Your Foreign Devil Correspondent

Another trip to Thailand and another government deposed by massive protests.  When we left last spring, P.M. Samak had won the election to end a military care-taker government.  He was deposed over the summer on the pretext of having benefited financially from his popular day-time T.V. cooking show, putting himself in a real jam while his term in office went to pot.  Now his successor, Somchai, is in a similar pickle.  Two weeks before we arrived, on Oct. 7, the opposition party, the PAD, held a huge rally which turned into a confrontation with the police and government supporters, and a suicide bomber killed himself and another person, and scores were injured.  In response, the PAD activists took control of one of the major streets lined with government offices, and barricaded themselves in with sandbags, tires and barbed wire.  They are still there, and yesterday Katheryn and I went down to have a look.

They have chosen the location well, being protected from opponents (who have shown up with weapons and petrol bombs) by the police HQ and a major Wat (the Marble Temple) on one side, and a canal on the other.  The police have taken control of Phitsanulok Rd, on their southern flank, with a massive presence.  This is where we showed up.

It’s often best with armed road-blocks, I’ve found, to play the dumb tourist card, and if confronted seek safety in stupidity.  So we just go up to an opening in the barrier, and slowly walk in.  Since nobody stops us, we keep on going.  Riot gear is lined up against the fence, and the officers are lolling in the shade of row upon row of police vans, out of the mid-day heat.  This being Thailand, enterprising vendors have set up noodle carts, and there is one guy selling holsters, cartridge belts and other police paraphernalia, along with fake pearls and costume jewellry - for after-hours, perhaps?

This is nothing, however, compared with the commerce going on within the PAD barricade.  As we approach, loud music is pumping from a truck on which is painted “MURDER Bring the Killers to Justice”.  A very pleasant young man apologizes that he has to search my bag, and then we are in.   After the dour menace of the police side, it is very much like a carnival.  There are loads of little eateries, the streets are lines with pavilion tents selling political merchandise, and there are at least three places I spot where you could stop for a foot massage.  The hot ticket this oust-the-prime-minister season is the hand clapper.  They started showing up at rallies in the spring - two glove-like hands on a stick that make a great clackity-clack when you shake them - and now they are a must-have for every demonstrator.  Stomping on Somchai’s face is another popular theme, with his visage adorning flip-flops and bath-mats.  And of course there  are the T-shirts.  Unfortunately the vendors here cater to a local crowd, so there are no XL sizes for me, and Katheryn doesn’t wear yellow (the PAD party colour), so we don’t buy anything.  The sentiments, expresses as only T-shirts can, range from anger to resentment, with a smidgen of hope that the year 2551 will bring peace and change.

People are friendly, but there is a tension in the air.  For one thing, a pro-government rally is planned for tomorrow at a stadium and 100,000 people are expected.  Although the party denies it, most people believe that former P.M. Taksin - the champion of the cause, now exiled in London, and due to address the rally on a giant T.V. screen - will say something provocative, and a large pumped-up mob will move downtown to try to force the PAD camp out of the barricades.  If this happens, it will be very ugly.  When we leave the occupied area we see some of the preparations for this conflict: in a tent are a collection of bats, sticks, rods and golf clubs.  We will see what happens tomorrow.

The air is heavy and torpid, and we are sweating profusely.  It’s always this way before the rain.  A thick black cloud hangs over the east, over downtown Bangkok, and we decide to pop into the Marble Temple just around the corner, in case it pours.  An German tour group is being steered around the ground, taking snaps of the famous gold Buddha inside the shrine.  It’s probably their 5th one today, and you can tell many are suffering from temple fatigue.

For much of the past week I have been prone in a dentist’s chair, getting fitted with a crown, which is much cheaper in this Kingdom than it is at home.  Another thing that is cheaper is software, especially at the notorious Pantip Plaza, five floors of shops dealing with everything computer.  I pick up a program that allows me to blend three different exposures of the same photo into one picture, making an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image.  This lets us take pictures of high-contrast scenes, parts of which would previously have been over or under exposed, and produce some amazing results.  Please bear with us while we indulge, and check out some of the pictures on our flickr site.

