The Borneo voyage continues

The surface of the Celebes (Sulawesi) Sea hides a curve of land stretching about 30 miles roughly west-east. In a few isolated places the land lifts its head above the sea but it occurs mostly as reef below the surface (olive patches in the chart below). Head your boat southwards (on the safe blue patches) and watch the depth reading as it changes dramatically from less than 10m to more than 500m: you have driven over the drop-off of the reef, a wall that plummets to the sea bottom along the length of this land. Continue and the sea bed gradually drops to well over a kilometre, then rises to 700m and Pulau Sipadan, a tiny rainforest-covered tropical island, suddenly appears from the abyss.

This area is under-water heaven: the Indo-Pacific basin is the richest marine habitat in the world, a centre of marine bio-diversity, and P Sipadan is one of the world’s top dive sites… a marine reserve where the range and variety and numbers of marine life is astounding.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.The last stop of the Sail Malaysia Rally was Tawau - a functional town if ever there was one, but they had more fish at their market than we have seen anywhere else; asked where they obtained their fish, as stocks are dwindling throughout Asia, their terrifying answer was “night fishing off Pulau Sipadan”! Here we got another introduction to bad Malaysian anchorages: strong currents and strange eddies in which boats moved around in unpredictable fashion and poor holding in thin, soft mud. On our second night there were only two yachts; a storm blew up and a very disorientated Ketoro crew woke in shock with sirens directly behind us and bright spotlights on our rocking, rolling boat... provided by the other boat that was being blown and pushed down onto us and only metres away! We survived that heart-stopping experience but it set a trend for anchorages over the next few weeks: there was not to be peaceful sleep for some time!

Into this space came Geoff, Sue and Nikki Candy, our guests for about two weeks, who had come to experience the diving with us and also some Borneo land travel.

On a previous visit to Ketoro (in the Maldives) their mettle was tested by having no fresh water on board (water-maker was broken); this time we had water (although the normal boating restrictions applied, particularly with 5 sharing the facilities and resources) but no battery charging from the generator and furthermore, we had sliced a hole in the inflatable dinghy on the non-dinghy-friendly jetty of the Tawau Yacht Club, which we were unable to fix. The dinghy is our car, our means to get anywhere from the boat… critical! Rolf’s many attempts at repairs had all failed (quite hard to keep all those little air molecules trapped inside!) but he got it to a stage where, with big pump on board, you could pump up the offending pontoon as you travelled (and were we imagining it, or did the escaping bubbles give us a touch more speed in our progress, albeit in circles!?).

Night 1 at sea was on Horn Reef (left red X in chart photo) where we saw nothing but a single stilted home of a fisherman above the water, while underwater there was coral and fish we had not seen before: an auspicious start to the marine promise of the area.

As much as the dinghy problems were out of our control, so too was the endless set of lessons then forced on our guests in “the ups and downs (challenges and headaches) of anchoring”. Night 2 saw us off Pulau Mabul (second set of red crosses in chart above), with the anchor happily ensconced in good white sand near some lovely bommies at the end of a resort jetty, and planned so that dawn would see us wiping the sleep out of our eyes with a refreshing snorkel from the back steps.

Not to be… that was the first storm night. The storm arrived at about 2am and whipped up the sea; resulting in us scurrying around ensuring all was safely stowed and closed, then checking the instruments to see if the boat anchor was holding. A few further attempts at shut-eye were futile, as we saw that the boat was slowly but surely being dragged from its initial anchoring position. On this occasion, being dragged was not a crisis as it was away from shallow areas and there were no boats near us, but necessitated a move to new anchorage the next day.

Night 2 at Mabul came and… so did a storm. The previous night’s checks were repeated, and she was firm. Well, what that means is that our anchor was not dragging... Ketoro was CERTAINLY not firm!! Our new position gave us the dubious joy of a variety of large swells, reflected round the sides of the island, meaning: roll to left, roll to right, slam forward and backward and… repeat! We had this dance nightly for the next three days, and the only thing that dragged was our bodies as we tried to get them out of bed in the mornings after the disturbed nights!

