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Return to Sarawak

Written by Russell Johnson

"A terribly jungly place."
Maugham
"They don't call it a rainforest for nuthin."
Johnson

I am back in Borneo. I first visited Sarawak in my childhood imagination. It was giant lillypad floating on the map of Oceania with a reputation earned from Victorian tales of headhunters, missionaries, orangutans, tic-toc crocs and cuddly pythons. When I saw Sarawak for myself, in the 1980s, it lived up to my dreams. Sure, penis piercing and the flattening of women's heads in vices (a beauty treatment) were history as were the headhunters (even though ceremonial skulls still hung from the rafters), but the jungles still steamed, the macaques still screeched, the hornbills still displayed their magnificent schnozzolas, and Sarawak still had a faint aura of danger. Going there gave one bragging rights as an adventurer. So what if you stayed at the Holiday Inn, chicken feet were on the menu.

Today, Sarawak is still "terribly jungly" and exotic and inscrutable enough to evoke Walter Mittyish dreams of being one of the Rajahs who one ruled the place. There is a big difference, however.

Written by Russell Johnson

Photos & Story by Russell Johnson

Nepalis call it the "brain fever" bird. It starts with a middle-C whoop and, like a diva gone mad, sails up the scale in a frenetic arpeggio. This morning, jungle sounds are tame. No wall of cicada or cricket racket and except for an occasional monkey screech or "brain fever "aria, nothing stands in the way of subtle sounds: the rumble of an elephant purr, the rustle of brush. A tiger, perhaps? Or a rhino? Or maybe it is the elusive jungle fowl, a wildly colorful bird that is said to be the ancestor of the modern-day domestic chicken.

This is the tenth time I have ventured out on the back on an elephant into the jungle at Royal Chitwan National Park, which borders India. I will never tire of returning to a place where I can sit on a veranda in a steamy jungle and gaze upon the snow-capped Himalayas in the distance; where I have seen the flash of a tiger in the brush, grumpy rhinos, insects that look like lacquered jewelry, orchids, centipedes the length and color of Dennis Rodman's shoes, crocodiles sunning on riverbanks, termite mounds that look like the castles of demented fairies and a vast buffet of birds -- about three hundred species of them -- one of which I am determined to photograph.

So here I am, headed out into the tropical tangle with a group of wide-eyed, camera-toting newcomers who seek their first glimpse of the wild rhino and, if lucky, the Royal Bengal Tiger.

My job is to videotape A CHICKEN.

It is not that the wild jungle fowl is scarce. It is just that it doesn't sit still. On my last trip all I captured were a few fleeting frames of a drab female. What I am seeking is a fully- plumed, testosterone-charged, ready-to-boogie male for a documentary I am doing titled "Chickens" (Please don't ask me about it).

Riding an elephant can be a jolt. But at least we weren't trotting or galloping. Years ago I rode an express elephant, one enlisted in the service of point-to-point transportation rather than tourism. The elephant trot is guaranteed to rearrange your innards. An elephant gallop will make your backbone feel like a pile driver. A tourist elephant, while not having the suspension systems of a Lexus, just strolls.

We ride past deeply rutted trees, trees that tigers had used as scratching posts. Tigers and leopards had been spotted several times in the past week. "Scat," whispered our mahout as he pointed to a deposit next to a series of pawprints. I resisted the temptation to collect a souvenir.

It doesn't take long to spot a rhino in these jungles. They, along with most other forms of wildlife, have been growing in number because of the rigorous environmental controls the government has placed on the park. Royal Chitwan was once a private game reserve where the ruling Rana clan treated royals from other countries to tiger hunts. Although not exactly a noble endeavor, it did keep the area preserved and undeveloped.

The Rhino looks curmudgeonly, like a scaly Winston Churchill. It snorts and grunts: "You had bloody well keep your distance." The baby, however, manages to look cute. A ton of cute, nevertheless cute. We follow the pair as they plough through the brush. Elephants, thick-skinned as they are, are wary of rhinos. Several times I have sat on top of an elephant that has reared back when a rhino threatened a charge.

