October 31, 2014

Bougainville

I had heard of this island state, but always heard “Bogan Ville,” which made sense since it was Australian occupied for so long, but didn’t add up why there would only be bogans. But, its actually named after some French guy Captain Louis-Antoine de Baugainville who mapped it for the first time a long long time ago but never set foot on land when he sailed up the east coast of the island in 1768. It was the burial ground of many Japanese during WWII, while Australians and Americans also left some dismal footprints, and It just came out of a bloody “crisis,” a war waged between Bouganvillieans and the Australian over a ludicrous mining industry that took copper and lime-stone from the land without proper land-rights compensation. After being discovered in 1964 and thousands of people and millions of dollars were invested in the mine, Panguna mine was shutdown in 1989, and a civil war broke out as Papua New Guinea’s richest town became a black hole, deserted by the government and declared an independent republic in 1990. Some 12 years later, Papua New guinea recognized Bougainville’s claims to autonomy, and now that peace has been restored, only the burned-down remnants of Arawa, the mining town now squatted by locals, and a few road blocks to the mine still remind one of what actually happened.

Bougainvillians are usually black all over, but these kids have some red or brown blood, with light hair, and oh so cute

I flew from Rabaul to the auntonomous state of Bougainville, where a smaller island north of the main island called Buka with a city of the same name has remained largely unscathed and now full of expats (they say its one of the fastest growing cities in Papua, along with Kokopo). I stayed with some Kiwi girls, who volunteer for the Volunteer Service Abroad, and also the head guy for Australian Aid there. He comically explained to me its not fair to be white in Bougainville, since everyone can always seem him at night but he always jumps out of his socks everytime someone passes him and says “Evening!” and he can barely make out the whites of their eyes right beside him. They really are as black as night, and one of the independence slogans I saw for Bougainville was “Black is beautiful.” They call other people, who aren’t jet-black, brown or red, which I nearly could have resembled as far as skin tone, but since I didn’t have the fluffy hair, I was white as white. Some of the super-black skin had brown or red hair, which looked almost blonde in the contrast, but I haven’t really figured out why. It cant just be sun-bleaching, since I’ve never seen that in West Africa, but it could be genetic, or even a sign of malnutrition.

I took a PMV from the north of the island accross the Buka passage to Arawa, a 4 hour journey, and made the mistake of not peeing on our pee break. So when I finally got the courage to ask the driver to stop for me, he nearly broke a sweat trying to find a place, since everywhere he slowed down to check out, he’d speed off again saying “no no, plenty people.” I couldn’t see a soul around, and quite frankly I thought we were in the middle of nowhere, but finally he liked one patch of jungle more and let me out to pee. The woman beside me came to guard watch, and after 3 mosquito bites on my rear end, I returned to the car relieved.

I couchsurfed with a german guy who works for Geneva’s International Committee of the Red Cross, and his project there is fascinationg. They’re helping families find missing persons (which are mostly bodies in unlocated mass-graves) to facilitate the process of closure to many people’s grieving. The energy in Arawa made me strangely aware of this unfinished business, with the spooky energy of a destroyed town and its forgotten history never properly dealt with. People were peaceful, but also incredibly timid, shy and quiet, their inaudible voices rising only out of a whisper if you were more than 5 m away and heard a friendly greeting of “abynoon” (pidgin for “good afternoon”).

Toby took me snorkeling at one of the most beautiful coral reefs I’ve ever seen, and if you could ignore the sunken car batteries and floating plastic, you’d almost believe you were creeping up onto the Great Barrier reef. More than that, it was on a totally deserted beach, backed only by a few private fwellings, so keeping with their very sensitive land-use rights, we paid for our snorkel with a few beetel nuts to the land owner.

