Sept 06 - 19


After 30 hours, 14 crying babies, 6 movies, and one wine induced congo line - we made it to Singapore. F.Y.I. - 12 laps around a Boeing 747 = 1 mile and your average 1st class passenger does not find streaking funny at all. Stuffy old rich people.

I did get some nice shots of Alaskan Glaciers, though I don't have them with me to post. Siberia was too clouded over to see much. Singapore is a clean and friendly city. The first 2 cats I encountered on the street were not at all afraid of strange people..something you can't say about many big city strays. Jay will have to get hit at least once before he realizes that the cars drive on the left here. Ok..more later~

It's later and a I have a fist full of pictures from Central America. I grabbed a disc which I thought contained the Alaska glacier pictures as well as a few of Jay being immoral, and possibly illegal, and what do I find? 30 pictures somehow lost to the darkest recesses of my backpack during my last central america trip. So, to appease the masses (remember 1 person is a mass, 2 technically qualifies as 'masses', right?), and their insatiable appetite for pictures of life, love and jay chasing scared school kids around on a donkey I dared him to steal...well..you'll just have to be satisfied with old news. So without further adieu, enjoy the lost C. A. pics.

Sept 13 - We're leaving today for Borneo before Jay breaks any more hearts. While he's out convincing his harem that he'll be back in time for the wedding, I'm in here dutifully posting pictures of Alaskan Glaciers and Tanjung Pinang's cool stilt city for you.

Sept 19 - We're in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak - which is the largest 'state' of Malaysia. More importantly, we're on the island of Borneo. A place second only to B.F.E. in 'far awayness'. It's a classy and clean city with a wierd cat theme. Kuching means cat in Bahasa, the local language, and so naturally they decided to capitalize on this mega marketing opportunity and erect plaster cats all over the place - most of which look the logo for some heavy metal band named The Siamese Stain. The museum here is world class. The bottom floor is chock full of taxidermy gone awry, and the top has spears, drums and my personal favorite exhibit for southeast asia, the airconditioner display. I've posted a couple dull photos of Kuching, and the museum before we got busted for taking pictures.

On Sept 16 we took the early bus to Semenggoh park. It's a reserved habitat for 'semi wild' orangutans - basically orphans, former circus stars and a couple of partiuculary orange and hairy locals who couldn't pay their parking tickets. We walked a trail to a ravine. Across the ravine was a wooden platform that they dumped some fruits and veggies on. We were treated to 2 Orangutans - a mother and son - who came down from the trees to eat while we stared. I got a few fuzzy shots for your viewing pleasure.

Sept 19 continued: Yesterday was certainly the best day of the trip so far for several very different reasons. We'll start with the night and work back. This week is the annual mooncake festival and from what I can tell, it boils down to locals honoring some god or legend by acting like raving hyenas. The basic course of action is to gorge yourself on every manner of street meat and then get drunk on some foul devil juice that folks back home most likely use to clean their car's upholstery. But as they say, when in rome...and it's not like we really had a choice. We were accosted by jolly, red-faced locals who slapped our backs and put a can of beer in front of us every time we tried to stand up and leave. At one point a couple hunks of barbecued meat were sent our way. I assumed it was some sort of little chicken and munched on it for a while. About half way through, I decided it was a bit too pungent for chicken, not to mention the meat was more red than white, so I enquired to our gracious host. "It bahaht" he said. What? "BAHAHT"...errr? "BAHT"..did you say BAT? "yesss! BAHT". And there you have it. And when I really looked at it, it was as plain a day - thin skinned wings, frail ribcage, rounded little skull..it was a whole deep fried bat. Of course I finished and washed it down with a glass of Armor-All. And if incessant frothing at the mouth is any indication, I think Jay enjoyed his critter as well.

But for us, the Mooncake festival was really a celebration of our morning. It was one of those times when the sweet and irresistable mystery of traveling, the vague and primal hunger to wander is satiated in one grand helping of bliss and revelation. We were up before the sun and cruising toward the Matang Wildlife Sanctuary, again with the hopes of seeing Orangutans and getting a 'closer look'. We were the first to arrive in the park that morning. Hiking along the wood planked trail through the crisp morning jungle air, we stopped to check out sun bears, crocs, hornbills, porcupines and wild cats, amongst others. Eventually we made it to the Orangutan exhibit..it was a large walled field with 3 goofy occupants. We watched and took a few photos of their silliness. A while later, one of the handlers walked by, and disappeared around a back corner of the enclosure. We followed him around, caught up with him and did some world class ass kissing. We were rewarded handsomly when he brought out Milan, a 1 year old and absolutely gorgeous baby orangutan. We got to baby sit for nearly an hour. He cooed and smiled and picked at himself and even awarded me the highest orangutan medal a non-ape is allowed when he crapped on my shorts. After a while, the keeper asked us to take the baby up to a large caged area where an 8 year old female named Jam was kept so the two could continue getting to know one another through the bars. We couldn't resist and asked if we could go in the cage with Jam. The keeper laughed and said that's not such a good idea considering Jam was strong enough to rip our limbs off and build a teepee with them if he wanted. Since, to me, Jam didn't look like he was in the market for a new teepee, I asked again, and again, and fine..FINE..if you're going to look at me like that, I'll admit I might have even begged. But it worked. He shrugged and gave us one of those 'dumb ass white boys' looks we seem to get quite a bit and ushered us in with Jam. Of course, being the ultra considerate friend that I am, I shoved jay towards..err..I gave jay the opportunity to be the first to greet our new friend. Jam was a perfect gentleape. We played and swang and sang the blues for nearly an hour. We got good pictures and great video too. It was a special day and we made special friends that we'll never forget, if for no other reason than it may take us forever to get that monkey smell off.

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