MOMOS

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Kothey momos

Yak wool scarf, yak milk tea

Momos and Coke. Heaven!

Kathmandu was the departure from Southeast Asia I had been waiting for. The air is difficult to breath, the dust thickly coats your face, and the assault of motorbike horns in the frighteningly narrow, winding streets is extremely painful to my formerly-sensitive ears. But then there are momos. Momos are simple dumplings native to Tibet and Nepal that are stuffed with diced vegetable, potato and yak cheese, or meat. They are either steamed, deep fried, served kothey (steamed and then pan-fried on one side: the clear winner), or set in a thick chili broth. They are typically served with a spicy tomato chutney, a sweet peanut sauce, or a fiery orange chili dip. An order arrives standard with ten momos. When you do receive nine, well, you need to consider what you did in life to deserve the punishment. And when the wind blows just right you may get the mythical eleventh momo. The eleventh momo is typically two to three times bigger than the rest: I suspect the chef made ten momos and had some dough and filling left over and used it up in one mega-momo.

Kinabitangan River

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Sunrise on the Kinabitangan

We backtracked to Sandakan and connected to Sukau, the launching point for river safaris on the Kinabitangan. The Kinabitangan River offers surprisingly plentiful opportunities to spot wildlife, which has made it one of the great tourist destinations in Sabah. But the sad reality is that the abundance of animals in the surrounding jungle is a result of the unchecked logging and omnipresent palm oil plantations on Borneo. Malaysia is the world's leading palm oil supplier, and few pockets of primary rainforest still exist in Sabah. A flight over or a drive through the countryside reveals endless acres of palm trees, which supposedly offer nothing whatsoever to the environment. So the great animals of Borneo have lost their homes and have been pushed to the secondary rainforest that runs alongside the Kinabitangan, which is where we searched for them.

We spent three days taking river cruises on the crocodile-infested Kinabitangan ("Do people swim here?" we asked our guide: [...] "Ha! NO!"). We departed on sunrise, late afternoon, and night safaris, each time of day offering opportunities to spot different animals. We were particularly lucky to spot a doughy-eyed dominant male orangutan at dawn hanging from and swinging in a tree. Unimaginably powerful arms! Also of note are the magical proboscis monkeys which are found only on Borneo. Known also the monyet balanda ("Dutch monkey" - the Indonesians felt their Dutch colonisers shared the monkey's large belly and long, red nose), the female and non-dominant males have exaggerated, Pinocchio-like noses. They perch in trees picking leaves (which compose over 90% of their diet) looking professionally absurd. The dominant males, however, have what looks basically like an elephantine ball-sack hanging over their nose. They are completely charming, as was the Russian-English inflected speech of our Malay guide: prro-BO-scis. One example of the jungle in action: at nighttime it is easy to spot the proboscis monkeys sleeping perched on the end of branches over the river. This is so that when nighttime predators (such as clouded leopards) stalk them in their trees, the monkeys are awoken by the full vibrations of the branch, gaining precious time to jump down into the river to escape (unlike orangutans who loath the water, proboscis monkeys have webbed feet and are excellent swimmers). A smart adaptation, except the crocodiles know a thing or two themselves and are often waiting underneath the trees for this golden egg!

The almost complete list: Buffy fish owl, Oriental hornbill, rhino hornbill, storm's stork, dominant male orangutan, pig tailed macaque, long tailed macaque, squirrel, crocodile, proboscis monkey, pygmy elephant footprint, pygmy elephant dropping, kite, kingfisher, sea eagle, mushroom growing on pygmy elephant dropping, pigeon, civet, mosquito, monitor lizard, green viper, swallow, leech, gecko, black and red broadbill, and the flying fox (we caught a flying fox - the world's largest bat - battling in the sky with a buffy fish owl, silhouetted by the near-full moon!).

Pulau Sipadan and Pulau Mabul

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Mabul Island

Cuttlefish shift color and texture in front of your eyes

Triggerfish have a reputation of defending their territory against divers. But they are also quite beautiful!

The urge to swim up to and hug a turtle is almost overwhelming

Moray eels are less frightening than they look

I took the first photo, but the rest are from our dive instructor's underwater camera. Scubadiving is a difficult sensation to describe, as are the many strange creatures we encounter down there, so I don't quite feel guilty stealing these.