Amazingly, the days were lovely and allowed us to enjoy them fully… despite the fact that (as we subsequently learned) the weather was due to a “super typhoon” over the Philippines. Those days saw us being collected by a dive boat and being taken for two day trips, with three dives each day. Diving at Mabul and nearby Kapalai was a wonderful day; diving at Sipadan took our breath away…

The island is a tiny tropical paradise: a dense deep-green rainforest that is fringed by sparkling white sand; stroll into the turquoise water until knee deep and suddenly the ground gives way to a 600m drop-off. Diving alongside this wall is astounding: look up and see turtles gracefully swimming way above you, a reef shark searching for tasty morsels above or alongside you, large predators searching for their meals; along the wall, a diverse range of spectacular healthy coral of vibrant colours and sizes hosts millions of marine creatures, while hundreds of fish continue their lives unconcerned by your presence. Look straight down… and wonder at what else the further 575m beneath may hold!

We saw huge shoals of fish, a tornado of barracuda, incredible huge individuals and the tiniest, brightest-coloured or most odd creatures. Thank heavens Geoff had an underwater camera with him... all these photos are his handiwork.

The wall holds secrets: a series of caves where turtles over the ages (and a few divers) have become disorientated and drowned; it provides ledges and small caves where you come upon sharks or turtles resting, and you need eagle (or a predator’s?) eyes to distinguish some of the creatures (like the "sea dragon" in this photo, on the right) from the corals in which they are hiding.

On each occasion we came up from the depths filled with awe, with every expectation having being met. This experience was incredible and we felt very privileged to have been here…. and very sorry that we had only a day scheduled at this particular island!

The conservation of this marine park area is managed very carefully and the numbers of divers per day is strictly limited to 120. There was also once trouble in paradise (in 2000, a Philippine terrorist group, the Abu Sayyaf, took tourists hostage from Sipadan Island), resulting in the few resorts on this remote island being closed down and dive operators having to function from afar, each operator only given a certain number of permits per week.

Illegal Indonesians and Philippines appear to threaten the safety of life on this coast of Borneo Malaysia: the police believed that such outsiders were the culprits in the burglaries on our 3 rally boats as well as another 3 yachts that were burgled at another anchorage. We regularly saw the Malaysian Marine forces patrolling the waters, mooring near our boats or calling us up when on passage; although locals laugh and believe they are ineffective - we enjoyed the visual deterrent of them being near us. Some rally boats went no further than the top of Borneo Island, not venturing down this east side at all as their insurers did not cover them in this area.

After a champagne dinner to celebrate our Sipadan dive day, it was time to move on… but not so fast: first there was another anchoring lesson and test.Trying to lift anchor from our hold-fast-in-Mabul spot, she was stuck FAST: no wonder we did not drag! However, a chain that will not lift is an unhappy situation, and the anchor was 16m below us, so Rolf had to don scuba gear, Geoff his snorkel gear for surface work and to convey progress reports and instructions, and Irene had to drive the boat to get the anchor chain dislodged.

Mission accomplished, and we said farewell to Mabul, moving on to a beautiful forested island further north that rose high from the sea, just to show our friends that there is land above the water too.

Sea travel in Asia is interesting because of the variety of fascinating fishing villages and boats seen on the water.

Taking the Candys to Lahad Datu where we were to abandon them to their own explorations of orang-utans, proboscis monkeys and other strange and lovely creatures endemic to Borneo in the jungle along the Kinabatangan River (and see for themselves the massively encroaching palm oil plantations: see our previous blog), we saw another different fishing structure: what we believe to be a small shrimp-fishing village that is moved between fishing grounds by being pushed by a small motorised craft, then anchors until those grounds are depleted.

We spent three days sailing Ketoro to Sandakan, where we met our friends again. Sandakan was established in the 1870s when a Scottish adventurer delivered guns to the Sultan of Sulu who … basically gave it to him as a base. The town grew but then “ceased to exist” as a town after WW2, when it was flattened by the Allied forces in an effort to liberate it from the Japanese, and subsequently the rest was burned down by the Japanese. However, there are some lovely excursions: the self-guided trails of the Rainforest Discovery Centre gave us all a chance to enjoy the sights of rare plants and birds, endemic to Borneo; giant and tiny squirrels, and flying lizards (seen below, wings in but giving a display of aggression), often seen from the canopy walkway at the top of this magnificent forest.

