The Jungle

Day 11-12, July 27-28 – No Malaria (I may have some other stuff going on but no malaria)

This is going to be a long, picture filled entry so make sure that you have a few minutes…

I really don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’ll start with my physical condition. I am filthy…no, filthy is too clean. I am putrid. I have mud all over me: river mud, village mud, jungle mud, long-house mud, bed mud (I think). I didn’t know that so many types of mud existed. I also have, what has tentatively been identified as, chicken blood spattered on my pants but from which chicken, I do not know. Throw in a healthy few gallons of sweat and funk and you start to get the picture. Oh, I also haven’t shaved in a week so I have hair on my upper lip and chin of which any eighth grade boy would be proud. Look out ladies…no seriously…look out, get away, I’m disgusting.

You may be wondering why I am so disgusting. I am currently on the way back to Kuching from my jungle adventure. It was quite an incredible experience.

I was picked up yesterday morning by the tour company at my hotel and our first stop was the orangutan preserve near Kuching. The preserve is home base for 24 oranutans that are either permanent residents or being rehabbed to live back out in the jungle on their own. It is situated on the edge of the jungle near Kuching and while it is not huge, the orangutans can roam in or out at free will. Some stay near the preserve. Some decide they don’t need it anymore and just decide to head out on their own. The original residents of the preserve are animals that were either bought off of the black market or from exotic pet dealers and just would not survive in the wild. The rest of the residents are the children and grandchildren of those originals which, upon being ready to live on their own, are taken further inland and released into the wild.

When you sign-up to go to the preserve, you are warned repeatedly that you only have a 50/50 chance of seeing any orangutans because most of them roam distances and aren’t always by observations areas. They do put food out for them twice a day but any individual orangutan only comes to eat every few days so there is no guarantee that they won’t pass up a tasty free meal. Suckers!

We got very lucky and I lost count of the number around us; And when I say around us, I mean all around us. We as tourists are in their habitat so, while an observation area exists, it is not separated from the orangutans and they can be any distance and direction from you including right over your head. I was told not to worry though because the last tourist bit was over two years ago. I think that the orangutans have mixed feelings about being stared at daily. They had reactions that ranged from apathy, curiosity, and mischief. As I was walking into the observation area, I felt raindrops and thought that it started raining. However, it was a young orangutan, unseen by me, that was shaking a tree so the water fell on us and then it laughed. This same one also was breaking off small branches and throwing them at tourists later in the morning. It was a big day for the park rangers, too. One of the females had given birth a few weeks ago and hadn’t come around at all since then. She decided to give us a visit yesterday morning, though, and show off her new baby for the first time. Watching the apes move in the trees and seeing their faces up close was an incredible experience and one that I will not ever forget.

From there, we began the long trek to the Iban long-house. I guess that I should explain who “we” is and also what an “Iban long-house” is. “We” is my tour group. Traveling alone, sometimes you get thrust into funny and bizarre situations. This was no exception. My group consistent of two guides (more on them later) and 11 Germans of which one spoke enough English for me to get any point across. For the past day and a half, I have often felt like I was in some strange Eurotrip film what with all of the constant German muttering and laughing. I was also a big fan of the German cell-phone techno at 6:30 this morning.

My two guides were great, spoke passable to good English, and were incredibly knowledgeable about the jungle. I learned things like how a pitcher plant eats, that Borneo has a lot of cobras but not spitting cobras, and how to properly dig the flesh out of a cobra bite and apply the proper plants as to not die. Let’s hope I never have to use some of this very practical knowledge. I also learned a great deal about the variety of bananas here and how they are named. A sample of a conversation with my guide, Kenny, went something like this.

Kenny: We have banana that is very good to feed the baby. It called the baby banana.

David: Interesting

Kenny: We have banana that is better to eat when it still green. It called green banana

David: Fascinating

Kenny: We have banana that look like horn of rhinoceros. It called horn banana

David: Nice

Kenny: We have banana that is better to eat after it turn black. Do you know what we call that?

David: Black Banana?

Kenny: How you know that?


Seriously, these guys were first class and made the experience much richer. They also have relationships with the Iban villages that were very beneficial.

