Borneo

The first trip outside of Singapore was to Malaysian Borneo. A group of about 20 of us descended on a small hostel in the city of Kuching, the provincial capital. Kuching certainly wasn't Singapore, nor was it Libreville. Somewhere in between. Still a safe city to freely explore, I think the drinking water was even safe (I bought bottled water anyway). Here, however, taxis drivers were willing to rip you off...no meters here. The buses were a cross between the old school buses and and old Cyride buses. Less English, more trash. The people were nice and welcoming. The markets were interesting, not to mention cheap.
During the three days in and around Kuching, we went to two national parks, an orangutan sanctuary, and walked the city a bit. The first national park required a bus ride, followed by a boat ride, the latter being a thriller. We arrived in the morning while the tide was still high. To get to the park, we chartered local boats to take us across. It turns out that with high tides, come rough seas. We set out in the five boats it required to get all of us across. It was smooth sailing at first. Soon we began to experience some waves. Not a big deal, they were less than a couple feet, and out pilot-man was all-pro. Then we had to stop to tow one of the other boats till he could get the engine started again, at least ours was running nicely. As we got more into the open, the waves grew pretty quick. Now they were more like 5 or 6 feet high, which meant they towered over us when we were in the troughs. We were a little concerned, but our pilot wasn't. then we met one of the boats coming back...soaked. Still we continued. It wasn't until we turned around unable to see any other boats, that our pilot decided we should go back. Top 5 best times in a boat. We had to wait for a couple hours for the tide to go out. Then we made it no problem. Once there we did some hiking in the jungle, splashed around on the beaches we found, watched some monkeys play, etc.
The second park was less exciting, but we played in a waterfall and hiked to a pretty cool lookout. The orangutans were pretty impressive. Luckily they weren't interested in us much. Good thing, cuz that male could've squashed me like a bug.