Most oddly, the town has an English Country Tea Garden in the grounds of the home of the British Conservator of Forests and his wife: tea and scones in Borneo overlooking the grubby, ugly city seems strange… but lift your eyes and see over the large bay to rolling hills and forests the other side… and wonder at what is hiding away! Agnes Keith, the authoress wife, wrote “Land below the Wind”, her story of Borneo, the island that does not become beset by the terrible typhoons and storms that pummel the Philippines: well, maybe they do not lay siege to Borneo but we now know that this island feels the edges of those storms, and sometimes friends visiting yachts are subject to these trials to give them a taste of one aspect of this cruising life! With the visitors departed, it was time for us to set off back around the top of Borneo and start on a long return journey. We gave ourselves a treat at the start:

Lankayan Island is a marine park and resort with a wonderful turtle conservation programme, monitoring the many turtles that lay eggs on their island, collecting the eggs and placing the hatchlings into the sea. With two nights firmly attached to their mooring buoy, we had the privilege of seeing about 300 baby turtles being introduced to their new watery home (unfortunately also witnessing some of the little creatures becoming tasty morsels) and also watched a huge green turtle digging a massive hole in the dark. After more than an hour, she gave up on one hole as it had too many roots and moved to start on another; we left to return to our boat and a good sleep (no fears of dragging nor struggling with anchors!) and heard that she finally laid her eggs into her fourth hole.

On the dive the following day, we looked at the turtles with renewed respect and understanding of their trials … and are in awe of the fact that any survive at all. Borneo has a way of making one very aware of the balance of life and how tenuous so much of our world’s heritage really is.

A Race, a Mountain, a Lot of Trouble and a River

Since our last blog, we have been in a Race (the Borneo International Yacht Challenge, whee haa!!), into a wonderful mountain nature reserve (Mount Kinabalu), had a period with an awful lot of troubles, and been up a lovely river (Sungai Kinabatangan). So that’s what this next story is all about….

A Race….. The Borneo International Yacht Challenge (BIYC)

(Also entitled: Much Ado About Nothing…. Or, getting long-winded about being short of wind)

The BIYC is an annual yachting series that takes place with short inshore races in Miri and Kota Kinabalu(KK) and a long offshore race between these two cities of the states Sarawak and Sabah. Cruisers participating in the Sail Malaysia Rally are cajoled into joining to swell the numbers because, although there are some strong entrants (ie real racers) to these races (maybe…. 2?), there are so few it would be an embarrassment to the organisers. In this case, “cajole” means give dinners and a free night in a hotel…. So cruising yachties are THERE!!

In fact, even amongst our rally group there are some country-record holders (and a world..... the guys with the long-drop toilet, from the last blog!). These guys all took it seriously, unpacking all they could from their boats to have it transported overland to KK for collection after racing was finished. Not for them, racing with the extra weight of a dinghy, generator, washing machine, 8 jerry cans of extra fuel / water, compressor, dive tanks..!

Well, what a learning experience this all was for us, the Ketoro crew. These are SAILING races. Not motoring. No engines allowed. But wind is required to sail, and there was no wind. We on Ketoro like wind, and if there is no wind, we have two engines which we usually use...

Day 1.... Round-the-buoys race just outside the Miri Marina. Boats had to go off in batches, according to class, with catamarans in the second batch, 5 min between batches. Imagine 40 boats milling around and meandering in and out of others’ way to get themselves in a good place to speed off at the start but not bashing into each other. And 4 min from the start no engines allowed. And no wind.

Ketoro crew had as biggest concerns...1: don't bash people, 2: don't get in the way of a serious fellow and be called in front of the committee in protest. So our strategy was to start at the back of our group. Therefore we were some way back (and very far from the start line) when we got the 4 minute signal - and switched off engines. In our cruising, we have never practised getting somewhere under sail with no wind (rule has always been to switch on engines at 4 knots or slower), so it was with great interest we found that.... You don't. Or rather, it is excruciatingly slow.

The summary of this race is as follows: call was given for multihull engines to go off and start approaching the start line; Ketoro sits like a sloth in the water; Ketoro reaches the start line 15 minutes later, then the tide almost pushes her into collision with the starter boat / committee boat at the start line (no wind to use to get away); Ketoro happily retires from the race when other cruisers start calling in the same intention. Go get a beer.

Day 2.... 170 mile race from Miri to KK. In these passage races, you may start your engines 30 minutes after the start, but incur penalties, and must write down on-and-off times and positions very diligently to hand in to the organisers at the end. Sailors try not to motor at all; we had 48 hours to get to KK.

Picture the start... As before, but this time we were EXPERIENCED! So this time it only took us about 5 minutes to get to the start line, and we were off (well, snail-style), jostling for position with these two boats.

Actually, there was a tiny amount of wind so we made as much use as we could of it, as did most (although some started their engines at 30 minutes and switched off when they got to KK). Ultimately, we sailed for 8.5 hours in total, at a speed of at best 4 knots: however, that also included current of 1.5 knots taking us in the right direction, so you can see the wind was almost zero.

