I'm alive!

That's about all the time I have for now. Things have been wild but good. At airport, boarding now, gonna run...much more soon i hope.......

-erik

Long Pasia

I'm in a remote village at the end of a 4 hr 4WD dirt road. And there is (one, very slow) internet connection here! I'm not sure if i'm excited or mortified. (No pictures for now because of internet speed...) Anyway, very nice and very simple here. Almost all the 400 residents are farmers or hunters. I am certainly the only "white guy" here, although they are setting up a homestay program (that's what i'm doing) so they get approx 100-200 visitors a year.
The local people here are formerly head-hunters but are now Christians. (Boy though missionaries got arround). When I told my guide I was American, he got very excited about Billy Grahm. The drive here on the rough road in the pouring rain, with lighting and thumber with Christian rock music blaring is certainly an experience to remember.

Today I'm touring the village and resting. I met the "chief" this morning. The food is a little strange of course (I had deer soup, tapioca leafs and rice last night...) but so far so good. Add my host family is very nice, with the wife, Magdelana, speaking some English. Tomorrow I go off with one guide and one porter (not the beer type...) for 3 days/2 nights of jungle treking. I think i am suppose to sleep in a hammock or something. I think we are bring some food, but I think we are also planning to eat what we find/kill in the jungle. Will be interesting.

Anyway, just a brief hello. Don't want to monopolize the whole towns internet anymore. Should resurface again a few days.

-erik

I'm back!

Back from 5 days of diving in the Sipidan! The sharks didn't kill me but the 10 hour overnight bus ride last night almost did. The diving was great, enough to make me stay for an extra day (despite the very primitive accommodation's). I ended up doing 14 dives overall there! Saw sharks, turtles, barracuda, sea snakes, morey eels, cuddlefish, and a billion other things. It really was an amazing place. I think I need to stop diving forever now because I'm pretty sure everything else will be a let down.

Today is a recovery day: from the diving and from the bus ride. I'm actually staying in the Hyatt in Kota Kinabula today - the most expensive place I've stayed so far by a factor of 2. I'm splurging partly because I've been sharing a room with a mouse that has no private bathroom at a "resort" that has no hot water and only a few hours of electricity a day... And partly because I couldn't find anything else. Anyway, its very nice! Tomorrow I head back out to the sticks: a small village in the middle of nowhere for a 4-5 day homestay. I expect some pretty basic accommodation's again. But that's OK, it is part of getting away.

I actually really liked the place I stayed in the Sipidan. It wasn't actually on Sipidan; you can't stay there anymore ever since terrorist/pirates from the Philippines abducted a group of tourists from there and held them hostage for over a month. The terrorist were from a group called the Muntando Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF. Look it up. On second thought, you might not want to google that...My "resort" was on Mabul Island, which had a sizable local population. Actually it just seemed to have a sizable child population. I think the number of humans on the island under 10 was probably 3-4 times more than those over 10. I really don't think I'm exaggerating. I think that it wasn't because there were locals were especially, uh, frisky, but because many of these adults work in other areas and leave the kids with relatives. Or, seemingly, alone. There were roaming bands of kids everywhere all the time. Luckily the kids were ridiculously cute and friendly. And all the stereotypes about poor kids being happy to play with what little they have certainly applied. I saw so many little made-up games with sticks and plastic bottles and rocks. Anyway, I took a billion pictures of the kids and put it on my picasa site:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/erki666/SoliDudeBorneo

OK, now here are a few random notes:

• Malaysians think that we eat hot dogs and beans for breakfast. When you order and "American Breakfast" that is the only difference from the standard egg breakfast. Strange.
• Aside from the Liberian flag (which is a blatant rip off...) show me a flag that is more like the stars and stripes than the Malaysian flag. You can't.
• Almost ever local will ask me if I'm traveling alone, and when I say that I am, there always respond, "What? No friends?" I now respond, "No, I don't have any friends. No body likes me." Starting to hurt my self esteem a little.
• Locals also tell me that Americans do not travel here much. Except for a travel spike that happened a few years back after Survivor: Borneo. Perfect.
• I learned to count to 10 in Thai on my last day in Thailand.
  
• I've become a "one language translator" on several occasions. Trying to help Europeans with poor English understand Malays with poor English.
  
