As i sit here...

... I start to reflect. I left Malaysian Borneo.

I appreciate every traveller-type starts to wax lyrical about how all they need is their bag on their back and the simplicities that life offers when you are fortunate. I’m hopefully not going to do that. (As a rule with these mails, I don’t edit them so I a genuinely quite curious what gems I am going to spout).

*new paragraph*

I am content with my life as it is at the moment. I am surrounded by good people with, strong hearts and giving personalities. The sun is shining at the moment, it’s warm, having not had a hot shower in almost a month I now have perma-hot water from a natural hot spring. Talk about going from one extreme to the other! I haven’t changed my clothes properly for 2 weeks. My hair is matted. My beard is dull and lifeless. UNFORGIVEABLE. I have cuts, grazes and bruises all over my body (including a split above my eye gained from a flying can of beer in the dark. More about that later). All in all, each mark or blemish make me feel a little happier that I am outside constantly. I sleep outside often, I eat outside almost always and I walk somewhere to somewhere else daily. I think that is what I will miss. The mud, blood sweat and fears. There have been no tears, but I have to cross this bridge each day and I shit myself every time I do. I was not designed to carry me.

Last time I wrote I had been in the jungles on my own. For those of your who entered the ‘Back to the start’ 10Ringit mega-competition, the answer was Razorlight. Sadly no one won this time so the prize will be rolled over into a 20Ringit super-Saturday giveaway this time. I was camping here and there, walking there and here. Sometimes with a clue of where I was often with no idea whatsoever, just a firm belief that I would find where I was aiming for when I got there.

Eventually, with some luck and some judgement I placed myself on a path I knew well and stayed there a day and a half, I saw monkeys wander through the tree tops and heard gibbons VERY near. Then, I was woken by a human whistling. It was Rian, the local jungle hero and an old friend from my trip. Embarrassingly, I had slept until 12pm. I joined him and we walked on to RiverSnail camp. He had found an abandoned baby civet cat in one of the previous camps and had rescued him. I called him Derek. He was AWESOME. He liked sleeping in my sleeve. As you can imagine, I loved him greatly but sadly he died after 6 days in our car after a VERY cold night in the highlands.

I wandered back to Pa’ Umor with Rian and Jaun – his assistant. Jaun is 27, dark skinned, softly spoken, kind and strangely petite to look at BUT built like a tank. I don’t have a man-crush on him. I DON’T OK! We talked, drank, smoked, ate and pondered many of life’s intricacies at Rian’s house. Eventually Jimmy arrived and the pattern continued with an added healthy dose of Britishness. The inaugural night at ‘The VIP’ happened. This mystical fortress of wonderment was actually just Rian’s balcony, but it was about the size of a booth at a club and so we acted and treated it that way. ) We mainly drank Chapappé (CA), pronounced chup-app-pey. It’s a local spirit deemed to have medicinal properties. It’s quite nice really and generally drunk with strong dark tea as a mixer. LOVELY. At £3 a bottle it is the cheapest and most pleasant way to get obliterated.

On a walk home for Pa’ Umor, in the pitch black from the local (8km away). Jim thought it would be a good idea to throw me a beer, again, I stress in the pitch black... We didn’t have torches because we said we wouldn’t be out late. Famous last words. The can hit me HARD above the eye. I bled a bit. It has healed nicely now.

THEN, I met the hippy Canadian – Stu. This is a fella who is doing everything right. He is a carpenter, a self proclaimed ideas man and an all-round good guy. He has built, and I mean, literally he himself has built a few cabins in his pineapple farm with a plunge pool for washing. The water was gorgeously clear and invigoratingly cold. BLISS. I know I have used this word a few times but honestly I cannot think of a better word. Utopia could creep in there but I think that is a pretty big statement. There is only one other occasion back home that I regularly use the word bliss/blissful and that relates to my weekend holidays at Glastonbury. Anyway. Stu and Rose (his wife) were wonderful hosts and the growers of the FINEST pineapples in the area which is a fairly HUGE accolade considering Bario is famed for its pineapples. They are IN-CREDIBLE. I genuinely need another level of superlative. Out of this world? But. They are OF this world so maybe beyond comprehension. He also dries them and makes fruit roll from the pulp mixed with local cane sugar. Joyous.

