Don't tell Sandokan I've been here - A trip to Borneo

Independent solo travel backpackers, all improvised on the spot. From this experience was a book of travel narrative titled "Do not Tell Sandokan that I was here - a trip to Borneo, CDA & Vivalda Publishers, Torino 2008. Carry forward the text that's in the back cover:
"What makes the Borneo so mysterious, so intriguing, but yet so unattainable ideal for Europeans?
Simone Mariotti tried to explain through one of the very few examples of travel literature set in the great island of the Malay-Indonesian. Traveling alone with the backpackers, the author has traveled far and wide on Malaysian Borneo, along the rivers of giant butterflies, plants and carnivorous leeches, penetrating up to the more remote highlands, conversing with the Dayak and the other heirs of those pirates cutters and heads that once made us tremble anyone had the misfortune to meet.
The ancient capital of the white Rajah forests the last orange, from the ancient world to that of Conrad glittering Sultan of Brunei, a journey with open eyes to discover that there multicultural and multiethnic Malaysia and its odd colonial history.
If Salgari really had met James Brooke Sandokan perhaps would have been different, but equally we would have a hero by engaging the passions, no less violent and sincere. "

 

If Salgari could met Brooke

Simone Mariotti

Some fifteen years ago, the Governor of Central Bank of Labuan, Jaffar Hussein, "said proud" if there is to make money, will arrive in mass. " He was referring to the governmental plan to transform the small island off the coast of Borneo in a new offshore financial center, a tax that can attract large liquidity in the Western world to be used later for the development of the country.
Labuan was equipped with a jurisdiction independent of the rest of the states in Malaysia, while the volcanic Prime Minister Mahathir, the true father of modern Malaysia, the same that at the time of the great Asian crisis of'97 to throw invectives and quarterly finance speculative account of the rich countries, orchestrated the activities of the Central Bank of Malaysia in the early'90s was one of the most unscrupulous actors in the international monetary system.
The imposing of Labuan Financial Park is now the only remaining memory of that aggressive, damped by the crisis in the bud. Today, the island that was once the seat of commercial operations in British Borneo and saw that the last fires of the Second World War (here, the Japanese surrendered to Australia, ending hostilities in the South China Sea, as a plaque in Peace Park), is back to the garden island, a refuge for wealthy retirees seeking the sun and with little desire to pay taxes.
And 'the East seeking the West, using its own means of achieving prosperity that will not renounce the Islamic culture, but it suffers attacks of Al Qaeda. But there's more.
From the history of Borneo, the Sarawak, we receive two small classes. One tells us that the nineteenth century colonialism in some parts of the world has not produced the usual disasters, and this thanks to a careful of occupant restraint combined with a strong involvement of employees in the management of power.
Second, that even an officially Muslim country (Malaysia) can not only be moderate, but in its squares to honor the symbols of British colonialism.
This is partly surprising given the unbridled pride in which all over the country, including Sarawak, we are celebrating the Merdeka Day (August 31, the day of independence, achieved in 1957). I arrived in Malaysia on 14 August and the first three weeks (but many are still in pretty sight) every house, hut also the most scalcagnata had his pair of flags in plain sight: the national one and that of Sarawak.
Yet the colonial period than those shares has left a very different compared to what a Westerner might expect it, especially if you have had the pleasure of reading in youth work some of Emilio Salgari.
Although it may seem odd to lovers of Sandokan (television, attention, the books were more truthful Salgari), the Malaysian non odiarono Brooke James to death, nor his descendants.
The English adventurer was not a holy shin, but he managed to give an identity to Sarawak which certainly would have been if it had remained at the mercy of violent internecine struggles that disrupt the various Dayak ethnic groups that lived and still live along the rivers of Borneo, especially in the mighty Batang Rejang.
But the great merit of Brooke, especially James, but the other two white Raja, Charles and Vyner, who reigned on Sarawak until the end of the Second World War (Anthony Brooke, nephew of Vyner, resigned to power in'51), was to feel totally absorbed by those lands and peoples, which without him would have finished under the ball relentlessly passive and unproductive of Brunei or the Dutch who arrabattavano problem in the management of Indonesian colony.
Grown in India and the Far East fascinated, Brooke was pervaded by a positive vision of Sir Stamford Raffles (the founder of Singapore), which advocated a benevolent domination of English aiming to preserve and develop the trade of vessels of His Majesty that the welfare of the natives.
James Brooke in a time relatively short (between 1841 and 1850) managed to consolidate his power and to be enforced in the Dayak who lived along the Sungai (river) Sarawak, forgiving their acts of rebellion and start entering many of the leaders at key points of his administration. It was obviously a great opportunist who knew how to make better use of tribal rivalry, but his acumen and his ability to steal the territories weak sultanate of Brunei Sarawak turned into a peaceful land (even for his strong anti-piracy) that still lesina not honor its former colonizers.
And this despite Malaysia is an Islamic country. Even Charles Brooke, who claimed that the leader of the Iban (the "Sea Dayak") that was inserted in the National Council should be guided by the "superior intelligence of Europeans", now has a monument in his honor in the main square of Kuching, the capital of Sarawak.
During my stay in town I have not resisted to same at dinner one evening at the "James Brooke," to try to tell the owners (a Muslim family), the story narrated by novelist veronese. But I've had great success. They smile that Brooke was not a hero, but pleasantly surprised that it was still known in the West. "Anthony Brooke, who still lives in New Zealand, came here years ago," says the lady with whom I speak, "and eaten by us. We are the only local that bears his name yet, but now no longer applicable to them. But if you want to find more detailed information go to the museum. " But there was not much more.
The great Salgari lived in the middle of the Brooke and probably was not very informed about what was really happening in that part of the world. While the "Tigers of Mompracem" took the body, piracy was slowly eradicated with the help of the Dayak, and for a long time were more internal to disrupt life along the river until 1924 when, under the last Raja , Vyner Brooke, a kapitono it reached a historic peace among the Iban, the Kayan and Kenyah. The Chinese in turn were kept at a safe distance from politics, but they were appropriate for all large commercial centers, with the benefit of peaceful Raja.
And Sarawak is enriched and prospered. The local leaders involved in the government gave some legitimacy to the "usurpers" white (the only Western history dynasty to reign in the East), who both took actions to try on a larger scale by the Dutch or the British.
If all the adventurers had been so!


