World War when one suspects the discovery of oil hastened their departure. Their legacy remains overlooking the main city of Kuching in the form of an old colonial fort which apart from Mark and I, no one seemed that bothered to visit.

In contrast, the orangutan park about 30kms east of the city is a must see. The degradation of their natural environment means that these monkey cousins of ours have to be housed in managed areas for their own protection. The park is a huge expanse of forest and twice a day, our cousins come down from the trees for morning coffee and afternoon tea or as they prefer to call it, bananas and coconuts. The name orangutan translated means ‘man of the forest’ because early people likened their behavior to our own and which now science can identify a 96.4% match in our respective DNAs.

Just hangin’

That said, I did notice one with a 100% DNA match to mine when it comes to opening coconuts. In fact he was useless and an affront to the whole monkey nation and I rather suspect he’d struggle to open a Bounty Bar. He gave up, started to head back up a tree and then next thing, a mate of his comes down, taps it and before you could say Pi?a Colada, he was slurping away for himself. Whereupon the original and somewhat peeved orangutan at losing face returns and a tremendous tussle ensues.

Coconut wars in the high trees

\Watching them glide through the forest was a wonderfully humbling site because as I was later to see, their homelands are withering away by what I guess, is that 3.6% difference between our and their DNA.

Sarawak is littered with national parks and we headed for a couple of days at Gunung Gading, a half day east of Kuching in a bus that no right minded Cambodian would get on. The park is home to the world’s biggest flower, the raffleasia or, that big horrible orange thing you see in the adverts and which by all accounts, stinks when in bloom. We, either thankfully or not, did not see one as we went yomping up into the forests.

Living out here, you learn to live with the heat albeit that what I really mean is ‘cope’. However, after yomping for about four hours; I was boiling, soaked to the bone in sweat and feeling like my head was going to explode. We came back down to base via a natural pool of water which had also come down from the top of the rain forest like us.

“Nothing else for it!” I said as I promptly stripped down to my boxers, whipped the leg off and got into the water to cool down.

Next we went inland to the heart of Sarawak up the Rajang River by ultra fast longboats that flew over the water after first heading out into the South China Sea before swinging inland to the town of Sibu at the mouth of the Rajang. Whereupon we boarded another boat to go up river to the town of Kapit, which was nothing to write home about and saw us on a boat out the next day for an amazing ride further upstream. Sadly the further up stream we went, the more we saw copious amounts of lumber heading in the reverse direction as the fruits of the forests continue to be stripped bare.

And there they were, gone!

If Kapit was kaput, Belaga was really the epitome of a ‘one horse town’. Two walks down the main street and you could have moved on if you were not based here for forays into the forest. Alas, we were not!

Indeed, over tea and with nothing to do but look at people looking at us, I enquired of Mark how it was, that in the middle of the jungle, so many people of all ages, shapes and sizes were wearing Manchester United shirts? It has been a feature since I first came out to these parts in 1990, to see the colours of top English sides, United, Arsenal and Chelsea being adorned all over Aisa. Now that Manchester City are emerging, we can expect a smattering of light blue to add to the mix. I had told Mark that I had once seen the livery of an Air Asia plane decked out with Manchester United colours and players faces and wondered what confidence you can have seeing Wayne Rooney’s ugly pug up the pilot end of the plane.

Hiya, nice one, sorted, mad for it!

Belaga had nothing to offer us, bar a stroll down memory lane of the various United kits of the last 5 years and I was looking forward to moving on the next day as we sat having some dinner served by a young girl in a David Beckham/Manchester United ensemble. The heavens were pouring outside and the jungle night was frequently lit up with violent thunder bolts as a brute of a storm blew over us.

The next morning we sat off in a 4x4 to make the long trip to Miri only to find 15 minutes into the trek, the aforementioned storm had taken out the only bridge out of the town. Having let the morning boat go in favour of the trusty 4x4, we were stuffed.

This was a disaster, and so rule one of Honney travels kicked into place and I enquired of a local guide, just how much it would cost to get the hell out of this town? An afternoon boat would take us up river to the dam, where his nephew would pick us up and we would stay with him for the night for a sizeable fee. Next morning he would secure a lift for us at a local restaurant and we would be on the way to Miri. We agreed and sat waiting until the 3pm life saver sailed in. Belaga is where children from the outlying long houses and communities go to school and our boat was in fact the ‘school run’ and all I will say, Sarawak school kids are every bit as loud as British school kids.

The adults sat out on top of the boat to get away from the din inside, whereupon I struck up conversation with a local. The dam and its environmental effects were controversial issues and my new friend was also scathing about how the forest was being cut down at alarming rates and sold to our friends in the Middle Kingdom. The Rajang was opaque with mud and according to him, before deforestation gathered pace 20 years ago, the water of the Rajang was clear but now the silt/mud just runs off into the river.

Muddy waters!

Thus, our 96.4% friends are forced to live in semi-wild communes as their homes are felled on a daily basis (which is before we talk about hunting). You have to wonder, for how long these ‘imbalances’ can continue before we have destroyed it all.

We arrived at the dam and were duly picked up by the nephew and conveyed to his abode. Whilst we were grateful to him, we were paying him a small fortune and when he showed us where we would be staying on the floor of his home he shared with cats, dogs, chickens and Lord knows what else, we had to revise the plan. We managed to talk him into taking us to a glorified transport café for dam builders and tree loggers alike where after little or no bartering, we got a chap to drive us at Formula 1 speed to a road crossing some three hours away where we were told, all we had to do was stand on the side of the road and hail a Miri bound coach down. It was gone 9pm when we got there, pitch black and armed with only mobile phones to slow a speeding coach to a halt, I was somewhat amazed when we managed to slow a coach down, bundle in with our bags and collapse into the luxury of aircon travelling!

The reason we came to Miri was to get what was without doubt, the shortest flight I have ever taken, a mere 20 minutes to the national park of Mulu. A truly amazing place with the longest limestone cave networks in the world and the incredible sight of three million bats flying out of the caves to feed in the late afternoon. It would have been amazing if it were not for the rain ruining the bats chances of getting an in-flight meal as we were drowned waiting for the show. A few days trekking in the heat however, was more than enjoyable solace.

Our route took us to Brunei and possibly the world’s most boring capital city, Bander Sari Begawan. If you get the chance to come here don’t - Asia this is not! Being Muslim it’s dry, which is not a bad thing per se, but there appears to be little to do and the place has the air of being deserted as no one walks in the city. It was from here that our flight back was heading but not before we went to the Empire Hotel for high tea. The tea was exceptional value, even if the scones were a day too old and yes it was opulent, but if that is what a hotel purportedly costing $1,3billion to build gets you, then someone somewhere is having a laugh!!

We stopped in Kulala Lumpur for a night and with it, a chance to catch up with Dan an old mate and Paul, an even older mate whom I had not seen for nigh on two decades and who now owns a couple of bars in KL and ironically, both lads knew each other. What Brunei lacked, was more than made up for on a big night of reminiscing with the KL expats and which was the perfect antidote to Brunei.

Before we knew it, Mark and I were heading to our plane for the flight home to PP when guess what we passed? Yup, Air Asia’s Manchester United special with Mr. Rooney’s scowl wishing us well on our way!

Cheers

JH