Schnecken on the run

….but caves will neve hurt me ( for the germans; this is what we tell our kids in Canada when they come home crying because they were getting bullied by the cruel kids…the real version goes like this „sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me!“).  So we are 1 week out of Malaysia and 3 islands into Indonesia with already 2 time zone changes (this blog write-up took a little longer to put on-line…we are presently done with Bali and in Xi´an, China …procrastination is my middle name!).

The turqouise waves are crashing on the headlands and cliffs that surround me as I sit at our very quiet guesthouse on Indonesia´s very „muslimISH“ island of LOMBOK.  93% of the islands inhabitants are SASAK muslim and they are deep into the swing of RAMADHAN-the 30 days of fasting during the day and pigging out with sundown.  It´s an unbelievably different world here compared to BALI where 83% of the people are flower-tossing and tree worshipping hindus and can they EVER throw back a smile and a wave!!  Malaysia introduced us to a metropolis of mixed blood-1/3 muslim, 1/3 hindu and 1/3 chinese (buddhist); all in one country and on a tourist level it seems to funtion quite well.  It was fabulous for us because with each new area we travelled to, we had an easy pick of the type of food we wanted.  Malaysia offered pleasant and easy travelling, tasty food, open-minded and relaxed people along with NATURE!!  So let the truth be told…we are now NATURE NUTS!  Thommy has found  his serentiy in nature…and this time not on a golf course!!heehee….

