By: David Dennis
“Really? Borneo?” I asked, waiting for the punch line. I studied Linda’s freckled face for a smirk, but her sky blue eyes, the ones that first made my heart flutter so many years before in that college lecture hall, were steely. She stared at me blankly from across the dinner table clearly baffled as to why I would question her.
“Yep. Let’s do it. The kids should see orangutans, and I want to see them, too. Don’t you?”
I knew the tone. I meant that Linda was willing to take a moment, and no more, to set me straight. It was the same voice she had used the previous year when I suggested she curtail her exercise plans.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to go running a week before hip reconstruction?”
“Why not? It can’t get any worse, can it? I have my cell phone. If I collapse, I’ll call you.”
And, from a few months earlier when I questioned her birthday wish.
“Do you really want a leaf blower for your birthday? No jewelry?”
“Everyone gets jewelry. Get me something useful. I want a backpack-mounted, gas-powered leaf blower, thank you very much.”
And, I’d definitely heard it the previous night when I suggested over family dinner that she visit another specialist.
“You know,” I said as sternly as I could muster, “You’ve lost a lot of weight. I’d like you to see another doctor.”
“Worthless,” she said, pushing a chunk of tofu around her plate with the fork. “They all think it’s in my head. I’m sure I picked up parasites from those Madagascar outhouses. It’s not my fault these specialists can’t find them.” Her bony fingers threw air quotes as she spit the word “specialists.”
Our daughter, Amaya, interrupted my schooling. “Do you think they’re long ones?” she asked, her shining green eyes squinting toward Linda’s navel.
“What do you mean, sweetie? Long what?” Linda was ready to pounce on the teachable moment. A teacher at a local school, she rarely misses an opportunity to educate our kids about this or that…or to teach me a thing or two.
“Long parasites. Worms. You know. I bet they’re really long. Can I see them if they come out?”
“Honey, you can fish them out of the toilet with salad tongs.” Linda turned to me, eyes downturned. Her face was deflated under her blonde bangs as though she had suffered an egregious injustice. I knew what was coming.
The depth of my wife’s revile for public bathrooms is profound. If you were to tell her you had seen flying purple monkeys swoop into a public restroom and attack a woman on the toilet, Linda would ask if the woman was squatting over the seat and if sanitary covers were available.
“It was so bad today, that I had to…” her voice now a whisper, “poo in the bathroom at…” I don’t recall where she had done her business that day, but this conversation had repeated itself many times over the past year. It was likely Starbucks, but could very well have been one of the stainless steel toilets at the beach parking lot or the leaking porcelain at the gas station. Oblivious to any concern for his mother, Jacob, his teeth a mishmash of pasta stuck in his silver braces, began to cackle. Any use of poo-related verbs, nouns or adjectives never failed to elicit a high-pitched, squeal of a laugh in a boy whose voice was still a couple of years from changing.
While Jacob laughed himself shitless, and Amaya arranged her food into the shape of worms, I tried to project empathy, shaking my head slowly and screwing my face into feigned horror. As far as I’m concerned, using a public toilet is a special treat as it means that my own toilets remain unsoiled. The worry I felt was only a result of Linda’s worsening illness. Collecting yet another ailment in Borneo; home to Cholera, Japanese encephalitis, malaria, Dengue fever, typhoid, leech-borne parasites and the hepatitis brothers, A and B, was irresponsible at best. Still, Linda got her way. Orangutans trumped reason that summer, and we traveled to Borneo.
Linda’s stomach was happily in remission as we travelled around the island. Her improved health was due mostly to her lack of enthusiasm for Asian food which meant she had been skipping meals. Even travelling on reduced energy, though, Linda asked our guide, Peter, to guide us even more aggressively…through forests, into caves, down rivers. Our kids are troopers, and I’m game for most anything I can experience through the lens of a camera, but Linda embraces everything, in life or in Borneo, with childlike excitement. Skull-pounding downpour? We’re going hiking. Leaking boat? Can’t miss the monkeys on the river bank. Vampire bats in a cave? Spelunking.
Even with Linda pushing us to exhaustion, Peter never faltered. He was as outstanding a guide as had guided us anywhere in the world. From the moment I shook Peter’s small hand and was greeted with his calm smile, I knew he would be like a fifth member of our family, and a knowledgeable one at that. Every insect had a tale, each tree a history and every primate a unique agenda. Peter was a deeply religious Malaysian, choosing Christianity over the more common Islam. Having recently given up alcohol, he was studying to be a preacher. I am usually leery of religious types who aren’t my wife, but given that Linda is a Christian, she was pleased with Peter’s life path, so I swallowed my suspicion.