And Happy Halloween!  Katheryn was talking to a thai friend about the holiday.  The Thais have embraced the occasion as a way to sell little battery-operated red devil-horns, which look very cute as you bop around a club.  Katheryn asked if she knew what they were, and she took a stab: water buffalo horns?  No, said Katheryn, they depict the devil.  Do you know what the devil is?  The friend thought a second.  Is it an animal?  So not having deep cultural roots, Halloween is  just an excuse to party, which last night on Khao San Rd.  is what everyone was doing.  And then what happened?  At around 10, just as the crowd was getting really thick, the thunder crashed and the lightening flashed and the sky finally opened.  Everyone got soaked, but the party kept on going.

Protest update:  As of the news this morning, it seems that violence was avoided last night.  Let’s hope a peaceful solution can be found.

We are used to travelling great distances by air in the other direction: across the Pacific to Asia. Now we get on a plane and fly and fly, wait in an airport and fly some more - and we are still in Canada! The occasion is a birthday party in Newfoundland. My father is turning 80, and my sister is 50, and even though they live in Winnipeg it seemed it would be more fun to celebrate in Newfoundland. We mine a family connection - my father’s sister-in-law’s brother - who has a vacation property near Tickle Cove, and my mother and father, my sister, my two nephews and Katheryn and I all find the time to make the trip to the other Far East.

We are out of our house at 5:30 a.m. to catch the flight, but it’s not until 9:30 p.m. that Jane and the boys - Adrian and Andrew - pick us up in St John’s. Tickle Cove is still 3 hours away, and we need food, so we decide to find something in town. It takes about 5 minutes to fall in love with St. John’s. The airport is so close to downtown it’s like a friend who’s just nipped out of a kitchen party for a quick smoke. The houses butt up against each other on the steep streets like old chums, and yards and fences have been done away with so that you can pop in on your neighbours for a visit even quicker. Walking down Duckworth St. the first locals we meet stop us and give us the traditional greeting: Looking for something to eat? You could always come back to our place…

We pick up some take-away from Get Stuffed, where the server warns us about the highway to Tickle Cove. Drive safely, she says, it’s Moose Alley up there. I’m thinking about this as we leave St. John’s and drive into the fog. Adrian has set the mood, putting on Great Big Sea. The road is a black strip that dissolves 20 ft. in front of us. We pass two moose, but what almost does us in is a huge Great Horned Owl sitting squarely in the middle of the road as we crest a hill, staring at me with the gaze of a mad alchemist disturbed in the middle of a ritual sacrifice.

The house where we stay is actually in Open Hall, just a skip and a tad from Red Cliff which is a gull’s breathe from Tickle Cove. It is absolutely gorgeous, with only a bit of scrub and a massive blueberry patch between it and the rocky coast. The next day, for a special dinner, we decide to buy a fresh fish. There are 3 problems with this: 1) the fishery has been closed for 15 years and all the locals have left; 2) the periodic food fishery has just finished, and the catch is all gone; 3) the guys down on the wharf explaining this to me talk with such a heavy accent I only understand about 30% of what is said.

It often seems, in fact, like a foreign language and a foreign country, and that we have somehow pulled a sneaky when we buy something and pay with Canadian money. There are still lots of people upset with Joey Smallwood for bringing Newfoundland into confederation, as the number of tri-coloured Republic of Newfoundland flags we see points out.

For a week we never leave the Bonavista Peninsula. It’s a spectacular landscape of charming villages and dramatic headlands, the stunted trees and tundra-like moors a testament to the heavy weather. I am surprised to learn that we are south of the 49th, south of our own lush, temperate, palm-tree-growing coast. One day Jane, Adrian, Andrew, Katheryn and I walk out to the very edge of Canada, to a wild promontory east of The Dungeons, a natural arch outside of Bonavista. The cliffs fall away sheer into the ocean, and we pose on jutting rocks, or crawl to the lip and peer fearlessly at the churning water below. A few puffins remain from the nesting season, and one zooms round and round an off-shore crag like he’s at an amusement park, two fish dangling from his beak.

This is enough inducement for my Dad, a keen birder. We are told there are still puffins at Elliston, also renowned as “The Root-cellar Capital of the World”. Puffins are spotted, but what steals the show is the ocean. The day is calm and, for Newfoundland, almost sunny, but immense swells are rolling in and crashing in dramatic plumes on the cliffs. We learn later that a freak convergence of storms far off-shore generated these waves, including one massive “rogue wave” which hit the coast just north of St. John’s and nearly dragged a beach full of picnic-ers into the water.