A Solomon Islander/Bougainvillian couple gave me Fanta and icecream before our boat journey together from the market in Buin to the airport in Balalae

Eventually I ended my tour of Bougainville on the southern end, where the town of Buin is closer to nearby Solomon Islands than Arawa. It took another 3 hour PMV to get to the end of the island, and while I lucked out with the passenger seat up front, the rest of the men sat in the open-air cab of the jeep, hooting and hollering the whole way. I’m not sure if they were screams of joy or just normal greetings, but all the passerby’s hollered back and the fireflies seemed to twinkle more in response.

October 30, 2014

Rabaul under Ashes

I flew from Port Moresby to Kokopo, which is the replacement city to Rabaul, a harbor town destroyed by two volcanoes in 1994 (and 1937). There was once a booming town, now buried under 6 feet of ash, with a busy domestic airport and lots of international tourism, but all there’s left of it is a steamy volcano crater, and 3 or 4 concrete buildings that still need to sweep away ash that gets blown around on a daily basis. Miraculously the town is actually covered in green, the mounds of ask creating the perfect fertile grounds gor a new forest to spring up, and the roads have been excavated to provide access to a few villagers still squatting the modern-day Pompeii, but most of the life has moved 30km away to Kokopo, PNG’s quickest growing city.

Rabaul under ashes

The little harbor between Rabaul and Kokopo is basically a chain of volcanoes, 3 which are dormant and 2 which are very active. I had heard of atleast 10 hotels between Rabaul and Kokopo I could stay at, all ludicrously expensive, but after trying my luck at 6 of them which were all full and almost getting killed by a coconut walking out of the Ropopo Resort, I called my friend in Port Moresby to help. He made a few SOS calls, and 2 degrees of separation later, I had the friend of a wife of his friend of his put me up in her cozy apartment in Kokopo. I got attacked by a huge butterfly at the golf club and went to the housewarming party of some aussie, and otherwise most of my time was spent closer to Rabaul, taking in the scenery of a near-Armageddon.

ontop of the Mother

A group of us hiked up a dormant volcano called Mother, which looked down on the dormant Daughter and the active, steam-billowing Tavurvur beside her. We ate coconuts on the way down, the coconut milk, meat, and some weird variation of a seedling coconut whose insides turn into this fluffy cotton candy floss. I spent some time at the market, where the common fare is betel nuts, mustard sticks and lime powder, but also pineapples, cucumbers, tomatoes, peanuts, lettuce, eggplant, avocado if you’re lucky, and some very colourful hand-woven purses.

the man purse

They were made of palm leaves and yarn, and no matter what shape size or colour, they all ended in frilly bits and unkept ties, slightly resembling ths feathers-on-a-stick charms called “fascinators” that they sell, all to resemble the most beautiful birds and flowers found in nature. The man-purse was taken to a whole new level, since men had just as colourful handbags, but hung them around their necks in an attempt to make them more masculine. But no man went anywhere without his wallet, a woven-leaf basket in a half-moon shape, holding all his most important things (money and betel nuts).

October 29, 2014

An Introduction to Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea is a huge place, with more animals and plants than scientists even know exist. They’re still finding new species of birds and strange marsupials*, and haven’t even covered half of the country’s densely forested highlands, still inhabited by tree-dwelling tribes that speak over 700 languages. Although it seems like an obvious tourist attraction, the infrastructure is nearly non-existent, and in fact, the tourism industry that once was is even dwindling, since during their colonial ties with Australia in the 60’s and earlier, many more tourists used to come and tour companies and services have since slowly disappeared. Now there´s hardly any recognition of a tourist, traveler or budget backpacker, but the resident ex-pat on holiday or government official largely make up the clientele for guesthouses and domestic fliers.

the beautiful nature scape of Rabaul harbour

The official languages are English and tok pisin, a kind of pidgin English mixed with some german words, but its hardly a mutually intelligible dialect since a native English speaker wouldn’t understand more than 80%. Its not a complicated language, so learning it would come quickly, and reading it was slightly easier, since its actually quite simple and phonetic. Ten Q is how they write thank you, and wantok or 1tok means one-talk, and your one-talks are the people from your village who share one of the 850+ local languages with you in addition to the universal tok pisin.

