By C. Roman Dial
This winter, my family went on
vacation to Malaysian Borneo. My father, Roman, my mother Peggy, and my sister
Jazz vacationed there in 1995 and 1996, and traveled separately there on trips
afterward, but this would be the first time we all went back as a family in
nearly 15 years.
The world’s third largest island,
Borneo covers more than 287,000 square miles. Three nations comprise Borneo: the
Indonesian province Kalimantan, the tiny, oil-wealthy sultanate Brunei, and the
Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.
This trip, the family would only
visit Sabah, which occupies the northwest area of Borneo, just south of the
Philippines.
A multiethnic nation, Malaysia
embraces a rich cultural heritage. Malays, typically Muslim, comprise the
ethnic majority. Chinese and Indians make up the predominant ethnic minorities,
though there are significant numbers of Filipinos and Indonesians.
While Malaysia is a Muslim
country, Christians are afforded specific protections under the law and
tolerance of other religions is widely valued. Everyone celebrates Christmas
and the Chinese New Year. In fact, we found a group of Malays practicing the
dragon dance on the top floor of an office building for the Chinese New Year.
Over 15 years, I’ve seen Malaysia
go from a third-world country to a nearly developed nation. Malaysia enjoys a
newfound prosperity, in large part due to the value of oil palm. Fifteen acres
of oil palm produce one ton of crude oil a month, worth an average of Ringgit
Malaysian 4,000 ($1,333). The most obvious change are the new cars and new
roads. The streets, once full of bicycles and motorbikes, with beggars on every
corner, are now jammed with brand new Protons and Isuzus. The people now wear
designer jeans and sneakers.
The cuisine remains unchanged.
Malay barbecue stands still occupy every night market and transit center. The
wood fires and blend of spices have a sweet, peculiar smell, reminiscent of
burning plastic. The satay - chicken or beef on sticks - cooked over them cost
about $.30, and are served in plastic bags with peanut sauce. Another
traditional Malay dish is mee goreng - fried noodles. Fried in palm oil and a
mixture of dark sauces, with egg and chicken or other meats mixed in. The dish
is garnished with a small citrus fruit that looks like a lime on the outside
and an orange on the inside, and skinny, sliced, spicy red peppers.
A popular dish at Indian
restaurants is a greasy, flaky, unleavened bread, called roti, that is tossed
like pizza dough and fried on a large metal pan. Young women in headscarves
serve the roti with a dish of curry for dipping. Everyone serves kopi susu -
coffee made from Nescafe with a healthy dollop of sweetened condensed milk.
Lying on the equator, tropical
rainforests once covered most of Borneo. Centuries of development, logging,
slash-and-burn agriculture, and most recently, conversion of forest into oil
palm plantation, have fragmented the rainforests into a patchwork of mostly
secondary forests.
Our first destination, Tawau
Hills Park, was one such fragment. Nestled in low hills overlooking southcentral
Sabah’s oil palm plantations, it is Malaysia’s oldest national park. Fifty
years ago, after logging cleared out the most valuable trees, the government
created Tawau Hills Park to protect what was left of the area’s watershed.
Despite the recent logging, the park has the world’s tallest tropical trees.
We stayed at the Park for a few
days in a chalet. Built in local Malay fashion, the wooden building stood on
stilts, 4 feet above the ground, avoiding floods, rot, and legions of ants. An
artificial pond formed above a dammed creek, surrounding the chalet with a
louts-choked moat. The water rose high enough to partially flood the rainforest
behind the building, attracting giant dragonflies and monitor lizards the size
of small alligators. A beautiful stork-billed kingfisher, with shimmering blue
plumage, dive-bombed the tropical aquarium fish in the moat with its giant,
orange bill.
Popular depictions of rainforests
err on two accounts: movies fail to convey the hostility of the flora and
fauna, and you rarely need a machete to hack through the forest. A rainforest
isn’t an impenetrable thicket of plants, but it’s not open either.
The dark, humid forest floor
crawls with life. Virtually every stick, branch and trunk swarms with stinging
ants. Centipedes, scorpions, wasps, bees, and spiders hide in crevices, in
curled up leafs, under logs and bark. Unseen gnats and mosquitoes leave
mysterious itchy welts on every bit of exposed flesh.