The Iban are one of the three indigenous tribes of Sarawak and traditionally live in jungle long-houses. Of those that still remain in the jungle (many are drawn to the city), they are spread out in around 5000 long-house communities. About 50 accept tourists into their communities. I should also mention that, until recently, the Iban were a head-hunting tribe. This was officially ended sometime in the 60’s but there are still a few old men that have the significant neck tattoo which indicates a successful decapitation. Crazy! Skulls are still displayed in the long-houses as trophies of past victories over enemies.

A jungle long-house community has one main building that is for living, socializing, and relaxing. Each family in the village has their own “apartment” in this house and the chief lives in the middle. If they need room for another family, they simply build onto the end of the house until they run out of land. Once that happens, they will start a new long-house close to the original. In addition to the long-house, there are buildings for animals, storage, worship (the Iban are Christian), and guests. We stayed in the guest long-house near the river and the roosters.

Getting to the Lemanek River long-houses, where the Iban live, is an adventure by itself. It is approximately 250 kilometers from Kuching and is a several hour trip. On the way, one will pass bustling metropolises like Serian and Lachau. Serian has a huge market which was interesting to walk around. Lachau, however, is the last vestige of civilization before one falls off of the edge of the earth. It consists of a few small shops that survive off of the tour industry’s travel to the Iban.

After a 4 hour bus ride, it is off to the river for a 1.5 hour long-boat ride to our long-house. Skimming along through the jungle passing nothing but the occasional Iban community was very Apocalypse Now. Aside from the boat almost capsizing about 10 times, it was also very relaxing.

Upon arrival at the long-house, we got a tour of the life of the Iban. By any standards, and particularly by American ones, these people live in absolute squalor. It was the first time that I have seen a standard of living so different from what I know that I couldn’t imagine human beings existing like that. The long-houses are not much more than patch-work wood structures with sheet-metal roofs. There is no electricity other than an emergency generator and the interiors have loose plank floors beneath which are some storage and animal pens.

Despite the stark contrast between our lives, the Iban were amazing hosts. They welcomed us into their homes and shared what they had. Granted, I am sure that they are receiving something for their troubles but the effort was second to none and appreciated. I bet that it would be easy to go through the motions for what to them must be just another group of tourists but they made us feel like we were the only guests that ever visited. We got to witness several traditions:

During the first tour, we spent some time in the medicine man’s room, the urgent care clinic of the village, and partook in some of the jungles more exotic fruits and spirits. We had a little plum-like fruit that was so sour that it made biting into a lime seem downright sweet. In the medicine man room, we also drank enough village-brewed rice wine and rice whiskey to kill a horse. This continued for several hours outside of the medicine room, also. The Iban, from a short observation, could all be alcoholics. The sheer amount of rice whiskey consumed by us and our hosts was staggering. The chief was even having a shot this morning before the blowgun demonstration. This stuff is no joke either: Think bad sake but very strong with a little gasoline added for an extra kick.

After dark, we went back to the long-house for some traditional Iban dance. It was interesting to watch the tribe perform such a peaceful dance underneath the skulls of their enemies. After the dances, it was rice-whiskey all around. Some of the tribe, the Germans, and I were probably a little over-served. The highlight was watching the chief get so drunk that he was putting cigarettes out on the wood floor of the wood long-house. Call me crazy but that doesn’t seem like the best idea.

For a most of the evening, the only thing I understood out of the German’s mouths was, “David, whiskey,” before they filled up my cup. At one point, however, I could have sworn that either the Germans miraculously leaned English or I had developed the ability to understand German. Right now, I would swear under oath that I remember having deep philosophical discussions sitting on that long-house floor. I went to bed convinced that we would all be chatting about our evening over breakfast. Unbelievably, I was wrong.

This morning we watched a blow-gun demonstration from the chief and then got to try our skills out on a very intimidating piece of cardboard. I slew my enemy. The morning ended with a cock-fight. You heard me right: cock-fight. Don’t worry, we were told before that they were going to leave the small sharp knives off the rooster’s feet. So I guess that is not where I got the chicken blood on me…


Fast forward a few hours…

As I wait for a new load of laundry to soak in the sink, I am about to add some pictures and post this entry. I have had a few hours to think about my last day and look at some of the pictures. This was a truly remarkable experience. If I wanted to experience different cultures and ways of life, I don’t think that it will get any better than this. I am a lucky guy.