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.