Kudat, Borneo

The flight over Palawan and down into Borneo was stunning - the pilot seemed to be weaving around enormous black anvil-topped thunderclouds - with a golden sunset backdrop and crystal blue waters below nature was really pulling out amazing colour combinations from her palette! I might say that this was the most beautiful flight I've ever been on - my face (then camera) was glued to the window for the whole flight.

I got off the flight and crashed out in a hostel - feeling extremely tired. Next morning I felt a lot better and headed out first thing to find a bus to take me to the northern tip of Borneo. I'm heading to a hostel called Tampat Do Aman. My family are friends with the parents of Howard, who's been out here for seven years, is married to a lovely Borneo lady, and has slowly but steadily been building this business. His aim is to put as much back to the village as he can, so he employs locals for all of the work - and has a few western volunteers on-site as extra hands. Everybody knows and respects him greatly! 

The rickety bus costs 20 Ringgits and takes about five hours. It drops you in Kudat main town, and Howard personally picks everybody up to take them the 30km to the very northern tip of Borneo.

The resort itself is sustainable, with compost toilets, all made from local wood and put together in a traditional way. There's bungalows, just big enough for a double bed, and a traditional Rungus longhouse with ten (I think) rooms, some with double and some with bunk beds. There's a communal area and they've just finished a fantastic little museum, full of interesting artefacts from the surrounding areas. For breakfast there's a shuttle (mostly Howard) that takes you down to the beach, where his restaurant is. There's surfboards, snorkels, kayaks and mountain bikes here. He also has some motorbikes and a battered (characterful) Proton to rent if you so wish.

You can do as much or as little as you want here. I did a jungle walk with Freddie, a German volunteer, and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes. I also spent some time on the surfboards. One evening I was failing to surf when the distant sky turned jet black and it started raining - it had a dramatic effect on the sea, smoothing and taming it with each droplet, only letting the waves roll in. I stopped surfing and sat on the board, soaking up the serene atmosphere with my lower half in the hot sea and my upper half in the cool rain!

There were two mom cats (with no names) in the lodge. One had three kittens (days old) and the other had two (weeks old). The days old mom decided she wanted a week old kitten to feed also and stole one of the others - though days old mom didn't seem too bothered having only one to look after. She took a shine to my bed and I regularly came back to find the kitten in my bed, or hanging precariously on the mosquito net on the outside! In the end I put a box in my room for them to sleep in, the mom seemed happy with this and would happily meow her way into my mosquito net for some attention in the middle of the night.

In my diary of Melaka and Penang in West Malaysia I raved about the food - and I'm so glad to be back here, I missed it so much. The Malay, Chinese and Indian influences excite me greatly - it truly must be some of the tastiest food in the world!

 

 

Traditional Rungus dish - cold fish cooked in lime acid juice, with chilli

There was a village wedding happening on the beach, and they invited us to join them at every opportunity. This corner of Borneo is actually Christian - there was pork, and a lot of beer and locally brewed rice wine. We were fed so much food - they kept putting fresh trays, loaded with tasty things, in front of us. When our drinks were gone (and even before) they were topped up, or we were forced to drink shots of rice wine. Everyone was ridiculously friendly, I think I spoke and danced with most people. There was a party guy, who kept coming around with cans of beer and a bottle of brandy - mixing them together in a glass and getting us to do shots. Me, the three volunteers, an Australian girl and a Canadian couple got exceedingly drunk - I think the Canadian man threw up. We learned how to dance like a bird and me and Freddie impressed the locals with a karaoke rendition of Let it be. I rolled into bed and passed out to the pleasant sound of  millions of jungle critters.

End of the night rabble!

I was rudely awoken from my hangover sleep by a sharp pain in my right elbow. Having no idea what was happening I fumbled for my torch - finding blood dripping down my arm, but nothing in sight - and this was inside my mosquito net. I jumped out of bed and looked around the bed but still found nothing. I went to the communal area and examined the bite more - there was a definite hole, and my elbow was starting to swell up, and become flushed, like a poison was irritating the skin. I didn't want to get back into bed after this, so stayed up. A few hours later Howard came and had a look, as he's an expert in jungle stuff. He said it looked like a centipede bite, of which some contain poison, although not lethal to humans - that would explain the swelling and painful aching elbow! He ripped a plant from the ground and squeezed a white, sticky liquid from it and onto the bite - he said it's a natural painkiller, but I forget the name of the plant :(

Nature's in control here. From the billions of bugs to the insane greenery, everywhere, climbing everything. Giant leaves the locals use as umbrellas when it rains! Howard said that clearing the lodge area is a constant battle - leave it for one day and nature takes over again. 