The worst, though, are probably
the land leeches. The largest, the tiger leech, may grow to three inches in
length. Lurking on the underside of leaves in the understory, they wait for a
passing mammal. Upon sensing movement and heat, they wave and stretch wildly,
hoping to latch on. Once they climb aboard their prey, they inchworm their way
to a tight fold of clothing to find a place to suck blood.
As worms, the leech can get into
just about anything, climbing through zippers that may be partially down, up an
untucked shirt, or wriggling down the waistline. The worst part, though, is
their attraction to places where they feel snug, like waistbands, belly
buttons, and armpits.
Using multiple rings of teeth,
they attach to the flesh, drill a hole, and gorge on blood. An anesthetic in
their saliva dulls the pain, and anti-coagulent keeps the wound bleeding
freely. After their meal, they drop off to the forest floor. The wound they
create bleeds for hours. After the bleeding stops, the inflamed wounds weep pus
and itch terribly, sometimes itching for two weeks.
Besides the host of invertebrates
ready to bite and sting, the constant wet, lack of sunlight, high humidity and
heat causes everything to mold and mildew quickly, including skin and hair.
Shoes and clothes go sour within a day or two of use if they are not washed and
quickly dried. After only a couple days of being in the jungle, almost every
surface of my body itches, from mold or bugs or both.
Little of an old growth
rainforest grows so thick you can’t get through it. Old growth, climax forests
have canopies a hundred feet above the ground, the tallest trees reaching
upwards of 200 feet. Less than two percent of sunlight makes it to the forest floor,
which means low primary production and little understory.
The thickest growth occurs in
areas with the most sunlight - logged areas, fallen trees, forest edges.
Despite the lack of thick vegetation, after a dozen steps off a trail, one
quickly becomes enveloped in a forest of trees and shrubs, where every
direction looks the same. Without a horizon or landmarks to navigate by, the
jungle threatens to lose anyone wandering in it.
In the rainforest, the droning
cacophony of cicadas and katydids comes from all directions, their song without
cease. Strange whistles and chirps echo from the foliage above. Some we could
recognize- the cackle of jungle crows, the honking, gooselike call of a rhino
hornbill, the low whooping and maniacal laughter of gibbons. We could smell
macaques before we saw them, a muddy, animal smell, slightly sweet, followed by
a clicking, chattering call, not unlike the aliens from Signs or the cave monsters in The
Descent.
A smaller, arboreal relative of
baboons, macaques travel in troupes composed of an alpha male, adult females,
subordinate males, immatures, and babies. They can number in the dozens, up to
sixty animals, though the troupes we encountered had no more than thirty
members. Like their larger, red-assed cousins, macaques are aggressive, vicious
omnivores that live in a hierarchical society, dominated by a large, muscular
male.
Later, when we traveled to
Sepilok, we would see them chase off orangutans, apes many times their size.
Here in Tawau Hills Park, though, they would challenge us, yawning to display
their canines. The dominant male of the troupe went as far as to bluff charge
at us from a low branch, purposefully knocking dead wood down on us before he
scampered back into the trees.
Due to the level of tourist
traffic on the paths in the park and the relatively recent logging, the level
of diversity in the rainforest we observed was not high. We saw a couple
species of lizards, giant tree squirrels, some frogs, and heard hornbills, but
the forest seemed relatively empty of animals, and we did not see much.
Seeing vertebrates in the
rainforest is rare and difficult, as foliage obscures most of the arboreal
habitat and most animals fear humans. Even the invertebrate life in Tawau Hills
Park, though, was lackluster.
In our original plan, we would
head to the Danum Valley research station, a large protected area of virgin
rainforest, after staying in Tawau Hills Park. In 2002, I traveled there with
my dad to do canopy research, and I looked forward to returning. The diversity
of animals I had seen last time was staggering. Unfortunately, a school group
would be there for Christmas, so we lost our reservations. To the delight of Jazz and Peggy, we decided on the beach dive resort of Mataking, on
Mataking Island.
