Tuesday, July 13, 2004

"Live and Learn"

By Jill

In that last few days, Eric and I have adopted the saying "live and learn" as the motto of our trip. For example, we learned that a two hour river trip to see monkeys, otters, iguana, snakes, birds, and much much more, was actually a 1 1/2 hour trip in a fume-ridden boat to see a few snakes, one monkey, and birds in traps (the bird trade--for pets--is alive and well in Malaysia, and incidentally contributing significantly to the decline of a number of bird species.)

We also learned that you should never get your hopes up for an Western meal in an Eastern country (unless you're eating at it McDonalds, and even then it's dicey). For example, when the guidebook says a restaurant serves "good pizzas and Italian food" you should also add "for a country that does not specialize in pizza and pasta." And you should be prepared to pay high prices for pizza on a thin cracker crust, tomato sauce with uncertain ingredients, and topped with spam and plastic-tasting cheese.

Another thing we've learned (and this is where the live part comes in) is that things always work out, no matter how stressed you are at the moment. Malaysia has turned out to be a fantastically easy place to travel and the express buses DO NOT play music--anyone who has traveled in the third world understands the importance of this fact. (Actually, Eric and I discussed today giving Malaysia first world status solely based on the condition of its express buses.)

Eric's going to post in a minute about our amazing wildlife adventure since we last wrote. I'll simply say that last night I saw "earnestness" personified--well I guess animalified.Tomorrow we're heading back into the jungle--back to the land of the leeches--for three hard days of trekking. Then we're off to Singapore for some much needed R & R before heading to Indonesia.

Turtlenecking

By Eric

At 10:00 pm yesterday a quick knock on the door of our chalet summoned us out. In moments we were in the back seat of a car zooming through the tropical night in single-minded pursuit of our goal: sea turtles.

The green sea turtle lands frequently at night on the sandy beaches of eastern Malaysia. And the tourist industry here--an industry of dubious ethics--caters to those who would see the turtles land, crawl painstakingly up the beach, dig a nest in the sand, and lay it's eggs. It's an activity that's not for the impatient or the sleepy.

For the moment, I'll skip most of the details of our long night at the beach, but it's a story that I'm sure we'll tell later. Amidst incoherent jabbering in several languages, hustling down the beach, squatting on the sand, and then hustling back just the way we came (wash, rinse, repeat), we were lucky enough to observe a turtle laying its eggs. It wasn't exactly the pristine experience you might imagine. Unless, of course, you were imagining Jill and me along with 20 Singaporean Chinese crowded around the female turtle while a flashlight illuminated the nest and the emerging eggs. The big sad creature lay there on the sand, painfully aware of our presence, dropping forty or fifty eggs into its sandy hole.

Because natural depredation and human egg collectors make for a wicked combination that's threatening the continued existence of the species, the sanctuary's rangers collect the eggs on the spot. (There's still a thriving black market for turtle eggs in Asia and the nests are easy prey for poachers who can follow the obvious track-marks up the beach.) The eggs are kept in a nearby hatchery and the hatchlings are released at night, safe from the prying eyes of predators.

The highlight of the night--and undoubtedly of the trip thus far--was participating in an evening's release of several dozen hatchlings into the sea. Each little eager turtle, a miniature replica of the 1000-pound adults, can rest on the palm of your hand. In fact, the rangers let us each hold a hatchling before we set them down on the sand and watched them scramble toward the lapping sea. One by one, the waves bowled them over and them sucked them out toward their destiny.

Standing there on the beach, after the last one had been taken by the sea, I felt humbled in a way that's hard to explain. Overhead I could see the vast constellations and the Milky Way; in front of me was the long expanse of the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean; the lights of an oil refinery twinkled on a distant shore; on the horizon; the lights of what I guessed to be fishing boats floated silently on the horizon; around me were other people wearing shorts, holding cameras, whispering excitedly, and tromping around the beach.

It's estimated that only one hatchling in 500 will live the 20 or 30 years it takes to reach maturity. The best research suggests that at this time, it's an open question whether any of four species of turtles that visit the Asian coastlines will survive. That is to say, in our lifetimes--and perhaps in the near future--we may see the extinction of these sea turtles. The giant leatherback turtle, of which only four have landed this year, will probably vanish in the next several years.

Friday, July 16, 2004

The end of life as we know it

By Eric

Was that title too melodramatic? 

One biological survey in Endau Rompin National Park's tropical rainforest (the home of the leeches that Jill mentions in her post, below) examined a single 150-acre plot (a square mile has 640 acres) and found 814 different species of woody plants. According to the park information center, that's more than can be found in all of Canada and United States combined. So the biological diversity here, as measured by plant life, is truly astonishing.