Centipede attack

Lashio, Myanmar

4am at Mandalay station. I feel exhausted. The first-class carriage has covers on the wooden benches! This was to be my home for the next 18 hours (320km), but at least I have a whole bench to myself. The train is quite empty, there's no other tourists here. As soon as the train whistles out of the station I curl up on the bench and grab three hours sleep. I'm woken up by hot beams of sunlight and general noise as the train pulls into a station. I get off the train and blunder about amongst the chaos looking for something to feed my western caffeine habit. There's school kids everywhere, laughing and running about. Food and drink sellers push away hungry dogs.

The long journey to school

One stop wasn't a station stop. I leaned out of the window to see what was happening and heard clunking and scraping noises. Shortly afterwards we started going backwards, and uphill. I noticed that we were leaving the other line we'd arrived on. Assuming this was a one-off I sat back down, but 10 minutes later we stopped, clunked and groaned and started going backwards (forwards), and again steep uphill. This zig-zag continued up the side of quite a large, steep hill! An hour later we plateaued and the view down the valley we'd climbed was magnificent! We continued on through countless villages with amazing names, dropping kids off as we went.

Me taking a picture of Chris taking a picture

My favourite station name, containing my favourite Burmese character

Monks and horse-cart taxis at Pyin Oo Lwin

The workhorse train - this thing is noisy

The train slowed right down to a crawl for ages. We were in a carved valley, barely wide enough for the train to fit through. Out of the window in the distance I could see two men down by the side of the tracks. As we got closer I could see that they were inspecting the tracks, as the train went over a ditch. I can only assume the old tracks were replaced and they were using us as a guinea pig! The train creaked and rocked safely over and the view opened up revealing an enormous gorge, spanned by the even more enormous Gokteik viaduct (the largest in the British empire when it was built in 1901). As we rounded the corner we passed a soldier (who refused to smile or wave) in a bunker, guarding the strategically important viaduct with a large fixed machine gun! The train once again slowed. Over the bridge everyone leaned out of the windows for a glimpse into the chasm! Far below is another track, possibly the old line before the viaduct was build - or a secret military line to somewhere unknown :)

Crossing a huge canyon

Zzz

Cutting through the bushes

We past many villages and got further and further east. The train was now cutting through jungle, if no train were to come I'm sure the tracks would be covered in weeks. Most of the foliage was coming into the car and landing at my feet. The train was also now rocking and jumping a LOT. At times you could leave your seat or get thrown into the wall - a couple of times I was convinced the train had left the track! We cruised into Lashio at 10pm and a tuk-tuk driver took us to Thi Da Aye (Cool water). The room was dirt cheap at $5 each. It was a tiny, dim room, in the basement of a posh business hotel. It was right next to a squat toilet! Completely tired we took the room and crashed.

Next day we wanted to hire motorbikes. Asking around it was clear that there was no tourist rental places (or indeed tourists). We asked some locals but they were reluctant to lend us their bikes. We were told that we would attract a lot of attention on bikes, and we wouldn't be able to go far as there were military checkpoints to the east on the road to China. We bailed that idea and went for a walk instead. Possibly every person we passed said hello and wanted to talk, or just looked on like we were two aliens fresh from Mars! There's not exactly much in the way of tourist attractions in Lashio, and we  noticed a sign for an amusement park!  Entering the park kids scattered into groups and laugh-whispered about us. There's was a tiny pirate ship, a large statue (which we climbed), an amusement arcade with some seriously old games in and a roller-skating rink!! We popped on some boots and prepared to break our legs, or arms, or both. The local kids were highly amused and raced us, winning every time of course. My boots were so old and worn that the wheels each wanted to go different directions, which meant I did also! Battered and bruised and extremely sweaty we got talking to a local student called Wai Yan Moe Tain (English name: Terry), who wanted to practice English and show us around his town. That afternoon he took us to some of his favourite food haunts.

My second travel mascot, Woody, was abducted by a little girl from a wedding - I didn't have the heart to take it back from her, she liked him so much.

The girl on the left - Woodys new owner

Next day I woke early - Chris wasn't in bed. I went to reception to see if he was there and the receptionist said he'd come in the middle of the night and wanted a room with toilet, the only one they had was a $30 room and he took it! I went up to see him. He was violently sick in the night, and had spent hours in the small dirty squat toilet next to our room before deciding to get an en-suite! He was still feeling rough so I got him some water and salt-powders. He slept most of the day, checking out of the $30 room at the last minute - any longer and he would've been charged another night. 

Conqueror

English name "Terry"

Lasho rollerskating park

Yan time Aung Pagoda