We are all back home now, and Katheryn and I are getting ready for our last sale of the year before our return to Asia. For those of you who can make it, we are in the Elk’s Hall in Duncan, and because it is our last sale, everything is 50% off! Hope to see you there.

Our trip for this winter is complete. All of our shipments have arrived, and now the focus is on the 16 sales of the summer touring season. We are in our apartment in Vancouver, and it is gray and raining outside. On the radio there is news of huge natural disasters in areas we are familiar with: Hurricane Nargis in Burma; and the earthquake in Sichuan province, China. These calamities have overshadowed another recent incident in a place we have spent a lot of time: the series of bombings in Jaipur, India, that have killed at least 63 people. Many people are suffering due to these tragedies, and we encourage you to do whatever is in your means to help. Because we are in Asia every year, and because there are always disasters on a massive scale, we have come to truly admire the strength and resilience of the people who live there.
Apart from the tragedies, this is a dynamic region and it has been an eventful year. The uprising in Burma last summer set the backdrop for our trip. It began as a protest by monks over high fuel prices, but quickly escalated. For a while there seemed to be a growing optimism that perhaps the end of the ruling junta had come, and that heroic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi would be released and democracy would blossom. Then came the crack-down, and stories leaked out about bodies dumped in the forest and entire monasteries closed and their denizens imprisoned.
When we arrived in Thailand the country was preparing for its first general election since a military coup the year before. For the full story on that, go to our Thai Political Update blog. Thailand was also trying to figure out what to do about its neighbour, Burma. A meeting of the Association of S.E. Asian Nations (ASEAN) was due to review Burma’s application to join, and even Thailand, a traditional supporter, was having trouble swallowing the odious nature of the regime. In the end, the application was approved, with Burma granting the “concession” of a referendum on a new constitution, and an election promised in 2010.
True to their word, Burma held the referendum: last week, just after Nargis slammed into the coast. The junta wasn’t giving out any aid, but to help the people they were distributing ballots with the “yes” already marked.
We flew into Kathmandu, Nepal, and into another political hot-bed. For the past three years the Nepali have been in the middle of a drama worthy of Shakespeare. In what was reported as a “love-sick rage”, a prince massacred the entire ruling family and then conveniently killed himself, leaving his uncle as the next-in-line to the succession. The new King Gyanendra proved to be a maniacal despot, who drove a flourishing opposition into the hills and into the arms of the rebel Maoists.
Three years ago when we arrived the capital was ringed by heavily-fortified check-points, and was virtually cut off and under siege. The Maoists controlled most of the rest of the country. That summer the people could take it no more, and took to the streets of Kathmandu, despite a shoot-to-kill order from the King. Fortunately the army refused, and the king was forced to negotiate with the opposition.
Two years ago when we arrived, it was the Maoists marching through central Kathmandu. They wanted to take part in the elections that had been promised, but were still reticent to relinquish their rebel ways, and their weapons. Also, with the heavy hand of oppression lifted, other groups in this disparate country wanted a piece of the political pie. See our archived blog “Escape from Bir Ganj” for an account of our encounter with the Terai unrest.
When we arrived last November, the Maoists were in parliament, but one election date after another had been cancelled, largely because of Maoist demands to include a suspension of the monarchy as a prerequisite. Finally a month ago, on April 10, the election was held. In a stunning result, the Maoists won a landslide victory. Their first action was to formally declare Nepal a republic, and end the 250 year-old Shah dynasty, and the world’s only Hindu kingdom.
India, for a change, was relatively stable by contrast. The Congress government of Manmohan Singh, while not particularly charismatic, at least wasn’t presiding over the nuclear posturing and ethnic-cleansing sprees of its BJP predecessor. A big story was the creation of the “one-lakh rupee car” (1 lakh = 100,000rp = $2,500), called the “Nano”. A project of the mega-industrial Tata family, the winner of the bidding war between the states as to who would get the privilege of hosting the plant was West Bengal. Very interesting, for a state that had always elected a communist government, until last year. The lightweight, two-cylinder car is expected to be off the production line this year, and I can’t wait to see the effect on the already-impossibly clogged roads of India when we return in the fall.
Bigger than the Nano was the calamitous series of events happening in India’s problem twin, Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto returned to Karachi in October ’07 to lead her Pakistan People’s Party into the elections reluctantly called by the embattled president, General Pervez Musharraf. Musharraf had just pulled a constitutional quicky to stay in control by sacking all the Supreme Court judges who disagreed with him. The resulting protests by lawyers in collars and robes, battling the notorious brutality of the army and police, was a lesson in courage, and a high point for their profession. Things got off to a bad start with Bhutto’s return at her first large rally, when a bomb attack killed about 160 people, but left Bhutto unharmed. She wasn’t as lucky next time. While we were in Delhi just after Christmas, the news came that she had been killed at an election rally in Rawalpindi. Elections were postponed, but to Musharraf’s credit they were rescheduled to February 18. Benazir’s PPP, lead by her husband Asif Ali Zardari allied with former P.M. Nawaz Sharif, scored a huge victory for secularism and democracy. Of course the U.S.A., myopically tied to its dictator-in-a-pocket Musharraf, did everything to prop him up, unable to understand that there might be another solution to Islamic fundamentalism other than sell arms to “friendly” governments.
The last political upheaval of this trip came during our visit to Malaysia. While we were staying with our friends Frank and Kerry in Singapore, Malaysia had an election on March 8. Ever since its independence in 1957, Malaysia has been a virtual one-party state. Although it has two significant minorities, the Chinese and the Indians, Malaysia’s ruling party, the B. N., has unabashedly been the instrument of the ethnic Malay majority. In January, when there were peaceful Indian protests in Kuala Lumpur, they were beaten, water-cannoned, and their leaders imprisoned without trial. However, the election put a boot into the B. N. Although it still maintained a majority, it fell considerably from its traditional 2/3rds of the vote. Also, for the first time, it lost control of 5 of the 12 state governments. This was seen in Malaysia as a rout, and opened the way for the return of Anwar Ibrahim, the progressive ex-deputy P.M., jailed and banned from politics until last month on trumped up sodomy charges.
I have to admit, returning to our wonderful, rich, cocooned nation, things seem pretty tame. We have a lot we take for granted here, and I hope it’s a good thing that our complacency is a sign of the stability of our institutions, as imperfect as they may be. When I hear the news from Asia, it is easy to feel nothing but doom and gloom, but I take a great deal of inspiration from the courage, character and class of the people I have been fortunate enough to meet.
I also want to thank you all, faithful readers, for staying with us in spirit on our travels. Especially, we owe a huge debt to the many people who have given us so much along the way. It is obvious that our success is a group effort, and the generosity we have encountered is staggering. Thanks to Keith and Helen for all the tech support and work on the website; Marianne for watching our back on the home front; David, without whom we would flounder; Marguerite for limitless hospitality – and sewing; Nicole and Robert who take air shipments for us; and many, many others including: Peter Wood, Peter in Bangkok, Peter and Vera, Boris, Ajit, Frank and Kerry etc. etc.

