Borneo

From Jakarta, I flew on to Kuching, Borneo.

Now, Borneo has been the island of my dreams for a long time. There’s pristine rainforest there, Orang-Utans are living freely in their natural habitat, you can do amazing hikes and see all kinds of fish when you snorkel. And that is just the nature side, I can’t even begin to speak about the wealth of cultures.

Having said that, I will leave most of this for another time. The nature of this trip is that I work, so I stayed close to the internet of hostels and cafes for most of the time and did only little excursions every now and then. 

The big advantage to being a regular guest in cafes (aside from the staff already knowing how you like your iced coffee) is the opportunity to interact with the often random assortment of people that work and visit there. I have had the opportunity to discuss the appalling Australian immigration policy with a very inspiring elderly lady from Queensland, learn about pollution from a Chinese couple (they told me there’s a special term for the colour of the sky when big events like the Olympics or the G20 are happening in China: they say the sky is “Olympic blue” or “G20 blue” then, as it normally the sky is not visible through all the smog, but when there's plenty of important foreigners in town, factories get switched off and the inhabitants get a very welcome break from pollution for a bit) and also discuss the influence on Islam in the lives of Malaysian people: a muslim is not supposed to be gay, but what happens if you add a rainbow flag to your facebook picture to show support for others that are? How do you get small communities to refrain from overfishing their waters if that is how they have been feeding their families for the last generations? 

Talking about fishing: Kota Kinabalu, or KK, as the locals call it, in the north of Borneo has a group of so-called boat people living off its shores: These people, effectively stateless, are not allowed to even set foot on land in Malaysia (or elsewhere), so there's little for them to do but hang out and fish. What sounds like a dream to many is certainly not a dream for them - they are unable to earn money, they can't send their kids to school, medical treatment is a problem and don't even think about ever seeing anything other than the very small neighbourhood that they were born in.

Malaysian Borneo has a large Chinese population (I read somewhere it is 25% and from my experience that might actually be true) and most tourists are also Chinese, a fact that not all Malaysians working in tourism seem to be too happy about. Chinese tourists tend to not speak English and do many of the things the Chinese are apparently infamous for: shouting, appearing in large groups and littering, spitting, slurping, burping, etc.

My main problem with Malaysia is something inherently European, I think: the missing awareness of environmental issues. I had the great pleasure of actually discussing this with a member of the Malaysian WWF team, a crazy environmentalist like me. We bonded over the fact that I refused plastic straws in a cafe and took out my bamboo straw instead. 

In Borneo, as in so many other places, plastic is a huge issue, recycling is just a word that looks good on a scrabble board, while trash of all kinds can be found floating in the sea, with the usual results of animals ingesting it and subsequently starving or being poisoned, and the trash eventually also making it into our food chain (which is only fair, let's face it).

The Malaysians even manage a special art of matryoshka doll-style plastic spectacle: a take-away drink comes in a plastic container with a plastic straw, and is then placed in a plastic bag, which is often placed in another plastic bag (in which you might already find your other plastic bags with a little bun or whatever you wanted to eat, all separately wrapped in plastic bag.)

Apparently though, recycling and a fee for plastic bags have been successfully introduced in Kuala Lumpur (or KL, as the locals call it), so there's a silver lining to the cloud of all the plastic bags on the beach. 

I subsequently lost the bamboo straw, by the way, which is not a bad thing as I would have probably not been allowed to bring it into New Zealand anyways. 

Jakarta

So after Singapore, I moved on to Jakarta, for the European Higher Education Fair (EHEF). I can’t say too much about Jakarta as I only spent two days there.

Being the naïve, ignorant European that I am, I had booked a hotel close to the event, so that I could walk there. Walk! I don’t think anyone else attending EHEF came on foot and I can tell you why: it is nearly impossible. Jakarta appears to mainly be one big pile of cars, trucks, busses and scooters, with a couple of mobile food stalls thrown in, pushed through the traffic by their suicidal sales men. 

My 15 minutes walks to the event and back (yes, I am that stubborn, I did walk!) probably cost me a fifth of my lung capacity (while the taxi would have cost me less than a Euro), but it was worth it, simply for the interaction with the very surprised locals, who didn’t understand what this crazy white woman was doing.

The fair turned out to be quite interesting: As we had not booked a booth (not worth it), I basically entered as student and walked around, targeting fit looking people and talking to them about ISMB, pushing brochures into their hands. As always, we were the only International Sport Management programme there, even though there were universities from all over Europe, with the Netherlands having the largest presence (in fact, it felt like every other university of the NL was there, except for us). To be able to combine your passion for sports with your urge to make money by studying business was quite interesting to the people I spoke to. We will see whether anything comes out of this little experiment, but for now, I will claim any Indonesian applicant as my own personal success ;)

Singapore. No sling.

As I have already arrived in the second half of my adventure, I need to start following up on a promise I made before I started – write  a bit of a blog.

Anyone who knows me is aware that, in social media terms, I am nothing more than a bloated corpse, floating on the waters of Twitter, Facebook and the likes. Occasionally however, I jerk awake for a short while, and I guess this is one of those times.

So far, my trip has involved a fews days in Singapore, with some very positive meetings, great food, fabulous weather and the realization that this tiny state is fantastic for those with money (of which there are plenty) and hard to survive for the others. The government has almost unlimited resources, but is worried that spending some of it on welfare might just send the wrong message and aggravate the voters…

I have been to high schools in Singapore where the security was tighter than at an embassy, and where the facilities would have made it easy to host (small) Olympic Games. The tuition fees are more than what I earn, and tiny Singapore has several of these schools!

