i'm back from sarawak!
or have been back for the past three days, actually. having once again become the resident druggie (four prescriptions! that's a record for me), updating has been the last priority.
croc country was fun, and devoid of crocs. hah. so much for all the mental preparation to punch crocs in the eye should i fall into the river and be faced with one. journey was a long one: coach from s'pore's copthorne orchid to JB's senai airport, domestic flight to kuching, domestic flight from kuching to sibu, bus journey from sibu airport to kapit town, van journey from kapit town to place along river, and longboat trip (looong boat, not very wide, three people to a boat) to the longhouse.
living standards were decent; when i say that, i mean that we actually had toilets with flushes, albeit squatting toilets. but that was better than the hole-in-the-ground version i was expecting. also, the doctor at the TTSH travel clinic told us that we had a 50% chance of getting travellers' diarrhoea, thus we all stocked up on toilet paper. in the end, some of us did fall victim to a virus, but it was to the flu bug instead, so we ended up using the extra toilet paper to blow our noses.
food was edible. aside from the expected chicken and river fish, we tried porcupine meat, which is quite tough and difficult to chew, as well as river molluscs, which you have to uh blow and suck in order to eat. literally. first you blow into one end to force the edible portion nearer to the mouth of the shell. then you suck from the other end, which is the mouth of the shell, and hopefully the edible portion will be able to enter your mouth. the locals describe the uh sucking process as "like kissing someone". right.
bathing in the river is probably one of the things i'm going to miss about the place. water so clear that you can see the stones at the bottom. i think the river current acts as a natural comb; tangle-free hair without a bottle of de-tangler! it was infinitely fun, plunging myself into a freezing-cold river and just lying back, enjoying the moment. also amusing was trying to figure out how to soap relevant places in a sarong.
the children there are adorable! i have officially met the two cutest little boys on earth. one's four, the other is three, i think? teaching them to repeat after you opens all sorts of avenues for jacking other people. heh.
i mostly did english teaching there, which turned out to be quite a chaotic activity, all things considered. what with the loss of our prepared worksheets and the discovery that we had grossly underestimated their proficiency, we were essentially scrambling for time to come up with a viable syllabus and to produce charts in place of the worksheets. but all in all, satisfying progress, especially for the younger children.
jungle trekking occurred too. rather interesting actually, periodically rolling track pants up and down for the continuous bouts of river-crossing and jungle-crossing. think mud, slippery mud, vines which served as foot-traps, pot holes in the ground, steep slopes that we were to try not to fall off from, steep muddy slopes that we were trying to scramble up, wading through a river while the current tugs at your knees, repeated as many times as necessary. note to self: when starting to slip and looking for a handhold, do not grab hold of thorny plants. also, do not wear sandals for trekking; although they are immensely convenient for the whole river-jungle transition, their plastic bits can also dig into your skin and gouge flesh. we trekked with the end-goal of getting to the deer-sanctuary place, and well, the deer weren't exactly worth it. but the experience was invaluable anyway.
on the day of my birthday, thoughtful zhi also informed the entire group of the happy event and got them to sing a happy birthday song for me during breakfast. there was also a card made out of one of the plentiful pieces of A3 paper. thanks again, zhi!
rest&relaxation didn't live up to its name; it was rush&rush instead. rushed from the longhouse to the merdeka palace, and the next morning rushed from there to bako national park. having come down with a fluctuating fever with a range between 36.4 degrees and 39.2 degrees, a cough that resulted in my lungs battling to jump out through my throat, and a nose that was producing snot at the rate of three tissues per minute, i didn't quite trust myself to negotiate a 3.5 hour trek in the park, regardless of the carnivorous pitcher plants that i would be missing. thus i spent the afternoon enjoying the sea breeze while reading bjorn's copy of angels and demons. the plot was interesting, but the writing style is rather irritating. best seller indeedy.
after the stay in the national park's hostel (which incidentally has worse standards than an isolated longhouse, believe it or not. think water that resembles sewage) it was a mad rush to the sarawak cultural village, which is your basic tourist trap, then a mad rush to eat lunch, a madder rush to squeeze in a fifteen minute tour of a bird's nest factory and then to the airport, where we barely made it in time for the check-in. more tedious travelling, and then it was home sweet home, where i horrified my parents with my state of health. also with my rather scarred limbs; no one has ever accused sand fly bites of being good for your skin. no matter. i honestly think i wouldn't mind repeating the experience again. everything's so different and fascinating. great trip.