The final leg of this year’s epic journey is destined to be Northern Thailand and Laos. We haven’t been to Laos in 2 years and we decide to go in easy stages to our ultimate destination, the 700 year old town of 20,000 people, Luang Prabang. We have an easy, comfortable train ride from Bangkok to Udon Thani in 9 hours. Unfortunately the double-pane windows are smudged and covered with decades of dirt, and even though the line passes through some dramatic scenery, we couldn’t see very much. In Udon Thani we got a fantastic cheap room with all the mod-cons. There seemed to be a fair sized ex-pat community living in this nondescript by likable northern city. From there the next day we took a short one hour bus to Nong Khai, the border town, with Laos just across with the Mekhong River. It’s star attraction is a very unusual park created by a spiritual leader named Luang Pu. He was a Lao who fled to Thailand when the communists took over in 1975, and he sculpted in concrete and supervised the making of colossal, bizarre images of Buddhist and Hindu deities, fashioning them in totally unconventional and often disturbing ways. The park is called Wat Kaek, and though he has since died the work is still ongoing. The faces, which are often 10′ high, characteristically have a blank, plastic quality that reminds me of Odo from Star Trek. One impressive statue is a 90′ high Buddha sitting under a very evil-looking 5-headed naga whose protruding fangs and tongues create an image a little removed from the benign teachings of the middle path. Still, it’s enjoyable in a very “Burning Man” kind of way.