By the end of our first week, Linda had visited very few public restrooms or holes in the ground and so was in good spirits. She continued to milk every ounce of adventure out of every waking moment. The kids and I were drained. And so, while we waited in a small town for a bus that would carry us to a remote rainforest lodge, Peter led our crew to a nearby restaurant a for a few moments of rest.
Although open to the street, the café was quite clean. The pastries were behind glass; the white tile floors were swept; the staff was well groomed. Children were gnawing happily on tartlets and the elderly were slurping coffee and soup from behind newspapers. Our kids were excited to get some sugary pastry or another and Linda, for reasons that remain a mystery, ordered a pork bun.
I had never known Linda to order a pork anything and, in fact, she’s never been a huge fan of meat in general. At the time, though, she was quite pleased with her pork bun.
“Mmmm. You have to try this,” she said sliding the plate in front of me.
I was just excited to see her enjoying food. “Is the pork Kosher?” I asked. As someone who is Jew…ish. I always find that funny.
Jacob rolled his eyes. “Dad, that stopped being funny like a hundred times ago.”
“Yeah, dad, not funny,” said Amaya, voice muffled through a mouth stuffed with flaky crust.
I wiped grains of sugar from Amaya’s nose and cheeks and took a bite of the pork bun. It was a snowy white puff of a roll filled with seasoned shreds of meat. As delicious as it was, if Linda was able to eat, I wasn’t going to rob her of food. I went back to my coffee and bread and waited while Linda devoured the rest of her p*rk b*n. Within days, all family members were forbidden from speaking those words aloud. As of this writing, the embargo continues.
That morning, though, Linda was feeling quite pleased with the newfound steel surrounding her stomach. And so we climbed aboard the bus for the three hour drive down a potholed dirt road deep into one of the few remaining primary rainforests in Borneo. We passed miles upon miles of palm oil plantations that have stripped most of the country of both flora and fauna, before sliding to a stop at the oasis that is the Sepilok Lodge.
Sepilok is nestled at the bottom of a deep canyon overlooking a river that tumbles through a rainforest dappled with every shade of green possible. We watched for a moment as guests dressed in beige wandered in small groups through the lodge’s tall, open-air breezeway. Bird-watchers struggled with enormous binoculars, excited nearly to the point of wetting their safari pants over having spotted some highly endangered ball of feathers with a beak and wings. Photographers compared shots on the backs of their cameras and wrestled with lenses long enough to have captured close-ups of Orangutan genitalia from a hundred-meter clip. All were wearing green, rubber leg gaiters.
“Hmm. Gaiters. See those, kids? We used to wear them when we’d ski in jeans back in the 80s. Weird to see them here.”
Linda vaguely recalled reading somewhere that forest leeches were so prevalent that guests were strongly encouraged to wear gaiters for protection. Of course, we had neglected to pack any.
We were greeted at Sepilok by a lunch buffet the likes of which we had never seen. There was bright purple dragon fruit, juicy red watermelon, saucy noodle dishes and two tables of desserts that immediately started Jacob and Amaya negotiating for seconds. Linda was already starting to feel a little off kilter and ate only a bit of white rice. Peter told us that, for this part of the trip, we would be in good hands with the specialist guides at the lodge, and he retired to his cabin for a rest.
After lunch, we unpacked in our cabins. The effort to construct them in such a poor country and in a remote jungle must have been Herculean. The rooms were hewn from a rich, red hardwood and were as plush as those in a five-star hotel. Each had a tiled outdoor bathtub on the private veranda overlooking the rainforest that rose above the river at an impossible angle. The sounds of exotic birds and monkeys created a natural rhythm that would have lulled to sleep even the most hardcore insomniac. For us, it was the calm before the storm.
Given that each cabin had only one large bed, we had reserved two rooms. They were across from one another, but not connected by a door. And, while Amaya’s separation anxiety had dulled over her 10 years of life, she didn’t feel comfortable sleeping without a parent in her room. Amaya selected Linda for the honor, and I set up shop with Jacob. We changed into hiking clothes, laced our boots, pulled up our socks and headed into the jungle for a guided trek. We saw our first orangutans, watched colorful insects and birds do their thing and got a look at the forest leeches of Borneo.
Given their bloodsucking nature, leeches of any kind are the stuff of nightmares, and forest leeches are no different. They are the length of a child’s pinky finger and are only as big around as a common inchworm. Sensing the heat of a warm-blooded animal, they stretch themselves out off a leaf or from the trunk of a tree like animated little rubber bands. If the animal comes close enough, the leech pops off its perch and affixes itself to the skin of its prey immediately injecting an anti-coagulant to start the flow and settling in for a brief blood feast. And, while forest leeches occasionally carry a parasite, they are usually quite harmless. Once a leech finishes sucking its fill from a vein, it secretes a coagulant that seals the tiny wound and stops the bleeding. Many a tourist, including me, has felt an itch and unknowingly scratched off a forest leech before it could seal the hole and have found themselves bleeding for twenty minutes or longer. Even a styptic pencil does little to stop the bleeding. Trust me, I’ve tried.