Published October 5 2005 at the La Voce di Romagna in the headlines

The beginning of “Don't tell Sandokan I've been here” book

Chapter 1: In the footsteps of James Brooke

A small tangle of muddy rivers that are formed from a desire more for every meter of altitude you lost. A forest split, or what remained of her, between narrow streets and canals. An airport is not too healthy, a little 'scalcinato, which seemed rather a bus station. A large hot. Kuching, Borneo finally.
Within a few hours, from the hectic pace of modern metropolis in the world I found strolling along the Sungai Sarawak, which flowed slowly between the two halves of a sleepy and charming city, between the eyes of curious Chinese girls bustling behind their stalls of necklaces and candy and released a few pair of tourists sitting in the small tables placed on the railing, watching the slow slide of the boat, sipping the inevitable Tiger Beer, in the background while the white palace of the Rajah ruled over us.
Borneo: why this name still fascinates as a few others? Why do I feel a strange feeling, almost romantic mystery, the only mark of its syllables? Why nobody talks about it and almost nobody ever goes there, and those few mostly for crowding the usual two or three seats, or the usual tropical islands, which are the same everywhere? But Borneo is not a barrier reef for glossy magazines.
The first time restai intrigued by that name was in fourth grade. We were in the late seventies, and I remember why it was a pretty popular album of animal figurines on published by Edizioni Flash. I well remember the morning that we found in front of the school that seemed to me that great men, but probably only boys who were rounded to some job, which distributed the album to the children with some empty bags free. Every now and then happened to find similar characters, and was always nice to attach the first figurine, even if most of the collections were living the glory of a week or so, except on the players, strictly male. Animal that album, however, although rather crude and simple and with animals submitted only with the designs (but perhaps it was just that good), had a success more than the others and still possess, as a whole then.
In the first few pages devoted to mammals, the beast strangest of all was a small black monkey from the mantle, with two enormous eyes and feet almost reptile. Was called with a shaky Italian, Wizard of Borneo. Who knows why that name? Getting caught him? From the picture it is clear that it was the Malaysian tarsus (Tarsius bancanus), which in some parts of the Philippines is also a wizard, or even mamag, magau and magatilok-iok. But "Malaysian tarsus" probably would not have had the same charm of "Wizard of Borneo."
I tried on my book at school, but the Borneo was only a small point distant from a global map. The fascination grew, and with rampant Sankokan, Labuan, Sarawak and the James Brooke.
Then, my first true atlas was almost a passport to establish extreme routes, find and identify finally landing the big island of Borneo, in the middle of the fantastic archipelago of the Moluccas of Indonesia and the Malay peninsula, between China and Australia, among dreams and legends that filled the mind of a child.
And a world so far, that in some areas has remained almost completely isolated until the last post-war period, could not do that effect at all.
The English explorer and anthropologist Tom Harrisson - who parachute in Kelabit Hilghlands to command military action against the Anglo-Australian the Japanese during the Second World War, and from there begin the liberation of Borneo - a man who attached the large Sarawak part of his life, taking for ten years, the direction of the Museum of Kuching, as described in the Bario highland, where there came from above, sixty years before me:
In a land where almost everything is traveling along the rivers, this plateau can be reached only on foot, with great toil under the sun of the Equator. There are some places on the map of Borneo - and, more generally, the map of the world - where you can push away from a place or a known good point of departure. But there are few, in fact, where you can be more distant from what people call "the world". And there are even fewer where you can feel more remote, more cut off from the rest of civilization.
Maybe it has been only one case, but also Joseph Conrad, who had so long traveled the seas of the world, it was decided to write his first novel, no longer young, during a voyage from Singapore that had led him to the Borneo coast and fitting into those lands and seas in those suffering the interior of his first characters.
And then what the midin? A man with a heap of fruit and vegetables out on a towel just outside the airport in Kuching screaming this name to all passers, but had at least ten different things on sale. And I was already on board that I was bringing to town.

