Country Boy Travels-Borneo

Country Boy’s Travel Tips
Borneo, the home of P. T. Barnum’s “wild man of the jungle,” mysterious head-hunters, the Phantom-that-never-dies, and the richest man in the world.
The “wild man of the jungle” of Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth was an “orangutan”. “Orangu” mans “jungle” and “tan” means man, so Mr. Barnum used little imagination when he plastered this sobriquet on the poor caged animal. Anyway, the orangutan is a kind of ape that looks more like a person than chimpanzees and gorillas and often acts with more sense.
The Borneo orangutans used to come out of the jungle and attend local dances, but the village boys didn’t like that much, so they told Barnum that he could have all of them if he wanted. Just fooling; orangutans could dance, but they didn’t know the modern styles so the girls just laughed and made fun of them. That’s why they have such a doleful look on their faces, which by the way may account for them having a strong resemblance to Country Boy’s uncle Ezekial Hammertong who lives in Cottonpick, Alabama. Uncle Hammertong was a bit hairy, with long arms, walked with a stoop, and never did fare well at dances.
Now, a word about the mysterious head-hunters of Borneo. They are mysterious because it is a mystery why anyone would want to fool around with them at all, much less inquire about their hobby of collecting heads. They don’t shrink the heads they lop off their enemies, who by all accounts may be anyone with a head that would look nice hanging in the hunters long-house. Their cousins in Africa and down in South America figured out a way to shrink the heads and put them on key chains so as to cater to tourists that don’t have a whole lot of room in the luggage for souvenirs. But, the head-hunters of Borneo don’t bother to shrink them; they just skin them, hang them up, and brag.
The island of Borneo is divided up into a Sultanate, called Brunei, two “states” belonging to Malaysia and a large section called Kalimantan which is claimed by Indonesia. It was from this latter section that the head-hunters mainly collected their trophies.
Some of you not-as-young-as-you-once-were readers may remember the Phantom who was featured in a comic strip in many newspapers in years past. He was a bona fide do-good-combat-evil sort of fellow who wore purple body tights, sported a Lone Ranger type of mask and carried two humoungus .45 Colt automatics which he needed because everyone tended to laugh and point their fingers at his purple tights until he waved the .45s around. He often rode a great white horse bareback and walked funny because riding without a saddle made his rump sore all the time.
The legend got started when the King of Malaysia awarded a foreigner a sultanship for as long as he lived. So the foreigner devised a scheme to keep the title forever by donning his purple tights and mask; adopting the name Phantom-Who-Never-Dies, and when he got too old, dressing his son in the same purple tights and mask thereby maintaining the legend that the Phantom never dies.
The richest man in the world is the Sultan of Brunei which sits on top of a humoungus oil supply. The Sultan pays for all welfare of his subjects so there are no taxes for them to pay, all government services are free, and all his subjects live happily ever after. He is so rich that the members of the United Nations go out their way to keep him happy so that he doesn’t buy the whole organization and auction it off.
Now that you have a little history and culture of Borneo, you are ready for travel tips. When you are ready to visit Borneo, start in Brunei and see how a country is run by someone richer that a dozen Bill Gates. All government services are free to the citizens of Brunei and everything is really clean and spiffy. Remember though, Brunei is a Muslim country so you need to be careful not to offend locals by ignoring Muslim traditions which include bearing your feet and covering your head when visiting their places of worship. They worship in really ornate buildings called mosques. If you mess up there, you may be tied to a stake so the locals can chunk rocks at you. Since the mosques are open on all sides which allows bugs to enter, Country Boy supposes that the name for the little buzzing bugs that bite are called “mosquetoes”.
Next, you should visit the Malaysian state of Sabah where you can look for the Phantom or buy souvenir purple body tights to raise the envy of your neighbors back home. The urge to be the only guy in the neighborhood with purple tights and Lone Ranger mask is overwhelming. That’s why they sell so many of these things. Of course, you cannot bring back a white horse or twin .45s, but that’s just as well, as walking funny back in the old neighborhood wearing purple tights might give your neighbors the wrong idea. And if you were wearing .45s someone would haul out the old 30 ought 30.