Two good things... we caught a great 3 foot plus Spanish Mackerel that fed us for ages, and also we have learned a fair amount about what we CAN do with the boat with no wind, which we had never allowed ourselves the chance to attempt. However, after a while you throw in the towel to keep your sanity, so we then motor- sailed another 18 hours to the end, as fast as we could … got in exhausted and exceedingly hot, with blinding headache.

Now we come to the funny bit…. We came second in this passage race!!! Nobody was more surprised than us, but some of the big guys gave up on the no wind and went shopping at a duty-free island en route, and it seems we actually sailed quite well too! Interestingly, one of those that shed load and boat contents to keep boat weight down, also discarded almost all his fuel... Resulting in them running out of fuel, and another boat sailing at the back (also a serious racer) having to wait and help them out.

The rest of the races at KK were an echo of day 1 (short races, no wind…) so we decided we had found our niche…. Long distance… and would sit those out!

A Mountain: Mount Kinabalu National Park

So the race had taken us to Kota Kinabalu (KK, in Sabah state), a city with nothing to show of its history since it had been flattened almost entirely during WWII.

Enjoying a free few days at its nice (expensive) marina, we took a trip into Borneo nostalgia on the recently-refurbished North Borneo vintage train pulled by a British Vulcan steam engine and were treated to a wonderful evening show displaying the cultural dances of the local minority groups.

KK is a base to visit what Sabah state offers best: nature. With a climb to the summit of Mount Kinabalu being deemed too expensive, we hired a car and wound our way up through the lush countryside to spend a few days in the reserve on the slopes of this famous mountain.

Mount Kinabalu has many peaks, but the summit stands at 4095m, the highest peak in SE Asia.

Kinabalu Park is a 750 sq km ecological paradise with over 1000 species of orchids amongst other beautiful flowering plants, weird pitcher plants, magnificent oaks and chestnut trees supporting diverse mammal, bird and insect populations, many of them being endemic to Borneo. The park is set up with lots of interleaving trails that allow you to hike as little (Rolf) or as much (Irene) as you want…. Or somewhere in the middle!! And one of the best things about the park?.... the temperature!! It is a cool 20 degrees!

Many of our cruising friends are Australian, and Borneo houses much important and poignant WWII history for them; thus it was that while we were in the area we went with some to the Kundesang War Memorial, which taught us about three terrible and infamous 160 mile death marches in which 2428 Australian and British POWs died.


A Lot Of Trouble: boat bothers and a burglary

There is a mantra in cruising that says: Don’t make plans, because they will not work out. Well, we continue to challenge this …. And have again been taught the lesson!

We left KK with a week-long trip to Sandakan (also in Sabah state)to look forward to, entering the Sulu Sea on the east of Borneo for the first time, in which we were going to sail manageable legs daily, anchor and rest and mostly MAKE BIG DECISIONS AND PLANS ABOUT OUR SAILING IN THE SHORT- AND LONG TERM.

With such anticipation, we set off and were not too disturbed when on the first evening we could not drop the mainsail, eventually managed (much associated stress) and Irene spent the last few hours of daylight up the mast doing repair work.

On the second day we were more disturbed when the water pump of one engine died and we had to get much further than anticipated, to borrow a makeshift spare part, thus anchoring at dusk where the spare-bearing yachtie friend was anchored. Rolf worked on the engine (under our bunk, hence the S/B hull was turned upside down) till 10pm, setting up a system that would carry us to Sandakan where we hoped to find someone who could supply spares, do some welding and also order a new pump.

Off to shower… and the fresh-water pump died. Now we could not get water out of any of our taps, but luckily we had two 25l jerry cans for emergencies. Not so… They had sprung leaks and were empty. The water pump is housed in the tiny space behind the freezer… remove freezer frame, remove freezer, remove pump, squeeze in and get to work. No joy. Get to bed, utterly exhausted, bruised and demoralised (and dirty and hot and smelly…. But the sea is wet and cool).

The next day Irene did the sailing as Rolf worked on the pump, and by sundown we had water. We anchored off an island (really beautiful but too exhausted to go on shore) and set off the next day to get to Sandakan. On this trip Rolf worked on the S/B toilet (also not functioning) … this task eventually took about 24 hours of solid work (including hugely fun stuff like clean out toilet discharge pipes and black-water tank and put in new plumbing: photo below shows Rolf squeezed in a locker alongside the black-water tank, sponging up the brown stuff that came out of said tank….) before he improvised a temporary solution.