The form of public transportation is in mini-vans or Land Cruisers called PMV’s, “people mover vehicles.” If they’re longer than an hours journey, they make random stops along the side of the road for pee breaks, market shopping, or fresh water holes.

The local beer is a big capital SP (South Pacific) in yellow on a green can, and its plastered the same way in every other shack that sells it, warm or cold, sometimes they’re out, you never know. They’re not cheap, at 2 euros each, but I wanted to buy 4 from a guy who was sitting in for the lady boss, and he couldn’t compute 4 times 6, but she had written a time table in her notebook “1xSP= 6 kina, 2xSP=12kina, 3xSP=18 kina” etc. He did very well at making change of 1 kina for my 25 I paid him.

The prices of things here are outrageous. Like, think expensive, then double it, then that’s what you should expect. One guy told me he paid $1000 per month for internet (800 euros for 20GB was his exact quote), and to rent a Land Cruiser costs $500 Australian dollars per day… including the driver but not including fuel. A crappy hotel can cost anywhere from $75 to $175 per night, and somehow they’ll still fill up with government officials and visiting NGOs or volunteers from abroad. An internal roundtrip flight will cost you more than going to Australia and back, and the less than 2hr flight to Honiara, capital of neighbouring Solomon Islands, will cost you more than flying from Auckland to London. But, ironically enough, there are still tribes in PNG that use a special type of shell as legal tender, and this currency is often used in dowry payments, even by foreigners marrying a local.

the cockatoo begs for a scratch from the meri

A woman is called a “meri,” and most ex-pats have a house meri, and I was the visiting white meri. I spent a day with one of my couchsurf host’s meri, and she took me to the Nature Park/Botanical Gardens in Port Moresby to cuddle some cockatoos and other beautiful birds. They have birds of paradise and plenty of the same-named plant, and in one bird atrium, a lorikeet took a fancy to a students afro and tried to mate with his head. The cassowaries, beautiful black versions of an emu with multi-colourful heads, were in bigger pens that we walked above, and my house-meri guide wouldn’t come within 10 feet of the snake or crocodile pens. We saw more types of kangaroos than I knew existed, especially off the Australian continent, and the wallabies and tree-kangaroos cuteness could have melted a grown man’s heart. After a kid-in-the-park afternoon, I offered her some money in gratitude and she eagerly replied “thank you! I love you!”

this is the most they’d smile for the camera… but they do have red mouths

The men and meris love to chew betel nuts, which kind of look like miniature green coconuts, and inside is a yellowish white seed thing that they chew, with the help of some green mustard stick and some white lime stone powder. It looks like flour or cocaine, but apparently that’s what happens when you burn lime stone. The biggest mystery is how it all turns blood red, and people’s smiles are stained so brightly red that it looks as if they’ve chewed a whole tube of lipstick. They spit out mouthfuls of bloody spit, more than you’d believe fits between their cheeks, and after a while it stains their teeth so black that only a few remain among their rotting gums.

October 22, 2014

Kakadu National Park

Kakadu is one of, if not the most famous national park in Australia, and even worldwide, boasting caves filled with Aboriginal stone art from 20,000 years ago all the way up to the 20^th century. It’s a living nature reserve and aboriginal culture museum, burned and flooded every year throughout its six indigenous seasons. It’s massive in size, taking nearly the same amount of time to drive through as it takes one to drive clear across Iceland. Half of it isn’t even accessible in the wet season, but the whole of it can hardly be called ‘accessible’ in the dry season since it was a scorching 42`C high every day and hiking around to all the art sights, billabongs and look-out points were nearly suicide missions (I swear I almost melted).