The next place to visit is the Malaysian state of Sarawak where you will find nice beaches, great bargains in the open-air markets and some real exotic food. The piece de resistance (which means in French, “even if it sounds or looks disgusting, eat it anyway.”) is a local soup made from home grown veggies, fertilized by carabao pooh and which contains two varieties of worms; a large white one with a black head, which is particularly succulent, and the bamboo worm that you must extract from its home in a bamboo shoot cooked in the soup.
Don’t expect to find anything from a hog though, as the Muslims shun pork of any kind. The Koran, which is a lot like the Old Testament in the bible, warns against eating pork, but doesn’t say anything about eating worms.
If you like spicy food, you can get some homegrown black pepper, except that it isn’t black, it’s white. The locals don’t care for the black part of the peppercorn; they use the outer white portion, just the opposite of what those “strange folk do in Europe and America.”
Another interesting thing is that it is bad manners to point with your index finger (or your middle finger, for that matter). You are supposed to point with your thumb.
Next on your itinerary is what you came for in the first place, a visit to the headhunters of Borneo. The trek into the deep jungles where they live is accomplished by riding in narrow dug-out canoes poled, dragged and sometimes carried by two natives. If you are concerned that they may be headhunters, ask them for their identification cards. They will show you an embossed card clearly stating that “The bearer of this official identification card is not presently a head-hunter of Borneo. The skull hanging from his neck was purchased from a real head-hunter”.
The river on which the hollowed-out tree trunk starts is fairly big and fairly deep, but soon becomes a small shallow stream. You may have to get out of the boat and wade every now and then. If you pick up a leach or two, don’t worry as this is a recognized treatment for certain blood diseases, and they won’t suck out enough blood to really matter anyway. Save the ones you unstick from your legs though, as the natives use them to add flavor to their soups. (Just kidding, folks, they use them in their blowguns when they only want to stun small prey. So, if you see a native with a big black blob on his tongue, you know that he didn’t blow before the leach latched onto his tongue. Their traditional lore states plainly, “If a leach latches onto your tongue before you can blow it out of your blowgun, don’t mess with it.”)
On arrival at the heat-hunter’s village, you will be ushered to a special foreigner house which resembles the natives’ “long house” except that your long house is really short. You will be assigned a pallet, a mosquito net and a flashlight in case the generator fails, which it will surely do. Your meals will be cooked in your short house, but you are advised not to look on the process too closely and never, never ask, “What in the world is this in my soup?” To do so, in a headhunter’s village is really risky! After settling in, you will be invited to review the collection of skulls the warriors have accumulated over time. Then; you may be given the opportunity of taking target practice with a poison-dart blowgun. Be careful that you put the dart with the sharp end pointing away from you so it doesn’t end up on your tongue, and don’t aim it toward any of your fellow travelers. Even though the natives would be quite happy to salvage the head of a tourist, it isn’t considered good form in headhunter circles to end up the journey with fewer tourists than when started.
In the evening you may visit the village long-house. It’s called “long-house” because it is long. Each time a bride and groom join the clan, they just add a room or two on the end of the existing structure. So over time, it becomes long, so they call it a “long-house”. Country Boy does not know if in the beginning, they call it a “short-house”.
After a couple of days and nights (Nights are particularly interesting as the beasts of the jungle prowl around making all kinds of noises and all you have between you and them is a mosquito net.) you are ready for return to civilization. The two native guides, or their substitutes if either of them has contributed to the collection of skulls, will round up all the touristers, count noses to see if as many are ready to return as started out. If there is a shortage of noses, they will change the number that they recorded at the outset of the trip so that they can account for everyone when they check in with their supervisors back where they started. It is a good idea to make sure that the guides record the number of tourists in ink at the outset because it harder for them to change the count.
If these tips don’t stir your blood to book for a trip to Borneo today, you may be among the tourists who really do not care to parade around your neighborhood in souvenir purple tights, mess up Muslim tradition, eat worms and white pepper, pick leaches, point with your thumb or contribute to headhunters trophy collection,. If so, keep reading Country Boy’s Travel Tips for other travel and culinary delights.