"Chicken," shouts our guide. I reach for my camera and try to steady it. The elephant isn't cooperating, however, turning in the wrong direction so I have to crane my neck. The jungle fowl crosses the path and disappears into the grass. I get another shaky shot of the back end of a bird.

I did not see a tiger on this trip. There are few of them as the territory of each extends over a many kilometers. They also do their hunting at night. The best time to see a tiger is just after the rainy season, in September or October, before the grass has grown high. Rhinos, birds, deer, monkeys, butterflies and foppish insects are abundant, however, as is the oddball gharial crocodile, whose snout looks like a swizzle stick, that basks on the riverbank.

Chitwan is reachable by automobile, bus or air from a tiny airport at Meghauly where a World War II crank air raid siren is used to clear the runway of children and cattle. A snake charmer with a cobra in a basket guards its entrance, collecting coins...spiritual flight insurance premiums. I prefer to hire a car, however, and drive from Kathmandu on a road cut down through spectacular canyons.

I have stayed at two jungle lodges in Chitwan: Temple Tiger and Tiger Tops. Both are first-class operations and I would rate them equal but different experiences. Temple Tiger has charming, comfortable little jungle stilt houses and a great open air restaurant. Tiger Tops, a bit pricier and more social, is an older traditional jungle lodge with two larger multi-apartment buildings, some clusters of huts and an enclosed dining area. Both offer elephant safaris and jungle walks with experienced guides.

I did get my chicken shot. I was sitting in a lawn chair at Tiger Tops nursing a beer and a cackle of them walked onto the paddock and started pecking away. I simply crept up to them and made my video capture.

Fragrant Harbor: Hong Kong Translated

Written by Russell Johnson

Fusion: Ancient Chinese, Modern Jazz in Hong Kong Audio-MP3

I first caught a glimpse of it in the lower left quadrant of my eye. Way below me, in the canyon, I saw a faint, blue flutter. I focused on it, not quite making it out until it got caught in an updraft and soared.like an angel.hundreds of feet above me before gently drifting back down to eye level. I followed it for about 10 minutes, sailing across my field of vision with flimsy fairy wings. repeatedly drifting downward leveling off, then rocketing back into the heavens. Where did it come from? Perhaps someone living in one of the ramshackle houses perched on top of one of Hong Kong's skinny skyscrapers simply tossed the plastic grocery bag over the side. Maybe a street vendor below lost control of it and Hong Kong's manmade maelstrom swept it up into the realm of financiers and dot.com startups that occupy the towers of Central Hong Kong. This was not the groveling, bottom-feeding bag of the film "American Beauty."

I am watching my filmy plastic eagle from the boardroom of a "Red Chip" company. That is what they call Chinese firms that are partly state-owned but also trade publicly on the Hang Seng, ostensibly to curb corruption and give investors in mainland China industry the luxury of a convertible currency. I really love these skinny Hong Kong high-rises. Most people have window offices because there is simply nothing in the middle but elevators.

A sunny Sunday in Hong Kong. Filipino housemaids gather in the squares, escaping their cramped weekday quarters. Mostly, women, but some families as well, camp under the canopies at the entrance to the Star Ferry and picnic. Today, there is a "Hong Kong Is My Home" celebration across the street in Statue Square. Elderly men, presumably civic leaders, line up on stage holding cardboard cutout hearts. A youth marching band, looking like they wished to be elsewhere, plays the theme from "Hogan's Heroes."

Hong Kong likes reruns.

Culture that starts in the West is amplified here, and often lasts longer. Remember the crocodiles on the pockets of tee shirts? They're still popular here...as is 1970s disco. The floorshow at Igor's nightclub is a takeoff on "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Like most places in the world, division between the haves and the have-nots seems to be even more pronounced these days. Dealmakers hang out at the bar at the Mandarin Oriental across from the veddy English-looking old Supreme Court Building, which now waves the Chinese flag. Skinny, double-decker trolleys billboarding softdrinks, cigarettes and dot.com this, dot.com that, clang past the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Building.