A couple hours speedboat ride out
of Semporna in southeast Sabah, Mataking is one of several islands in a small
chain that includes the famous diving spot Sipidan. Due to Indonesian and
Filipino pirates kidnapping tourists, no one can spend the night on Sipidan anymore,
and military bases and naval police stations dot the islands.
We arrived in time for lunch,
served buffet style in a large, elevated, Malay-style longhouse. Ceiling fans
and a sea breeze kept us cool. As this was a dive resort, my dad and I planned
on diving. We had not, however, dived in years, so we scheduled a refresher
course for later that afternoon. We had a few hours to kill before that, so Jazz and I
went to the beach on the other side of the island.
The tide was out, exposing a mile
and a half of gleaming white sand in ankle deep, bathtub water. At the far end
of the sand we could see exposed reef. Marine plants grew sparsely but evenly
on the sand, providing habitat for mantis shrimp that looked like blades of
grass, armored crabs, thousands of sand dollars, sea cucumbers, star fish with
blue spikes, and sea urchins bristling with spines like hypodermic needles.
Our instructor, Luke, an easy
going, but professional, expatriate Brit, ran us through how to put our gear
together. We then frog-walked walked into the water in front of the dive
resort, virtually below the veranda where we had had lunch. After running
through some exercises, we descended to 15 meters along a 110 meter sea wall,
where a swift current pushed us along as a boat followed above us.
In spite of extensive coral
damage from dynamite fishing ten years ago, the whole area flourished with
colorful reef fish. We even saw a hawksbill turtle. Pleased enough with our
buoyancy control, Luke didn’t bother with further exercises. After 45 minutes,
we surfaced, got on the boat, and headed back. He said that we did well for not
having dived in eight years, but he was also in a bit of a hurry, as he had to
go bribe the local naval commander and chief of police with Christmas gifts of
Chivas. We later discovered that Luke was also the resort manager.
Over the next two days we went on
six more dives with a small group of tourists and a local divemaster. We were
clumsy compared to the others, who had logged dozens and dozens of dives. I
couldn’t wear my glasses underwater, so I didn’t see the blue ring octopus or
the mandardin fish, but I did see giant mantis shrimp, spiny lobsters, turtles,
anemone shrimp, anemone fish, and a hundred other fish that I had no idea what
they were, except colorful.
On one dive, we came across a
turtle resting on a coral garden, 18 meters underwater. It sat there, looking
at all of us, growing more flustered as more stopped to look. Eventually it swam
away.
We spent Christmas on the island,
and ended up drinking and singing karaoke with the head cook, his assistant,
several of the waiters, and some other staff. Despite being a predominantly
Muslim country, Malaysia’s long history as a multiethnic nation has everyone
celebrating everyone else’s holiday. Jazz would often comment that the
Malaysians had more Christmas spirit than the Americans, where women in
headscarves would wish you a genuine “Merry Christmas.”
The embarrassment of stumbling
through Malaysian pop ballads paid off, as on our last day on the island, Rafi,
the tour guide, broke a bunch of rules and brought a coconut crab to our
bungalow. The thing looked like a giant hermit crab without the shell. This one
had eggs on its abdomen, which it curled under its carapace. The world’s
largest terrestrial invertebrates, coconut crabs inhabit isolated islands in the South
Pacific. Omnivorous detritovours, they can climb trees and tear open coconuts
with their claws. The largest ones grow to 7 kilograms (15 pounds), though this
one was only around 2 kilograms (5 pounds).
After we left Mataking, we
traveled to an orangutan wildlife rehabilitation clinic at Sepilok. There we
watched the handlers feed bananas and sugar cane to one of the great apes as
hundreds of tourists looked on, snapping photographs and shooting video. A
horde of macaques, led by a large, muscular male, arrived, and successfully
chased the mother orangutan out after the handlers had left the platform. She
had a baby clinging to her, and did not want to confront the aggressive
monkeys.
The dominant macaque, larger and
more muscular than the others, ascended the platform with the food and chased
everything else away. He sat in the middle of the food, gorging himself. Two
wires led to the platform, and on one, macaques kept trying to grab food, which
led the dominant male to move closer and closer as he chased the other monkeys
away.
