Come away with the raggle taggle gypsy-o
Hidden for millenia, parent and child from the palaeolithic age found in a cave in deepest Turkey and now in the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations in Ankara. They probably have more ‘visitors’ in a day now than they had in their entire lifetime. But is it okay?
Which of you have ever hitch-hiked? I have. And loved it. But that was way back when. When The Faces had not long lost their Small, flowers were still in our hair and I spent my summers picking strawberries to save for a Transistor Radio with – wait for it – EARPHONES! so I could listen to Radio Luxembourg under my sheets. Kim and I would walk along Topsham road; look at the road signs and think, Torquay today? With no map or any idea where it was, we would sit on the edge of the road with our thumbs out wearing hotpants that barely covered our whatsits, and surprise, we never had to wait long for a ride. We saw a lot of Torbay that year and it certainly beat walking the ten miles to Exmouth as we’d done the year before, desperately aiming for Pink House Corner, the landmark where we had broken the back of it.
Most often our lifts were lorry drivers who happily shared their sarnies, Spam or cheese with red sauce on white bread with margarine. Better though were the couple of times where we struck gold with travelling salesmen, who took us to roadside cafes in flashy cars. Any car was flash to Kim and I though, neither of our homes had vehicles. Torquay’s sea front stretched a mile or so to the harbour and then just a choice of two streets up the town via the dazzlingly tacky amusement arcades, ice cream parlours and chip shops. It hasn’t changed much, apologies to any Torquastas reading, but apart from the gloriously expensive Ilsham Marine it’s all a bit predictable isn’t it?
A couple of years later I saw an article on what was then Westward TV about a tiny place in Dorset – Whitchurch Canonicorum, telling the tale of a shrine to St Wite http://www.darkdorset.co.uk/st_wite Why this particular tale pushed buttons I can’t think but I just had to go and see it for myself. My chosen victim, no companion, on this saintly search was my best friend of the time, Sue Leichman, who disappeared from my life shortly after, possibly with a morbid fear of what I’d drag her into next. We got a ride on the A35 but must have walked a good way from there into murky Dorset. I vaguely remember a tiny church and trying to find a way of stretching the time we spent there to justify the effort involved. I have no idea how we got home again. To be honest I can’t ever remember how we got home from any of our adventures, I ‘m just grateful.
I don’t think I went hitching many more times after that, but back then it was exciting to see how far we could get for free. It was commonplace then to see people on the side of the road looking hopeful and it’s sad that the majority no longer feel safe to try.
In the late 1990’s I was driving towards Southampton and ten miles out on a grim, damp morning I saw a young woman on the side of the road with a sign saying London. I slowed to check her out. She looked about seventeen and really cold and scruffy, of course I had to pick her up to make sure no-one worse did so. She threw her backpack in the boot and before she touched the seat I could smell her! I opened my window wide and put the heat on full. Her hair was matted, her clothes raggy and she looked malnourished. She walked from Fairmile to the main road. The old A30 that is, and she had spent a month in the trees with Swampy and the other environmental protestors trying to prevent the construction of the new A30 bypass. We parted company before too long, I took the low road and she the high for London, but it was an interesting experience and insight into their treehouse and tunnel life.
A friend told me recently that she picked up a man hitching to near her home town, a total stranger and she a lone woman. Others had criticized her and questioned her sanity but she said she could tell that he was okay. How did you know? I’d asked. She couldn’t give a precise answer, she just did, ‘Sometimes you just instinctively know.’ Apparently it was an enriching journey where the stranger shared all sorts of anecdotes of his travels around the UK, always by thumb and cardboard. Hitching is largely gone, but not forgotten.
For someone who doesn’t do boats and knows nothing about them, this has been a boaty summer. It began on a glorious April day with a short trip across the Tamar River in Plymouth, Devon on the Cremyll ferry with my lovely daughter in law and granddaughter.
One of the best things that Plymouth has ever done was to buy the Cremyll along with Cornwall Council, for fifteen minutes you have the most wonderful view of the Sound, Royal William yard and the spectacular coastline.
The boat was full of day trippers who like us were heading for Mount Edgecumbe Country Park, on the Rame peninsula that’s actually in that foreign land of Kernow.
Plymouth is a bustling city with little charm having been badly hit in the blitz, but stepping onto the ferry really is another world.
Everyone is excited to be going on a mini holiday to the countryside, the ferry ride is less than five pounds for a family of four and the destination has acres of grounds and gardens to walk, picnic and relax for free!
