Tagged: borneo
… and now…
So I’m not at Danum anymore.
The second day there I started – and I swear I’m not making this stuff up and that I’m not a hypochondriac whatsoever – coughing up blood.
There’s some signs of ill health that you can easily brush aside as the cost of travel – an infrequent cough, a bit of extra fatigue, stomach cramps, headaches – and then there are some things, such as discovering that the phlegm coming up through your throat is an intense bright red color, that make you head for the nearest hospital and email your doctor.
Apparently, it was a fluke.
The chest xray came out clean. (“We can’t entirely rule out TB,” the female doctor in Lahad Datu told me from under her voluminous head scarf, “but it is an extremely
So here it goes – the jungles of Borneo, and the great red man!
I leave for Danum Valley in about an hour.Two weeks of trekking for orangutans and camping in the jungle!
I never did find a trekking partner – but instead of the Joseph Conrad style hacking through the virgin jungle with our food and water on our backs that I had pictured when I made plans to go to one of the most remote and pristine parks in Borneo, I’ll be staying amidst a variety of researchers and students at the Sabah Foundation’s camp site.
When I finally found the office last Friday (it was an endurance test of misdirection – I’d been in the proper strip mall for nearly two hours before I made it there, wandering around the back of fast-food like restaurants and auto shops), I expected I’d have to… Continue reading