Meglio le sanguisughe

di Simone Mariotti

Mezzogiorno era passato da poco. Il sole, tornato a splendere sopra di noi, aveva nuovamente permesso il decollo del piccolo Twin Otter della Malaysian Airlines (minuscolo bimotore ad elica da 19 posti) che ci stava trasportando sulle Kelabit Highlands. Era appena iniziata la manovra per planare lentamente su Bario. Oltre a me sull’aereo c’erano altre 5 persone, due locali e 3 uomini di Singapore, professionisti in pensione, da quelle parti per la quarta volta e smaniosi di immergersi tra le montagne per una battuta di pesca fluviale.
Le tante risaie sfumate che si vedevano dall’oblò, e che sembravano volersi tuffare nella foresta, diventavano velocemente sempre più definite, con i loro particolari e i loro colori. Poche strade di collegamento, tutte fangose (l’asfalto o i ciottoli non esistono qui); pochi gruppetti di case qua e là.
Descrivere a parole questo posto non è semplicissimo, specialmente se si vuole trasmettere un po’ del suo mistero leggendario, come lo può avere solo il posto più remoto della Malesia e probabilmente di tutto il sud est asiatico, tornato al mondo solo dopo la guerra, e dopo il “Konfrontasi” con l’Indonesia nei primi anni sessanta, quando l’aggressione voluta da Sukarno contro il Sarawak fu orgogliosamente respinta dai malesi (ma con l’aiuto più che rilevante dei vecchi colonizzatori inglesi).
Per fare un paragone italiano, avete presente la piana di Castelluccio, col suo fascino, i suoi campi isolati e protetti, i colli che abbracciano le più buone lenticchie del mondo? Bario è un po’ lo stesso, in versione “riso”, e quello coltivato qui è uno dei più pregiati del mondo, il migliore in assoluto per i giapponesi. Con qualche distinguo.
Il Borneo non è così facilmente visitabile come la zona dei monti Sibillini. Non ci sono strade, non esistono mezzi pubblici, e i pochi fuoristrada (e quando dico pochi dico 5 o 6 in tutto!) che circolano da queste parti sono stati portati a pezzi e poi rimontati. Un solo volo al giorno (quello da 19 posti) collega Miri, città costiera affacciata sul caldo Mare Cinese Meridionale a pochi chilometri dal Brunei, a Bario che quindi non è proprio un porto di mare. Il permesso che mi ha rilasciato l’ufficio di Miri per entrare nelle Highlands è il n° 87 dall’inizio dell’anno, e siamo già ai primi di settembre.
Non c’è luce elettrica pubblica, e i pochi generatori autonomi non sempre ricevono il carburante necessario al loro funzionamento dall’unico Skyvan, tra quelli ancora attivi in Malesia, che riesce ad atterrare sulla minuscola pista di quassù.
Per il resto si va a piedi, o trainati dai tanti bufali che sono parte integrante della vita del popolo Kelabit.
Ma c’è un grande orgoglio e consapevolezza di essere riusciti a mantenere intatto qualcosa di speciale, e un sistema di irrigazione eccellente (e misterioso!) che fa si che il riso delle Kelabit sia così unico.