My next boat experience was crossing the Dardanelle straits, which both connect the Aegean to the Sea of Marmara and also separate Asian turkey from European Turkey. The Dardanelles have been an important stretch of water throughout history and strategically relevant in the Crimean and First World War After an emotionally moving time in Gallipoli I crossed to Canakkale on a large boat where I’d foolishly chosen to sit upstairs for the best view and nearly froze in the draft for an hour. Soon after landing my travelling friends and I reached the site of the ancient city of Troy but that’s for another blog.
Ten days and around eighteen hundred miles and I’m back at another ferry port, this one takes me back to the European side of Istanbul. It’s a large ferry this time with lots of strange chunks of metal, cables, ropes and good strong coffee. The view in all directions is amazing and it’s a real thrill to arrive in a cosmopolitan city I have waited so long to visit.
Later in the day it’s time for a cruise on the Bosphorus, we are just a few on Edim, a posh boat that had the capacity for fifty people with a bar and café. We cruised along one bank beside painted wooden houses, stylish restaurants and clubs frequented by Istanbul’s’ glitterati.
Pootling along for what seemed like hours, the waterway was busy but with space enough for everyone it was quiet and relaxing. The size of the city became apparent from the perspective that the water gave, I lost count of the number of domed mosques and minarets.
Some of the grandest buildings were foreign embassies, palaces and military colleges. The Bosphorus was a lovely place for a relaxing cruise, next time I’ll go by night.
In August I had a brilliant day out with friends in Gloucestershire, a couple of hours on the train. Gloucester Dock, a very ‘Gentrified’ area has the prettiest of canal barges, well maintained with shiny bright paint jobs. I’m very curious about who lives here and just what they are like inside. I imagine it’s like being in a wobbly caravan,lovely in summer but a bit bleak in winter especially if the canal froze.
A complete contrast for my last boats of the summer, on Exeter quay where there is a working boatyard. It’s one of those places that look out of bounds and until last year I had only stood at the gate to peep, until one day a man said that it’s public and okay to go in. It looks like a very male environment until you see pots of geraniums flowering their little heads off. A very sensory place with smells of engine oil mixed with oily fry-up, sounds of oars, hammers, rap and classics and boats of all shapes and sizes. I’ve watched this one
develop and now it’s nearly completed it may be gone next time I go down. I’d love to see it hit the water.
This one saddens me, the council have deemed it rubbish and an eyesore.
An official letter is pinned to it stating that they will dispose of it unless the owner removes it by a date that has now passed, and they will charge for doing so. Someone has been working on its restoration, just not as quickly as the council would like, it’s a massive money pit of a project. I talked to one of the boat owners and he said that the mooring fees had been paid and apparently it’s a trawler, obviously very old. Who knows what its history is?I believe it would be beautiful once done, surely the purpose of a boat yard is to mend and build boats? Bureaucracy drives me mad.
I’d wondered what sort of person books a ‘Grand tour of Turkey’ and kept my eyes open at Heathrow. Sitting at the departure gate, I got a glimpse of my first pair. ‘Oldies’ travelling friend called them, they must be mid seventies, and I said ‘That’s not old and anyway I like old peeps, I hope to be one someday.’
I asked the Mister if he was indeed on the Grand Tour and he replied ‘Yes hopefully, pleased to meet you.’ Hopefully? Does he think he won’t make it? Maybe he knows something that I don’t. There had been terrorist bombs in Istanbul in recent weeks, so I’d been informed by my colleague, who warned me to be careful. ‘I’m not going to worry about things like that’ I reply, ‘If my numbers up that’s all there is to it.’ ‘Just be vigilant’ he says. I am touched by his concern, check the reports and find there had been a bomb in a tourist market, just the sort of place I head for.
Missus Twinset is actually wearing a Persil washes whiter blazer, embroidered with pastel coloured daisies and she is very ‘Keeping up Appearances’. I wonder if this holiday is going to be quite me. I’m more the trekking trousies, hoodie and vest and my concession to dressing for the evening, are flip flops with sequins in case I have the energy to join in with any belly dancing opportunities. Missus makes me feel scruffy, I wouldn’t ever want to dress like that, but …ladies of her ilk usually leave me feeling a tadge grimy, like I’ve bought all my clothes at Oxfam and have been under canvas for a week. You get the picture don’t you? Because when I’ve said this to other people I’ve been told that I always look ‘well turned out’, ha! Like a Peter Pan collar over a hand knitted navy blue cardy? The briefing meeting will be interesting, if they are all fogeys I’ll have to try to ruffle them up a bit.