I learned how to cook some cool things – river fern, curried tomato, fried rice, crispy fish soup and chilli fried tree grubs (surprisingly tasty) the list goes on.

It was with great amount of joy that Oz with his big potato head arrived a few days before I left. We drank CA with gay abandon, then gin with gayer abandon and THEN, headed to town. I say town, I mean to the only road in Bario with its two supermarkets/bars. We continued to drink and play pool. I am not sure if you remember but, I receive a (mortal) would in battle OR basically a can to the face from Jimmy depending on who I tell the story to. Upon talking Oz through this, while playing pool, we drunkenly decided that the stakes for the game should be that the looser has to punch Jimmy in the face. It made for an interesting game. Ultimately we played a few game, punch Jimmy a few times. As if this isn’t fun enough, Jimmy went on to lose a game to Oz. Jimmy is very good at pool. Having lost, he had to punch himself in the face. Bravo Jim. Good sport.

Since starting this email, I have moved on to the next place and new chapter in The Bearded Jungleman chronicles. I MIGHT have to update the name to Bearded Diving Jungleman. Give me some time on that one though.

I am now in Dauin on the island of Negros. I am stupidly happy/lucky/happy/lucky (repetition intended). I have my own beachfront bungalow with an en-suite and the afore mention perma-hot water. I am on cloud 9. Everyone here is friendly, laid back, happy and most importantly WONDERFUL. I think I will fit in well here. So far, I arrived with my humungor bag and a smile and now, I have a room with music, wireless(ish) and an even bigger smile. I am unfashionably content at the mo. I can’t wait for some of you to come see me here. (You really should. It. IS. AMAZING). Yeah, I know. I used bold. That’s how good it is. My breakfast was toasted muesli, fresh pineapple, banana, coconut, mango AND pear/apple WITH MILK. I mean real milk. I have not had mild since I left the UK.

I am sorry if this is a slightly schizophrenic missive. I have written in a few sittings. I hope it conveys how content I am and expresses my gratitude to the world. For me, it’s the thought that at any moment, we would be taken away from this world, a wrong move while driving and badly judged handhold when climbing and bang. You’re gone. Right now, I am living like I mean it and just to re-iterate, I am very thankful that life has enabled me to be able to do this. Thanks life. Thanks world.

Life is good.

Love (meant in its purest sense),

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x

I learned three things today.

1 sour skittles in Malaysian are ACTUALLY amazingly sour. This is a good thing

2 Pedicures are ok

3 Faizal Tahir’s acoustic version of his song Hanyut is beautiful

Junglist stylings

This time I'll openly admit it. Ive been slack. Sorry it's taken so long...

Much has happened since I last wrote. Mostly good news but without the odd taint of bad to benchmark against, the good would be uninspiringly neutral. Incidentally while I think of it, one of the greatest quantifications of the jungle is it's neutrality. Freddy Spencer Chapman, one of the forebearers of jungle warfare, once said "the jungle is neutral" it will give you back what you put in. I have pondered this. I initially took a dislike to it's faux Buddhist simplicity, however, having tested it (gently - because the jungle is bigger than me) I agree. Why this tangent? I write this in the pitch black. In my hammock. In the jungle. On my own. I meet a friend here tomorrow morning but I wanted to see how I'd handle the solitary coexistence with nature/ jungle/ leeches... Mud. I've enjoyed myself. I bought MORE than enough food and kit and LOVED the peace and testing my skills BUT I am looking forward to seeing my friend again. It's the start of rainy season which is wet and remarkably cold actually! I'm in a fleece and trousers in my sleeping bag.

As usual I digress. I liked the tangent I built out of the neutrality though. Commendable no? Glad you liked it too!

So we circumnavigated Mount Kinabalu. It was fun, beautiful, tiring with a whole bunch of other superlatives thrown in too.

