Update: Images added.

So many things happened the last days and I’m lacking the words to describe the beauty of most of them. I couldn’t decide yet if that’s good or bad, but let me assure you that even when taking photography into account one Borneo is still worth more than a thousand pictures. There are, however, also a number of unpleasant things which I noticed the last days and I feel I should write about them as well.

Here we go:

• Being white and being in Borneo can be described best as having some sort of celebrity status, especially if you stay there for many months (like my host) and if you move away from the touristic sight-seeing points. People talk about you, turn around, smile and wave towards your direction. The backside of this medal is, however, that you are exposed to a paparazzi-like effect and every of your moves it at least curiously watched. While being recognized as a foreigner makes conversation- or flirting attempts exceptionally easy it also has its downside: at many places you are being charged a multiple of the ordinary price. For example, even if you negotiate the fares before the trip, cab drivers charge double or triple of what would be the expected fare, entry fees to parks are increased up to five times.
• Sex. (I knew that would draw your attention). There are a bunch of prejudices about (male) visitors of asian countries; a melted down mixture of some of which I’ve heard around Germany read like this: “Ugly guy from abroad moves in for a cheap fuck, rents the girl for a lifetime, takes her home; she’s in for the money, he’s in for the body and in the end they die unhappily ever after”. While in theory this could be the antipode of a perfect love story I get the subtle notion that especially the people telling them are missing one or two small, yet integral details of the big picture. While I’m not saying that this doesn’t happen (and I’m sure there are a number of guys and gals with a sufficient lack of empathy to go for it), I am pretty sure that a not-so-insignificant number of couples will face a challenging time perforating the cultural borders separating them. Well, I don’t want to comment on the topic any further — you might, however, want to take it as a crystallization point for your own thoughts.
• I’ve already mentioned it in the last post, but we encounter it over and over again: trash. As with everything you will be reading here about Borneo you should take into account that we only see a very, very tiny fraction of the land. Maybe we have just the misfortune to drive ‘the wrong ways’. However, when driving these roads over here you’ll regularly see long streaks of garbage littering between the road and the jungle. Plastic bottles, shreds of paper, ripped cloths and many more. I have no idea where they come from, nor why no one takes them away. Maybe we just have to wait for the next rain season so the water can wash them away into the underwoods, right into the loving hands of mother nature who will take care of their removal the next hundred years.
• Writing about the destruction of native treasures brings me right to my next topic, the cancerous growth of christian missions you can see in some parts of the island. It’s no secret that christian churches are usually right at the frontier when it’s about imposing their view on infidels, either downright from the pulpit, or more subtle through development aid and schools; and I’ve stopped counting and noting names of all the ones we’ve seen on our trips through Borneo: ‘True Jesus Church’, ‘St. Victor’s Church’, ‘St. Jeromes Church’, ‘St. Jeffry’s Church’, … While one could argue there’s no point to complain about replacing one superstition with another, you could argue as well that 3000 acres of palm-oil plantations are of the same value as an equally sized area of primary rainforest. It’s a funny thing that the catholic church has been opposing Dawrin’s ideas for such a long time on the one hand, but is exercising it’s own Darwinian ’struggle for existence’ par excellence on the other.

I hope that after reading all this you don’t get a wrong impression of the island. Borneo really is a mind-blowing place and there are an almost unlimited number of things that will leave you speech- and breathless. I just hope they don’t vanish.