My wife and I went with a friend to look for a shirt. We stepped into an Emporio Armani and priced a suitably edgy black t-shirt at about US$300. Hop on the Star Ferry and go to Kowloon, however, and you may find a fake on the street for $10. You have watch out what you buy, however. My wife bought a lovely designer leather belt for about $3. It smelled like skunk and after repeated attempts to air it out, she tossed it.

The Star Ferry is one of Hong Kong's few remaining cheap thrills. For 1.7 Hong Kong Dollars, or 24 cents you can travel from Hong Kong Island, across the "fragrant harbor" to Kowloon second class. For 2.2 Hong Kong dollars or about 29 cents you can luxuriate in upper-deck first class, which is really about the same.minus the engine fumes.

There are some that argue that Hong Kong has no class at all.that its cultural canon consists solely of Bruce Lee movies. I beg to disagree. While the Hong Kong Museum of Art was touting a show of dreadful French art of the "A-Go-Go 1960s, its permanent collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy, of Hong Kong artists and historic photographs is magnificent.

The museum looks out over Hong Kong's chief scenic attraction, its skyline, and that changes by the month. The most notable addition is the soaring Hong Kong Convention Center. Recently, I was master of ceremonies at an event inside of the main hall, the same place where the Queen and Prince Charles bade their tearful farewell to their former colony. My tiny group of about 1,200 hundred people was dwarfed by the hall which I suspect would offer enough space for a Red Airforce flyover. Hearing your voice ping-ponging around such a vast enclosure makes you feel, rather disarmingly, like a mad dictator or a baseball announcer reading the starting lineup.

The ultimate way to see Hong Kong's skyline is gliding by on a ship. The first time I did that, about 15 years ago, was on a hot humid night. It was very creepy, actually, as we drifted through still waters between dark old junks and rusty freighters. This time, however, the feeling was quite different and my wife and I got the timing just right. We finished our dinner aboard a glitzy new cruise ship just before our 9PM, castoff time. We rushed to our cabins, put on our bathing suits, ran out on deck and jumped into a hot tub. As a band revved up, we settled back and in soothing, bubbling ecstasy, watched the towers of Hong Kong glide by.

California's Redwood Country: The $90 Million Tree

Written by Russell Johnson

Stout Grove - DelNorte County, California
Story & Photos ©2002, Russell Johnson

Paul Bunyan has an axe to grind. Like Rodney Dangerfield, he "don't get no respect." Tearing down a swath of timber in a mighty swing is ecologically unsound and politically incorrect. A giant blue ox ploughing through the wilderness certainly has to be folklore's answer to a SUV. Paul and Babe are also among the most exploited of cultural icons.relegated to cheesy roadside attractions and statues outside of muffler shops.

Poor Paul.

When I was a child, my father took to me to Paul's "sitting down" version in Brainerd, Minnesota. This Bunyan, a Burt Reynolds look-alike, sat schoolboy straight in a north woods diorama of pine trees and happy squirrels. My dad gave some change to a geeky ticket taker who walked behind the statue, positioned himself in a booth (I could see his face through a window), lowered his voice and went "Fie, Fi, Fo ,Fum. What's your name son?" he asked.

Forty some years later I stand in the parking lot of Trees of Mystery near Klamath, in California's far north woods, as two German tourists, doubled over in laughter, photograph each other gazing oxward at the underside of an anatomically correct Babe. At least this Babe didn't suffer the fate of the one of his cousins in Ossineke, Mississippi whose enormous pinecones were shot off by a drunk. Locals say the weapon was used to murder a man the next week.

Paul Bunyan and his ilk don't rule this land anymore. Trees of Mystery, with Paul, Babe and its private forest full of talking and amplified musical redwoods, is just one of this region's throwbacks to a time -- before we all became twitchy -- when drive-through-trees, burlwood carved bears and Sasquatch footprints were exciting stuff. There are a few of those hollowed out trees left, some dying, and the logging industry is staggering after battles with environmentalists over clearcutting. Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived in a redwood tree south of here for two years, made halting the destruction of these ancient redwoods a cause celebre.

