Tag: raffles hotel

April 2001 Part 5. In Sandakan with the orang outans, who are our closest relatives. A magical experience.

OK – now in Kota Kinabalu airport in Malaysia. NOT somewhere I would choose for my winter sunshine holiday. It would a good place for anyone who enjoys sticky heat, as they are doing much in the way of reconstruction inside and therefore, the a/c is not working up to par .. in fact, it’s barely working at all, so what with it being about 90F outside, it’s a balmy 85F inside. Nice place to sit and feel clammy.

Malaysian immigration is the silent type of service, take passport, scan, stamp and return. The inbound form takes a bit of completing however, esp. the health declaration which wants to know if you have in the last three weeks suffered from “diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, fever, headache, sore throat, rash, jaundice, severe cough, dyspnoea, abdominal bleeding or convulsion” – I haven’t clue what dyspnoea is and was too intimidated to ask, in case I have something that I don’t know what it is … if everyone was 100% truthful, then all of immigration would be full of people waiting to see the MD. Good thing this is not heavy farming land as I am sure some visiting Oz would get in on the act and have us all interrogated for visits to farms in the UK.

Having asked the Malaysian agent outside the security check if there was somewhere nice to eat Malaysian food inside and she smilingly said there was, I gets through and discover a perhaps less than wonderful snack bar with some fermenting noodles – man says they are nice so I take a risk – I may have to go back and do a retroactive fill in of the health form. They could be guaranteed to bring on all of the above, including dyspnoea ! Ah me, there’s a luvly local lady sitting opposite me who is carrying a large striped golf umbrella which she has just been using as a back scratcher – right down inside her blouse it went.

Shops here absolutely full of interesting things to purchase – several would rank as mini supermarkets anywhere else and have a huge range of items, including many quantities of dried fish – or dried sea slug (which is actually a vegetable but don’t tell anyone). Hope no homesick Malaysian returning to Oz ever comes through here, as there is enough to put the Oz Quarantine into a tailspin.

I am back in Dilarang Merokok land – CS or anyone, know what that means ? No Smoking to anyone else who does not have the encyclopedic memory of CS. Got a new one for you – u can put it up on the wall in SEATAC  KETIBAAN ANTARABANGSA, which is International Arrivals.  In Yemen I once saw a No Smoking sign, but it was a bit garbled and became No Somking, which sounded much better. The same country, the museum in Ta’iz, also requested you ” To leave your weapon at the door”, as local visitors were prone to inspecting the place with a Kalashnikov casually draped over the shoulder. Don’t know what Mae West would have made of that !

So now in Sandakan, Borneo, Malaysia … hope that puts it on the map for those of a lesser geographic bent. We come here to see the Orang Utans (those huge chimpanzee-like animals who manage to share 95% of their genes with us.) It is an easy trip to the reserve where they live. Forestry has much decimated their living quarters and until about 30 years ago, it was legal to have a small one as a pet – of course when they get big, they get too much to handle and would be thrown out or killed. Fortunately, the Malaysian government came to its senses and designated a huge area of land for them to live in safety. Like human babies, they need years of feeding and protection and training from adults before they can fend for themselves, so what you are allowed to visit is the center near to the feeding platforms.

Over the years, they are reintroduced back into the wilds and there are feeding platforms at different distances from the buildings. Eventually they are being fed on a voluntary process at the furthest out platform, where to all intents they are living freely back in the jungle. And it really IS a jungle here. HOT and HUMID, but amazingly not too buggy, though we were all covered with enough repellent to kill mossies by the ton. You cannot guarantee you will actually see any of them, as most of the time they are off foraging for their 100% fruit diet.  It is also absolutely imperative that visitors remain SILENT … not a squeak is permitted.  Try telling a group of Americans that they will have to shut up for up to an hour and a half. You walk single file along a path in the jungle to one of the feeding platforms.  There is no guarantee you will see anything.  The scheme is that you will stand there, in silence, for an hour exactly.  If they come, they come. If they don’t, they don’t and you have to troop back through the leaves.  The local naturalists bring buckets of bananas, which is any orang utan’s idea of a good time. We were in luck, as no less than 7 turned up for a meal of bananas and milk, one of which had a small baby tucked underneath. They are just so wonderfully human and observe you with long rather dismal faces – they look practically on the edge of tears ! One young male, about 3 feet tall, came along the walkway we were on and managed to sneak behind yrs truly and a client and we were told, very sotto voce by the guide that we had to walk slowly past him and hide cameras etc as he was likely to make a move, so that was an excitement for both of us ! Don’t think HE was so impressed. They swing through the trees and lianas with wonderful ease, using all permutations of arms and legs – their arms are actually twice as long as their legs. It was a good morning out and the pax were v impressed and I had to swear up and down that we did not have them locked up in cages and released just for us.  When I went to inspect it about two years before, I did the same route and we stood in silence for 59 mins and it looked like a wash and at the last minute a whole family came swinging through the trees and it was total magic.  I remember a woman crying and I could easily see why.  And the rain has stayed away, as around here you can have some real end of the world downpours.

The town of Sandakan is pretty uninspiring. Was once the shipping center for logging, but that has now ceased, so it has become rather a backwater. It has a new very modern mosque with a minaret that looks more like a lighthouse and also an extremely garish new Chinese temple which is the last word in scarlet and gold – you need sunglasses to look at it !

And now back in SIN again – it has become my new crossroads. Singapore Airlines brought me here safely yesterday afternoon – they certainly do have the most good looking crews in the world – the girls must weigh all of 50kgs soaking wet and are stitched into their outfits so that an extra noodle would show. They are all exceedingly sweet and when I think about the air warriors at UA and AA, all I can do is shudder. But what a crappy meal they gave us – someone was having a bad day when they put that menu together. I cudda done better.

