Great Ape

This week I have most been in Borneo with my other intrepid explorers Reidy and John Burrows who interestingly we like to refer to as JB. Setting off on election day we packed our bags and Yaegermeister fuelled hangovers then legged it over the Causeway to the toilet that is the other JB; Johor Baru in Malaysia. Not normally an airport of choice, but it was the cheapest option for last minute flight bookers like us and it seemed fitting we take JB who likes to spend time on the toilet to see a whole city that is a toilet called JB. Two hours later still reeking of elderberries and not looking our finest we landed in a soggy Kota Kinnabaru, or KK to the locals who seem to like giving their towns two letter acronims.
A little slow off the mark the next day we hired a car and headed for the hills so John could scale Mount Kinnabaru and mostly stunning hills they were too. Unfortunately the government doesn't mind lopping down the rain forest so it's not always a perfect postcard picture. We stayed in the Mountain Park and helped JB prepare for his 2 day walk by shoving Beef Rendang and wine in him in an effort to make his use of pit toilets on the mountain as uncormfortable as possible.
We left him in the capabable hands of his guide while we headed back to the coast, but not before we stopped at the Sandakaran Death Marches war memorial. Not a particularly pleasant story, and one that possibly would not have been told but for the 6 escapees. Vowing never to eat sushi again we headed back to KK enjoying the scenery, but imagining that it would have perhaps not been quite as enjoyable 60 odd years ago to be an Aussie in this part of the world.
Next day it was off to Kuching in Sarawak landing in the shiny new airport humming along to Machine Gun Felatio's Pussy Town, because that's where we were. Kuching means Cat in the local dialect. After taking a Kuching Limo into town, we Dropped our bags and headed off to play with the Orangutans in the rehabilitation centre just out of town. We were very lucky to be treated to the early arrival of Richie the full grown big boy of the place who decided to drop in while everyone was milling around waiting to go to the proper feeding area. It is quite an experience standing 3 metres away from a full grown Orangutan stuffing his face with fruit. Reidy wants one now.
Kuching is the gateway to the Malay Longhouses and we set off the next day for the Hilton Longhouse Resort to live in a relatively luxurious version of the real thing. Not sure Paris has ever made the bum numbing journey to this place, but I would thoroughly reccommend it as a destination if she happens to be reading. We did in fact make it to a real longhouse and that was some experience, 90+ people living more or less under one roof. Despite some fairly ugly signs of the random logging programmes going on the lake cruise was stunning.
It was all over too soon, and before we knew it we were once more landing back in the toilet known as JB and crossing the border back home. It was also back to the news that the PAP party had once more swept themselves into power. Big surprise there, they actually had won 37 seats uncontested before the election started and only needed to win another 10 or so to regain power. The Must Watch election must have been quite a spectacle. The Fisher Price toy hammer party won a few seats but all in all it was a mockery of a mockery of an election.
We decided to drink heavily that night and all was going well until around 4:00am when JB and I staggered home and realised due to unfortuante mix up with keys we were locked out. I thought what would Pinchy do in this situation and promptly lay down on the doorstep and fell alseep on the doorstep with JB. Which is where Reidy found us 5 hours later disheveled and sweaty continuing the fine tradition of making our visiting guests sleep outside our locked appartment.

Superhero Battle

This week I have mostly been enjoying a week in Singapore dominated by the news of a General Election. This is apparently the election to watch, personally I will be watching myself hit my shins with a stick as a more interesting alternative. Why would I want to stay glued to an election that has put the same party into power since May 1959, although it might be interesting to watch the TV commentators trying to string the night out. On the upside Election Day is considered a public holiday even though it is a Saturday, so I get an extra days leave credited to me, hooray.
It seems that to be in the race for the much watched election you need to have a good party logo, and it would appear that the logo must look like one that would be emblazened accross a lycra wearing super hero. My favourite is the little yellow hammer, which looks more like an add for a kiddies range of toy tools.


