Funny video of the week. If dogs could talk I bet we’ll be hearing many memorable quotes from them especially when it comes to the issues of food 
. Hilarious!
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When I was in school, I hated Geography. It’s not because the subject is inherently hate-able, I guess, but rather because of the fact that I had never been able to score good marks for the subject no matter how hard I studied. Geography, to me, is like History. You know basically what it is but the knowledge won’t be able to take you home, so to speak.
So when I read an article mentioning that the third largest rainforest in the world is located in “Borneo Mekong in Indonesia,” I was perplexed. It cannot be, I told myself. I’ve never heard of Borneo Mekong before. But the reference may well be true because not hearing about it doesn’t mean that the place didn’t exist, does it?
Trees reaching out for the sky at Mahua Waterfall, Tambunan, Sabah
But I’m pretty sure there’s no Borneo Mekong in Indonesia, bad geography or not. Mekong is in Indochina and Borneo is in … Borneo, an island shared by three countries — Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. Indonesia’s portion of Borneo is called Kalimantan and at the centre of Borneo lies what is dubbed the Heart of Borneo where the island’s pristine jungle is located. This, too, is shared among the three countries.
There’s no Borneo Mekong in Indonesia, please! It should be called Borneo-Mekong rainforest in Southeast Asia!
Tropical trees, also at Mahua Waterfall
Anyway, the Amazon is the world’s biggest rainforest followed by the Congo Basin in Central Africa. The Borneo-Mekong rainforest is the third largest.
Representatives from 35 countries that share the world’s rainforest are meeting in Congo this week in a summit that may pave the way for initiatives to preserve the planet’s remaining forests, according to a report by Reuters.
The Congo Basin is represented by 11 nations, the Amazon in South America by 12 nations and the Mekong-Borneo in Southeast Asia by 12 nations.
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Borneo may not be as modern as we want it to be but it is not as backward as having no KFC outlets as some people might imagine. Haha, seriously, I was a little bit offended when a person who had never been to Kota Kinabalu or any part of Borneo, asked me if there was KFC in KK.
Fried rooster anyone?
I told the person, yes we do have KFC in KK; in fact KFCs are everywhere in KK and they are all proper KFCs, very much the same like the KFCs in KL, Hong Kong or in the United States.
Sup ayam togel anyone?
We are not as backward as having our KFCs made from ayam kampung, thank you very much 
.
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The proboscis monkey, found only in Borneo, has recently been found to have a peculiar eating habit unlike other primate species — they eat their meal twice.
How? By regurgitating and chewing the cud, just like cattle. Haha! I should try that with the lamb chop, or the chicken curry or something.
According to a report by Live Science, investigators discovered the peculiarity while studying a group of 200 200 proboscis monkeys along a tributary of the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island.
Further reading at Biology Letters.
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Concerned Malaysians in Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island, have hit back at sensational British US pop singer Lady Gaga for urging young Malaysians to protest the censorship of her lyrics in the song “Born This Way” that encourage acceptance of gays, reports Daily Express.
Lady Gaga was reported to have said that “You must do everything that you can if you want to be liberated by your society. You must call, you must not stop, you must protest peaceably,” after finding that the lyrics “No matter gay, straight or bi, lesbian, transgendered life, I’m on the right track, baby” have been replaced with garble while being aired on Malaysian radio stations.
Daily Express quoted Universiti Malaysia Sabah Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dr Rosnah Ismail, as saying that it was wrong for Lady Gaga to urge young Malaysians to protest the censorship of the lyrics.
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Despite the authorities “best effort”, dynamite fishing or what is commonly known as fish bombing, is still taking place in the waters of Borneo, particularly around Sabah.
Destructive and deadly, the age-old fishing method is illegal but like all things unlawful, it is difficult to wipe out.
And it is not confined to only in Borneo but in neighbouring regions as well.
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Planning to travel to Borneo soon? Here’s is an essential guide to travelling in Borneo, published by Lonely Planet.
The time allocated to researching the book, according to a brief information posted on Amazon, was 110 days in-country, resulting in 50 detailed maps, 35 jungle adventures, national Parks colour section covers where to spot elephants, monkeys and the rafflesia flowers.
It also features specialists discussing local markets, the best Malaysian cuisine, ecotourism and conservation.
There is also a newer version titled Lonely Planet Borneo (Regional Guide)
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After giving it much thought, I decided to steer this blog away from politics. There are many socio-political blogs out there which are able articulate the issue minus the kind of constraints that I face.
You know what I mean, you know how things work. Until such time when I can unshackle myself from those constraints, politics will remain the unblogged subject here.
This blog will instead focus on what Borneo is to the outside world — a place of beauty and a faraway island struggling to keep its pristine heritage in the onslaught of development. This blog will also carry news and stories about the people of Borneo as well as those of other places on the planet which share the world’s rainforest.
I will also be deleting political-related entries in this blog. You will also find entries about the so-called Sabah claim by the Sultan of Sulu deleted from this blog. I’ve had enough of the diatribe of profanities spewed out by commentators trying to put forward what barely qualifies as opinion when discussing the issue.
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A species of Sundaland clouded leopard, believed to have been separated from its mainland Asia’s cousin since the Ice Age, has been found in Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island.
The discovery confirmed long-held believe that the Borneo’s clouded leopard, film in Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah, is a species of its own, distinct in genetic constitution from its Indonesian relative found in Sumatra, reports AFP.
A report by Andreas Wilting from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and researchers from the Sabah wildlife and forestry departments now suggests that the two subspecies be managed differently.
“We suspected the leopards on Borneo and Sumatra have likely been geographically separated since the last Ice Age, and we now know the long isolation has resulted in a split into separate subspecies,” he was quoted in the report by AFP.
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If everything goes according to plan, I should be returning to Borneo for good at the latest by April this year. I have been away for about six years now and the longer I live away from the beloved island, the stronger the urge to go home. During the three of the six years, I lived and work in cosmopolitan Singapore, almost a complete opposite of what life is in Borneo.
After Singapore, I moved to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, working and living and experiencing a new culture, something different from that of Singapore, all the while feeling that Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo, is beckoning me home.
Last month, I spent a month holidaying in Borneo. It’s good that we left our house in Kota Kinabalu without renting it out. This way my family and I can always be assured of a home each time we return to Borneo.
The Kota Kinabalu city that I left six years ago was very much different from the city I visited as a holiday-maker. Spanking new shopping malls are sprucing up and new buildings coming up.
When I was at the Berjaya Times Square, I thought to myself, this is worthy of a place in Singapore.
Other things have also changed, notable of which is the traffic. In 2005, the year I left Sabah, places around the city can be reach in 20 minutes from my house in Menggatal. Now, I’ll be lucky to reach Kota Kinabalu in 30 minutes.
There were cars everywhere — Kancils, Protons, Toyota Hiluxes, Isuzu D’Maxes, Ford Rangers, lorries, Ninja Turtles, Nissan Muranos, Naza Rias, Porsche Cayenne, you name it — but the number of road remains the same, except for the construction of several fly-overs.
At the rate things are going, Kota Kinabalu, or KK as it is known, will be a congested city in six more years, with the traffic looking very much like the notorious Kuala Lumpur jam.
Even with all the signs of losing its tranquility of the past, KK is still an attractive place to live. Thirty kilometres from the city is alerady a laid back place.
But it is good to be away as long as it is not for forever. Being away from home is like taking a step back to examine a large painting. It enables you to see things more clearly, to know where you stand and see things from a new perspective. Then, you can dive back in knowing exactly what you are going to do.
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