Journey to Borneo!

Borneo is a mysterious land, far away from our country, famous for headhunters and rare and fabulous plants and animals - like this proboscis monkey! Can you guess that "proboscis" means nose?

My journey started in Singapore, a wonderful city/country with heritage as a British Colony but rich in Asian and Malaysian culture!

This is a wonderful place to visit if you love good food! Here dinner is served on a banana leaf in the plate: fragrant rice (cooked with lemongrass), chicken satay skewers, jungle fern greens, spicy prawns (large shrimp), and a wonderful beef curry.

Singapore has an amazing zoo, an amazing botanical garden (where I stand by a large kapok tree with its butress roots), a great bird park, an orchid park, and many other great attractions!

Throughout Asia you will find "wet markets" - where they sell fresh meats, fish, and produce. I have a whole page of photos from the wet market!

We flew from Singapore across the China Sea to the island of Borneo. We landed in the city of Kuching, a very nice city by a river coming down from the rainforest.

Kuching is a Malay word meaning "cat" - it is the city of cats! There are cat statues throughout the city. The trees behind these statues are called traveler's palms.

Although Borneo has a rich heritage and colorful history, for better or for worse, you can even find a McDonald's there!

This is a pedestrian-only shopping district in Kuching. The city is half Chinese-descent and half Malaysian heritage. Despite social unrest in much of this region, the people of different cultures and religions in this area have a long and proud history of getting along with each other!

There are very few bridges crossing the river, so water taxis carry passengers back and forth.

We traveled a short distance to Bako Village to take a boat around the coast to Bako National Park. There are no roads leading to this park. The houses along the river here are flying political flags and banners because it was election week.