As our plane touched down on the runway, we were greeted by heavy rain falling from clouds so dark that the street lights were on. It was 3:00 in the afternoon.
"Oh, jeez", we thought. Welcome to Borneo.
So there you have it. we're on the third largest island on Earth, and probably the one with the greatest biodiversity. There are more plants here than the whole of Africa. Borneo is also home to the largest flower in the world, and apparently its flagrant aroma most closely resembles rotting flesh. We sure are looking forward to seeing (and smelling) one of those!
Borneo is not a country. It is an island shared between three countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei. We flew into the Malaysian corner of the island, into a city called Kota Kinabalu (KK). After the rain stopped, we found that the streets of KK were bustling with activity. Not too many humans, but lots of lizards, cockroaches, and at least one rat.
We were worried about the heat because Borneo straddles the equator. The best remedy: taking a local boat to a tiny tropical island for some hardcore snorkeling action! My oh my, it was a welcome change from our year of winters around the world. (Note: we are bad planners. NZ winter, followed by decent Chinese autumn weather, followed by Korean winter. ) We saw some pretty amazing corals and many colours of tropical fishes. Corinne touched one! Also, us whiteys and tropical islands... we thought we were so diligent with our sunscreen, but, alas, from the rear we look more like pinkys now.
We just left KK, and are doing some jungle walking in Mt. Kinabalu National Park. It is mostly quite nice and jungley. Remember the possible themes for this trip? Well, so far no orange men have stole our babies but Jason quickly proved the hypothesis that "leeches suck... blood". We have the gruesome photos to prove it, but that will have to wait for another day.
That brings us to another point... it turns out that Borneoan internet capabilities are a wee bit on the limited side. When we do find internet, it is usually so slow that anything other than quick emails are out of the question. So, we will try to blog when we can, but the photos will have to wait until we find a quicker internet source.
We must leave now... we just finished a delicious Malaysian dinner and its time to remove Jason's bandages and see if the bleeding has stopped. And just for the record, Corinne was a smart jungle trekker and wore socks. And just for the other record, Jason thinks that her socks will do her no good tomorrow if its rainy. Soon she'll be a bloody mess too! Mua ha ha.
-Jason and Corinne
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2 comments:
I love how there are "flagrant" flowers. You two had been in Korea (and Asia) for far too long!
I'm still jealous of the snorkling and shorts weather; it's been cold here this week (-6C!!!)
Keep on bloggin!
I'd love to smell a "flagrant" flower. It's been -18 here all week, and there's two feet of snow on our patio set.
I can hardly wait to see the pictures from your jungle trek ... have you changed your minds about monkeys now?
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