As he was doing this, the orangutan,
baby attached, swung out to the platform and gingerly began grabbing food. She
clung to the wire as if the floor was lava, but for good reason. As soon as the
male macaque saw what she was up, to he charged, snarling, and she quickly
swung away.
After the feeding, we walked around
on raised boardwalks. The forest floor crawled with skinks and brightly colored
jumping spiders prowled the handrail. I could not get good photos of the tiny
spiders, as they would jump on the camera when I moved the lens close enough to
focus. We also saw a couple of chirping, playful pygmy squirrels the size of
mice. They scrambled up tree trunks and jumped from liana to liana, squeaking
loudly.
We traveled to Sukao, on the
Kinabatangan River, the next day, to go on wildlife river cruises. In a sliver
of protected area along the Kinabatangan River, sandwiched between hundreds of
square miles of oil palm plantation, one can regularly see the last of Borneo’s
megafauna. Pygmy elephants, orangutans, gibbons, macaques, proboscis monkeys,
hornbills, hundreds of species of birds, and jungle cats routinely visit the
river, to the delight of thousands of tourists that flock to the region every
year.
In the course of three days of
river cruises, we saw six species of primate and five species of hornbill, a
bearded pig, mangrove snakes, giant monitor lizards, a pygmy elephant, and
dozens of species of birds. Despite the near constant river traffic, the
development, the villages, and the oil palms, this once logged area flourished
with life.
We saw multiple troupes of
macaques and proboscis monkeys, each with upwards of 30 individuals, many born
within the past two years. Several of the nest-building orangutans we saw had
babies clutching to them as they slowly brachiated through the trees. We
watched rhinoceros hornbills teaching
their offspring how to forage for food.
Habitat destruction can cause
temporary increases in the observed number and diversity of animals, as the
remaining habitat becomes filled with refugees. I wondered if this was the case
for the Kinabatangan, but the abundance of young animals, only a year or two
old, makes me think otherwise. Somehow, the most charismatic of Borneo’s
animals can survive, and apparently thrive, on this tiny slice of river
habitat.
While there, we also visited a
giant limestone cave complex, full of swifts and bats. The swifts nest there at
night while the bats roost there in the day. Millennia of occupation by these
insectivorous filled the cave with guano, on which million and millions of
cockroaches feed. The cockroaches in turn feed giant cave centipedes. Before
entering the cave, we were immediately assaulted by the godawful stench of a
thousand years of feces, festering in the bowels of a jungle cave.
Following boardwalks slippery
with guano and crawling with roaches, we carefully walked through the cave.
Bats squeaked and swirled high above us, cave centipedes skittered up the
walls, colonies of roaches filling every nook.
The first major cave openened up
to the sky, a pile of rubble where the cave roof caved in eons ago. In the
rubble, on a moss covered boulder, the skull of a sacrificial goat and a
playing card, the king of hearts, were perched. A much smaller cave lay beyond the
opening to the sky.
This smaller cave looked to be
choked with guano, as if a giant truckload of it were pouring out of it. On
that steep wall of guano there appeared to be a million glittering pennies. The
coppery sheen on the dirt colored guano, however, was the sheen of cockroach
wings. Millions of cockroaches constantly swarming up the hill and tumbling
down.
The swifts that live in the cave
make nests out of saliva. Prized by the Chinese as a soup ingredient for their
traditional medicine, a kilogram of these nests fetch $1000 on the market.
Regardless of the horrors and smell, climbers, usually Indonesian or Filipino
immigrants, regularly brave the bats and centipedes, shimming up rope ladders,
anchored to bundles of sticks, to scrape the nests from the cave. Due to the
risk of poachers taking the nests, every entrance of the cave has a small shack
where someone lives for months, guarding the nests.
After the Kinabatangan, Jazz and
Peggy headed back to the states. My dad and I had plans to travel to Danum and
packraft their rivers and creeks. Unfortunately, a bridge washed out and no
traffic could get through.
Our next plan, traveling to
Maliau Basin for a week of hiking through old growth forest, fell through when
we couldn’t get the park proof of insurance covering helicopter rescues. We
ended spending our last week in Malaysia in the town of Tawau, before flying to
Tasmania for three weeks of packrafting.
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