We end up back in KK (Kota Kinabalu) and readied ourselves for desert island, beachfront living. A 20minute boat ride later and we were on the island of Mamutik. Gorgeous warm blue seas. Pure white sand. Heavenly. Hold on. 13RM for a beer. Oh god WHY! We found a secluded cove on the Western side of the island where I watched the sun set from my hammock - a definite highlight of the trip for me. Wake up and head to the beach. Stayed there all day frolicking every-which way you could imagine. Strangely this was not satiating my and two of the other fellas desires so we headed back to the mainland (after what can only be described as the worst camp cooked meal of the trip) after 2days. I guess the lure of cheap(er) beer, proper bed with air-con and real food with vegetables and actual ingredients was too much. It resulted in one of the greatest 'lad' weeks I've had in YEARS. Plus the benefit of reinforcing two wonderful friendships. Tom. Mike. The Wolfpack. We repeatedly destroyed The Loft - a shitty bar and then 'skanked' all over Bed (the nightclub not the sleeping apparatus). I've repeatedly pondered whether Bed is a good name for a club or not. "we're going to Bed, do you want to come..." you decide. On one of these forays Mike and I ended up in a random suburb at a random club. With Tidak Ada Wang (Malay for no money). We had to barter a lift off some lovely guys on the back of their scooters. It. Was. Awesome. Lovely and airy in the groin region.

KK treated us well. It's apparently the culinary capital of Borneo. It truly is. Roast salmon with truffle linguini. Don't mind if I do. Sushi? What? 8 different fish, caught that morning? Yeah go on. Chicken satay in abundance. Alright but you're spoiling me. Whole crab in right tangy barbecue sauce? Fuck YEAH. I almost choked when they put that in front of me. I'll stop. That world is far away now.

Sadly KK spelled the end of the course. Tommy was first to go after he'd got his tattoo that he'd been thinking about for a few years. I was very sad to see him go. We shared some brilliant chats, banted some of the world's finest banter and talked about music a lot. A truly great man. Jimmy and I left next and did so under the cloak of darkness. I'm not one for good byes. I love most of the people I spent this time with but I do not want to put a cap on it. I'll see some of them again so I'm not too fussed about saying good bye.

Jim and I Went to Miri. Drink happened. Oz was in attendance. Hilarity was served with gay abandon. Miri was both relaxing and frantic. Jim confidently cocked a leg to fart and fully shat himself in a restaurant. I stayed up for 48hours for no reason but I did get to watch the sun rise from the roof of our building. Now I'm back in Bario in the Kelabit Highlands. I am happiest here. This, by no coincidence brings me 'back to the start' of this mail. 10RM to the first person who gets the musical reference.

I THINK I just shit myself OR it was a very wet fart. I've got to go and investigate. Think of me with your 3ply quilted loo roll and hot showers... I'm going in

Love you longtime

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PS. Turns out I didn't!! WOOOO

OK OK OK...

...I know I said I'd write or call you back. It not you it's me. I think you're great but I'm just not ready... Oh wait. This was supposed to be for someone else.

It truly has been a while and for that I'm sorry. Last time I wrote I wasn't feeling great BUT I powered through better and BADDER than ever before. We were staying in a place called Long Lellang. I'd been there before as you might have noticed from a previous missive and so returning there was not a chore in the least. I THINK it's the closest I've come to finding my personal paradise on earth so far. There is a wonderful warmth in the people there and an unbridled beauty in the surrounding jungles as well as the valley within which the settlement nestles. It was a while ago but I'll fill as much detail as possible.

We arrived to the warm(ish) greeting from the house keeper who I affectionately call ibou (Ibou is Malay for mother. I'm unsure of her real name) and her husband. He ended up giving me a crazy foot massage to help my chest. Not sure if it worked but that man has STRONG hands. Wowser. The new 'leader' fella proved a touch lack lustre but I'm not going to go into it. We wandered into the jungle for a few hours and found ourselves on a beautiful hillside camp. Unfortunately. It. Rained. HARD. Constantly. I hear you're having a touch of rain in blighty. God bless summer eh!

We went back to ibou and paradise because it was two other guys birthday - a 21st and a 27th. Amazing fun. Massive food. And these incrEDIBLE (you see what i did there) steamed (yeah steamed) pink cupcakes. I had arranged the food with 'bou and so we didn't go hungry. 2types of curry. A few types of greens, pineapple curry, twice fried eggs in barbecue sauce (surprisingly amazing) oh gosh and so much more.

Over the next 10/12 days we learned some advanced medical training ranging from understanding antibiotics and medicines to learning how to administer injections with syringes, suturing and intra-muscular treatment with canulas and a drip. We had to practice putting the canulas on eachother. It was AWESOME. Very exciting and proud moment. We have also used the time to finnish some more assessments which I'm still doing really well at so fingers crossed, I'll be back here next year.

