It was hot the day before yesterday, so Ellen and I did a walk through the air conditioned Sarawak Museum. Never mind that the ancient headhunters of Borneo hung skulls from their ceilings. We, or at least I, found something far worse. In a glass case sat two narrow pieces of wood bound together at each end. A jagged stone, about half the size of a baseball also sat inside the case, as well as a set of shiny silver spikes. The enclosed caption gave a brief description of how the head of a penis would be constricted until almost flattened by the two narrow vice-like pieces of wood. Then the little stone would be used to drive the all too large spike through the head of the penis. 

How many whacks with the tiny stone would it take? Why wouldn't they just use a bigger rock; get it done with maybe just one strike . If I can't find out what this was all about, the nightmares may never go away. The story gave no more information and my google searches have been fruitless.

We just got back from an overnight stay at Bako National Park on Sarawak's north coast. We saw silver-leaf monkeys, macaques, a pair of pit viper's, bearded pigs and proboscis monkeys.

Macaques are thieving little buggers who think nothing of walking right into your cabin when you're not home and haven't locked the door. They'll reach up, open the door and once inside eat and drink whatever they can find. Our neighbours had this happen this morning. The macaque opened their fridge door, took out a can of Tiger beer and bit into it. It apparently didn't like the taste and fired it against the wall.

The proboscis monkey is the most interesting of the bunch. Most of them have an upper body light-brown coat. Just above their elbows, their colouring becomes gray, all the way down to their hands. It makes them look as though they're wearing a short-sleeved shirt. Their hind end and tail is almost pure white. But it's what they have hanging between their eyes that makes them unique. Proboscis monkeys have six, sometimes seven inches of nose. This is supposed to be cognitive therapy for the spike trauma that I was exposed too, but I don't think it's working

We did return to see the orangutans. Two adults and a young one were there to greet us. Unfortunately though, once again, the orangutans lost out to something that was just a little bit better, Bako National Park.