To the naked eye, however, this land looks unspoiled. The damage is hidden off the main roads and there is still land, lots of magnificent redwood-covered land.

While Redwood National Park has a mere 110 thousand acres, the Six Rivers National Forest covers nearly 1.1 million acres and includes some 1500 miles of waterway. Ewoks live here for sure (their famous chase scene was filmed near the Smith River) and odds have it that Sasquatch, Hobbits and some other yet to be discovered species are camped out there as well. This is prime territory for hikers, photographers, bikers, birdwatchers, rafters and kayakers.

Elk strut through these fields and forests with regal smugness.

I have two favorite wild spots here: Fern Canyon is south of Klamath in the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. You enter the canyon from a beach and walk along an ancient creek bed through a Jurassic Park canyon lined with ferns (yes, parts of that movie were filmed here). You really want to take your time moving through the canyon in a slow amble: listening to the brook burble, breathing the earthy air and slowly scanning the canyon walls.

Fern Canyon - Del Norte County

Stout Grove, which contains a forest right out of Lord of the Rings (not filmed here, but could have been), is located near the Smith River in the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. It is a forest of giant (but very stout) redwood trees in a small canyon. It is a place of ear-splitting quiet, which can be downright spooky if you are there alone. It would take a half dozen people to hug one of these trees. Stout's grandest redwood, while not the largest in the forest, is 340 feet high and some 22 feet across. Some of the trees here are as much as 2000 years old. If we were to pay this tree the US Federal minimum wage of $5.15/hour, its actuarial value would be more than $90.2 million dollars.certainly an economic argument for not chopping it down. I have been there twice. The first time it was so quiet that a breaking twig sounded like a falling tree. The second time, two kids incessantly nagged their mother. Their shouts echoed through the canyon. "I want to go to Trees of Mystery," they screamed. Nya nya nya.over and over again. After lots of shushing, Mom finally gave in and left me and the rest of us weary seekers of Zen in almost eerie silence.

Once you get past the kitsch, Trees of Mystery is a well worth a stop for adults as well as kids. It is a family owned enterprise run by a nice fellow named John Thompson. John's mother Marylee collected Native American artifacts for 40 years. They are displayed at the "The End of the Trail Museum" attached to the gift shop. It is a real surprise, a world-class private museum with hundreds of artifacts tightly packed in small display cases. If afforded their due in a public museum, I am sure they would occupy an entire wing.

The people of California's Del Norte and Humboldt counties are caught in the same economic dilemma as many countries. They are rich in exhaustible natural wonders in a world economy that puts a premium on adding value with finished goods and services, that is dependent on consumption and growth and where power lies in the big cities. Wild places don't fit the mold. There is some logging here, fisheries, a bit of agriculture (including marijuana) and tourism. Tourism done right -- respecting the natural environment that is THE REASON that tourists visit here -- cannot solve the economic woes of the region, but it can help.

It is encouraging to see that that the natural heritage of the region is now less endangered than it was in the past, that many of old redwoods left will not become decks and fenceposts and that they are no longer exploited as curiosities in a freakshow. But poor Paul Bunyan, he was innocent enough in his day. He just didn't know what the hell he was doing.

Written by Russell Johnson

by Russell Johnson

Banyan Tree - Corbett Tiger Reserve, India

"What's is it?" I asked Mandip, pointing into the jungle brush. "No big deal, just an LBJ," he replied.

"LBJ?"

"Little Brown Job, a bird of no significance to a twitcher."

