sulawesi

fish lunch at toli toli

my throat, nose and ear doctor in gorontalo

toned god, gorontalo

just some pics

coming up…

ed butt – annoying french – kelabit highlands and it’s strange children– jungle logging over jungle trekking – everything you didn’t want to know about how i got my leech socks – crossing to sulawesi

we met us without us

mount kinabalu, sabah

arriving in kota kinabalu, i met polish engineer martin skupin who studied and worked in koln, germany. something with aluminium and axes in trucks and mechanics. that was before quitting his job to go travel around the world.

skupin on mount kinabalu

guide sapri (2.49 hrs), skupin and me

we decided to try our luck to see if there was a chance to hike up the “fully booked” peak of mount kinabalu at 4,095 meters. we went to the bus station at 6.50 am, had some ba pao for breakfast and got on a minibus that left at 8.30 am. we arrived at the foot of mount kinabalu to hear the mountain was still “fully booked; no cancellations”. we went up anyway with our guide sapri who each year takes part in the mount kinabalu summit race. instead of 2 days to reach the peak and back which most tourists do, his personal record is 2 hours and 49 minutes if i remember correctly. last year he was 5th, he hopes to finish with the first 10 this october. at about altitude 3,500 we had to turn back, cause there was no place to sleep for us and we were not allowed to summit and all the way down in one day. luckily so cause the hike down was a little bitch in itself.

borneo

after two days of macau (been there, done that before) i took a plane to borneo. i thought i booked a flight to kota kinabalu, on the sabah side of borneo. at the airport mischa’s brother toon, who kindly drove me to the airport, and i found out the air asia flight was actually heading for kuching, on the sarawak side of borneo. after the fresh smoggy air in hong kong and macau i stept of the plane at kuching airport, in it’s smothering warm blanket of tropical humidity.

mother and son at frying stand

kuching

laundrette

kuching

after acclimatizing in kuching and enjoying an obligatory chinese massage i took a bus to bako national park to hike the jungle and see the proboscis monkey. there i met some nice people on the porch, like jason and kyle from the usa who were ‘rolling with’ the australian/swiss sui-yin who got her stuff stolen of the veranda by some macaque monkies.

sarawak

nice and extremely warm hiking and cooling of on empty beaches.

kyle's bed, bako np

also took a hike with italian alceo and massimo who speak very little english which was good for some fantastic misunderstanding.

riding back from bako national park

massimo & alceo, bako np

hong kong / macau

i spent two weeks in hong kong. to get feedback from dutch head consulair issues in hong kong “your passport looks perfectly fine, really strange case” and “i called the japanese consulate in hong kong but they couldn’t give me clear answers about what happened. please press on to see the japanese consul to let him explain this strange procedure”. on top of that what’s particularly strange is the money cathay pacific charged. to await the outcome of the appeal would cost me 3000 euro. this money was to be spent on my hotel room and my two guards who would watch me during the await. secondly the price of the one way ticket on the last plane that evening from japan to nearby hong kong which was leaving in 20 minutes, for which they charged me 1300 euro and they pressured me to get on cause as they told me it was very possible my appeal would not have a positive outcome.

an embarrassed japanese consul in hong kong’s remark: “maybe the immigration officer in charge was a little bit strict”. “i think you should try again, i think next time you will not have trouble entering japan. but i can not be of any help in this case”. and the japanese consul had consulted his law books and found that by japanese law the pilot who had transported me into japan is personally liable for transporting me out of japan in case acces in denied.

after 2 weeks in hong kong, going by dutch and japanese consulates, hiking on different islands of hong kong and trying to sort out what to do next, mid march i took a plane to macau.

macau poker

tailor in mirador mansion, kowloon

mgm bedroom, macau

idea was to sleep at mischa’s brother toon and his pregnant girlfriend irene. but as it happened toon had a room on offer at the mgm-hotel annex casino. nice change after staying at the mirador mansion in kowloon.  there we didn’t have  bay view from the bathroom.

japan turned hong kong

my three month trip to japan was shortened to 4 hours on sapporo airport. after a lengthy interview by japanese immigration my acces to japan was denied. officially i marked the wrong box on the immigration form. they told me to try again soon; next time it shouldn’t be a problem entering(?!). there was no way around it: the responsible immigration officer had decided my acces was denied and there was no turning back. it took 4 hours of me officially not having convinced them i was a tourist, although i had a ticket out of the country, tourist rail passes, a lonely planet and asking them to contact my travel agent in amsterdam.

around me there’s whispering out loud it might be a racial issue. i guess he genuinely wanted to check if i really was a dutch citizen and not some illegal worker from the chinese mainland. that in combination with fear of loss of face after spending hours finding no real clues and too many japanese immigration and airport people involved in investigating my case, resulted in this strange outcome of denying my acces but telling me to try again that same week.

so far my first and till now only encounter with japanese mistrust of someone of asian descent carrying a dutch passport in combination with personal honour of a immigration officer on a mission which turned out not in favour of me.

in short: instead of my first night on a japanese futon, at midnight april 28th-29th i got off the nightbus in tsim sha tsui, kowloon, hong kong after getting of the plane which took me from sapporo back to hong kong. a mere 1400 euro was donated to japan airlines to export me out of japan. arigato sari mas cathay pacific & japanese immigration! but hong kong proved a good place to buy my first compact digital camera. and kindly ling’s cousin yun, whom i had never met before offered me to stay with her in hong kong, even when she went for a family visit in mainland china. i fell asleep a couple of times attending a few screenings at the hong kong international film festival. was it the tension releasing or the programming?