We pass through Nong Khai almost every time we go to or from Laos, but this was the first time we stopped to look around. All in all it was nothing special, and we shortened the two planned days there to one. In the morning we did the visa business at the border, (Canadian visa went from $30 to $43) and made our way piecemeal to the capital, Vientiane. Two of the great pleasures of Laos are the baguette sandwiches and the fresh fruit juice. Sounds simple I know, but, apart from the recipe for coffee, the only thing the French gave the Lao was the recipe for baking proper baguettes. And are they ever good. The juice is a no-brainer: get fresh tropical fruit (pineapple, mango, banana, dragon fruit, lemon, watermelon, papaya etc etc) blend the fruit with ice, put into a glass. And when an icy hit of tropical goodness costs 50 cents, you have a lot of them.

The route straight through to L.P. from Vientiane is 11 hard hours of travel, so we decide to make a stop four hours away in Vang Vieng. It was once a sleepy town along a pretty river (named the River of Song) complete with a dramatic Karst mountain backdrop. More recently it’s become a back-packer’s hangout with cafes showing endless videos of “Friends” (of all things) and offering mediocre food on menus written in Hebrew and Korean. We did, however, discover unbelievable nectar here, a lemon-mint shake to die for, containing at least 500 grams of mint, picked straight from the garden. We enjoyed these while watching the local kids leap into the river from a rickety bridge.

From Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang we opt for the more pricy minibus to get through the mountains. These smaller vehicles have an easier time with the hills. No problem with leg room along the way, and it really is one of the most scenic drives in all of Asia. Just to keep things interesting, our bus has a transmission problem, and keeps dropping out of gear on inclines. We are very pleased that it doesn’t die half way, with the passengers forced to hitchhike from the middle of nowhere.

On my first trip I took here I noticed no brick houses, only teak or split bamboo. On the last trip many families had filled in the first story of their stilted wooden house with a brick floor. This trip I saw many new big brick houses. The road is in good shape too. There are still tiny hamlets of shacks clinging to the mountainside, with their front door on the highway’s shoulder, the back door twenty feet over a precipitous drop, propped up on stilts. But Laos’ economy is improving. Lao tourism in Thailand rose 160% this year, mostly first time visitors.

Once we arrive at the Luang Prabang bus station I sense some changes here too. Prices have risen and there is new construction everywhere. We take a very pretty room at the Cold River Guest house, with a view from our balcony of the garden, forest, a massive bamboo, and the Nam Khan, a tributary that feeds the mighty Mekhong. It feels good to have a place to stay put for a while; we have had been in 5 hotels in 5 days, a first this trip, but quite normal other years. Our hotel ,though lovely, should have been called “No water.” Due to its own pipes and town problems we often have no water, which is excruciating in the 35 plus weather with heavy sticky humidity. The hotel is favoured by Japanese travellers, who are very friendly. One evening they are sitting around and invite us to taste some local alcohol they have bought. Inside the bottle there is a dramatic cobra with it’s hood extended, biting into a large scorpion. No really, pickled inside the bottle! David, the fool, immediately said yes! He said it tasted like brandy.

Shopping is our main reason to come here. We have a delightful source of hand loomed scarves and shawls, Phonsavan, and go to see her in the morning. We make our choices in a few hours and set about photographing it all on locations that say “Laos”. Though it was stinking hot, and we were soaked with sweat, we got terrific shots of the shawls, in temples and on old colonial buildings.

After our work was finished we consider seeing the Pak O caves, where old Buddha statues go when they are removed from temples. It is in a dramatic setting part way up a cliff face on the Mekhong river about 25 km north. We did go last time, and were lucky to hit it when there wasn’t a horde of tourists. This time the tuk tuk drivers are asking for a fare higher then our cost to get here from Vientiane! Same, same, when we try to make it to the water fall south of town. Seemed to me the tuk tuk drivers had a mafia style control on the tourist’s transport and are possibly the ones who got the business of renting motorbikes to farangs made illegal. We bail on both plans and enjoy the town and the area across the Nam Khan which has a more authentic feels to it.

