Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” That quote is pretty much what got me through the past few days in Borneo. It wasn’t a terrifying experience, but it definitely pushed me incredibly far outside my comfort zone.

Borneo Day 1:

Kelsey and I leave our hostel with bus directions on how to get to our home stay on the Kinabatangan River – it’s over two hours away, but the directions seem simple. We wander around Sandakan, trying to find the right bus station, but no one speaks English. We are the only white people in the entire city and everyone stares at us. We finally find the bus we think we are looking for, marked “32,” but the driver doesn’t speak English. When the man sitting next to us asks where we are going, we tell him and ask if this is the right bus. He shakes his head, rolls his eyes, and then laughs at us. Kelsey and I look give each other a confused look, but the bus is already pulling away.

We ride on the 32 Bus for nearly two hours, we figure out our stop is the last one. Once the bus has cleared out, the ticket boy comes and sits next to us. He speaks English and tells us where we need to go to catch the next bus. His name is Faht and he chats with us about the World Cup. When we get to the last bus stop – which could hardly be called a bus stop, since it’s just a bamboo hut on the side of the highway – Faht walks us to the hut, speaks to a couple men in Malay, and tells us to pay them 15 ringgit to catch a mini bus to the bridge on the Kinabatangan River. When we jump into the mini bus, the driver speaks broken English, which is comforting, and we know he knows where to drop us off. But after 15 minutes of driving over pot holes and passing every other car, the driver catches up to another mini bus, starts honking, pulls over to the side of the highway, and says, “You go with him. No pay. He my friend. He take you.” He rushes us out of the mini bus and hustles us onto the one with his “friend.” We have no idea if we’re going to the right place, but sure enough, he pulls over at the start of the bridge on the Kinabatangan River and we start walking to our home stay in Miso Walai.

“Ms. Kelsey, Ms. Kelsey!” a Malaysian man named Abby greets us. He tells us to “cover up” – our knees and shoulders have to be covered for our entire stay, which means Kelsey and I wear the same clothes for three sweaty days, since most of what we packed are shorts and tank tops. We change into matching flowy zebra pants, get our itinerary, and go to our foster family’s house.

It is a big green house, a big family, they tell us, but we only meet Asiah – our foster mom – and Siti – our foster sister, 19. Neither speak very good English. There are other family members, but they don’t talk to us. We have a tiny room with two beds covered in mosquito nets. No air conditioning. There is a shower with no hot water and a toilet with no flush – instead we have to fill a bucket with water every time we take a shit to wash it down.

We go to our first activity – a riverboat cruise with our guide Lim. We see all kinds of brightly colored birds and different types of monkeys – long-tailed macaws, proboscis monkeys, and some silver monkeys with mohawks. When we get back to the home stay, Asiah and Siti serve us dinner, but they don’t eat with us and they barely talk to us. After dinner we meet Siti’s cousin Kiya, and she teaches us how to play chess.

River boat

Borneo Day 2:

Kelsey and I wake up at 5:45am to go on our first jungle trek. We cover our skin in big repellent and join Lim. Unfortunately, we run into problems with almost every activity during our stay. For our jungle trek, the trail is covered in several inches of water, cutting us extremely short. We don’t see any animals, except an angry possum that tries to attack us. We hear an orangutan throwing what sounds like tree trunks at us, so we leave quickly. But I’m not scared of the angry orangutans. I’m scared of the leeches attached to my bare ankles, and mossies biting me through my leggings.

We get back to our home stay and eat Nasi Goreng (fried rice) and donuts for brekkie, with sweet tea. It makes me confused about whether I’m in Asia or in Tennessee. After brekkie, Lim picks us up for a tree planting activity. We trek into the jungle again, but we cannot find the shovels or the baby trees we are supposed to plant. After an hour, we finally find 5 baby trees that take us only a few minutes to plant. Lim tells us that we will go back into the jungle that night for a night jungle walk. He tells us stories about how “people have cried” because it’s so terrifying being in the jungle at night. I decide to buy some bright yellow soccer socks to cover my bare ankles.

