This orangutan was spotted by Hank Claycamp at a feeding station located in Borneo’s Bako National Park. Claycamp described the orangutans as “bigger and hairier than I am.”
Cherry blossoms were in full bloom when the Claycamps visited Tokyo on April 1.
Editor’s note: This is another of Centralia resident Hank Claycamp’s periodic articles about his trips around the world.
Hi folks, this is your intrepid reporter Hank along with the divine Lady L returning from two and one half months in Southeast Asia.
We had just traveled through eight different countries last spring 2013, but when we heard the youngest son, Oliver, was accepted into a master’s program in anthropology, the divine Lady L started searching for tickets to visit him and his family on the island of Borneo. We could visit several new places, including our first trip to Japan.
We flew the Dreamliner from Seattle on Feb. 4 to Tokyo, then to Bangkok on the Airbus 800-230 (largest commercial jet ever made). Both planes were incredible, even flying in coach.
From Bangkok we took a bus down the peninsula to Chumpon then on to Thung Wua Laen to visit some friends from Centralia who have a house there for the winter.
You know, people talk of Phuket (just across the peninsula) or even Bangkok as being wonderful, but until you go to the outer areas with the locals, it’s hard to discover a long pristine white sand beach with few foreign tourists. A great place for a vacation and a suntan with a budget price.
But wait! This is too slow for The Lady Linda and me. So we took a sleeper train to Georgetown, Malaysia. From there we took an Air Malaysia (yep, same airline, fortunately, we weren’t going to Beijing) to Kuching, Borneo, where my son Oliver met us and took us to meet Zola and the grandkids.
Kuching was a lot like any other place, except the headhunters quit hunting heads about 30 years ago.
Anyhoo, we took everyone for an overnight to Bako National Park, where the macaque monkeys stole our lunch. Bad monkeys! We also saw large proboscis monkeys and long-nose warthogs.
After that, all of us visited an orangutan feeding station. Wow! They’re bigger and hairier than I am.
After two weeks it was time to bid fond adieu to the family. We flew to Mulu National Park because the best way to get here was by plane. This was the real jungle. We explored Deer Cave (the largest cavern known with 4 million bats that issue out every night to feast on mosquitos). It seemed the insects were bigger and more of them like fireflies and 5-inch-long cicadas that sound like a jackhammer.
We stayed in Brunei, a tiny oil rich Muslim nation on the north side of Borneo. Linda said, “Uh oh, we can’t stay here.” (They don’t sell beer). She was just looking out for my welfare. She seems to think I get grumpy without beer, hmph!
After a miserable ferry ride we arrived in Kota Kinabalu for our final jungle trip exploring Sucau on small boats, where we saw five varieties of great hornbills, tiny kingfishers, salty crocs and all the monkeys and orangutans you could shake a cobra at. And leaches ...
After a month, left for Puerto Princesa on the island of Palawan in the Philippines to explore the underground labyrinthine river, then a crowded minibus for 7 hours to the village of El Nido. An artist’s delight! It was a small fishing town built amid giant karst rocks of limestone.
On to Cebu and Bohol to tussle with a tarsier or two (smallest and the cutest of all primates).
In Luzon, Clark Air Base, we took buses and jeepneys to the Banaue rice terraces.
Hiking down into these mountain cultivations, I was positive the divine Lady Linda was trying to kill me till she pointed out I didn’t have any insurance so why bother? Hmmm, that makes sense.
We then headed north to try to mess up the great Japanese culture.
We landed in Tokyo on April 1, stayed at a small hotel, then checked out the sites of cherry blossom time. The city was ablaze with pink and white. Tokyo is not nearly as ancient as other cities but very clean and beautiful anyway. But we didn’t stay long.
We took their fine rail system to Nikko up in the mountains and went back in time to the first shogun’s shrine. It looked like a Japanese painting amid the giant cedar trees on the top of the mountains. I could imagine the new shogun riding his horse in full battle armour to pay homage to his leader’s mausoleum.
I have to paint it before I lose that memory.
Going back through the annals of time we stayed at an original bath house in Hakone (about 12th century tradition).
We took the cable cars and actually got to see Mount Fujiyama (looks like St. Helens pre-1980).
Went to the ancient capital of Kyoto. All the temples and shrines date as far back as the Eighth century.
And we finally stayed at a shinto (Japanese buddhist monastery) in Koyasan. This place was awesome in it’s Seventh century funerary carvings,
We both agreed Japan was the most spectacular country of our trip. The other places seem only interested in being modern and having no past. Japan is incredibly modern yet still retains much of its ancient heritage.
Coming home was a long trip but it’s great to be here.
