Swallows who make
edible nests are not the strangest thing in Sabah in Borneo. There are the Wild
Men, for a start.
Now I know that travel writers usually describe the places they visit in
loving prose, so that the destination glows off the page, but I just have to
tell you about the most disgusting place I've ever visited; the Birds Saliva
Soup caves of Gomantong.
Perhaps it was an effect of contrast. I was in Sabah in Borneo, the third
largest island in the world and certainly one of the most beautiful. It lies in
the South China Sea a few hundred miles east of Singapore. I had wanted to go
there after reading Joseph Conrad's stories; I had pictures in my mind of
steamy jungles and sparkling seas dotted with tropical islands. These
impressions were all confirmed.
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| Travel: The truth about Birds Saliva Soup |
The southern half of Borneo now belongs to Indonesia and the northern half
to Malaysia, split into two regions, Sarawak and Sabah. Bizarrely, Sabah once
belonged to an Englishman, the publisher Alfred Dent, who leased it and
eventually called it British North Borneo. There was a reminder of the
embarrassing ways of the British Empire in the yacht club at Sandakan. One
member, a Malaysian Chinese, jerked his thumb at the faded portraits of English
club commodores lining the teak walls. The dates were of the early Fifties.
"In those days the yacht club members didn't allow the Chinaman on the
premises." The implication was obvious: he was showing me a welcome that
my countrymen had not shown to his.
There are bleaker Imperial memories in Sandakan. The Japanese established a
prisoner of war camp here during the Second World War, and 2,400 Allied
prisoners were interned. Survivors were forced to march through dripping jungle
for 150 miles, and those who could not walk any further were killed where they
lay on the ground. At the end, only six escapees remained alive.
There is little to see of the POW camp today; the jungle quickly erases
history.
A kindly sailor took us out to the turtle island of Pulau Selingan in his
huge powerboat. We were touching 50 knots as we flashed past dozens of curious
wooden structures standing in the shallow sea like rustic oil rigs. On top of
each was a thatched hut. In the evening lanterns are lowered to attract fish, which
are then netted out. There was a powerful fishy stench as we passed each one.
That starlit night we crouched on the island's beach and watched as a huge
green turtle dropped 100 eggs into a pit she had dug in the sand. Soon 3-inch
versions of their mother would be making a perilous journey down to the warm,
dark sea.
I had vague memories from my childhood of the Wild Man of Borneo - the
orang-utan. We went to see him at Sepilok, a rehabilitation unit that aims to
make the inhabitants more wild, not less wild, so they may be returned to
forest life. The gentle creatures would approach the feeding platform by
swinging along ropes slung between the trees and then grab a rotten banana from
the heap. Hanging by extraordinarily pink, hand-like feet, they would
thoughtfully suck the fruit while gazing upside-down at the hooting, jabbering
primates behind the fence.
Further inland we went to another, larger reserve that many people in the UK
will have heard of: Mount Kinabalu. A few years ago a British Army team got
famously stuck in Low's Gully, a nearly impassable jungle- filled slash down
one side of the mountain. I say "nearly" because a group of climbers
from Sheffield recently evened up the score by making the first ever traverse
through it. The mountain stands in thick rainforest filled with spectacular
plants; there are 1,000 species of orchid and the world's biggest flower, the
2-foot-wide red blossom of the rafflesia - named after the founder of
Singapore.
If you decide to do the two-day trek up Mount Kinabalu you can soak away
your aches in the Poring Hot Springs, a more welcome Japanese invention during
the war. You could then stay in the delightfully named Poring Hostel for about
pounds 2 a night.
Birds Saliva Soup makes its appearance in one of the Doctor Dolittle
stories, and I had always been fascinated by the idea. The swallows build their
nests in limestone caves at Gomantong, about 12 miles from Sandakan. As you
approach you pass the wooden huts of the nest collectors, who gather them with
long, shaky wooden ladders and lots of courage. The incentive is money - about
pounds 2,000 per kilo of nest.
As we entered the cathedral-sized cavern we were struck by an acrid stench.
As our eyes adjusted to the darkness we realised that it was filled with a million
wings; swallows, bats and insects. I swung a torch down and saw that I was
wading ankle-deep in guano. I looked closer and I realised that the stuff was
seething with life.
Insects of all kinds crawled in a loathsome manner across the floor. As we penetrated
further, cockroaches crunched underfoot. At least six separate phobias were
catered for in this noisome place.
As I staggered out into the sunlight I found that I was liberally
bespattered with birdshit - in my hair, on my feet, on my clothes. Looking up
into the trees my eyes met those of a orang-utan, the only one I'd seen outside
a park. For a moment we both seemed to be wondering which one of us was the
Wild Man of Borneo.
Proof of the Pudding
THE NESTS are made by swallows of the genus Collocali. What makes them
remarkable is that the birds line them with saliva and pre-digested seaweed,
which hardens to a translucent layer. There are many grades; the whiter, and
the fewer feathers, the better. I bought two biscuit-sized pieces in the shape of
hearts (they are an alleged aphrodisiac) for about pounds 15. They look a bit
like nest, but there is no smell and little taste, their function being to
provide texture to the soup. Simmered for three hours it tastes a bit like
woven gelatin, or a well boiled loofah.
