My Big Borneo Adventure

Friday/Saturday: It’s a sign: durian ice-cream and spitting


“Why don’t you write a blog?” If I had a penny for every time someone said that… I could probably buy a Curly-Wurly by now. So due to not-so-popular demand, here is my wonderful journal of my trip to Borneo with Orion Expedition Cruises…

Yes, I’m starting with the airport
There are signs all around us; informative ones, warning ones, mystical ones and – best of all – amusing ones. At Kuala Lumpur airport I was helped along by the toilet sign, complete with a graphic visual that reminded me not to crouch on the toilet seat; a ‘drinking water; no spitting sign’ that put me off filling up my water bottle and a tasty little one advertising ice-cream in red bean, avocado and durian flavours. Yummy!

I could also tell you about the mini jungle inside KL airport, but I know it’s Bad Form to write about your plane journey as an opener. That’s the great thing about blogs – I can call this entry day one and tell you all about my 12 hour flight from Heathrow and you’ll LOVE it. I hear a cry from the cheap seats; “What films did you watch?”; thanks for that question, I’ll tell you. I watched three films that all seemed to feature Ginnifer Thingybob and revolved around the theme of lurve.

Anyway, back to my airport story, after the jungle boardwalk and loo-crouch I caught a flight to Kota Kinabalu, which is on the island of Borneo. Here’s a quick bit of geography for you: KK is the capital of the Malaysian state of Sabah, which is in the north of Borneo – Indonesia has the southern part of the island and you’ll also find Brunei (you know, that place you stop over on cheap flights to Oz… the one that everyone thinks is in the Middle East) sandwiched between Sabah and the other Malaysian state of Sarawak.

So I’ll spare you all the details of my two and a half hour flight from KL to KK; suffice to say there was no Ginnifer, but there was a choice of prawn egg rice or chicken spicy noodle for breakfast. In Kota Kinabalu they run the genius system of selling taxi coupons at the airport, so there’s none of that jet-lagged amibeingripped-off panic to contend with. So, voucher in hand, my mum and I went to a hotel to meet Penny; a lovely lady from Tasmania who coincidentally was on the last Orion cruise that I did around the Kimberly in Australia. We nipped out for a walk through the markets opposite her hotel; the air was tangy with the waft of fish drying in the sun as we passed rows of men, fag firmly clenched in jaw, working away on clackety old Singer sewing machines surrounded by piles of bananas the size of babies’ arms.

Finally it was time to head to the port and embark Orion II; some familiar friendly faces were there to meet us; Clinton the maitre’d on my last trip with Orion remembered me and it turned out that about half the staff were old Orion hands. After champagne and canapés we met all the staff and it was time for a gala Captain’s dinner; the food was as excellent as I remembered it being on the original Orion and Captain Frank explained that Orion II wasn’t trying to be the same, but was carrying on the adventurous spirit of Orion. The new addition to the family is not quite as flash as her big sister, but the wooden style cabins better suit her new itineraries around the Far East; the library/bar area is larger than Orion and stuffed full of beautiful photo and text books about the regions visited.

Certainly all of the passengers seem happy with the new ship – some are on their ninth Orion cruise and many had stayed on from the previous cruise to do a back to back. As a Brit I am in the minority, which is not surprising as Aussie-owned Orion built up their reputation in their home-land, but the last time I travelled on Orion in June 2010 there was only Vegemite on the al fresco breakfast buffet, but on Orion II they also have Marmite – rule Britannia indeed.

Sunday – monkey harems and sacrificial leaves
Poor old Proboscis monkeys; they are hot-favourite contenders for a ‘most hilarious looking animal' award with the males’ honking large droopy nose (thought to attract females – the bigger the better) and their fat bellies. The gentle monkeys are endemic to Borneo and live in bachelor groups or mainly in harems of one male and several females (ha, who’s laughing now that that snozzle).

After a morning on Orion II the zodiacs took us to a small ferry terminal to catch a bumpy bus ride to the Klias Wetlands, where we boarded speed boats to take us through the mangrove forest. Sabah has 53 of the world’s 73 types of mangrove and along the river banks, amongst mango and hibiscus trees, there were the yellow leaves of the mangrove. Each one is a sacrificial leaf that takes in all the salt from the plant to make sure the other ones can grow.

My first monkey-spot involved some frantic camera focusing on a patch of moving tree and all of a sudden a reddy-brown female Proboscis threw herself off into a bush, with some smaller ones following suit. All along the river we stopped to see monkeys hanging out on branches, hurling themselves into the undergrowth and calling to each other. Lazing on low-lying trees were monitor lizards and high above us hornbills flapped and glided across the forest – unfortunately behind the wetlands much of the rainforest has been destroyed to grow palms for palm oils. Who uses this stuff? Us, in food and cosmetics; it’s so sad to know so much of the forest has been destroyed because of Western consumption. As sun set on the river, just before the fireflies came out, we headed back past a group of bachelors who were hanging out at the top of a tree and saw some of the original cheeky monkeys – long tail macaques who would merrily gang up to steal food if they could have jumped in the boats.

Typically I was on the last zodiac back to the ship and it was dark already – a few of us had been standing on the quayside oohing and ahhing at the lightning as if it were fireworks. We soon fell silent when the guide’s radio crackled and the expedition leader said, “Mate, can you get my sunnies; I left them on the bus?” Our guide Mark’s reply was “No can do mate, we need to beat the storm”. Never has a 20 minute zodiac ride seemed so long – Mark said we were going 20 knots and the storm was doing 18 knots, but whenever lightning crackled across the sky and illuminated the waves Orion II seemed further and further away. All of a sudden I saw the green light of a buoy through the salty splashes and driving rain. We seemed to be going on the wrong side of it and slowing down – I started to panic just as Mark said, “No need to panic – that’s another zodiac, we’re going in together.” By the time we got off we were soaked through and arrived just in time to hear an announcement that the deck barbecue had been cancelled due to bad weather. Trudging up from the zodiac marina, shaky and exhilarated, I was handed a glass of juice – I joked that I hoped it had vodka in it. Yes, came the reply, it does.

And that’s why Orion is one of the best cruise lines around – an adventurous expedition into Borneo’s jungle wetland that ends in a storm-chasing zodiac ride and a vodka cocktail.

Monday – Labuan; history lessons
No need for nail-biting zodiac rides today as Orion II docked in the deep sea port of Labuan Island – a federal territory off the coast of Sabah, which takes its name from the Malay word for anchorage. Once part of Brunei, Labuan was ceded to the Brits in 1846, but was occupied by the Japanese during WW2 and liberated by the Australians when the Japanese surrendered on 9th September 1945. The island is now run as ‘Labuan Corporation’ and has tried to turn itself into a major off-shore banking hub – we passed the shiny financial district where 5000 companies have their base, on paper at least, to visit the history museum and learn more about the island’s past.

From the capital it was only a short drive to the marine centre to learn about poisonous fish (very handy as we are snorkeling tomorrow) and Borneo’s sea life. Most of our fellow passengers are Australian so they already knew more about the WW2 history of the island and we stopped at ‘Brown Beach’ – a 1.5km stretch of sand named after the codename of the Allied operation and saw the Commonwealth war graves. At the Japanese peace park, which was adorned with hibiscus and birds of paradise flowers, we went to surrender point before being unexpectedly treated to a cultural show of music, dancing and local food. Imagine a Calippo ice-lolly but replace the packaging with a banana leaf and the frozen orange with a jellified coconut milk and pandan leaf filling that you squeeze up into your mouth. Lovely jubbly.