The first night at anchor in Sandakan (with view from the boat seen below) we were burgled while we slept…. They (were they from the fishing village at the foot of the Mosque? Or were they illegal Philippinos, as claimed by the police?) came on board, stole money (we had just been to the ATM to be able to pay for the new engine water pump), torch, camera (yes, with photos, but not too many… the ones we would have liked to show you of Rolf in his miniscule freezer space, cursing, mostly!), a basket and cushion! They enriched themselves grandly from two other boats.

The following day was spent doing police-associated things. The next day the generator failed to charge the house batteries... this is the only task now outstanding (besides the usual myriad of normal boat tasks, including cleaning rust and mould) and needs an electrician: the skipper has now developed an incredible skill-set, but it does not (yet) extend to the electronics of generators and invertor-chargers.

There is a superstition in sailing that says: Do not embark on a voyage on a Friday. We had left KK on a Friday. Let’s not go there….

A River: Sungai Kinabatangan

The famous diverse wildlife of the 560km Kinabatangan River and its floodplains attracted us to attempt a trip up the river in Ketoro – well, to about 80km upriver, at which point there are power lines across the river that are too low for most masted boats to get under.

So, with most boat issues under control and fingers tightly crossed, we set off from Sandakan… and what a wonderful adventure it was. The river has two entries into the Sulu Sea (east side of Borneo) and we chose to enter at the northern mouth and exit the southern, with a trip (heading west from an intersection somewhere in the middle) that would take us deeper into primary jungle and its associated animal and bird life.

River trips are a challenge because of their variable depths and the fact that they are not charted, so it is to some extent hit and miss; or rather, common sense and very slow, careful forward motion on this languid water, monitoring your depth constantly and with timing dependant on the tides; in our case we also had co-ordinates for some areas. It is an advantage to sail a catamaran as they have shallower drafts than monohulls: one of the monohulls became grounded while attempting his entry into the river, and ultimately some of them abandoned the attempt to stick to ocean travel.

Many decades ago, Borneo was almost all primary jungle. Then the world’s desire for wood and palm oil was noted... and jungle was eradicated in massive logging programs, with huge plantations of nipa palm established instead. This trip up the river would take us to some original jungle. As we got deeper into the river, the oil plantations gave way to forest, and the sight of these old trees and dense layers of bushes, creepers and ground covers was awesome and inspirational, showing different faces in the brilliance of sunlight and early morning mists.

Children ran out waving from their stilted houses in the few tiny villages and it was fun to see the small painted boats of the fishermen, with names Top Gun, E-type and similar! These are communities of Orang sungai (people of the river) of whom many are subsistence fishermen but some work at resorts dotted along the river.

Apparently the lower Kinabatangan is one of only two places on earth where 10 primate species are found: at anchorages and from dinghy forays into the smaller tributaries we watched macaque and proboscis monkeys (endemic to Borneo, the latter are really weird looking: males with big noses and beer-bellies), and a rare sighting of orang utans in the wild on one of our dinghy trips was a treat. We also saw squirrels and bats, hornbills of many varieties (the biggest used to be killed for its bill, which was used for carvings), eagles, kingfishers, monitor lizards and crocodiles.

The river is also inhabited by cloudy leopards, small rhinoceros and pygmy elephant, none of which we saw... except we are probably the only people in the world to have driven over an elephant and not noticed it: the people in the boat behind us saw one leave the water after we had sailed down over where it was apparently crossing!

There is a sorry catch to this magnificent river: it is exceptionally muddy, as are almost all the rivers in Borneo. Evidently 20 years ago it was pristine.... and then the logging started, palm oil plants were established and tugs move up and down the river pulling barges with logs or sand or palm oil (like this one) . So the jungle that we saw from the water is in fact now only a few hundred metres deep, with much of the island being under oil palm plantations... and with all the logging comes erosion and mud.

Putting a white fibreglass boat into this mud meant that everything became dirty… absolutely filthy would be more accurate a description. And of course you cannot wash anything off, as the water you have in your tank has to last for the duration of the journey (you cannot use muddy river water in the water-maker as it will clog the filters).