At the arrival meeting we sit beside the above crusties, Frank and Betty – yes really! And are joined by Dave and Lesley, more our age.
We walk with them along Istiklal Caddessi towards Taksim Square, a lively area, pedestrian except for the odd tram carving a path through the crowds. There were fabulous shops, but apart from buying water really cheaply, I was in too much of a daze to soak it up. 
I’d just been told that breakfast would be at six because we leave at seven-thirty, meaning I would have to get up at five because I’m slow. I didn’t go to bed the night before. Instead, my body had fought against being asked to settle, on the Red Eye, with my head against the cold window, brain whirling with excitement.
We found dinner and sat outside the café with a spinach crepe and an Efes beer for around £8. The beer was just what the doctor ordered to help acclimatize in the sizzling heat, the food just so-so and the Crusties – hilarious!
The room at the Grand Halic (Halic means horn) http://www.booking.com/hotel/tr/grand-halic.en-gb.html?dva=0 was pretty good for a City hotel, but I woke, God only knows how in my depleted state, several times in the night because the noise was dreadful. Do you know what? I really didn’t care, I was right beside the Golden Horn in Istanbul, a place I’d wanted to visit for years.
I missed the elephant in the swimming pool by one week – in Mole national park, northern Ghana. It had strolled up the hill for a chlorinated swim by way of a change. But it was okay because I got closer to them than I was comfortable with, in a jeep, with my friend and two rangers. One of these guys was smaller than we were, and I am sure that an angry elephant would have been no more frightened of him, than of one of the baboons that were as populous as sparrows in my garden. The second warden came complete with a safari suit and a rifle. Or maybe a replica rifle. I don’t think I’ve ever been very close to a real gun, but it didn’t look like it could shoot a bullet big enough to even graze the hide of these healthy, well fed pachyderms. I could only hope that the plan would be to scare them away with a little bang.
We were bullied, no ahem, persuaded into exiting the jeep, which was tied together with string anyway, to take photos of each other with three of the giants in the background.
‘We need to drive around that way, a bit closer’ said small warden without safari suit.
‘Closer, why closer?’ ‘I don’t want to get any closer thanks’. We were perhaps thirty feet away.
‘Please, speak in whispers and if they smell us they may charge, we have to be behind the wind’ he said. Now, I hadn’t felt any wind, it was as hot as well …Africa, as still as a graveyard before a thunderstorm, and my adrenaline was telling me to run back to the jeep pdq. These guys are probably used to re-assuring wussy travellers who like the idea of a gentle stroll, to see some cute wildlife just like Attenborough, but then turn chicken in the end.
‘Don’t you want to show your friends how close you were to elephants?’
No actually I want to throw up but I suppose that would be too noisy.
‘Okay, I guess I probably should do this.’ They led us closer and I snapped the two of them with my friend. Then I realised that I had to turn MY back on them, no more than twenty feet away. Needless to say my face tells all in that photo. I’m glad I did it; I still love elephants – from a distance!
We only stayed in Mole for two nights. It was a brilliant experience, a lot more rugged than a safari I did in Botswana a few years earlier, where the lodge was the height of luxury. In Mole, the water and electricity in our chalet was only on for a couple of hours a day and there were creepy crawly things that I’d rather forget. The atmosphere was great though and the view was about as good as it gets. Just before sunset herds of elephants of all sizes come to bathe in the waterhole down below the veranda. A much more relaxed way to see them!
One good thing came out of my car breaking down today. This has been just the second occasion that I have spent any time with my daughter’s boyfriend and I have decided that he is a love. Why? The way he reacted to our plans going awry. We left home at 10.30 and should have been at Hound Tor in less than an hour, but my car broke three miles from home. While I waited for the mending man they took the dogs off for a walk, got a taxi home to pick up girlies car, came back to take the dogs off my hands again while the mending man followed me limping to Halfords. We went to browse a motorbike dealership while a new battery was sorted and I began to understand his passion and just how knowledgeable he is about bikes. I felt thoroughly out of place there though – never seen so much power and shine under one roof.