I would make a dreadful birdwatcher. I am not by nature a twitcher, someone who compiles lists of bird sightings like John Wayne carved notches on the handle of his Winchester. I organize my life with Post-Its, which blow around my office like autumn leaves. Also, most birds are small and fast, too quick for this lumbering mammal. But India's Corbett Tiger Reserve is a prime place for birders with some 580 brands including Himalayan Kingfishers, Great Hornbills, and Blue-bearded Bee-eaters. So the birders head off in one jeep, in search of the Hair-crested Drongo while the rest of us Jim Corbett wannabees mount an elephant and a Landrover to search for fresh scat and pawprints, signs of the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Jim Corbett was the quintessential Great White Hunter of the Raj, whose mission, in the early part of last century, was to gun down man-eating tigers. He mellowed, however, to naturalist, author and photographer and helped create the game preserve that took his name. Jim Corbett National Park, formed in 1936, was India's first nature sanctuary. Long before that, in the mid 1700s, Amrita Devi put her arms around a tree here, to save it from the axe and in the process was axed herself. In one day, it is said, 350 people sacrificed their lives for trees. Chipko (to embrace), the tree-hugging movement was born (nope, it didn't happen in Berkeley, folks). In certain sects in those days, women managed forests as communal resources and understood the importance of their ecosystems. Today that simple, logical notion would be considered radical and require further study.

I am here on an informal field trip with members of the Pacific Asia Travel Association's Committee on Sustainable Tourism, of which I am vice chairperson, led by explorer, conservationist and punster of the Punjab Mandip Singh Soin FRG (Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society and a fine Fellow indeed) and his wife Anita, who shares his visions and his adventures. Mandip is Managing Director of Ibex Expeditions, recently honored as India's most eco-friendly tourism organization. As I write, Mandip is in the Swiss Alps on behalf of the World Conservation Union and the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation, accompanied by climbers from Pakistan and other nations, for a symbolic "summit" to promote peace between India an Pakistan and a status for high places as "peace zones."

There were no tigers to be seen the first day out. Fresh tracks and scat, however, and some newly gouged trees. I would imagine that a Royal Bengal Tiger could waste the sofa our two housecats have been working on for a year in single morning stretch- and-scratch.

There are some 137 tigers here in Corbett at recent count, though they won't jump out in front of you and meringue (leopards diving from trees are a bigger danger). Keeping tigers away from livestock and children or poachers and vengeful villagers away from tigers involves some tricky diplomacy by such organizations such as the Corbett Foundation. We visited a village, which was celebrating the completion of its new solar electric fence. It takes a lot more than a squirt from a garden hose to chase off tigers and wild elephants, which also wander out of the park into the neighboring crops and schoolyards.

We accompanied a World Wildlife Fund jeep to a fresh tiger kill just outside of a village. The Corbett Foundation and the Indian Government inaugurated a program in 1995 that pays cash on the spot for dead cattle so village vigalantes don't hunt down the cats. Our trek was accompanied by a retired soldier with a shotgun. Tigers can get testy if they are interrupted at dinner. Last winter a big cat charged a group of reporters covering an elephant kill. I stuck very close to the guy with the gun, taking care not to absent-mindedly wander off to take pictures as I usually do.

First we spotted tracks. One of our group noticed that there were two sets, one small, indicating a mother and cub. We didn't have to hike far. Behind a thicket was the carcass of a cow, picked to the bone like a Martha Stewart turkey. The tiger had finished and was probably off licking a creme brulee. A Foundation staffer wrote a number on a chalkboard, placed in the hands of the cow's bereaved owner, and photographed him and the carcass before peeling off a handful of rupees to compensate for the loss. Our group chipped in some extra cash.

It was the dry season, in April, before the summer monsoon, which this year has caused disastrous flooding in the region. Next time I visit here I will go in autumn when the land is green and lush. These Himalayan foothills, festooned with farms, terraces and villages, are remindful of Bali, but on a much grander scale. In April, it is dusty and visibility is poor, but in the fall, after the rain has cleared the air, the the world's tallest mountains remind you how tiny you are. You can stand in the tropical jungle amongst the mango trees and see snow capped peaks of the Himalaya.

Higher, in Ranikhet near the borders of Tibet and Nepal, where Mandip and Anita have a chalet they call Edelweiss, Bali turns to Switzerland, A Switzerland with cuisine: curries, chutnies, hot chillies and cool cucumber.