The nature explosion we discovered was in BORNEO.  This is the REAL thing…BATABOOM!!…the tribal hunters with blowpipes and poision darts out to kill anything that twitches!!  We flew into the MULUNG GURU NATIONAL PARK as flying and by boat are the only ways to access the park.  Borneo is an island in the Chinese sea lying in between the Phillippines, mainland Malaysia and Indonesia.  It is divided into Malaysia in the north and Indonesia in the south.  The Malaysian part of Borneo is divided into the 2  provinces of SABAH and SARAWAK.  We spent one week in SABAH diving, peeking on Orangutangs and climbing Mt. KINABALU (an overpriced 2 day climb to the highest peak in  Southeast Asia)-so heading to the next province of SARAWAK excited us with the anticipation of some hardcore  „jungleING“.  If you can define „jungleING“ as a new, 5 star guesthouse with sweet ladies catering the best malaysian curries and flavoured concoctions all day long between our busy jungle schedule.  The National Park was also super sweet and very organized.  They provided REAL and for the most part, very well-trained GUIDES and we had to book in advance the activites we wanted to do.  We were NIGHT crawlers our 1st night as we followed Colin thru a path surrounded by the rainforest.  He was a serious afficionado of INSECTs.  We searched high and low with our headlamps while silenced and creeping slowly with every step.  The high pitched, lound sounds made by the LEAF BUGS provided the perfect playlist for an Alfred Hitchcock thriller.  And of course, if there are leaf bugs, there must also be STICK  BUGS.  I could feel all these camoulflaged creatures of the darkness staring and laughing at us as we strained ourselves to find them  (Tina would have been living in her own insect nightmare..Tin, I know  your relationship to them..heehee)  Not only were there thousands of stick bugs in this jungle, but in all colors, sizes and even „dating“ stick bugs who just so happened to be PERFORMING for us!!..more stick bugs for the WORLD!  Then the obvious question of life, „how could something so damn cute be so damn dangerous?“…upon seeing this little hopper, I almost melted  and he nearly had a heartattack..THUMP THUMP!!  But Colin reassured us that he was a bit dangerous!  We moved on with stealth, feeling like experts by now and then we landed at spider alley.  Ever so quietly, tip-toe, tip-toe…then Colin found him….if its got too many legs and way too much black, fuzzy hair and if it looks like a spider—ya well, then it is a spider!!  And there he was; a cousin to the great tarantula.  During the day he sleeps up high in his web and by night he hangs in his hole chowing down on all the insect passer byers.  So with that we decided to PASS BY  and let him be a spider, doing his spidyMAN thing!  Our next day was dedicated to CAVING.  The boat ride to the limestone caves was down a narrow and very shallow river.  Thommy had to hop out and push our little river boat over the rocks a few times…we weren´t the first, as I saw blue and red rocks everywhere from paint scraped off the previous boats.  These caves were the culinary delight of CAVES-some of the biggest and best in the world (so they say) and filled with creative images formed by all the huge stalacite and stalagmite.  The caves were fun and at the end we managed some swimming in one of the nearby freshwater pools.  The 2nd day events started with an early canopy walk which was peaceful and we triumped over the jungle canopy—but to our dismay, nature took ist course and played hide n´seek on us..so we didn´t see alot.  We tramped quickly back to headquarters and made it just in time to start our ADVENTURE caving.  Thommy warned me that there would be a good chance of seeing a snake…this sort of propganda in my mind is similar to all the advertisments I have seen around the coast of Britsh Columbia; „FOR only $300 dollars, you can cruise the river with us and catch huge salmon and see a grizzly bear..and grow muslces and new boobs!!“  So at this time, I brushed off the idea of TRULY seeing RACER SNAKES in the RACER CAVE.  I was more fixated on the idea of surviving the adventure aspect of ADVENTURE caving.  We cruised on the river to our starting point where we were met the rest of our group; 4 small malaysian girls …first TimERS of adventure caving, as was I.  Our guide was great and she mentioned to always be looking at where your foot and hand placement was in order to prevent pissing off one of the very, poisonous spiders that live in the cave.  She also mentioned just to leave the RACER snakes alone because they can and do bite.  Immediately my flight reflexes took over and I started to bite my nails and fidget with my cuticles…wondering if I could manage this type of NOT-FAMILIAR-NON-CANADIAN-SPORTING EXPEDITION!!..And BANG—right from the start, the long, slithery suckers were representING!…and those dangerous spiders that were the size of my hand had iridescent eyes and big fangs..bigger than a werewolf!  So luckily,  I actually became more nerotic over the spiders than the stress of the snakes.  We climbed thru some small areas, used ropes to summit some slippery, steep rocks and made it deep into the darkness of the cave.  After we turned off our headlamps, I truly realized the actuality of DARKness, while all along, the bats flew over our head, making sonic bleeps, clicks and pops.  At the deepest part of the cave and in the quietest moments and with less than 60% of our starting group (3 of the malaysian ladies happily gave in to sitting out the deep aspect of the cave), we saw exactly what I didn´t want to see….a huge racer SNAKE!!  She was slithering away her day and bobbing with her head as we shone the headlamp on her.  The dancing shadow we could see was huge but somehow magnificent.  Our guide was stoked by her because this snake was nearly 2 metres long.  She perches herself up high on the jagged rocks to jab her head into the air to catch the bats that fly by…..all a little too quirky for me..living in the complete darkness and eating bats..but that´s the life of a racer snake.  I think we actually had a moment ..me and her..she threw me a flick of the togue with a treacherous pulse of her sly, scaly body and I realized that she was a good girl…a nice girl…a joy to nature!!  So with my new found respect for snakes, I made it all the way back out of the cave in a chilly willy stress free manner-smiling at the venomous spiders and of course providing open arms for the next racer snake on the track.  We were muddy creatures at the end of our caving, the malaysian girls needed a pressure hose and 3 days of rest with percacets..ahh yes, those ever so-sporty asian girls, although I was very impressed with their bravery to enter a crittery cave!!

Our last evening in the guesthouse was nicely occupied with company as the 2 evenings before, we were alone; the new guests were a BLENDED LAND couple..she was from the US and living in Switzerland with her Swiss boyfriend…yup, you can see that I am not the only crazy one doing crazy things for love.  We flew back to Kota Kinabalu the next morning and we both would have loved to stay even just one more day to chill out around and in the park…A GREAT place to visit a real rainforest with loads of lovely little lives to see!!  And for your next cave tour, grab up one of those RACER snakes and bring him to the school yard and those jerks will never throw sticks and stones again!