, Sarawak | Malaysian Borneo | a dying star

Posted: 24 Jun 2014 11:41 AM PDT

June 24, 2014

Snaking and undulating, greens and browns, steaming humidity, a heat that grinds you down. Where is this place I have gone? Cities I have known and people I have seen, but not like this. Headhunters with mythical pasts, magical jungles imbued with spirits, birds who sounds like the hysterical cries of death, and a forest who comes alive at night. Caves. Sparkling waters. Butterfly wings flickering in the dappled light.

Kuching was my gateway. My entrance into this unknown. The base from which I visited pitcher plants, took a small motorboat across the turbulent South China Sea, watch an orangutan crack coconuts against a tree, and another pee as he hung from ropes. I tasted jungle ferns cooked in coconut curry, Sarawak laksa, and bee hoon. I straddled the territory between city and wilderness, but then the rains came, and I listened and watched. All night, thunder, lighting, rain. Pushed and pushed until I found myself on a plane bound for Mulu. Days I spent exploring caves, walking alone, listening to the silence that became not-silence in the dark. The hollows of my fears. Nothing. Fill it with sound. One night, after a storm, I saw a firefly flit across the darkness. Where is this place? Where have I gone?

A little past one month into the journey and finally I feel, this is different. I have gone somewhere else. Somewhere other. Borneo is my childhood imagination; Borneo is my interior landscape.

Kuching, Sarawak | Malaysian Borneo | a dying star

<b>Kuching</b>, Sarawak | Malaysian Borneo | a dying star

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