croc country was fun, and devoid of crocs. hah. so much for all the mental preparation to punch crocs in the eye should i fall into the river and be faced with one. journey was a long one: coach from s'pore's copthorne orchid to JB's senai airport, domestic flight to kuching, domestic flight from kuching to sibu, bus journey from sibu airport to kapit town, van journey from kapit town to place along river, and longboat trip (looong boat, not very wide, three people to a boat) to the longhouse.
living standards were decent; when i say that, i mean that we actually had toilets with flushes, albeit squatting toilets. but that was better than the hole-in-the-ground version i was expecting. also, the doctor at the TTSH travel clinic told us that we had a 50% chance of getting travellers' diarrhoea, thus we all stocked up on toilet paper. in the end, some of us did fall victim to a virus, but it was to the flu bug instead, so we ended up using the extra toilet paper to blow our noses.
food was edible. aside from the expected chicken and river fish, we tried porcupine meat, which is quite tough and difficult to chew, as well as river molluscs, which you have to uh blow and suck in order to eat. literally. first you blow into one end to force the edible portion nearer to the mouth of the shell. then you suck from the other end, which is the mouth of the shell, and hopefully the edible portion will be able to enter your mouth. the locals describe the uh sucking process as "like kissing someone". right.
bathing in the river is probably one of the things i'm going to miss about the place. water so clear that you can see the stones at the bottom. i think the river current acts as a natural comb; tangle-free hair without a bottle of de-tangler! it was infinitely fun, plunging myself into a freezing-cold river and just lying back, enjoying the moment. also amusing was trying to figure out how to soap relevant places in a sarong.
the children there are adorable! i have officially met the two cutest little boys on earth. one's four, the other is three, i think? teaching them to repeat after you opens all sorts of avenues for jacking other people. heh.
i mostly did english teaching there, which turned out to be quite a chaotic activity, all things considered. what with the loss of our prepared worksheets and the discovery that we had grossly underestimated their proficiency, we were essentially scrambling for time to come up with a viable syllabus and to produce charts in place of the worksheets. but all in all, satisfying progress, especially for the younger children.
jungle trekking occurred too. rather interesting actually, periodically rolling track pants up and down for the continuous bouts of river-crossing and jungle-crossing. think mud, slippery mud, vines which served as foot-traps, pot holes in the ground, steep slopes that we were to try not to fall off from, steep muddy slopes that we were trying to scramble up, wading through a river while the current tugs at your knees, repeated as many times as necessary. note to self: when starting to slip and looking for a handhold, do not grab hold of thorny plants. also, do not wear sandals for trekking; although they are immensely convenient for the whole river-jungle transition, their plastic bits can also dig into your skin and gouge flesh. we trekked with the end-goal of getting to the deer-sanctuary place, and well, the deer weren't exactly worth it. but the experience was invaluable anyway.
on the day of my birthday, thoughtful zhi also informed the entire group of the happy event and got them to sing a happy birthday song for me during breakfast. there was also a card made out of one of the plentiful pieces of A3 paper. thanks again, zhi!
rest&relaxation didn't live up to its name; it was rush&rush instead. rushed from the longhouse to the merdeka palace, and the next morning rushed from there to bako national park. having come down with a fluctuating fever with a range between 36.4 degrees and 39.2 degrees, a cough that resulted in my lungs battling to jump out through my throat, and a nose that was producing snot at the rate of three tissues per minute, i didn't quite trust myself to negotiate a 3.5 hour trek in the park, regardless of the carnivorous pitcher plants that i would be missing. thus i spent the afternoon enjoying the sea breeze while reading bjorn's copy of angels and demons. the plot was interesting, but the writing style is rather irritating. best seller indeedy.
after the stay in the national park's hostel (which incidentally has worse standards than an isolated longhouse, believe it or not. think water that resembles sewage) it was a mad rush to the sarawak cultural village, which is your basic tourist trap, then a mad rush to eat lunch, a madder rush to squeeze in a fifteen minute tour of a bird's nest factory and then to the airport, where we barely made it in time for the check-in. more tedious travelling, and then it was home sweet home, where i horrified my parents with my state of health. also with my rather scarred limbs; no one has ever accused sand fly bites of being good for your skin. no matter. i honestly think i wouldn't mind repeating the experience again. everything's so different and fascinating. great trip.