We got my car back, headed home for a quick snackette and situation re-appraisal and around 2pm set off for the moor again. This was supposed to be a treat for him, his first trip to one of Nina’s and my favourite places. I thought how sweet of him to squidge his six foot three into the back of my tiny Sadie, leaving Nina and I to chunter on, as the glory of the south Dartmoor hills opened up on the horizon. Dido and Daisy his new best friends gazed adoringly at him as he slipped off to sleep and only woke as we thundered over the cattle grid and got our first view of the lovely granite outcrop that is Haytor.
‘Wow’, Nina and I in stereo, just as we have a hundred times. ‘What do you think Steve, isn’t it stunning?
‘Uhhh’, he’s awake but not as we know it.
He recovered in time to scramble up Houndtor ten minutes further on,
and was a very happy puppy with his ice cream, camera and a focus worth of scruffy sheep in need of threading. Down the other side of the hill with views clear back to East Devon
lies the ruins of a mediaeval village where Steve and Nina made ‘Grand Designs’ that even included a granny annexe (on the edge of said village way beyond the cowshed), although he wouldn’t commit to which granny!
I should probably take it as a compliment that he managed to fall asleep again while I barrelled through the back track to Ashburton; if I had been the passenger I’d have been clinging to the dashboard muttering to any goddess I could think of. I think he then managed a few miles of wakefulness but was gone again through Totnes and until we parked in Dartmouth.
Coffee and chips by the waterfront kept him going as did the crossing on Higher Ferry but quelle surprise, we lost him again until Paignton, which is perhaps best slept through.
I’m fairly sure that Steve enjoyed Devon; he did get to sleep his way through countryside quite different from flat, overbuilt Portsmouth. Our rolling hills and picture skew villages giving way to azure sea are clearly soporific and I’m looking forward to sending him to the land of Nod again soon. It was great having such an easy guy around when the car was poorly; I know a few who wouldn’t have been so laid back.
Apparently it originated in the Indian sub-continent. Picture this: – Five women in a hotel room in Ankara, strangers just five days earlier. One American, one Indian, one Australian, one English-Nigerian and one Pakistani; two are sharing the room, the others are invited.
‘I’m going to deal with India’s whiskers’ says Pakistan.
‘You’re what???’
‘I’m going to thread her.’
‘What on earth?’
‘Come and see, I did Australia last night’
‘Yes look at me it’s amazing, let’s get some wine, you can watch her’
‘I’ll do you too’
‘Sounds painful, America, shall we go and watch?’
India lies on the bed; Pakistan takes two feet of white cotton, ties a knot to make a circle, a few deft movements and aims it at India’s top lip. They watch amazed as a mass of black hair is whisked away leaving a totally smooth finish. The process took just a few minutes.
‘Didn’t that hurt?’
‘No, I had it done before I came on holiday, it just pulls a little, no problem’
‘Where do you get this done? Pakistan are you a beauty therapist?’
‘No we learn from our mothers at home.’
‘You talk about it? How embarrassing.’
‘Why? It’s part of life, especially once you’re a certain age.’
Before she knew it America is on the bed lying on her side.
‘Owwww’, a squeal like murder, hope the room is sound proof.
‘Get her ice quick’
‘Ice, where from?’
‘The mini bar, quick a beer can, throw it here’ hisssss, it hits something hard on its journey across the room oozing brown lager bubbles onto the pristine five star bed linen.
‘Ow ow ow’ another half dozen whiskers hit the knots.
‘Uh . . . no need to worry about me, I immacced before I left home, I won’t have any long enough for you to grab.’
‘Bet you have, I’ll find some.’
‘Uh no, but I’d really like to learn how to do that, is it difficult?’
‘Just takes practise, here try it on your own legs.’ England-Nigeria takes a piece of thread and tries it on her hairless calves, nothing happens.
‘Here try it on America’s leg, she has plenty’
‘Ow ow ow aghhhh, noooo I need them to keep warm’
‘Oh how can I learn? This would be so useful, it can’t hurt that much’
‘Your turn now, over here, no you have to lie down I can’t reach you’
‘It’s too dark isn’t it? How can you see what you’re doing?’
‘Aha no problem, you have many, many fine hairs, it will take much longer on you, and you thought you didn’t need it, wouldn’t you rather be nice and smooth?’
‘Yes but…’
‘America, drink the wine it will stop the pain, now England-Nigeria you’re used to plucking your eyebrows so it won’t hurt, another beer can please!’
‘Put your tongue under your cheek to make your face stretch out’
‘This is crazy I never . . .’