It was with great sadness that i left Long Lellang but i intend to go back in September. We had a few stop over nights in Miri which resulted in the usual lunacy and culinary over indulgence (2 KFCs. 1 sitting.) as well as a little bit of shopping - mainly t-shirts, vests and shorts. My feet had taken a battering and so i chose to forgo footwear for a while... Turns out i was also to go commando for a few weeks as well.

The first evening was followed with beers... Etc. I was reasonably sober and then Mike came out at around midnight after a long Skype with his lady. We decided to move lication and met the burger vendor (naturally a good friend of mine by now) and he took us out to a club. Heavy heavy techno with Malaysians dancing on every surface available. PERFECT. Alas the lights went up and we were left venueless. Fear not, we befriended some nice Sikh boys who told us about another club which they then proceeded to drive us to. This place was a DIVE bar. Actually, it turns out it was a gay dive bar. I'd always assume that to be an oxymoron. The men seemed to like it when a statuesque Dutchman (mike) and a Bearish type (me) wondered in. So much so that they errr... Kept... Errr tweaking my penis (mum, dad it's ok, i promise this has only strengthened my heterosexual resolve""". You will still have grandchildren). I DID take a while for mike and I to realise that not only were these friendly men gay BUT the friendly women were actually friendly gay transexual men. I had to use the line: 'I have a penis, do you have a penis?' The answer was yes. I walked away quickly... Turns out we were in Borneo's ONLY transexual/gay club... I wish I'd worn underwear... And shoes. We got home at 5:30am and left the hostel at 7 to head to Mulu.

MULU is a national park famous for its pristine (apart from the tourist walkways) jungle, it's mountains and caves. We wandered round a show cave... It was cavenous. I may or may not have gotten completely naked in the world's largest 'passage'. Next day we did some adventure caving which involved climbing stuff but underground. The chambers were quite magical and inconceivably dark which wasn't a surprise to me but worth a mention. We headed back to Miri. Drank and made merry in Miri (hehe) in order to fly to Kota Kinabalu the next day. Until this point we had be gallivanting through Sarawak. Now we hit Sabah

KK is a developed, touristy, busy city. not a massive fan but it is the gateway to Sabah. The interesting part was that we had no idea of a plan so we were told a budget and we knew we had 8people and 12 days to fill so we each headed off or hit the phones or the Internet to get things together. After much dancing about, we are about to head off on a 5day cycle and trek around Mount Kinabalu. This trip has never been travelled without local guides or external support. SO we were lent bikes and a 4wd pickup was organised by a former TrekForcer but we needed spare parts and a whole lot else in the space of a day and a half. I managed to secure about 300RM of discounts for 1500RM of stuff. It felt like an episode of The Apprentice although there were fewer twats. Fewer. Not none. Just fewer. I will write again after the bike trip... Although we will be heading to a desert island for a week so I might not write until after then.

Sloppy man-love

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WOW. Wasn't expecting THAT

Wow... Wasn't expecting THAT to happen

I'm lying in my hammock in the middle of FUCKING (sorry mum) nowhere. We're 1/2 days shorts of having trekked from Bario to Long Lellang and it has been a bit of a roller coaster... Almost literally.

Firstly I'd like to highlight how much fun it is to use the double 'k' in trekked. Thanks.

The total journey is something like 50km which doesn't sound like a lot but if you imagine that this is up and down mountains in jungle, with 20kg bag on your back. Oysh. It's a toughie. Me being me though I thought I'd up the ante so I developed some kind of chest/throat virus on day two. This basically rendered me perma-breathless and dizzy. Not ideal I hear you say?! No. Not ideal. The poor medic - Dr Doug - who had only arrived two days earlier basically had to recommend me rest which had to be translated to 'walk 10hours a day up hill'. I send this message a little bit tentatively because I know you might worry but I want you to rest easy. I'm better now. By the time I'll have sent this, I'll be holed up in the presidential suite in our accommodation. I have to add here that if it weren't for the team of people I was surrounded by, I've got no doubt things would have been far worse. A group of individuals. No. STRANGERS but a few months ago showed more love, depth of character, guts and resilience this last week than I would have ever though possible. We are all, quite rightly, very proud of ourselves. 