We booked our dates at Pulau Sipadan (an island on eastern Sabah, a Malaysian state in Borneo) nearly two months in advance and still barely found a spot. Popularized in the west by Jacques Cousteau, Sipadan is now one of the most celebrated dive spots in the world, and it is now protected by a strictly enforced permit system. The tiny surface of the island is outlined by sandy beach, but only a few feet out from the shore the clear and light green water at your knees suddenly gives way to a deep blue void. Sipidan is an underwater volcano, and from its steepest walls the island plunges straight down for over two kilometers until it hits the floor of Indo-Pacific basin. The submerged cliffs create powerful currents which attract an unusual number of large sea life: great numbers of green sea turtles, white tipped and gray reef sharks, devil, eagle, and manta rays, hammerheads, schools of giant barracuda and big eye trevally head the list.

Swimming "into the blue," we veered from the comfort of the island wall and swam out into the open ocean searching for the largest creatures: hammerheads, whale sharks, manta rays. 20-30 meters under the surface, with something near two kilometers of water below us, we lost site of the island behind us and I eventually lost my sense of direction altogether. I felt suspended by a tiny thread in the middle of an unfriendly ocean, blue darkness every way. This first time was a challenge to breathe calmly and to not freak out and lose body control, but later excursions into the blue were thrilling. With specks of bioiluminescent critters dotting our field of view like stars, we could have been floating in space.

Back near the reef wall we swam with sharks and sea turtles, the latter of which dig a nest and sleep on the reef floor during low tide. The large reef sharks passed us by, sometimes within a few feet, their chilly eyes indifferent to us. In one moment two sea turtles swimming in opposite directions collided violently into each other, their shells sending a massive CLACK through the water. The turtles stopped in place, stared at each other for half a minute or so, then went on swimming in opposite directions.

The macro diving is equally exciting, with spectacularly designed nudibranchs (like a flamboyantly colored toxic sea slug), sea horses, octopi, pygmy cuttelfish, mantis boxer shrimps, box fish, scorpionfish, frogfish, and lobsters hiding around every corner. The density and diversity of sea life was far beyond anything else I've seen.

Christina was hooked, and as soon as our scheduled days of diving terminated she began her PADI Rescue Diver course, which she completed in three laborious and dramatic days of class and simulation. I was lucky to get her away from Mabul before she signed on for a six week Divemaster course, which would have sent me packing for home!

Kuala Lumpur

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Not much to report on from Kuala Lumpur, but I like this photo so I'm going to post it. We spent one of our two afternoons in KL in a hospital and emergency room - we had to get a prescription before purchasing more malaria medication. Not so terrible, and after so long I think I owed the cosmos a hospital waiting room experience.

Formerly the tallest towers on earth (Taipei 101 in Taiwan stole the title), Kuala Lumpur's Petronas Towers are perhaps the only urban buildings that I've taken pleasure in just staring at. Nearby, we ate plenty more delicious Chinese, Malay, and Indian food, though we spent most of this acquired energy just preparing for the next swing of the trip. We fly from KL to Sabah, Borneo, then eventually to Nepal and India before returning home.

Cameron Highlands

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A block of the Boh Tea plantation

An adorable leaf bug checks Christina's hair for dandruff

Between 1500-2200 meters above sea level, the Cameron Highlands lured us in with promises of pleasant days, crisp nights, and a bounty of tea. As a symbolic gesture I threw on a sweater and left it on, laundry be damned. I drank in the nighttime chill and then I drank more tea. What anxiety can't a cool breeze blow away?

We chose our accommodation, Gerard's Place, on a whim, and we couldn't have had better luck. With a half dozen rooms, shared kitchen, warm lounge, unlimited local tea, and an extremely generous and helpful family running the place, we felt more grounded than we had in months. Our respite then was not just from heat - we stopped feeling like travelers. Maybe I was more homesick than I knew.

Well above lowland Malaysia, where you'll break a sweat growing your finger nails, we re-discovered the joys of hiking. A network of jungle walks link Tanah Rata town with neighboring Sri Brinchang, passing over Gunung (mountain) Irau, Brinchang, Perdah, and Jasar. The trails were well-formed and only challenging enough to inform us of how much we'd fallen off since New Zealand. We never seemed to finish the walks where we expected to, but it was easy enough to follow the few roads through the hilly highlands back to town.