‘Shush, you need to keep still stop giggling’
‘Ah’, England-Nigeria drew her breath quickly.
‘Watch America, you need to learn how to do it for me’. Four pairs of eyes looked down as a dozen hairs at a time were lifted from her skin. ‘Can you do this with bikini lines too?’ Five continents collided in a giggling heap.
A single satin poppy like a drop of blood on innocent sand.
As far as the eye can see, empty turquoise, peacefulness,
In the loveliest burial ground in the world
For the thousands of ghosts of lost boys
Who were sent here to die.
Stones pierce the green like rows of shark’s teeth
Stones that name Anzacs in their teens and twenties
Few old enough to be dads, all young enough to be sons.
Antipodean voices whisper as they search
Emotion choked as names are uncovered
And Rosemary battles for remembrance
Against the fennel scorched air.
Well that last blog was a bit of a cop out because I wrote it ages ago. I felt I had to blog something but couldn’t think what and I guess I always wanted that piece to be ‘out there’ so why not here and now?
Yesterdays warble about the office window caused a bit of a stir when the returned retiree read it. Of course he had to comment, he told me to go forth, we had considerable fun at each others expense and so did a couple of our colleagues. It brightened up a very slow day at the end of a slow week when our systems have been down.
Borneo was my first attempt at travel writing despite a nice amount of travel in slightly unusual places. Like a million others, I would love to travel write seriously. I’m sure the world needs a middle aged adventure traveller, to do a telly series aimed at silver topped gappers. And think how beneficial it would be for tourism in Mali, if I inspired a huge increase in visits by well heeled seekers, to their stunning country. Mali is my ultimate dream destination. I first heard the name Timbuktu, Timbuctoo, Tombouctou as a small girl when it was short for the ends of the earth, about as remote from anything or any place as it was possible to go. Back then I had no concept of what it may be like, but it sounded magical and still does. I need to go there, and to Djenne, Mopti and Bamako. I also need to go to the Ethiopian highlands and the Namib and strangely the £15k or so that would make that happen seems to be missing. So far, the tourist boards of those wonderful countries have failed to see how powerful an investment it would be to invite me!
No-one can prepare for rain forest. Really dense rain forest that is. I’d travelled in several African countries pottering through patches of moist jungle areas, but it was a world away from Borneo. Here I found myself eyeball to nature in its rawest sense, even in my forest lodge, where I encountered a poisonous green snake crossing the path to my hut. I was brought up by my grandparents, Devon country folk who belonged in Victorian times. They told me that snakes can ‘kill you dead’ and that there are poisonous adders on Woodbury Common. This put the fear of God in me, and it never left.
The next morning, I found a snake trying to suffocate a toad on my doorstep. I watched, holding tight to my stomach, telling myself that it couldn’t be poisonous it was a constrictor, as moment by moment it’s grip on it’s dinner got tighter. A friend arrived and following my tense stare, grabbed a stick and thrust it onto the wooden deck startling the snake. The toad gained its freedom in the brief pause and the affronted creature slithered away.
We set off for the day, but it was a while before I could put aside my fear of the return. If there was a snake on my porch then how do I know there are not more in some giant pit underneath the stilted hut? I already searched corners and crevices for bugs whenever I came into the room and obsessively sprayed insecticide to keep lobster -sized ants off the toilet seat. Is there an anti -snake spray?
Our lodge was a ten minute walk from Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Centre, so rather than being herded on a tour bus with a tight timetable, we could come and go at leisure. I was thrilled by the close proximity of the feeding platform where bananas and coconut milk were served as a halfway house for Orangs that were being treated and rehabilitated. Opportunist Macaques arrived for a chance handout and shortly there were thrashings and glimpses of ginger hair. But what’s this? Black blobs are appearing in my eyes. I felt like I was in some sort of roundabout lift crashing to the ground. I slunk from my prized pole position and squeezed through the crowd to reach a bench at the back. Unable to stay upright my head fell between my knees and time stopped. Eventually my body found some equilibrium. I raised my eyes to re-focus just as a tiny monkey peeked at me through the fence, the only primate encounter for me that morning; the Orangs had breakfasted and lumbered back into the forest.