a dwindling billabong, crowded with birds

It’s nearly the end of the dry season, and the only water left was a few muddy puddles, covered in lilies and hundreds of birds, plus three major rivers, affectionately named West Alligator River, South Alligator River, and East Alligator river (aren’t their only crocodiles in Australia? and the South one was really the middle one, since they were all parallel in a row… unimportant technicalities I guess). It was scorching hot, even at night, and I don’t think I’ve ever drank so much water or sweated it out so quickly.

gunbim at Nourlangie rock

Luckily we had a car with air conditioning to provide temporary relief between the walk-abouts, and the hikes always proved worthwhile once you stood under a shady cave covered in cartoony but intricate images of fish and kangaroos painted by someone in red-ochre thousands of years ago.

We saw dozens of kangaroos and hundreds of birds – geese, storks, and colourful parrots to boot. Yellow-crusted cockatoos flew overhead as often as lizards crossed our paths, and we even saw one crocodile make a lunch out of one unlucky bird (or fish, it’s hard to say… just glad it wasn’t one of us). Our luck continued as we drove out of the park, where we sighted a dingo cross the road, and 3 wild horses, aka brumbies, grazing right beside the road!

the park is purposely burned every year, causing huge smoke plumes

We found the perfect Kakadu decompression site on our way home, the Douglas Daly hotspring national park, where we bathed in hot water, but at maybe 36`C, the water mas still cooler than the air and we managed to enjoy it under the shade of cockatoo-perched trees. It’s hard to imagine places like this exist, naturally, and total in the wild, and all it took was a weekend roadtrip from Darwin to find them.

October 21, 2014

South-east Asia to the South Pacific, via Australia

There are only 2 direct flights out of Dili, the one from Bali that I took to get in, and the one to Darwin I took to get out. Landing in Australia was only a 90 minute flight, but years and worlds away from Timor. The last time I was down under was 2007, when I lived in Brisbane, and the North Territory is totally different to the east coast. It’s gotten a lot more expensive, according to my memory of the average price of a meat pie and gingerbeer, and the Australian dollar is also stronger, so I was happily couchsurfing to avoid the $30/night hostels filled with German teenagers.

Maguk Pool at Kakadu

I wanted to go from Timor to Papua, since they’re sort of geographically contingent, but of course that doesn’t matter to airlines. If I wanted to do that, I’d have to go to the Indonesian side of West Timor, fly to the Indonesian Paupa, and cross overland to Papua New Guinea and take a handful of days to travel overland to Port Moresby. Or, I could fly to Bali and pay another $35 visa on arrival and $20 international departure tax just to use Denpasar. But, the easiest and probably most enjoyable way to cross from South-East Asia to the South Pacific is through Australia.

I didn’t spend much time in Darwin, but landed on a Friday and spent one roaring night out with my host Nick. In our brief introduction chat, he suggested Kakadu national park as a place to spend the weekend, since he had never been there either but had a jeep and the weekend off. So I spent Friday afternoon rushing around Darwin trying to take in some of the shops and sights, and made it as far as the post office to send some post cards and birthday gifts. I saw the man-made beach, but didn’t make it down the 80 steps to the crocodile-free lagoon.

My couchsurfing accomodation

To get to Port Moresby, I coulnd’t fly from Darwin, so I took a 2.5 hr internal flight to Cairns. I once drove there from Brisbane, and remembered the low-lying square blocks around the CBD which reminded me of an old Western town – just replace the cowboys with European backpackers and swinging-door saloons with tourist booking offices.

I couchsurfed with Willy Chu, whose name made me want to break out into singing Beyonce, at an apartment that slightly resembled a resort in Bali. I ate some pies and actually made it to the crocodile-free lagoon there, and Willy took me hiking to a freezing cold water hole where we could swim under waterfalls without worrying about crocodiles.