One aspect of Laos culture that hasn’t changed is the farmers use of slash and burn methods. The sky is hazy and our eyes burn from the smoke, and the sun always disappears well before it reached the horizon.

Though we do enjoy the town, there is an unfortunate side effect to all this tourism. Two years ago all the children were excited to say hi. Now people won’t smile or greet you unless you initiate it. In a recent article in the Bangkok Post, writer Seth Mydans wrote, “Luang Prabang displays preservation’s paradox. It has saved itself from modern development by packaging itself for tourists, but in the process has lost much of it’s character, authenticity and cultural significance…being transformed into a replica of itself; dwellings into guest houses, restaurants, souvenir shops and massage parlors; it’s rituals into shows for tourists.”

The Buddhist new year festival of Songkran takes place as the sun moves from Pisces into Aries. Formally, scented water would be poured over Buddha statues and poured gently over the palm of an elder. Nowadays huge coolers full of water are dragged to the curbside and hoses are brought out to soak the motorists and everybody who passes by. People sport pump action super-soaker water guns, and make a water war of all the streets. The enthusiasts in Luang Prabang start celebrating it 5 days before it is scheduled. When we had the stock with us and the camera it was a pain. But after that we are more likely looking for the soaking to cool off. It is actually quite a hilarious festival.

Our departure 4 days later down the same route, through Vang Vieng to Vientiane, becomes much more expensive due to Songkran. The mafia makes it so you have to book a tuk tuk to the bus station, which for a front seat reservation, we thought was worth it. It was not reserved, of course, so we let the first minibus go without us and took the seats we wanted for the next bus. Unfortunately, the bus filled will a group traveling together who would yell, sing and laugh uproariously at their own loud burping. In Vang Vieng we felt shocked when hotels went up 3 to 5 times in price for the festival from just 4 days ago. We did find a decent room at a fair price, facing the now-unused airstrip the Americans built to conduct their illegal carpet bombing of the country during the Vietnam War. It seemed great until we saw the stage and tables and speakers being set up for the town’s celebration, almost in front of our hotel! The prospects for a good night’s sleep were looking grim. At least we had air-conditioning and it was stupid hot. But the party down the street used so much power it blew a fuse and blacked out our part of town. No more air-con. We opted for a mint-lemon juice and went to dinner, but following the theme of the day, they forgot one of our dishes. Things were just not going our way. But miraculously, probably because of the town-wide blackouts caused from the giant P.A. systems, the party didn’t go all night and we got a decent night’s sleep after all. We took a 7 am public bus to Vientiane, learned the long distance bus to Udon Thani was full, and decided to go south piece-meal. At every turn, with the festival in full swing, we were faced with inflated prices and constant bombardment with water. In Udon Thani the hotel situation was dire as well, but David, the world champion hotel finder came through, thoroughly soaked, but still grinning.

We spent two nights in Udon Thani before returning to Bangkok, avoiding the madness that takes place in our neighborhood near Khao San Rd. and getting our teeth cleaned for half the price we’d pay in the big city. On the last day of Songkran we took a 7 hour bus ride back to Bangkok, arriving within the still-churning chaos with our full packs. Thankfully our regular place had one room left, which we took, dropped our packs and went out to enjoy the celebrations.

A week in Borneo is K’s birthday present. As most of you know, she has a long history with monkeys. But an ape she has never met. There are only two places on the planet where the great red-haired men-of-the-forest, the orangutan, live: one is Sumatra; and the other is Borneo.

The journey to Borneo really starts in Bangkok, where for us all trips begin. Getting back from India we are literally plunged immediately into a social milieu, running into our friend Peter while we still have our packs on our backs. Peter is an engaging and eccentric Englishman, who like us spends half the year in Asia, and has done so for many years. The next day Peter is meeting his friend Gail at the airport, and we invite them over to our utilitarian but “Absolutely Cheap” pad for duty-free Bombay G and T’s. Gail has relocated to southern Spain, and is in town to restock jewelry for her shop there. The next day we all meet for an evening beer at the usual spot, the Gecko, and the circle grows. Roger from Austria is there - he almost always is - and we are pleased to see Duane from Hawaii. Duane is also an importer, and we have been running into him in this neighbourhood for the last several years. Soon we are joined by Tom and Sue, friends of Peter’s and also, ahem, importers. Tom is off to Tibet the next day, where he sources the goods his shop specializes in.