In SIN, it was pouring torrentially in best tropical fashion, but tucked up chez Raffles I did not hear a thing. But such problems in my room – phone lines not working, butler call button not working, unable to access internet from this pc, TV and radio stations somewhat scrambled, a litany of disasters as far as they were concerned. Poor Richard looking besides himself. Great off-stage mutters about shaking this place up and using my visit (as a great potential client shipping oodles of rich Americans through here), so I had to remember to act miffed, rather than saying ‘ Oh these things can happen anywhere’. Many flunkies called to a degree that was glad to be in a suite, otherwise it was in risk of turning into the Singapore version of the Marx Brothers party in the ocean liner cabin. Only the band was missing. I stayed well out of the way while people crawled under furniture and generally made themselves useful. End result was a phone line and not much more – such loss of face already !!!

Thnk that’s enuf for now – can’t overload my readers.

I’m off to Dubai tonight to check on the dhow loading scene and then later tomorrow to Damascus. So more from somewhere like that….

April 2001 Part 4. I take on Our Sharon, a Qantas cabin crew of many years and reach a compromise worthy of the UN.

We now see so many repeat customers, mostly nice and a few less than. If I were a Mormon, then I would have a chance of hitting a REAL fortune, as we have a Mormon family gang with us again, from Seattle too, of all places.

One of the daughters has dumped her husband (who came last time and I thought he was a weed) and is now obviously in the market for another and I get on like a house on fire with mother, who has all the lolly (00000dles of it), so have already suggested that I come over to the other side and become a client and told them I would know how to get them upgraded into suites everywhere, which they could easily afford anyway, but of course don’t …. I meantersay, Mom is presumably footing the bill for the current outing and not getting much in the way of change from $200,000 and they have come back every year for the last 4 …. so do the maths yourselves and u can see what a nice idea it would be to become part of the family ! Ah me, such is life!! Don’t know what my friends in Iran would make of it all – their eyes just cross completely when I tell them how much money these people are spending.

I really don’t understand some of these airlines. Here we are, all 15 of us in the Business Class cabin of a 747 and the bloody crew determines that we have 4 hours flight from Darwin to Singapore and it is 4:30pm and we should eat dinner immediately. Basicaly, they just want to get the meal service done and over with, so they can skive off the rest of the flight. Ha I say to that. I tell the Japanese/0z f/a that  No, I wud like to eat later – throws her for a complete loop – do I or don’t I want to eat ? – yes, but not now – not now ? but we are serving now … we start to get into a loop -she gives up – next thing, Big Sharon, a seasoned Sinneysider comes in to the scene – but we are cooking the food now …. so I says, well bugger the hot food, I’ll just have a salad and some cheese later – how about that? Hnmunm – almost seemed something that was going to cause a riot in the galley.

GIVE ME A BREAK – I point out nicely, that with 4 hours and 15 pax and it being only late afternoon, they could do the whole meal service (which on Qantas Biz is not exactly extensive) in one hour flat. We settle on the salad and cheese compromise. Am v pleased to observe that there are 3 other pax who did not eat either – felt like pointing THAT out to KoKo (yup, a female high executioner) and our Sharon, as further proof but felt my point was made.

Changi airport, Singapore continues to amaze me. I meantersay, I was off the plane, did a longish walk to immigration, which was deserted as always, through them, with the offer of a candy too, around the corner to the first bag belt, where the Biz bags had already come up first of course (they wud be AMAZED to hear that this is not ALWAYS the case elsewhere) and through the non-existent customs and straight out to a waiting cool taxi, driven by a man in white gloves and all this within 20 mins of getting off the plane. Here it’s the norm – almost anywhere else it’s called a miracle.

And for those of u who want touches of Ammurrica home, there at the departure gate next morning, they are playing WHEEL OF FORTUNE with Vanna and all -Some of you would never have boarded the flight ….

Now later, in flight from Singapore to Kota Kinabula on the Malaysian end of Borneo. And wud you bloody believe, on a Malaysian 737, with all of 20 pax and leaving at 1005 for a 2:25 mins flight, they have done LUNCH immediately after take off – I may have to go down to the back galley and have a few gentle words of wisdom here, as the crew is all young and may benefit from my road warrior status. And why would Malaysian Airlines, with all its sources of cheap labor, have its sick bags made in Switzerland ??  Inquiring minds want to know (or who got some huge kickback for the contract, cos it sure is fishy ….)   Thomas, being Swiss, do you have an insight?

Had a very nice night, thank you chez Raffles. Richard Yap, me mate there, was waiting and I was whisked off to my suite without having to stop for a second. It’s kinda frightening when the lady butler was standing outside the door to the suite, waiting for me and my retinue and she had to show me how to insert the key into the lock and turn it – nothing unusual about that -insert key and turn – they just wanted to make sure I understood ! Oh dear oh lor, I must be looking even worse than I thought. I then had to have a detailed, inch by inch explanation of exactly what worked what inside the room, most of which I cudda probably worked out for myself. They did presume I could turn the taps on and off and flush the loo, but otherwise nothing went unexplained. Best thing was the arrival a few mins later of a tray with two nice flutes of champagne and the caviar from Iran that I had left with Richard while I went to Oz (see above ref Oz health regs – they wudda swiped it and incinerated it too, which would have caused many tears before bedtime!). So we had a maxi caviar feast as it had to be eaten and I was determined that it WOULD be eaten and none left to waste.

Consequently, did not need dinner and fell into bed at 2130 and finally slept til the alarm went off at 0645. No such thing as a lie in is permitted anywhere on my sked,and in fact 0645 almost qualifies as one!

Yet more to come from the top of Malaysia…what do you know about orang outangs?