Our up-country journey today was made smooth by the lucky find of Khaled, a taxi driver who had a boat and a boatman. He can also spot an orang-utan or proboscis monkey high in trees a hundred meters away. Khaled agreed to become ours for the length of our stay around the Kinabatangan River and Sepilok. The drive to the caves from the lodge began with promise, but the diverse greenery soon gave way to relentless palm oil plantations. I’ve learnt that the roads had only been constructed to transport the constant harvest of the red brown fruit, so desired as an ingredient on supermarket shelves in the western world. That same fruit is responsible for the destruction of the indigenous habitat of the orang-utans that I’d come to Borneo to see.
Gomantong caves are reputedly one of the highlights of any trip to Sabah and we emerged from our air conditioned taxi into the 100% humidity of the cave complex. Its only concession to tourism is a toilet block, sadly of the squatter type, and an interpretation area with photos of the limestone mounds. We walked a mile through forest that seemed like ten, as every stitch of fabric adhered to every inch of wet body.
I was aware that my own body odour rivalled and added to the array of smells, rather like a well fermented compost bin. As the forest gave way to a clearing in front of the cave we were advised to tuck trousers into socks before we climbed to the entrance. And now I’m here. And my body odour became that of a rose among a pile of rotting Durian. Wait . . . this is no romantic crystal cave, no Hall of the Mountain King. Fingal had well and truly disappeared, and in his place were a trillion cockroaches, some as long as your finger. Walking up a narrow board path that clung to the cave wall, I felt my stomach heave as the stench pervaded my body. It’s everywhere as if I have fallen into a maggoty dustbin.
I fought the urge to run back out but, spotting an older woman ahead of me inappropriately dressed in smart delicate sandals, I resolved that if she could do it so could I. The rickety boards were slimy, but both top and sides of the handrail were covered in a mix of guano and the date sized roaches. I struggled to maintain my balance with nothing to hold. Don’t cry Gilly, don’t make a fool of yourself, there are people further in the caves that are here every day. Khaled reached for my arm to stop me slipping into the mire. Instead of focussing on the five inch long queen roach that’s closer to my left ear than my pounding heart, I start to look around. The view up a hundred metres towards the cave roof was glorious with shafts of light illuminating what looked like a torn string vest with toy Star Wars figures tangled in it. Squinting, I realised that it’s the nest collectors scrambling on ladders made of rattan and rope that I could just about see in the distance.
Reaching the high point of the path I came across some of the workmen taking a break in their rest area. They were friendly and open to chat, seeming as interested in me as I was them.
Iqbal, middle aged and wiry, proudly introduced me to his son Abdul-Wajid. ‘His name mean Servant of the finder, he first term in cave and I last term also.’
The father has been working here since he was Wajid’s age and is now too old for such dangerous work. I resisted asking why he was sending his son to work here but he may have read my thoughts.
‘Is a tradition in our family and the best way to earn money, we are lucky to be small bodies.’ Wajid passed me a small stiff object and with a grin like a low slung crescent moon told me it’s his very first nest,
‘This is it? This is what the fuss is about?’ I find it hard to believe that people actually eat this and the Chinese believe it keeps them young.
I learnt that they will stay for ten weeks, hot bedding – to make sure work carries on for twenty four hours each day, and eating on a few shared pallets amongst the filth and squalor. A season’s salary is a mere £700, a lot of money for them but appalling when you know you can pay around £70 for just one bowl of the coagulated bird saliva, poo and feathers. After an hour in the cave I was lucky enough to be free to leave and couldn’t imagine sleeping there, much less eating anything at all in such a place.
Approaching sunset found us on the Kinabatangan. The river provides a corridor of pristine natural forest and there we were privileged to see a couple of really wild Orangs. These wild ones are a rich mahogany shade and I asked Khaled why.
‘Miss, you may see bright coloured ones in the rescue centre, but their fur becomes orange because the scientists choose their food. Like the people only few can survive, their food is also gone along with the forest’.
We agreed that tourists won’t come without the spectacular wildlife, but I questioned how ethical it is for us to take long haul flights anyway, can it be justified when it increases global warming?
I went to Borneo to see Attenborough’s brilliant floral forests with pristine waterfalls and clear azure skies. I wasn’t disappointed, but the reality was different; smiling orang-utans are there at present but for how long? In Gomantong the bats and swiftlets do not evacuate delicate guano onto designated mounds; they pelt it everywhere like an army of mechanical muck spreaders. Bats are not cute velvety creatures with gothic webbed wings soaring in synchronised flight for our pleasure like a mass of Red Arrows in an air display; they flit so quickly they are hard to see.
Lucid Gypsy 