Willy Chu at Bahana Gorge

October 19, 2014

Permaculture in Baucau

I went on an impromptu roadtrip to nearby Baucau, the so-called second capital of Timor Leste. Its about a 2 hour drive, but takes 4 hours with the local bus (plus an hour or so, sitting, sweating and waiting for them to fill). My couchsurf host in Dili sent me straight into the arms of his Macau raised Portugese farmer friend, Fernando.

Fernando’s garden

Fernando moved to Baucau 3 years ago and rented a small plot of land surrounded by rice fields and local farmers to try and develop his permaculture project with Na-terra. He said the village people would all come and watch him farm, gawking at his strange techniques. Later he upgraded to a larger piece of land, and today he rents a 2,000m² garden he’s grown and nurtured to the most bio-diverse plot of land in all of Timor! There are chickens, ducks, bunnies and over 100 species of trees and plants thriving in his little oasis, and all of it works together to form an ecosystem that’s totally self-sustainable and renewable, constantly supplying food to both animals and humans.

white bunny fertilizer machine

We arrived at his farm, surrounded my old big palm trees and a wooden fence. Before we entered, he prepared me by saying “make sure you’re aware of the space around you, the lay of the land and whats the highest point, where is there shade, where’s the water and how does it flow. I felt like I was entering a Jurassic park ride. Once we entered, the fence was completely living from the inside, with vines and grasses growing all the way to the ends and corners of the whole plot. No tree was older than 3 years, but still the canopy was meters above our heads.

We ducked under huge melons and stepped over potted seedlings, and through the cool bamboo trees. We watered the aloe vera and fed the fishes, watching little cat-fish whiskers poke out from the water’s surface We sniffed the lemongrass and the one (and only) Bilimbi plant in the garden (and probably all of Timor… he imported the seed himself from Chile). We harvested tomatoes and papayas to take home, and fed and pet the bunnies who produce all his fertilizer. Then he wriggled our fingers through their poop, mixed in with hay and a bazillion worms, to show me how fertile their fertilizer really was.

He thought me about the Moringa tree, which has 1000% percent more vitamins and good stuff in it than all other individual fruits combined – apparently it’s the obvious solution to solve malnutrition worldwide, but no one knows about it yet. There were vegetables, flowers, herbs and medicinal plants, and all the trees, plants, and permaculture knowledge is given freely to the local people. This way, the farm generates food security, nutrition, and even improves business since the markets now have more fruits and vegetables to trade.

Fernando and his friend on the beach for sunse

Fernando talked with such excitement and enthusiasm for every leaf and rock that the garden came creaming to life in front of me, and even the smelly duck pond had an important function in his little circle of life. After cuddling some more with his sugar-cane loving bunnies, we retreated to yet another oasis, Fernando’s cliff-perched house, and watched the sunset from the beach below. For dinner we had spear-fished octopus with all sorts of delights from the farm, and for breakfast we had a Moringa smoothie – a perfect recipe for detox and rejuvenation.

October 18, 2014

A Tourist in Timor Leste

East Timor is one of those places totally off the tourist radar, but big with ex-pats and foreign NGO’s. It just came out of a bloody 25 year occupation by the Indoniesian, and its one of the youngest countries in the world at only 12 years old. It was colonized since the 16th century, but as soon as they declared independence from Portugal in 1975, the Indonesians literally moved in right away and caused non-stop grief and oppression until 2000 when the international media and UN finally took notice. The haunting Resistance museum covers the black years, when tens of thousands of Timorese people were killed or starved to death, and hundreds of thousands fled the country as refugees. Today its difficult to see any of these hardships on people’s smiling faces, but maybe they’ve just chosen to forget and instead focus on the happy peaceful days.

a Timorese house and shade shelter made from a flower bush

Though it’s a long way from a prospering country, they have a rich country, in history, culture and natural resources. Australia’s (still) trying to dig their greedy fingers into their oil and gas reserves, Starbucks (and others) contribute to nearly a quarter of their export economy with coffee beans, and the coast of Timor is jeweled with some of the world’s most pristine coral reef. There are a handful of languages, but most people still speak Tetum, despite Indonesia’s attempt to enforce Bahasa, and the official language of education has been reinstated as Portugese.