The Cameron Highlands are famous not only for tea, but for strawberries, orchids, and the exotic mammals, birds, and insects that still there reside. There are over 605 species of wild orchids in the highlands, and you frankly get accustomed to seeing healthy and fancifully designed examples growing out of puddles, on the side of the road, under a log, anywhere you take the time look. With the help of a ranger/ naturalist, we explored the Gunung Brinchang mossy forest, discovering many other hidden and bizarre jungle treasures along the way.

We later visited a strawberry farm where we befriended a young Malaysian family from Penang (are Malays the friendliest people we've met in Asia, or are they simply more eager to engage us because their own English is stronger?). A tea plantation and factory, butterfly sanctuary, and cactus farm kept us smiling, but it was much less about what we did than about how we felt. I felt glad to be there.

Perhentian Islands

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Boogie board the pain away

Penang

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Making fast friends in the Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion

  

What new hell have we stumbled into?

 

 

The inexplicable dessert "ABC" - Kidney beans, palm sugar, florescent grass jelly, rice jelly, creamed corn, sticky rice, and corn ice cream spilled over shaved ice

 

The gators never had a chance

Sweating and surly, we arrived in Pulau Langkawi, Malaysia. Suddenly I was past burnt out. I had grown indifferent to the ocean, the cities, the scenery, the food, the culture. I felt unavailable to the joys around me. And the unremitting heat, the mosquitoes, the vague threat of disease - if the elements in Southeast Asia did not exactly want me dead, they at least wanted me panicked and sweating over a squat toilet for hours at a time.

But I couldn't go home. If I felt despondent, I did not believe ending this adventure would make me any happier. I knew I had to rediscover myself and rediscover what makes me excited to be here, because I would regret forcing a journey I didn't enjoy as much as I would regret giving it up prematurely.

So with a bottle of liquor and approximately two kilos of Kinder Bueno (the entire island is duty free), we caught the ferry from Langkawi to Penang, not knowing what we'd find there. Like Peninsular Malaysia, Penang is a mix of Malay, ethnic Chinese, and ethnic Indian, though on Penang the Chinese population is the majority. This population includes the fabled Peranakan Chinese or Baba-Nyonyas: the ethnic Chinese of the British Straits Settlements. Generally loyal to Britain, the Peranakans distinguished themselves from later Chinese immigrants with their partial adoption of Malay customs and their unique handicrafts, cuisine, architecture, and attire. We were mainly concerned with Peranakan cuisine, which the Penang Office of Tourism regards as a sort of "foodie holy grail."

Penang was the perfect place to rest. Densely packed with mosques, old Chinese clan houses, Hindu and Buddhist temples, and colonial-era mansions, Penang's historic Georgetown is a lovely area to explore. We stayed in a comfortable guesthouse between Little India and Chinatown, and it didn't take a ten minute walk to push aside all tourist things and enjoy an authentic, inexpensive, and delicious local meal. Little India is a giant bazaar of blouse and fabric stores, Bollywood film shops, and fried treat street stalls, 24 jam curry houses, and filled-to-capacity vegetarian restaurants. The food stalls nearer Chinatown were even better: the unbelievably tasty char kway ka (giant, inch thick rice noodles fried with sprouts, green onions, chili, and garlic served with a spoon in a banana leaf cone) guided us when all else appeared lost, and the curry mee, wantan mee, Penang laksa, Hokkien mee, rojak pasembur (bean curd, potato, egg, and vegetable fritters mixed with cucumber shreds and turnips in a thick sweet peanut sauce), otak otak, and green dragon pearls made every meal (of which there were many more than three a day) a source of great excitement.

Sick and overheated as we were, we spent many of our nights hiding out in Penang's luxurious cinemas. There we watched film after film, including some Malaysian hits (The Wedding Diaries was our favorite) and a few Hollywood duds. Slowly we began talking about the future again, even if we sensed we'd never feel quite ready to move on from Penang. Finally, after a little more than a week in the city, we left Penang for the Perhentian Islands on the opposite coast of the peninsula, and emotionally, we were moving in the right direction.