One of the many good things about living in Singapore – besides living in Singapore – is that it is a great place from which to visit nearby places in southeast Asia. One such place is the island of Borneo. The southern 75% of the island of Borneo belongs to Indonesia, who call it Kalimantan. The northern part of the island consists of the East Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah, as well as the sovereign nation of Brunei. A number of years ago we had the opportunity to spend a week in the city of Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
Kuching is sometimes called the Cat City, and its streets and marketplaces are festooned with statues of cats, some rather garish and scary like the one shown here. The reason why Kuching is called The Cat City is not entirely clear, but best guess is that the Malay word for cat is “kucing” so, duh. Another possibility would be that it is named after the pervasive fruit “mata kucing”, but then the city would have statues of fruit all over which would make this accounting far less interesting and exotic, albeit equally garish and scary.
Mountain mists have shrouded the rain forests of Borneo for over 250 million years. These ancient forests support a biodiversity equal to any on earth. We were able to see (and smell) the Rafflesia flower, a form of parasitic plant that emits a rotten meat odor to attract flies for pollination. The Rafflesia are huge and alien, several feet across and looking like they just arrived from Alpha Centauri.
But then perhaps it is we who are the alien species, late to the party and sipping wine over in the corner. On Borneo we are seeing the world as it once was before human beings came down from the trees.
Long ago. Far away.
whoisfenton 