Then, of course, being on a still river in this tropical climate increases the humidity levels enormously (above a level which is already intolerable). Sometimes you feel as though the heat has you under siege. There is just nothing you can do and nowhere to escape… no water to jump into (mud and crocodiles), no luxury of a cooling shower, besides the one daily (water rations), no aircons (power issues). Rain often looked imminent but the promise was never fulfilled: that would have been a treat to stand under, wash the boat with, and catch to put in the tanks!

However, none of this detracted from our enjoyment of this incredible privilege: to be on our own boat on this ancient river in Borneo which had seen so much history and provides a life line to villagers, wildlife and a country’s industries. To see life on the river, the shapes and sizes and vibrant greens of the vegetation of a primary forest; to enjoy the antics of the animals, reptiles, birds and butterflies, some of which are endemic and peculiar to this land – just amazing.

Malaysia travels: so many faces.

So much new, different, fascinating and frustrating stuff…. With Malaysia’s many faces we have never been bored! First, we have to put a map in here: Malaysia has an unusual geography, and we had no clue of how it worked (still don’t, really…) until we set off along its shores.

So, there is Peninsular or West Malaysia (South of Thailand) and then East Malaysia, which is on the top part of Borneo Island (the bottom section of Borneo is part of the huge sprawling region of Indonesia). Malaysia has 13 states; 11 on the peninsular and 2 on Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah), which have the Brunei Sultanate separating them. Ketoro is decorated below with the flags of all the countries we have visited, and the smaller flags are those of all the Malaysian states.

Why the geography lesson? Well, because we want to cover each section separately in this blog. Two posts ago, we wrote about the trip down the Malacca Straits and enjoying the Chinese / Malay / Indian influences in Penang and Malacca (west coast of Peninsula Malaysia): places that made us (foreign tourists) feel very welcome. Malaysia is a real melting-pot of these communities, and the ratios of the different cultures determine that region’s work and service ethic and to what extent foreigners are made welcome. Generally: the more the Chinese, the more economically energetic the place and the happier they appear to be to receive tourists (perceived as bearers of dollars and not as negative influences and subverters of morals…?)

So first…

Peninsula Malaysia: East coast

This stretch has beautiful islands which are magnificent for diving and very tourist-friendly; it also has mainland villages that are ultra-conservative Muslim Malay strongholds and less easy to visit and understand.

The Tioman Island group was a great place to start, with a beautiful anchorage near the airport that is hemmed in by mountains and where planes coming in to land are actually nose down and look like they are about to crash.

A cultural day brought rally adults and kids together with the local people: a presentation of local music was followed by games: the rally-men’s tug of war team got a great boost when this local lady helped them to win… and clearly Rolf gave it his best shot! This island depends on tourism and the local Malay community are not reserved here, but as relaxed with the tourists as the Chinese are.

Other beautiful uninhabited islands were enjoyed on the trip to and from Tioman, with drinks on the beach and snorkelling (or reading) being favourite post-anchoring activities.

Many of the beaches, however, are breeding grounds of several types of annoying insects and particularly sand-flies: yachties’ stories abound of contact with these tiny creatures and at least 6 in the group had previously been hospitalised from infection resulting from the bites, while many have bad scars.

This time was no different and a friend ended up getting dreadful ulcerating infections within 24 hours of flies stinging (and peeing in, apparently) an already-open wound. At the first land stop she was admitted to the local hospital and was treated effectively with 4 days of antibiotic drip; she checked out earlier than the doctors would have it though…. she praises the medical treatment but after every patient and visitor in the hospital came at all times of the day, pulled back her screens, stared at her and left, she got fed up! This is evidently a typical experience for foreigners in hospitals in rural Malaysia.

So on to Terengganu town (beautiful crystal mosque pictured), in the northern-most and most conservative state of Malaysia.

Terengganu Marina was typical of Malaysian marinas: muddy, exposed and poorly designed but flanked by a huge under-utilised resort and supported by grand buildings, intended to accommodate conferences of a demand not likely to be seen in the future. Malaysia has money (lots) and huge construction projects on-going to meet the government’s envisioned future growth. But looking at the vast, empty, resonating halls, it is hard to believe that the dreams will come true.

Tourism growth is particularly hard to believe when this local Malay community’s reception of foreign visitors is less than positive: their government may want foreigners to come, but they and / or their religious leaders appear less enthusiastic! By contrast, the 5% of Chinese in the Terengganu population went out of their way to welcome and help us find our way around. China town buildings with tiny shop-fronts sell a fascinating and useful variety of wares on the ground floor and typically have the owner living upstairs. In this case however, the second storey of the buildings of a whole street was dedicated to accommodation of swiftlets, busily making nests for their young…. Oops, I mean tomorrow’s bird’s nest soup (for some)!