boiling salt

I couchsurfed with a Portugese guy who’s job is to start a publishing house. I met many of his ex-pat friends who were mostly teachers for the ‘reference’ schools, and the kids always assumed I was one of them and called me “teacher!” Their smiling faces always impressed me, and many kids also spoke a few words in English. Our conversations would start with “Hello miss, how are you?” although sometimes they called me mister, or sometimes sister. Then the exchange of “what is your name?” and then a fit of giggles when they learned my name and shouted it out in chorus.

dry rice fields

It was arid and dry, even the ride fields dusty and grey, so the water buffalo were replaced by cute piggies and piglets. There was no karaoke obsession, but similar only to the Philipines in Asia, Timor Leste is a predominantly Christian country, but their animalistic beliefs have held strong. One of the most striking was their treatment of cats and dogs. Some believe that only the souls of perfect beings can be laid to rest in the mountain tops, so often you’ll see cats with purposely mangled tails, just so we humans don’t have to compete for space with all those cats. Dogs are just large rats, not worth much except meat, not ever pets or even guard dogs.

scanning for saltwater crocodiles

Crocodiles are the most fascinating animal – the Timorese call them “abo,” which means Grandpa, since they believe they are very sacred animals carrying the souls of their grandfathers. The problem is that there are a lot of crocodiles, and huge salt water crocs, that regularly kill people, taking them in the water, from the shore, or even from their boats. But since they’re such wise, sacred animals, they only kill those who should deserve it, so either the deceased or his/her family has done something wrong. There was the story of one elderly woman who was killed, and a 17 year old boy, probably by the same croc, and the villagers were so furious that they declared the croc a wild crocodile, and killed him when he wouldn’t return the body of the boy. A shaman later came to the village to mediate between the people and the croc, and after some intense chanting, peace has been restored.

the barely-driveable roads

I realized that before coming, Timor was one of the more worrying countries I was going to show up to with no plan. Since it was difficult to find information, I arrived with a tabula rasa, and all that I found were pleasant surprises. People were much friendlier here than I remember anywhere else on my trip, and though the roads are tremendously bad (it took 9 hours to drive 190km), traveling around always felt safe. And as long as I stayed away from the sea, I didn’t have to worry about any peace conflicts, since I’m certainly no match to a wild croc and that was about the only dangerous thing I encountered in Timor Leste.

October 13, 2014

Sarawak, Borneo

Borneo is one of those far away places everyone’s heard of and atleast once dreamed of visiting. Since Australia’s a continent and Greenland is always depicted much larger on a map than it is, Borneo is technically the largest island in the world. Its split 3 ways, with 2 tiny pieces belonging to Brunei, 2 provinces of Malaysia surrounding that, and then the rest of it is Kalimantan, Indonesia.

traditional Sarawak longhouses

I was in Sarawak, the larger and safer part of Malaysia, since Sabah is a place where tourists are still being kidnapped every once in a while. It’s still kind of a big and scary place, a wild and forested jungle where primates rule and cities are far and few between. I stayed in the largest city Kuching, a suburban sprawl of civilization, but the trees and monkeys waited only 20-30 km away in any direction.

orangutans

Kuching means cat, and they run with that reputation to the max with some cheesy over-sized cat statues all over town, but apparently it was named after a fruit with the same name. There are tons of plants and animals endemic only to Borneo, including the Mata Kuching (apparently a bit like Dragon eye fruit), and the coffee-table sized flower Rafflesia. Then there’s the weird looking monkeys and orange-coloured chimpanzees.

I visited the Semenggoh Nature reserve where they’re reintroducing the once-nearly-extinct Orangutans to the wild. We were lucky enough to see a 43 year old female and her 7 year old son come down for a free feeding, which the park rangers do both for tourism and to help them as they relearn to survive on their own.