We eat lunch – rice, some sort of meat in curry sauce, green beans, fried egg, and tiny bananas – and then go to the village for our fishing activity. But the fishing line is tangled and broken, so our activity is cancelled and instead we play volleyball with the locals. The old ladies in long dresses and head wraps are better than me.

Soccer and volleyball in the village under the bridge

I’m exhausted, hot, sweaty, smelly, and itchy, and when we get back to the home stay I am on the verge of tears. But we are greeted by two little cousins – Gira, 4, and Ryan, 2. They give us heaps of cuddles, which is exactly what I needed. They don’t speak English, but little kids who are just learning to talk are so much better at communicating without words. They make me feel like I can make it the rest of the weekend.

Cutie Malaysia babies

Lim picks us up for our jungle walk. We’re tired. It’s pitch dark. We walk for two hours and don’t see any exciting wild life, only a few tree frogs. Kelsey and I both get bitten by fire ants and our legs and feet are burning, so we ask Lim to go home. He walks us out of the jungle and says, “I like you two. Even if you don’t want to do something, you do it.” We make it out of the jungle with mossy bites everywhere. We’re scared we’ll catch malaria or dengue fever.

Borneo Day 3:

Kelsey and I wake up at 5:45am again for an early riverboat cruise. We don’t see any wild life, and I catch my head dropping forward as I struggle to stay awake. I’ve been sleeping horribly under a hot mosquito net on a bed that is only a couple boards slatted together with a piece of foam to cover them. After the cruise, we check out the eco-camp which is another place of accommodation for tourists, where they sleep in tents in tree houses. Later we head to the caves with Lim. We climb millions of stairs to get to the top that houses iron wood caskets of important deceased Malaysian men. Lim shows us a couple caves with heaps of bats sleeping. He tells us to sit on the cave floor and claps – the bats make a mass exodus which is pretty cool to watch.

After, we wander around the village and then head back to the house to cook with our foster family. We sit on the floor in the kitchen with Asiah and Siti and make curry puffs. Asiah tries to show me how to fold the outside edge of the dough to make it look braided, but I struggle big time. I should never be a chef. We eat dinner and try on some traditional Malaysian dresses, take photos with the family, and they teach us some words in Malay.

Thank you – Terima kasih

Good morning – Selamat pagi

Good afternoon – Selamat tengah hari

Good evening – Selamat petang

How are you? – Apa khabar?

Fine – Baik

Welcome – Selamat detang

Welcome to my home – Selamat detang kerumah saya

Good night – Selamat malam

See you again – Jumpa lagi

Me, Kelsey and Asiah in traditional Malaysian dress

Borneo Day 4:

Lim walks us to the bridge so that we can catch a bus back to Sandakan. We sit on the railing of the bridge and every other car that passes honks and locals wave at Kelsey and me. Lim laughs and wonders why everyone wants to say hello to us.

Me, Lim, and Kelsey at reception

We made it back to Sandakan in one piece. I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am… I’ve learned in the past few days that the jungle isn’t the place for me. Kelsey and I wanted to do a home stay so that we could get to know the locals and the culture, but for most of our stay we felt like extreme outsiders. We were in a quiet house with a family who didn’t spend much time with us. We felt like they were serving us or tip-toeing around us. We were unprepared for the jungle activities – we spent three days in the same stinky, sweaty clothes and almost collapsed from heat stroke because we had to keep most of our skin covered at all times in extreme heat. We have no idea if we’ll find ourselves in the hospital in a few days with malaria or dengue fever from the mosquito attacks.

That being said, I'm glad we stuck it out. Our last night made it worth it. I wish every night had been that way – we finally felt like we were immersing ourselves in the village culture, spending time with and getting to know Asiah and Siti. It felt really good to leave their home this morning and say, “Terima kasih. Jumpa lagi!”