The reason for all this wealth is the fact that Singapore is considered a popular hub for expats doing business in South East Asia. (Nearly) Everyone speaks English, the infrastructure is fabulous, it is safe and thanks to the diversity of its inhabitants, you can buy practically anything.

At the same time, even Singaporeans find their country too small, the vast majority of high school kids go study abroad (which leads to fabulous quotas regarding international students at the unis in Singapore - 75% in the one I had a meeting with). 

I had just a few days but I did have the feeling that I had spent enough time to get a feeling of the city and certainly its foods. 

Panama city

My friends pick me up from the airport - it is fantastic to see them and we spend some short but powerful quality time together (but I'm not going to share too much personal stuff here on the internet, since everyone and their dog can theoretically read it...).

Panama city is an Eldorado for runners and cyclists. There's a beautiful route along the coast which is highly frequented by lots of energetic looking people  moving and sweating. I got up at 5:30 to go for a 15k run, but it the 27 degrees prove to be an extra challenge.

I run by the fish market, where workers are busy unloading huge blocks of ice. One of them calls me "mi reyna", which I am sure he also says to a one-eyed toothless and foul-smelling witch, but it still works on me - I haven't been here long enough. Dutch people tend to not smother each other (let alone strangers) with compliments, so for the moment, I smile and move on with an extra spring in my step.

In the afternoon, I take a chain of bus to the Panama Canal (as I am sure everyone will ask about them). The bus system is very interesting, you enter and get a chip (like in a casino) and when you leave the bus, you return the chip together with a couple of coins. I fail to work out the function of the coin, and don't feel like playing the role of the stupid tourist, so it will most probably forever be a mystery...

On the final bus to the Miraflores locks, I make a friend: Julio. He treats me to my first Panamaian fast food, by practically forcing a bag of Pinocchio's on me, together with a can of strawberry Fanta, and not taking a "no gracias" for an answer. This will happen to me quite a few times, people here are incredibly generous and unfortunately at the same time incredibly unaware of how terrible the stuff they eat actually is for them (and me). There is a lot of fastfood all over Latin America, and you can see it in people's body shapes. You don't need to be a clairvoyant to know that this continent will soon have a huge problem as their population will run into more and more of the overweight related problems. A friend recently told me that Mexico has now officially taken over the unfortunate crown of having the fattest population on the planet. Oh my.

For now, Julio and I end up having a very nice conversation. He actually works at the other locks in the middle of the country and has lots of interesting things to say about the canal. For example that he's not worried about Nicaragua building her own canal (or rather, the Chinese build their own canal in Nicaragua) - as Panama is and always will be better. They are currently working on enlarging the whole thing by a massive scale, so he might be right.

I arrive at the canal just in time to see a huge ship go through the locks. The locks are 33,5m wide, the ship 34m - which makes it a so-called Panamax. I might be mistaken, as I was suffering from massive brain freeze thanks to my granizado, but it certainly looked like a close shave. Thank god it was a male captain who could park - in fact a canal pilot who works for the locks and replaces the captain while the ship goes through the passage. I just imagined him parking his car in a parking lot, bored beyond belief, after a day of moving towering ships through the locks with about less than 30cm to spare on each side.

Ships have to pay 40 hours in advance and prices range from 36 cents for a swimmer who was crazy enough to swim the entire length of the canal (the announcer dutifully explained it was a rather skinny man) to about 120,000 USD for a Panamax. Apparently this is still a lot cheaper than going around the entire continent - considering the passage through Panama takes only about 10 hours (unless you swim, I guess).

a lot to write home about...

So, Central America.

People who know me have no doubt that Latin America has "bad idea" written all over it for me. In big, blinking letters. My dislike for salsa music is second only to my dislike for coriander (cilantro) - both of which are about as easy to avoid here as a Catholic priest in Rome.

The other issue Latin America and I have is that I consider myself to be a vegetarian, a concept constantly challenged and crushed by the Latin America diet. Luckily I actually enjoy eating meat, so I have decided to take a blood-thirsty break from my self-imposed abstinence.

In many ways however, Central America and I are a match made in heaven. Wonderfully warm people, an often hot climate, breathtaking nature, plenty of wildlife, great food, to name but a few. And, hopefully, a kickstart to my dormant Spanish. No one forces you as charmingly/ruthlessly to dust off your rusty Spanish as the Americas (minus Brazil, of course). Just now, in the airport in Bogota, I heard an announcement asking Mr Li Wang Chan to immediately go to Gate 51, all in fast-forward Spanish. And only in Spanish. Given his name, I would at least hesitate to assume that Spanish is his first language...

Very occasionally, there will be an announcement in English, but as these announcements go, you can only understand the English one if you have already paid very good attention to the Spanish one. Is a gold medal in a speed mumbling contest a hard requirement to get a job behind an airport microphone? Is there a global training course for this? Where the teachers go: "No, I still understood three words out of eight, say it again!" 

Overall, I have already heard some fantastic variations of what is considered Spanish: on the plane here, my neighbour, when asked whether he wanted a beverage, gave a somewhat disgruntled hum - upon which the stewardess stoically handed him an orange juice - and to my utter surprise, she was right! Maybe stewardesses get a special training in grunt interpretation? Same school, possibly?