A magical week in Sabah, Northern Borneo
Photo by Richard BARNES on Unsplash
Note: While I wrote this last week from the airport, I forgot to schedule it to send, so you’re reading it a week later. But time is all relative anyway, right?
I’m writing to you today from Kota Kinabalu International Airport in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. We’re sitting in Starbucks, killing time before our flight. There’s a small collection of maybe 20 other travellers. I’ve just seen the same couple I saw walking along the beach earlier this morning.
So yeah, Starbucks the last refuge of the international traveller (who doesn’t want to go to McDonalds)! Actually, there’s only two choices of places to eat after security inside the airport. It’s a small airport - one board of departures displays all the outbound flights for the day.
We’ve had a great week. It reminded me I love to travel and explore unknown places and that I love SE Asia. It’s twenty-three years since I first travelled to Thailand, when all the bars in Khao San Road were playing the soundtrack to The Beach. The region hasn’t lost its charm for me.
Our last SE Asia trip was maybe five years ago to Bali. Before that we’d been to Vietnam when my son was still a toddler. We loved Vietnam, Bali not so much. And this trip is making me reflect on what I love about travel and what turns me off.
Why didn’t I like Bali? Perhaps because it’s full of Western tourists and the entire island feels like a theme park catering to the whims of yoga loving white people who want some sort of pseudo-spiritual experience. Or something.
To me, it felt inauthentic. None of the spas, yoga studios or restaurants catered to the tastes of local people. Even the temples, which were full of locals, were also packed with spiritual tourists, trying to cleanse themselves from Western capitalism in the holy waters. Maybe. I guess the point I’m trying to make is that Bali felt like an extension of Western culture. The local culture was all part of the entertainment.
Maybe that was true of Khao San Road back in the early 2000s, too. I was living in China that year, where nothing catered to Western tastes, and everything was a struggle. Everyday life was far out of my comfort zone. Even finding an Internet cafe in those pre-Wi-Fi and iPhone days took me an hour ride, by bicycle, one way. Bangkok felt so easy by comparison.
Anyway, Sabah feels very under touristed by comparison to most places we’ve been before. It’s definitely not the place to come if you’re after luxury spas and want to bump into scores of people just like yourself everywhere you go. Most other tourists we ran into were Korean or Chinese. There are a handful of luxury resorts, including the one we stayed at, but it’s not nearly as built up as other parts of Asia.
I don’t know where I’m going with this newsletter… I’m supposed to have some carefully crafted point that I’m making, some takeaway for you the reader. But I’m mostly just sharing my thoughts, thoughts I’m still collecting and sifting through.
There was lots of natural beauty. Tractors did not perfectly comb the beaches every morning, like in some international resorts. We woke one morning to see a family of otters catching fish in the pond below our window. There was also a kingfisher in a tree, lots of egrets and other birds wading in the water.
Monitor lizards thought nothing of wandering through the grounds of the resort. We took a trip yesterday along the North-Western coast of Sabah in search of proboscis monkeys and fireflies. We saw both in remote, relatively unpeopled locations.
We passed small towns full of packs of dogs running wild, water buffalo wading in mud and cows and goats roaming freely. Women running food stalls, set up during Ramadan, edged the roads in populated areas.
The deserted beach our driver took us took was littered with tiny crabs scurrying around but plastic bottles, a de-headed Barbie and other plastic detritus were strewn along the shoreline.
To get to the beach and then to our next stop to see fireflies, our driver took us via a long stretch of unfinished road, a road which he said would link Northern Borneo to Brunei. It cut through the open plains which bordered the coast.
How much would the people that lived in these remote towns benefit from the road, and how much was it to facilitate transporting goods and other cargo?
On the subject of roads, the traffic in Kota Kinabalu was horrific, especially in the late afternoon. Construction of improved roads stalled every year due to corrupt politicians seizing power and firing the old construction company in favour of their preferred contractor. Halting progress as they did so.
All of which is to say, the struggle of a developing nation blessed with natural resources, and natural beauty and unique and sadly endangered animal species was clearly visible.
Eco-tours to see proboscis monkeys are intended to raise awareness for tourists and provide an income for the local people. But the human activity encroaching into their habitat is the main reason why they are endangered in the first place.
I felt blessed to see them in their natural habitat, hanging out in the trees. They watched us as closely as we watched them, until at one point they all seemed to turn their back on the noisy humans, apparently bored with the day’s entertainment. There will probably be a day when these monkeys, not unlike their more famous cousin, the Orangutan, can only be seen in zoos or wildlife reserves.
So what is my response? This is the question I’ve been asking myself. How can I help?
Well, the first thing I’m going to do is pledge 5% of all revenue from this newsletter to support organisations in two main areas. 1. Organisations which are tackling the problem of the plastic in our oceans and on our beaches. 2. Preservation of endangered species and the rainforest, especially in the SE Asia region.
I’ll research which specific organisations in the next few weeks, probably after my son is back in school after the Easter break, and share those with you in a few weeks’ time.
I will appreciate any suggestions you have for organisations doing good work in the areas.
That’s all for this week.
I’ve been pretty active on Instagram recently. Check that out - @kamsinkaneko, if you’re not already following me. Especially if you’re curious about working with me.