Bako National Park at low tide

Then it was off to the famous Bako National park, home of the Proboscis monkey. They’re kind of big and orange too, but with a white butt and fluffy tail, and what looks like a swollen thumb for a nose. Its hard to explain but google images of them and youll understand. I didn’t get close enough to one to get a good photo, although I did see about 10 or 15 during my hikes around Bako. Then there were the mischievious little Macaques, and the shyer Silver leaf monkey far off in the tree tops.

baby macaque

Besides all the monkeys and lush forests, the nearby coast Damai was also beautiful. Kuching itself silts on the river front with a peaceful promenade and lots of street vendors selling Lapis cake, a colourful layered cake of sugar and more sugar. The best food I ate was a traditional Malay soup for breakfast – laksa is a spicy noodle soup with prawns and coconuts and bean sprouts and lots of other goodness I cant put my finger on.

my couchsurf host and our Laksa breakfast

My couchsurf host was an MD in the ER and worked stupid hours, but every time we managed to meet up we feasted on various Chinese and Malay delicacies, rice wine and Singaporean beer. He also made time out of his schedule to pick me up and drop me off at the airport, since he said Kuching wasn’t a very pedestrian or traveler friendly city, but I think he was just happy to get out of the hospital and drive around carelessly without worrying about losing another life. I was certainly grateful but it also gave me some humbling perspective on how little I do to change people’s lives… maybe my travels will safe a life one day.

October 8, 2014

What about Brunei?

I had to come to Brunei to learn what the fuss was not about, since everyone suggested I just skip it or spend, at most, 1 day in transit there. It’s a tiny little country, only a few thousand square kilometers of land, most of it covered with dense, lush, virgin rainforest. Still it has a slightly larger population than Iceland, in a country only 1/20^th the size, but the amount of money being pumped in and out of the country makes even Iceland look poor. Still living costs are low, even though social benefits, wages and the standard of living are all high, so people have a very laissez-faire attitude to work and money, especially since there’s no income tax and everyone gets free healthcare, education and a pension.

the stilt village slums infront of the golden mosque

The country is lined with perfectly constructed highways, some serious roadwork for a place with no traffic. Gas only costs $0.50 a liter, which is like 1999 prices, in 2014 – how is that possible? The city center is a couple of low-built shopping blocks, and ghostly empty after nightfall when the market, stores and boats stop working. There are a couple of museums, all with free admission, showcasing the complex history and wealth behind the Sultanate of Brunei. It’s a little bit like Singapore, minus the parties and alcohol, since its illegal to buy or sell alcohol (and cigarettes).

It was a big change to arrive here from the Philippines, where tobacco and alcohol advertising nearly covered every restaurant and corner shop front. Its kind of a stuck-up city, clean and nice and safe and all, but the no-fun attitude really came through with the “Drug traffickers killed” signage randomly posted around town. I’m not sure what constitutes as ‘drugs,’ but I ended up at an ex-pat gathering full of cigs, spirits and white people and wondered whether I would be willing to die for that night. The biggest nightlife I experienced here was at a night market, a fusion of fried foods and fresh vegetables for sale under shanty stalls in the Pasar Gadong parking lot. I saw fruits and veggies there I’ve never seen before, or at least never thought you could eat, but didn’t try anything too crazy. Tourists and locals alike wandered around for hot eats and local treats, but I lucked out with my own Indian kitchen for the entirety of my visit.

Mamta & Abhishek at the 6 star Empire hotel

Mamta & Abhishek at the Empire

I couchsurfed with newlyweds from Delhi, who started by feeding me a picnic of daal-roti and chana masala at the ferry port while we waited for our boat back to the city center. We had tried (and failed) to go to Temburong national park, since there was a lot of confusion on whether or not there were any boats available to take us there, and if there were boats, was there a driver, and if there was a driver, did he have a park permit… and on and on the problems went. But our friendship blossomed over the hardship and we made it back to their cozy apartment to cook up some more daal and rice for dinner.