About the only people vaguely interested in the election that we are all meant to be watching, are the cabbies. They also appear to be the only people with an opinion. From one of these dangerous Nissan Cedric drivers I learnt that if the ruling govenrment finds itself in the unnusual situation of losing ground to one of the few opposition parties in one of their constituancies then they dissolve it and absorb it into one they are dominating. I am surprised young Johnny Howard hasn't extracted his toungue from Bush's bottom to come and learn a thng or two from the Singaporians, but I guess he is too preoccupied trying to put kids into detention centres.
Another way of keeping your opposition at bay is to make anyone who wants to run for any form of politics that doesn't look Chinese has to fill out a certificate of minority, something one of the few opposition politicians forgot to do causing also sorts of drama and threats to sue the ruling governement.
In somethng that apparently wasn't vote buying, the people in power dished out up to $1000 to every Singapore Permanent Resident last weekend. Impeccable timing over a long weekend, the week before the election, it was apprently so the people could share some fo the budget surplus. No good to me and was in fact a very annoying generous gesture as it turned orchard Road into a madhouse for 3 days as people quickly set about spending every last cent of the ill gotten gain as quickly as possible. In fact it was difficult ot get a cab because many cabbies earned up to 10 times and average days take home in one cheque, so why would you bother.
We're escaping the election day, heading into Borneo with visiting stunt drinker John Burrows, and will be eagerly awaiting the news of the PAP party's amazing sweep back into power upon our return.

Sparkly Krabs

This week I have mostly been trying to get these ramblings up to date so this isn't really this week, but a few weeks ago. And that week I was mostly in Krabi where amongst other things Reidy and I got engaged, as an added bonus it was to each other. Overcome by the place and moment you ask? No I reply it was carefully orchestrated and made considerably easier by being in New York the week before to find a ring as the slim pickings in Singapore make Michael Hill's work seem top quality.
Apart from getting all engaged and stuff and sitting on the beach and eating bum stinging Thai food and staring transfixed at midgets we also welcomed in the Buddhist New Year of 2549. Celebrating this amongst other things involves getting very very wet. I am not entirely sure when festivities began or ended but it was mayhem on the streets that made returning our motorcycle an adventure in itself as the whole loop around the area we were staying became a congested and sodden one way system. So we did the only thing possible and stopped to eat some more sensational seafood.
Krabi suffered some tsunami related damage and we ate lunch one day at the beach where it hit and it is pretty weird walking out on the mudflats of a place that was the scene of such destruction some 16 months ago. The place we were eating at had some photos of the day and we were sitting in a place that had been swamped some 200 metres from where the beach is. But the thing that I was most curious about was how the two old ladies that ran the place survived. They had to stand on tippy toes to get our plates off the table and were constantly freaking me out by just appearing nearby and giggling or talking in a strange high pitched voice. I wanted to take them home and use them as umpalumpas but I am told that would have been a little insensitive. Not so in Manila where there is a bar named the Hobbit House that employs only dwarves and midgets, and apparently has very nice food and great live music.
We had an adventerous trip out to the islands in a longtail boat. Firstly we nearly started a dockside brawl between boat touts that was only settled by tossing a coin. Then the victorious boat driver's boat wouldn't start so the other tout came back and started getting pushy so we just ignored him and took the first boat we saw. The skipper had no idea what we were after and I think was getting ready for lunch when we approached him. He and his mate dropped us off and then started to take off again, so we explained with much shouting and waving that he was to saty. They seemed to understand so we went for a snorkel and came back to spot our boat heading back to the mainland.
The skipper's mate was still on the beach and seemed genuinely pleased to see us and genuinely surprised when we all yelled at him at once for doing exactly the opposite to what we had agreed. He finally seemed to understand that we weren't happy that his mate had buggered off with all of our valuables on board, and called him back. We paid him half of what we owed him, went for lunch and then began to fret how we would actually get back to the mainland. We eventually made it back via 2 other boats and one other island stop that cost us 3 times the original price. Ironically both boats had other people's valaubles in them, so perhaps it is an acceptable part of longtail boat chatering in Krabi. Here's some more photies of Krabi in all its glory, the one with the boat in it wasn't our boat, it wasn't there long enough to have its photo taken. But it is where the drama unfolded.