Our diving and island experiences over the following week at the Perhentian Islands were superb: these are some of the best dive sites in the world, and we saw wonderful mature, healthy coral as a backdrop to many fish species in great numbers. The islands also made a beautiful backdrop to the working area when the dive compressor inevitably needs repairing or de-rusting (only 2 years old, it is close to its demise!).

We were ready to move on to Eastern Malaysia on Borneo Island after this, a passage story we put up in the last blog (and thank heavens we HAD had this restful time, before that passage!)

Eastern Malaysia: Borneo Island


Well, what a pleasant surprise! Guilty of paying little attention to Borneo previously, we have found most things to be a surprise here: the scenery, people, cities, industries….

But first, the fascinating history of Borneo….

Head-hunters and white Rajahs

There are many ethnic communities on this island, currently living peacefully alongside each other and the Malay, Chinese and Indian communities. Before the latter two arrived, it was very different. Until the 19th century Sarawak State was under the control of the Sultanate of Brunei, but the Sultan was having trouble with the local tribes who were constantly at war and lopping off each other’s heads to take them home as trophies.

James Brooke, an adventurer with large inheritance who had been invalided from the British East India Company, happened to come by with his large, well-armed ship, so assisted in the ‘suppression’ of the troublesome rebels. The Sultan, mightily pleased, gave him a huge chunk of land (lucky boy…. But apparently Brooke also persuaded the Sultan of how much land he should be given by parking his warship off the Sultan’s palace!) and installed him as Raja of Sarawak. The Brooke family saw a further two generations of Brooke family take over as Rajas of their personal kingdom until WWII; after a period under Japanese control and then Australian administration, Sarawak was ceded to Britain by the Brooke family. What it was to be a citizen of Sarawak in those days….! Ultimately Sarawak and Sabah, the other state on Borneo Island, were brought into the Federation of Malaysia, but only after the two Borneo states insisted on some independence (they did not wish to lose their oil money to the peninsular): they now have their own immigration and customs procedures – but have nevertheless lost their oil money to the Kuala Lumpur government (only 5% of their revenue finds its way back into the region).

Our first impression of Borneo from the sea was a huge dark green mountainous island with extensive flat (but very greened) areas extending inland. After spending our first post-passage night at a small island (last blog) we went into a large river to anchor…. River Santubong, under Mount Santubong, and this takes us to a general topic:

The rivers of Borneo

These are many, and wide, and long, and fast-flowing, and muddy, with huge tidal ranges, many fish, prawns and crocodiles.

With a yacht, it is potentially easy to go inland on Borneo using the rivers; in fact there are many towns and villages that have no access to other cities except via the water… why chop down jungle and build roads when you have waterways? People live on and alongside the rivers while industries are based near them.

What this all means is the following…. The rivers are busy, busy places and while anchored in them there is an endless pageant of life taking place in front of you. The Santubong River anchorage gave us mostly blissful peace, with birdlife, fish, a huge crocodile (discouraged you from swimming, even if the muddiness did not), small family fishing clusters on stilts nearby, canoes quietly fishing…

… and then the peace was broken by huge tugs pulling large barges, huge cargo carriers, industrial fishing boats…. All in our back garden (and sometimes making our home rock!).

This was our base for seeing Kuching, and we later moved to the marina in the Sarawak River closer to the city…. even more and bigger ships, big logs and islands of vegetation moving down in the current to us; however the marina structures gave us some protection from these.

It was time for inland exploring, so we took the ferry out to sea then up the giant Redang River (longest in Borneo) to Sibu; even this tough, huge, speedy ferry had to slow to a crawl and dodge the islands of floating debris which were coming down in masses. From the ferry we saw the evidence of the Borneo jungles… but also huge areas that had been cleared and planted with palm oil plantations, and the sawmills leading down to the river from where tons of logs were loaded onto the giant barges (from where many fall into the river or sea to plague yachties…!)

A trip even further inland to Kapit saw us using the only available public transport:

Odd, long, torpedo-shaped jet boats, strong enough to fight against a huge tidal current and deal with the floating debris. The range of sights was fantastic: tug-barge combos, fishing and cargo boats, dugout canoes for fishing or a means of short-distance transport. There were fewer sawmills here, and more villages to be seen, often the homes of the Iban community: stilted longhouses with a long communal deck as a shared patio off which led doors to the rooms belonging to individual families.