Un vecchio contadino incontrato all’aeroporto il giorno della mia partenza, mi chiese con curiosità cosa si coltivava in Italia, con quali tecniche, se amavo quello che la terra mi dava. Ai suoi tempi, prima che alla fine degli anni ’40 venisse costruito l’aeroporto, le Kelabit Highlands erano un mondo a se. Arrivare a Miri richiedeva circa 20 giorni di duro e pericoloso cammino tra fiumi e foresta, e solo per i pochi mesi l’anno in cui le piogge lo permettevano. La maggior parte degli abitanti, specialmente le donne, trascorrevano la loro intera esistenza senza mai lasciare Bario. Tempi lontani, di cui qualche traccia è rimasta ancora oggi, soprattutto attraverso le sembianze delle donne ultra settantenni con i loro piedi tatuati da un inchiostro scuro e le inconfondibili orecchie con i lobi forati e abnormemente allungati, simbolo di un’idea tramontata di bellezza e femminilità, obbligatorio fino a qualche decennio fa.
Nei villaggi sparsi tra le highlands in un raggio di 30-40 Km, sino oltre il confine con l’Indonesia, i ritmi sono ancora lenti e gli stessi di un tempo, anche se nelle case dei leaders (quelle col generatore) fanno bella mostra di se enormi parabole per ricevere, perlomeno, la tv.
A Pa Lungan, la culla del riso per eccellenza, dove sarei arrivato qualche giorno dopo, con ore di cammino, i cacciatori avevano portato a casa un grosso cervo che sarebbe stato venduto il giorno seguente a Bario per 7 ringgit al chilo (circa 1,6€), trasportato a spalla ovviamente, con tre ore di marcia su per la montagna. Non capita spesso una preda così. E allora si festeggia dopo cena, seduti attorno al fuoco, bevendo litri di “caffé” e the, in compagnia di un bottiglione di whiskey scozzese, con il fuoco che ci illumina e ci scalda mentre piccoli tranci di carne abbrustoliscono, forse un po’ troppo, sulla brace.
La pioggia batte forte sul tetto, ed anche un ragno gigantesco che pareva non aver paura di nulla si trincera sotto una tegola. Mentre il resto della carne appesa ad un chiodo attende il suo destino.
Altri uomini del piccolo villaggio ci raggiungono. Si parla di commercio, della foresta, della caccia che non è più concessa ai Kelabit come un tempo, per proteggere gli animali: “ma loro vanno avanti con quel fottuto disboscamento, e non è peggio? La nostra cultura sparisce per avere un cervo in più, ma la foresta muore. Se uccido un Hornbill (“bucero”, un maestoso uccello dal grande becco, simile a un tucano, simbolo del Sarawak) mi fanno una multa colossale, ma loro indisturbati distruggono il suo habitat”. Saggezza semplice ed umana; poi silenzio, notte e luce.
Non ho voglia di tornare subito alla sbobba nauseabonda sul relativismo, alle pugnette dei nostri politici e a quelle dei banchieri. Preferisco, ancora per oggi, le tante sanguisughe di cui porto ancora i segni addosso, quelle vere, quelle che ti tolgono il sangue solo per sopravvivere un po’ anche loro; e che vita.

Pubblicato il 28 settembre 2005 su La Voce di Romagna in prima pagina