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin’s ceremonial golden ship… cuz everyone needs one of those

The 6 star Empire Hotel was a tourist attraction in itself, and many of Brunei’s nicest neighbourhoods and most expensive buildings are really accessible to locals and tourists. The over-powering mosques were the same way, and every museum I saw offered free entrance. There was once a free amusement park that one of the royals gave another for his birthday, but operating costs were too high to let all of Brunei ride rollercoasters day in and day out so they decided to start charging admission, and the parks been in decline (and decay – lots of rides are broken) ever since.

October 4, 2014

Guimaras Island and other Filipino favourites

Traveling by bus has been a hit or miss experience. Some of them are airconditioned with reclining seats, while others are “jeepneys,” which is basically an old-school Jeep stretch limousine – the local form of short-haul public transport. Its got open air windows down the whole length of it, and when the 2o or so seats fill up, you can sit on the roof or stand on the tailgate hanging off the back. They say no 2 jeepneys are alike, since their all custom welded, adorned with religious trinkets, and all colours of the rainbow, so it would be hard to make any two alike even if you tried.

Long-haul bus seats are sold with different class descriptions like “Deluxe” and “Exclusive Junior,” and always advertised with or without CR (“comfort room”). I thought this was some type of extra leg room, but only figured out on my last day in the Philippines that it means WC… so the comfort room is a bus with a toilet, which would have been good to know the night we opted out of a CR bus on an overnight journey and I had to stop the bus in the middle of the highway in the middle of the night to pee in the pitch black bushes.

our “semi-native” bungalow at Valle Verde

My favourite place in the Philippines so far was on Guimaras Island, an eco-oasis set in the middle of the green hills called Valle Verde Mountain Spring resort. You could see the ocean and the sunset from the restaurant patio, and there were only 5 rooms and one treehouse hidden in the forest canopy below. Some 300+ steps tied the resort together, with a pool and picnic bungalows in the center. The ‘mountain spring’ was just a little stream at the bottom of the valley, but sometimes they direct it into a little concrete pool where you can escape the killer mosquitos for an all-natural spring bath. I also loved our beach-side time in Guimaras, but mostly for the little villages we were nestled between, since the room didn’t even have a window but I did get 2 free cockroaches in my backpack.

I noticed that Filipino’s love basketball, with make-shift nets set up on temporary courts in the middle of streets or fields or wherever possible. They had a pickup game near where we stayed at Hoskyn port, but it was too embarrassing for me to even think of joining. The baskets are rolled on a platform with wheels, and the little platform stacked with heavy rocks to counterbalance anyone tall enough to dunk the ball (still haven’t seen that and I’m not sure its even possible with their average height).

kid crusaders on their way to the basketball court

I heard my first Christmas song on October 3^rd, about 1 and a half months too soon, but Feliz Navidad (which we can appropriately thank the Spanish crusaders for) blared over the loudspeakers in a little supermarket while I experienced another first. On the shelf infront of me, in the “skin and health” aisle, where I had been looking for bug spray, stood a bunch of aloe vera and sunblock, and I learned that Nivea doesn’t sell bronzing cream in the Philippines, but “Whitening Spray,” which promises to leave your skin looking paler and lighter than before. That kind of fashion trend is also why outdoor workers keep covered from toe to head, even when its blazing hot, just to avoid the sun on their skin and risk being even darker than they already are.

I wondered what they thought of me, that stupid tourist lying near-naked in the sun on the beach to get a little tanner, when I could be so beautiful in their eyes if I just stayed my white Caucasian self… but instead of dwelling too long on it, I decided to beautify myself in a way they’d also approve. I bought a $2.50US pedicure at one of the countless, under-charging spas in Iloilo city, killing time before my flight back to Manila and taking advantage of the airconditioned mall while it poured outside in the humid heat.