Also coming the next day is Barbara from Jersey, also, ahem, with an imported goods store. She is a slim energetic blonde, and she and Peter are making plans to go to Burma together. In amongst this social action we also get together with Boris, our French ex-pat friend living in Bangkok. Unfortunately, Boris isn’t too keen on Thai food; but this is one of the most cosmopolitan corners of the universe, and we choose to eat (admittedly very good) falafel in a back alley place. Later Boris takes us well out of our usual stomping grounds, across the river to Thonburi where Bangkok still feels like a small Thai town, and then far to the southern edge of the city where a market sprawls along a network of canals.

When we leave Bangkok we make our way to Borneo - via Singapore. Singapore is always a treat - it’s beautiful, green, clean, and has such a mixed population that we don’t immediately get pigeon-holed as “alien”. But even better it has Frank and Kerry. Frank is an old friend of K’s, and she re-connected with him for the first time in 17 years last year. They hit it off immediately, and it’s easy to see why. Living life large, Frank and Kerry are full of fun and generosity. Frank was just back from Bombay when we arrived, where it looks likely he will be setting up an office for his company. The evening started out with wine, and wine kept flowing well into the night, as Kerry, a dedicated Chelsea fan, was staying up anyway to see her team take on lowly Barnsley in the F.A. Cup. The wine in this case was probably a good thing, as Barnsley stunned the football world by beating the powerhouse London team.

And so, with several days working our way back up the Malay peninsula through Kuala Lumpur and a pretty little town called Taiping, we came to be in the airport of Penang, with our tickets to Borneo.

Borneo is a massive island - the world’s third largest - and the vast majority of it belongs to the Indonesian state of Kalimantan. Along the N. E. coast are the two East Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, and in between them the tiny Sultanate of Brunei. We are flying into the capital of Sarawak, Kuching.

It is already dark when we arrive. We are only a few degrees north of the equator, and the night is as hot and perfumed with humidity as you would expect, but after so many hours in ice-box airports and planes, we have to ask our taxi driver to turn the A.C. down because we are so cold.

We have a room in a typically peculiar place, St. Thomas Anglican Cathedral Guest House. It was built in 1905, and no doubt many missionary priests have stayed here on their way to the notorious Iban and Dayak head-hunting tribes in the dark and god-less interior. What we get is a dormitory-sized room with smoothly polished hardwood floors and a view of a Chinese temple, a furnished balcony/sitting area, and a fully equipped kitchen. It is actually larger than our apartment, and would be a great place for a party. But there are stern signs demanding SILENCE, and a set of rules stapled to the door including an injunction against “merry-making”.

Kuching is a pleasant town with an old Chinese section cluttered up along the river, and more than its share of galleries, coffee bars and interesting shops. We soon know all the “antique” dealers, and are trying to figure out how to get a 9′ long long-house totem pole home on the plane. In the end we settle for a load of distictive Sarawak sarongs and weavings, and some heavy brass earings from the Orang Ulu people.

The day after we arrive is the day set aside to go out to Semenggoh to see the orangutans. The sanctuary was established to facilitate the transition of captive and orphaned apes back into the wild. In some ways it has departed from that mandate, since it depends on public support, and the public want to see orangutans, not just a forest where they were successfully rehabilitated. The center has feedings twice a day, when large amounts of fruit are set out on platforms, and we plan to get to Semenggoh for the 9am event.

It seems most other people don’t make their way here on the public transit system. From the park gate, where we are dropped, it is 1.3 km to the feeding area, and we are the only ones sweating it out up the hills on foot as A.C. mini-vans with tour groups speed past us. It’s a good thing we weren’t expecting an intimate wilderness experience, as the parking lot is full when we get there. However, there are orangutans in the trees, and they are so beautiful and rather quizzically philosophical about it all that it is easy to ignore the people. The old matriarch Delima is the star of the moment, with her youngster, Selina, clinging to her back. She is sitting on the ground a dozen feet away, deciding whether to dine at the smaller but closer platform in this clearing, or at the main feeding station 500m away through the forest. She opts for the forest feeding station, and she chooses the public path to get there. The park staff are frantically calling to people to get out of the way, “she is tempermental!”, as she lopes off purposefully over the foot-bridge. It is a covered bridge, and on its walls are pictures of Delima when Selina was just a wide-eyed muppet. The baby is now 3 years old, and Delima’s face is more lines and tired. It’s no wonder that she gets grumpy.