Alas, while the bird watchers - friends from Sri Lanka - twitched their Drongos, Bee-eaters and checked off their LBJs to great satisfaction, I did not see a single tiger. In four trips into the jungles of Nepal and India, I have yet to see a cat of any kind or hear a rumbling purr. But I know they are there.* And I will return as I love these jungles and their wild beauty, the sounds of their silence and the knowledge that something is probably out there...watching.

Back at home, an email announcing that that the son of one of our group was watching video of the trip and spotted a tiger. Dad had missed it in his tiny viewfinder.

Cook's Tour: Ramekins, Sonoma County, California

Written by Russell Johnson

Audio-MP3 - Story By Pat Meier-Johnson

I have gone back to boarding school. Not a Dickens sort of place, but gourmet cooking school.

No gruel served here, Sir.

One night on cruise ship I was seated at a table with an elderly British matron who gave the following reason for the British extending their Empire: "They sailed in search of decent food, " she said.

Traveling, these days, may not be just a quest for an exotic meal, it may be to learn to make a tasty, exotic meal yourself or, according to Bob Nemerovski, culinary director of Ramekins, in California's Sonoma Valley, to be entertained. Ramekins:

a. Teaches cooking
b. Features floor shows with celebrity chefs
c. Offers exercises in team building for corporations.

Hey, if you can cook a complex meal without throwing utensils, you can surely make it in the dot.com world.

Ramekins is one of the hundreds of schools and classes that have sprung up around the world.
Shaw Guides, lists more than 1,300 cooking vacations from Australia to Zimbabwe.

Food in Britain, by the way, is no longer just bubble and squeak, bangers and mash. England has some of the best restaurants and cooking schools in the world. Europe's cooking school du jour is Raymond Blanc's Manoir aux Quat' Saisons which claims to be the only 'school' in the world to offer guests the opportunity to watch and learn in the kitchens of a two Michelin Star restaurant. It offers one and two day courses that are quite expensive, starting at £250.00 plus, but they do include a seven course dinner at the restaurant, luxury accommodations, breakfast and lunch.

Then you can brag, as Bill Clinton did, that you went to Oxford.

The Pêche Melba was invented at The Ritz in Paris.and it has one of the world's most famous cooking schools, The Ritz-Escoffier School of Gastronomy. Prices range from 100 for ½ day workshops, one-week courses for about $800, to a full Ritz Escoffier diploma for $23,000. For that they probably toss in a bit of French chef attitude.

The Euro is very weak against the dollar and there are lots of hotel rooms in Paris now for less than $100 a nigh so learning French cooking at le source, the Ritz, Provence or anywhere in France, could be a pretty good deal.

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok is right on the Chao Praya river and just a boatride away from the Grand Palace, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the Temple of the Dawn and most of Bangkok's pleasures. Thai cuisine has perhaps the widest variety of flavors, from sweet to spicy to sour to bitter, in the world. The secret is, of course, in mixing them to the right proportions. One of the best places to learn that is at the Oriental's renowned cooking school. The Oriental offers a week's course for about $1,800. That includes five nights at what the hoi polloi readers of Conde Nast Traveler have considered the world's best hotel. That is debatable. I've stayed there more than once. It's very good but world's best is stretching it. The $1,800 also includes a limo to and from the airport, a dinner, breakfasts, three luncheons and a Thai massage.based on the usual catch: double occupancy. But, if you want to learn Thai cookery from the best.it may be worth it.You don't have to go to Thailand to learn Thai cooking, these days, however. Unlike a few years ago, you can often find what you want quite close to home. Sushi and Mexican food are the cuisines of the moment at Ramekins. Nemeroski says that many people requested courses in cooking healthy cuisine. When they were offered, few signed up.

So...we lift our glasses to the good things of life: butter, cheese, goosefat, chocolate and lots of red wine. and, of course, to the French who took the guilt out of gorging ourselves with that luscious combination.

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