Which brings us to…

The cities and people of Sarawak, Borneo


Sarawak State, “Land of the Hornbills”, is great: so much to do and see! The best part of it all is the fact that there is a broad spread of ethnic groups who are keen to welcome tourists and we have felt very comfortable travelling here, contrasted to our experiences in the more conservative Muslim areas of peninsular Malaysia.

There are over 100 riverine and hill-dwelling ethnic subgroups in Borneo (for example Iban, Orang Ulu and Melanau people), generally termed the Dayaks, each with their own cultures, traditions and dialects. Those whom we met in the towns are friendly and many surprised us: we asked directions of a thin, wiry, bare-torso Iban man, tattoo-ed on every bit of skin, long hair in dreadlocks … and were answered in perfectly-spoken English with a strong English accent. The Muslim people on Borneo are also far more pragmatic in their ways and tolerant of others than those Malays on the mainland with their exclusive attitude: our Muslim lady taxi driver happily eats in restaurants with her friends from the Chinese and Iban communities.

Kuching, Sibu and Kapit gave us an idea of the cultures, history, way of life; we have still to get to Mulu National Park near the town of Miri to savour a good sample of Sarawak’s mountains, caves, rivers and rainforests.

Kuching is a wonderful city for a holiday, with a China town, an Indian street, and Malay areas; a wonderful museum, and cat statues everywhere: Kuching in Malay means cat, so the Malay people, who are sensitive about their ownership of the country, claim the city was named for the cats roaming the streets. HUH!? Well, Kuching means harbour in Chinese, and that is far more likely to be the origin…

On the Sarawak River, Kuching has a great waterfront alongside Main Bazaar, a road that has oodles of small shops selling souvenirs, curios, artefacts, antiques peculiar to the area… and the area is peculiar! Care for blowpipes, knives, spears, skulls? They are all here, in crammed, dusty shops alongside the textiles, wood, carvings, beadwork; you can spend hours browsing!

As with most cities in SE Asia, there is a permanent market and several others at night or on the weekend. The unusual purchases on offer here include bamboo sago worms, separated lovingly from their bamboo and sold by the kilogram;

forest ferns (midden… a really tasty green vegetable which is the curled tops of new ferns harvested in the jungles) and chicken wrapped in newspaper and pink ribbon, to take home to your chicken coop or kitchen.

Sibu and Kapit are much smaller towns, non-touristy and interesting for the abundance of goldsmiths, betting shops and karaoke bars! The many coffee shops sell Borneo coffee: strong, and served with sweetened condensed milk.

Both of these towns are approached from the water, but their waterfronts are practical and functional… and ugly, definitely not addressing the tourist! This view of the waterfront in Sibu is taken from the top of the Chinese Taoist Pagoda.

The Chinese populations in these towns are large, and there are far more Dayak people than Malays. Although many of these communities have moved to the big cities, a large percentage still live their lives near their original home territories, in the style of their original communities (e.g. the Iban people in longhouses) and many rely on their community’s trademark handcraft for income, like this Orang Ulu (means “up-river dwellers”) lady with her beadwork.

A rehabilitation park in Kuching helps a variety of animals and snakes, but in particular orang utans. Interesting to us was the fact that “orang” is the Malay word for people. Thus, the Orang Asli were one of the first human inhabitant groups in Malaysia and the Orang Ulu are people of the river. Heard of the “wild man of Borneo”? That is the Orang Utan, the man of the forest. Orang utans are only found in the wild in Borneo and Indonesia, and their numbers are decreasing as their habitat becomes destroyed. Here, Junior tries to sneak some of Ritchie’s snacks off his table.

A real treat was to be in Kuching for the Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF). Based at a cultural village with the stages flanked by mighty trees, there were three nights in which bands from various countries (Finland, Iran, Poland, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Polynesia, Senegal, Caribbean, Kenya, Algeria, Malaysia, UK, USA, NZ, Vanuatu, Mexico) and representing many ethnic communities played music from their heritage.

The music was not always to everyone’s taste but the instruments were often unusual (like this sape, below), the background stories interesting and the spirit always positive: the field rocked with appreciative audiences till midnight!

Even better, during the day workshops were held in the Iban longhouses and Melanau tallhouses in which large groupings of the musicians played together, talking about their background and their instruments and developing into amazing improvising and “jamming” sessions.

This festival, and Kuching, and Sarawak…. Are a MUST VISIT!