As they are heading off, a young male comes out of the forest in dramatic fashion on two over-head cables. He shimmies down the tree to the feeding platform head-first, reaches an impossibly long arm out to select a bunch of bananas, transfers them to his right foot, and turns himself around to climb back up the tree, bananas in his toes, all without a slip, a sound, or a strain. Then he dangles himself in mid-air holding the cable with his right hand and right foot, and has breakfast.

The viewing area for the main platform is a short walk through the jungle. Even from this distance, and even with a crowd of people around it is marvelous to watch these beautiful creatures, startlingly orange amid the relentless green of the forest.

We are awed and quiet when we decide to leave the viewing area, thinking that the experience is over. But the best is yet to come. A young male has slipped through the forest, and for reasons of his own wants to have a good look at at his odd primate cousins. He settles into a tree right beside the path as we approach. His eyes are dark deep still pools. He is calm, and un-threatening, and although most people have stopped I continue walking past him, within a few feet, in as relaxed a manner as possible. K., I know, resists the temptation to invite him to house-sit in Vancouver (or alternatively join him off in the forest), and we walk back out of Semenggoh, satisfied with out experience.

I would love to take advantage of more of the amazing possibilities that Sarawak has to offer, such as visiting the tribal Kelambit Highlands, travelling by boat into the interior on the Batang Rajang River, seeing the ornately carved long-houses at Kampong Telian, or the vast cave systems at Mulu. But we only have a few days, and so we reserve accommodation for our last two nights in Bako National Park, on the coast just north of Kuching.

A public bus takes us to the launching area, and from there it is a 30 minute boat ride out of the mangrove-lined estuary and up the coast to park H.Q. Even without re-enforcing it by telling ourselves that we are on the coast of Borneo, the area is impossibly romantic and mysterious. The lost-world looking bulk of the Santubong peninsula is cloud-draped off to the west as we skid by small caves and limestone cliffs dripping with jungle. Even the park compound is wild and wonderful, and within 1/2 an hour we have seen numerous macaques, a bearded pig, monitor lizards and two beautiful, chartreuse, diamond-headed vipers. A short afternoon hike out to Teluk Paku takes us through jungle like jungle was meant to be. The air is as hot and humid as a sauna, and so fresh it feels as if we are breathing pure oxygen. Small streams bubble out of black caverns, tree trunks rise straight and smooth into an unbroken canopy, and creepers and vines cover everything. Up above us in the tree-tops there is a rustling sound, and we spot one of Borneo’s unique and famous citizens, the probiscus monkey.

Probiscus, of course, is Latin for “nose”, and I’m grateful to the biologist who resisted the temptation to call them “Honking Big Shnoz Monkeys”. On our hike the next day to the Tajor waterfall we see many more, up close, and you can’t help but be impressed by their huge, comical, unavoidable…eyes!

The trail to the waterfall climbs to a plateau and a completely different eco-system, dominated by scrubby brush and numerous species of carnivorous pitcher plants. There is no shade, and the sun is like a hammer, but it is hardly better when we enter areas of forest, and there is no breeze, and our bodies are dripping like humidifiers. The falls, therefore, are a huge relief, even though the water has perculated through the loamy underbrush, and is the colour of dark tea. K is somewhat reluctant at first to go into the opaque, unfathomable jungle-lines pools, but I am too hot to care, and plunge in.

The next morning is routine as usual: coffee on the deck as the jungle bugs buzz in chorus and monkeys scamper along the board-walks and the bearded pigs snuffle around the yard and someone spots a rare flying lemur in a tree. Then, however, we get in a boat, and then a bus, and then a taxi, and then a plane, and then we are in Penang, and then next morning we catch another flight and we are back in Bangkok. All of a sudden everything is completely different. But this is Bangkok, and it is where trips begin.