• The Olympic coverage here is super if you are a fan of badmitten or ping pong. I can not believe that I actually am starting to know who's who in the world of badmitten...

OK, I need to go eat. I'm totally going to eat something without rice, chicken or fish. It will be wonderful...

-erik

Happy Anniversary Katie!

Today/Yesterday was Katie and my 11 year anniversary! Happy Anniversary Katie!! (All those of you who think I’m a lame husband for only wishing my wife a happy anniversary on my blog, you should know that I actually called too. I even called twice: once on August 16th in Borneo and once on August 16th in California. So there…) (But, yes, I am a lame husband for leaving my wife for 3 months) (She is coming here to celebrate our anniversary though…so that’s something, right?)

Anyway, here in Borneo grows the Rufflesia, the largest flower in the world. There is one in full bloom here were I’m staying and is all roped off from the public to protect it. I was able to convince the gardener to let me into the “forbidden area” to get a picture with the flower for Katie. So here you go Katie: here is the biggest flower in the world for you. Happy Anniversary! Can’t wait to see you! Hurry up because this flower probably isn’t gonna look so good in a couple weeks though…

Kinabula

Well, I’m alive, but only just. The climb up Kinabula was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. And I never want to do anything that hard again. It was actually going pretty well up until the last 2K. I didn’t get altitude sickness or anything, but the thin air above 12,000 feet made ever step a struggle. But I made it. I have a certificate that sez so. Pay no mind to the fact that I don’t have any pictures at the summit (it was cloudy, raining…) or that my GPS mysteriously stopped working (too close to satellite?). Any suggestions that I paid the guide 100 ringgit to give me the certificate are slanderous!

Now I’m (appropriately…) at a hot springs resort near the base of the mountain. It is a little busy here during the day (the tour buses roll in early, out late…) but peaceful in the evening. And the tubs are just what I needed. I almost slept in it last night. Still can barely walk though.

Europeans are screwing everything up...

I'm currently a little pissed off at Europeans. It's more about quantity that quality; all the Europeans I've met have actually been quite nice, it's just that there are waaaaay to many of them here (what, do they all get the month of August off or something? Oh....) and it is impossible to do anything here without booking 2 weeks out. Literally. I almost booked a flight this morning for Sumatra, but I assume they will be there too. Jeez. This has had several significant impacts for me:

1. Climbing Mt Kinabula: I want to do the 7200 foot climb to the top of Mt Kinabula. (formerly the highest peak in SE Asia, but I guess new satellite mapping decided something else is higher). This is a 2 day trip with a stop at a rest house 1/2 way up. Well, guess what? Guest house booked. So tomorrow, I'm getting picked up at 5AM to go and try to bag Kinabula in one day. I am excited that I'm getting a chance to do it, (er, rather try to do it) but I'm a little freaked out that I might actually die.
2. Diving at Sipadan: I mentioned that I was going to try to go to this best-place-in-the-world dive stop before. Guess what? Booked. I've now shuffled things around, will go later and now stay in a hostel instead of a resort (probably anyway as I'm burning the cash quicker than I'd hoped. Would people be cool with me selling add space on the blog?). The long and short of it here is I have to do some significant backtracking now and will spend about an extra 16 hours on buses (including an overnighter) to get to Sipadan. But at least I'm going.
3. Hiking at Mulu National Park: Super-awesome Park: Booked. I did manage to get 3 nights there in 2 weeks from now (I wanted to go tomorrow and stay for 1 week...). But at least I'm going...

What does this mean to you? Well every European I talked to was salivating about the dollar/euro exchange rate and almost all are planning on coming to the States next summer. So if you what to go to San Francisco or Yosemite or Yellowstone or anywhere next summer, book now...they might even just buy your depreciated-value house, kick you out and just stay there. I don't trust those guys anymore...

Anyway, I might die on Kinabula tomorrow and/or be out of internet land for a few days. If I make it out alive, I expect to have some pretty nice pictures. Can't wait til September when I should start getting rid of the Euro's as well as those annoying college summer-breaker's.

Stay tuned...

-erik

Katie's Cookbook!

Forgive the non-travel entry, but here's some breaking news: Katie's Cookbook is finally done and published! You can buy one right now! You can check it out at :

http://www.lulu.com/content/1183494

Good job Katie!!! A multi-year labor of love, and it really did come out great!