(Since initially writing this I've arrived safely but I think my body has given up the goat a bit so I'm going to stay in bed for a little while. I reckon 2-3 days should do it! LIFE'S TOUGH EH!!)

Having been to Long Lellang before, Jim and I have organised for Deer Rendang to be waiting for us. This is what kept me going. That and imagining my beautiful SPACIOUS bed in blighty.

I've decided to book into a hotel for a night in Miri to pamper myself. I'm also thinking i might TRY and comeback for a few weeks at Christmas. IF you think you can handle it, I will be doing a non-stop tour of every eating establishment in the UK during this period. Any suggestions kindly welcomed.

This last week has been by FAR the toughest physical challenge I've ever faced. Has it whetted my appetite for more? Not sure. Ask me another time.

I know I've only been gone a short while BUT I think often how much I love(d) hugging/laughing with/talking to/being near you. I appreciate this is a group message but it's to a group of people I qualify my life by. I think my life is pretty spectacularly awesome so thank you for that.

Internet here is woeful otherwise I'd call. Also sorry if I haven't sent you a personal email please do not be upset with me, I will. One day. 

I don't want to make this part clichéd BUT, you're rarely out of my thoughts and those times in between, you are carried safely and warmly in my heart. 

Much love as always,

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=

So far...

It's been roughly a month since I left and it's been pretty much non-stop but in a very good way - definitely appreciate the downtime a LOT!

It's hard to explain what we've been doing so I'll list what comes to mind and expand on the fun bits.

In Bario - an agglomeration of small villages set amongst the Kelabit highlands - we stayed in a beautiful (but basic) long house. This was our base. From there we would trek for 5hours with bags and kit and food to get to our jungle camps called Silverleaf and Hornbill.

Initially we learned basic jungle skills which mainly involved not being a twat. There was a fair amount of acclimatisation to do both physically and mentally. It's a strange place the jungle. I like it. A few of the others dont. You can't see the sky so you dont see sky it for a week at a time so some of the guys got a bit 'jungle feverish'. We played with our parangs (Malay machetes) learned to make fire, brushed up on navigation and got our heads round jungle chores. The hardest part is probably putting on soggy boxers each morning because you spend the day in your 'wet kit'. My wet kit started to smell like death no matter how often I washed it.  It didn't take long for conversation to revolve around shitting and eating but it's something we all enjoy!!

We had 2 solo nights where we wandered off with all our kit and some rations and were told to return the next day. The first night did not go very well. I spilt water over my fire so I ended up having a tin of cold sweetcorn for dinner. It's ok though. I like sweetcorn. The second attempt 10days later went much better but I ended up cooking my noodles in strawberry flavoured water because I'd added tang to it for the trek. Oh well. Sweet and savoury in one meal!

Since then we've been learned more and more detailed and intricate first aid. I properly loved it! We started to put the casualties into scenarios with one of us leading and the others acting as manpower for clearing evacuation paths, comms to the outside world, note taking, running around... Again. PROPERLY love this. Next we were assessed on this. Colin and Jade (our trainers and casualties) prepared us very well for this. The funny part was that ANY moment they would go missing. Day or night... We each had turns as the designated leader and had to use our resources to FIND the person, assess any danger, nominate a medic and generally manage the situation. I got a good pass which is the equivalent of a merit. Very happy with that.

Food in general is pretty shit. It's either rice/noodle based or porridge. The highlight was probably spaghetti with a creamy mushroom sauce. I say creamy mushroom. I mean tinned mushrooms with their juice with milk powder and condensed milk added. The trade-off is food is heavy but it tastes nice. Rationing is a tricky one to get right.

We're (Jim and I) are off to a place called Long Lellang now. To see if there are any projects that TrekForce could use for future groups. There is a fair amount of paper work to go with it so our downtime will be pretty busy... I'll let you know more when I know more!

All in all, I feel pretty lucky to be here. I get to utter/mumble/ponder my favourite phrase - LIFE IS GOOD - often. Some of the others are starting to use it too. I think I could see myself doing this for a year or two. Who knows.

I think of you all often. Miss you sometimes. Love you always.

Take it easy,

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