But much of the diversity here is vanishing at an equally astonishing rate. Of course, we usually don't notice when rare species of plants are relegated to oblivion. We only tend to notice the larger, more charismatic fauna. For example, this national park harbors some of the last remaining Sumatran rhinos in Malaysia and in the world (here's a picture and some info). How many?, you may wonder. The best guess is just four. Four.

None of us were alive during the 19th century, when we Americans extirpated our own big animals--and likely hundreds or thousands of plants and insects--from most of their historic range. The wolves, grizzlies, bison, etc. that once flourished in North America now inhabit a few island ecosystems in national parks or are simply vanished, probably for good, from huge portions of their ancestral homes. But in the 21st century, we'll likely witness the extinction, or functional extinction, of the big fauna of the less developed world, like here in Malaysia, and we probably won't be aware of the plant life that vanishes, sometimes before it can even be classified by scientists. It's anyone's guess how much longer the tiny rhino population here will linger; but my guess is that it won't be much longer.

Sorry for the less than upbeat post. Next time I'll try for something a little more positive...

The horror, the horror

By Eric

Yesterday, I finished reading one of the best novels I've had the good (or bad?) fortune to read in quite a long time: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. If you've ever experienced unrequited love, felt your youthful aspirations straightjacketed by social expectations, or simply like pain for it's own sake, you'll love this novel. I think if Jill and I hadn't ended up together I probably would have leapt off a tall building after reading the final chapter. It's cheery.

The Arnold Schwarzenegger (body builder not governor or actor) of Jungles

By Jill

Our foray into Endau Rompin National Park can best be described as our previous jungle experience on steroids. It was infinitely more wild, and yes, there were infinitely more leeches. Thanks to my vigilant leech watch, I have returned from the jungle leech-bite free. You should not assume that leeches did not try to bite. I removed at least 30 from my shoes and socks. Eric snapped more than one photo of me bent over frantically poking my shoes with a stick.  It turns out that the leeches are more bark than bite, meaning that their bites aren't actually all that painful or dangerous. But the bark was enough to send me beyond the bounds of rationality.

Poor Eric was not as lucky as I was. Perhaps worst of all, he had the horrible misfortune of finding a leech stuck to his neck. NECK! I believe he has returned to the city with 10 bites, mostly on his ankles. And he tells me they are more itchy/painful than the previous bites, which fits with the greater intensity of the jungle experience.

I am afraid that it is partly my fault that Eric became a leech casualty. He may have neglected his own needs to attend to my frequent panic attacks and screams to "Get the bastards off of me." (He also went above the call of duty to remove an insect--1/2 spider, 1/2 scorpion--the size of my hand from the back of my shirt without my knowledge and to only tell me about the experience when we were in the safety of our chalet. I think he has earned the right to call in a few favors at a later date.)

During one of my rantings on leeches, our guide shrugged: "It's nature. What do you expect?" That got me thinking. What do I expect from nature? After all, this trip is about experiencing nature. I can certainly tell you what I prefer. I prefer a nature sans leeches, biting flies and, well, any other parasite (although I'm willing to tolerate mosquitoes, probably due to my Minnesota upbringing.) I'd also appreciate a nature without 1/2 spider, 1/2 scorpion insects the size of my hand. Basically, why can't all nature be as tranquil and welcoming as the North Cascade's high alpine meadows on a warm September day? The past three days have definitively demonstrated that all nature is not.

Seriously though, our trips in the jungle have caused me ponder the importance of natural places even if they turn out to be not very fun places to visit. I think I embarked on this trip with the somewhat idealistic notion that I could be happy any time I was in wilderness. Well, I was just in real wilderness and I was not happy, or at least I was not happy all the time. Although I've had an academic understanding of the importance of wild places just for the sake of wildness rather than as some place I could visit, the jungle has brought that understanding home. I am very happy that Endau Rompin National Park exists in this world (especially given the sea of palm tree plantations that surround the park), but I am also very happy that I won't be going back.

I should not paint the experience as all pain. It was actually quite amazing. This morning we stood on the top of a mountain and looked out at a sea of rainforest that stretched for miles. At the same time we heard gibbons (a type of ape) dueting in a nearby tree. (Gibbon mates duet with hoots and hollers that sound a lot like ambulance sirens. They duet every day, apparently to keep the marriage from growing stale. Eric and I decided we would hoot and holler every day to prevent our marriage from growing stale, but then we realized that hooting and hollering is probably banned in Singapore.) We also saw elephant tracks leading down to the river and we had reports of eight elephants just two miles from our campsite. Although we didn't see all that much wildlife, we definitely left with a sense that the jungle was alive.

Despite its authoritarian tendencies, Singapore will be a welcome treat. I've got a serious hankering for some pampering and I know Eric plans to hit McDonalds as soon as we cross the border.