Morning has half gone by the time I arrive to Kota Kinabalu. Nothing special happened during my flight from Taiwan, except that I managed to learn my first words in Indonesian. 'Tolung buka jendela', or, 'Could you please open the window?'. Very useful half way across the ocean.
While being cheered at by a group of porters I sweat my bicycle together. I had hoped to ease the transition from freezing Japan by visiting Okinawa and Taiwan along the way, but apparently this didn't really help. Phew, it's hot here.
The second surprise follows when I find out the Malay traffic rides on the left side, but once I settle down in my hostel and change myself into a less constricting outfit I feel completely at home. The smells, the flavors, the language, the people and the chaos. Even the fact that I will have to clean my behind with my left hand and a cup of water again makes me happy. Enjoying the delicious nasi and digging myself into the market where the things that are so difficult to find in the toko at home are sold in multitudes. Wonderful.
After a couple of days in the city it is time to head off to the other end of Sabah. And such is not an easy task. In the blistering heat I drain water bottle after water bottle, while hardly making any progress and slowly climbing up to Mount Kinabalu. My map forgot to tell me that means I will have to cross a 1500 meter high mountain pass.
Once I finally get to see the actual mountain after over a day of though work I don't care about all that anymore. I want to get up there! What ever I tell them, and despite all my efforts, the park rangers refuse to let me go; the cabins just bellow the summit are all booked solid, too bad for me, goodbye.
In an ultimate last bluff I decide to announce that if that is the case I will do the climb in just one day. The look at me, glance at each other, and secretly peek at my leg muscles. 'Ok, you can go, just be sure to return before sunset'. Which means I race up in a single day and make it to the summit just after noon. Wow, what a view! And such a spectacular hike, gasping for breath far above 4000 meters, while trying to hold on to a guiding rope along a granite wall! Back home I will definitely do more hikes like this! The way down is a little less successful, but I won't complain muscle cramps they caused me to limp for most of the week after, this was just cool!
After this I am visiting several other natural reserves. Even though Borneo has a name for having one of the most extensive wildernesses in the world, this is what reality is. Nature lives in nature reserves. And Sabah's tourism industry thrives on the natural wonders there is to be seen. A special mountain, orangutan, elephants, nose monkeys, rhinoceros and hornbills (it seems that an extended stay in jungle areas has some sort of effect on the size of one's smelling organ, so I catch a cold not too long after), and the most amazing dive sites you could ever dream of.
The government however prefers palm oil plantations and their produce. Biodiesel, paper, soap, cosmetics and plenty of other this we make with back in the West. Under the cover of ecological investment 'green' palm oil is produced, but at the same time rain forest is sown down, and the many animals living there lose their habitat and die. So far for ecological, and nature is nowadays only found in reserves, or as roadkill along the side of the blacktop.
Days and many hundreds of kilometers I spend riding along continuous and monotonous landscapes of oil plantations, sometimes intersected with a dusty side road along which tropical hardwoods are transported invisibly for the rest of the world. Most depressing to see big warnings for crossing lumber trucks at the intersection with Dunum NP, one of the biggest and most important reserves left.
Eventually I manage to make it to the other side of the island and to arrive to Semporna for some scuba pimpin'. By the end of my stay I have dived with most of the diving schools in this great village, and of all those Scuba Junkies is an easy winner. Even though some other travelers or hotel employees manage to steal money out of my bags twice, I manage to stay around for quite some time, and enjoy of the beautifully colored corals, big schools of fish and barracuda, sharks, gigantic tuna, minuscule shrimp, frog fish and nudibranches.
In Tawau I arrange for an Indonesian visa at the local consulate, to hop on a ferry across the border to Tarakan the next day. At least, that's what I was planning for. My intended ferry however, won't leave due to engine problems. So I find another vehicle to transport me and end up in the little village of Nunukan. A great settlement spread out along a winding road of several kilometers long and build up with single floor wooden buildings. An atmospheric place.
The next day I am a little luckier as the engine of boat number two only breaks down halfway the trip. The good thing is that we at least managed to cover some distance, the downside the fact we are floating around without any direction in open sea. While a little girl on the seat next to me has been crying for ages due to her painfully infected throat, the captain manages to get his vehicle running again, and ever so slowly we continue on our ride to Tarakan.
Once there I miss a couple of zeros when accepting an offer for my last leg over the water, and after an hour and a half I arrive to Tanjung Selor while the rain is pouting down. Except for one thing there is nothing here at all, but that one thing is just what I am looking for; the road that will lead me through the rest of Kalimantan.
I am euphoric and slightly more positive than during my ride through Malaysia. There is actually still a forest to be found along the roadside here, and even though at times the whining resonance of a chainsaw can be heard (as well as the cracking explosion of silence which always follows), the woods still look healthy here. At times the howl of a gibbon or even the excited scream of an orangutan can be heard, while birds are still happily whistling their tunes.
The raison d'etre of this somewhat more paradise-like landscape however, is for one to be found back in the road conditions. With a profile of sawtooth it moves up and down; steep climbs followed by nasty downhills, after which one has to change back to lightest gear within a second to prevent a total block on the next ascend. This in itself rather though challenge is then decorated with a temperature of approximately 35 Celsius and an extremely unpleasant high humidity.
After three days of giving more than I maximally can every minute, and reaching my destination dehydrated and dizzily exhausted every day, and just more of the same for days to come, I am done. This is no fun, I am not enjoying myself, and besides that, this is completely pointless.So I climb aboard a bus, and change a road full of impossible hills for a big dusty sweaty smokey ashtray full of luggage.
A nice ride to enjoy, along small roads and semi-collapsed bridges and views filled with endless forests from bony mountain ridges. The question is, however, how long all of this will last. Civilisation is approaching and in many of the less hilly areas many of the woods have been replaced by banana plantations already.
After a day and a night with a headache and not too much sleep (caused by bumps banging my sleepy head into the chair in front of me several times) I arrive to Samarinda, where I hop on my bike and speed off. If the information I gathered is correct there should be a ferry leaving for Surabaya tomorrow. So, within a day I manage to cover over 170kms to Balikpapan (and enjoying it), but the ferry won't be departing. It's broken again.
It is impossible to tell when the ship will be repaired and the next certain option to board would depart in about two weeks from now. For a last time I let go of my principles, and decide to climb aboard an aircraft that will bring me to Jawa. A last stop before arriving back to Bali..
