RACONTEUR-ESQUE SCRIBBLINGS

Under normal circumstances, a zoologist will most probably faint at the very idea of anyone referring to orang utans as monkeys. Under *not so normal circumstances, the orang utan will most probably pulverize you to submission if you call it a monkey. We spent the final afternoon of our stay in Sarawak visiting the Orang Utan Sanctuary otherwise known as the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. Most of the animals here were rescued from terrible conditions and are taken care of (given food) in the wilderness. Although they are in contact with humans and have all been given names, they are not exactly tame. For instance, according to the person who gave a briefing before we saw them, the orang utans (especially the young uns) are capable of being mischievous and might snatch shiny objects and run off into the forest, and chances are you might never see your things again, because the forests border the neighbouring country and unlike us who need passports to travel around, the orang utans and ...

A few years ago, a friend said that a visit to an island is not complete unless you go to an ocean (that was Bali 2006), and hence a visit to a place that is famed for its forests is not complete without a visit to (yeah, you guessed it) a forest. Bako National Park was a 20 to 30 minute drive away from our hotel (I didn't keep time) and upon reaching there, we were first required to get the entrance tickets where the officer informed us of the conditions we were about to face, looked at our shoes and commented that JC's shoes might not be suitable, but it was. He then proceeded to tell us that seeing that the tide was low, we'd have to wade through the water to reach the park entrance, and there we may encounter jellyfish and some sort of scary fish, so we had to be careful. Gulp. We got on a boat that was supposed to take us to the National Park. The river was wide, and for me rather scary... only the knowledge that I had on a life jacket and the fact that the tide...

Where there is a river or straits, there is apt to be a waterfront. If you look at it from a cliched perspective, you'd say that the Kuching Waterfront is just a stone's throw away from our hotel, a row of stalls selling food and drinks, ethnic music playing in the background with an excellent view of the Sarawak River that stretches quite a bit. I do wonder though, if any of us actually stood right outside the hotel facing the waterfront and threw a stone towards it, would it have reached the waterfront, or would we have hit an unsuspecting victim on the head in our efforts to prove the stone's throw away theory? We never found out. It was 6 pm by the time we left the building again to check out the waterfront. JC and U who reached earlier had visited the place earlier that morning and wanted to sleep a bit, so PJ , JV, UM and myself headed out. It was getting dark fast (Sarawak is more East than Kuala Lumpur , hence it does get darker earlier although our clocks a...

History repeats itself. It seems as though each time I go off on a trip (holiday or otherwise) my muse rides along, which is not a bad thing (after all, I owe observing silly things like the pilot welcoming us to KL instead of Kuching because of the muse) However, the downside to this is that my muse kind of purposely stays behind to enjoy itself while I struggle with drafts and drafts of attempts to document the journey and experience I've encountered and everything else in between. In other words, I'm sort of having another 'block'. Damn! So, while I gather my materials, sort out my thoughts, get back ownership of my brain (it is currently held against it's will by the foreign advisors until Thursday evening), and await my muse, I leave you with these - a picture of 'us' and a diagram depicting how we know each other... Due to the semi private nature of this blog, we can only show you our feet... besides, it is admittedly difficult to travel withou...

The view from the room Cats on a road island. What's interesting is that the word Kuching is the Malay word for cats, and there is also a cat museum tucked somewhere in Kuching A dish of Kolo Mee. This one had chicken and mushroom topping, slightly deviating from the original barbequed pork version. This adorable 'don'ts' signage was photographed through a window of a building that may someday become a pub. I thought it was too cute to be not shared ;) It has been said before that a vacation every now and then, no matter how short will always make you feel better about life, and give you the push you need to move things forward, to work better and generally keep your sanity in check. After some planning, reading countless reviews, worrying (unnecessarily, unfortunately), and having a mad Wednesday that seemed to move too fast for my own good as I spent it worrying about a lot of things, from the fact that the advisers date of arrival has been pushed forwa...