Amaya decided that orangutans were not nearly as interesting as the leeches and began to beg us to let her catch one. Apart from bot flies, Amaya fears little. She has eaten live ants, been bitten by chameleons, captured land crabs with salad tongs, organized hermit crab races, chased down various serpents and survived black widow spider bites on two separate occasions. Once Amaya had ascertained that bot fly eggs could not be passed through leeches, her begging escalated. At first we protested, but by day two I gave in. I say “I” because by day two, Linda was no longer part of our family hikes.
On our first night in Sepilok, I had had a wonderfully sound sleep, lulled gently into slumber by the chirps and croaks of the jungle. In the morning, I popped over to the girls’ room bright-eyed and ready for the day’s adventures. Linda was still in bed and looked like, well, whatever is the opposite of bright eyed and ready for the day’s adventures. She recounted to me her waking nightmare, having spent the night in the bathroom occasionally curled up in a ball on the tile floor cursing pork, buns, open air restaurants and the entire northern region of Malaysian Borneo.
Now Linda has asked me to be kind here. And, given that we’ve been happily married for more than 20 years, I don’t intend to jeopardize our marital bliss. Plus, I still owe her big for not waking me up that night. So you’re going to have to use your imagination. Linda has approved use of the phrase “war zone.” Combine that with what happens as a result of stomach distress in a developing country, and you’ll get some sense of what I walked into that morning. To minimize her embarrassment, I cleaned up before the maids arrived. Jacob had the good sense to stifle his laughter.
Although very drained, literally, Linda seemed to be past the worst of it. She stayed in her room for a day reading, resting and trying to keep down ginger ale. The next day she braved a little white rice for breakfast, but a foiled attempt at a hike was about as much adventure as she could handle. We assumed she would be greatly improved that evening, especially as she seemed to react well to sucking on the bitter seed of some endemic fruit, a local remedy that Amaya had recalled Peter discussing on the bus ride to the jungle. But, alas, it was not to be.
Linda’s symptoms worsened. We hoped that water and rest would improve her situation, so I took the kids out for a hike with our guide. Amaya was unsuccessful at getting leeches to suck her blood (apparently, yelling at them to “start sucking” doesn’t do the trick).
I’d already given up on covering my skin and had gone back to shorts and a t-shirt. Jacob was jumping off rocks and over exposed roots in a rainforest version of urban Parkour. Our guide was clearly amused by us, especially as he’d never seen anyone, let alone a small girl, try to tempt a leech. He also seemed to appreciate our interest in learning how to say “please,” “thank you” and to count to 10 in Malay, something Jacob, Amaya and I repeated like kindergartners over and over as we hiked. Satu, dua, tiga. The counting helped me stay calm even as I worried about Linda’s deteriorating health.
That evening there was no improvement. Linda was as white as the p*rk b*n, and her eyes were glazed. I jogged over to the lodge’s administrative office to seek out help. It was tucked under a set of wide stairs and piled high with papers spread across long folding tables. I logged into a small computer set up for the guests and searched the web through a painfully slow internet connection. Using Linda’s symptoms, I “narrowed down” her potential ailment to at least 28 diagnoses, from the relatively benign to ones that would involve helicopter rescue. The staff dialed an English-speaking doctor back in town, but he was of little help. Feeling destitute, I walked back up the stairs to the restaurant bar and ordered Linda another ginger ale. I sat on a bar stool to wait and noticed Peter sitting in a chair nearby. If anyone could help, I thought, he could. As I got closer I saw that he too looked like hell.
“Peter, you don’t look so good,” I said, keeping a bit of distance.
“I had a hard night.” His voice trembled and the water in the glass he was holding rippled with the quiver of his hand.
“Sounds like the same sickness Linda has. I feel for you.”
“No, not that.” He looked left then right to see if others were listening. His voice fell to a whisper. “Someone broke into my room last night.”
As if I wasn’t scared enough given that my wife might not make it out of Borneo alive, I was now faced with the prospect of protecting my family from a marauding attacker in the jungle. I prodded Peter for more details.
“Wait, what? Someone broke into your room? Who? What happened?” I was trying to project calm, but I was now shaking nearly as much as Peter.
“Demons. It was demons,” he said, looking at the hardwood floor clearly traumatized.
My thoughts began to jumble. Linda’s aliment might not be contagious after all, and I would not likely be fending off any marauding intruders, but I had to rely on Peter to keep us safe for another week. Up to that moment he had proven sane and rational. And, while I did not smell booze on his breath, “sane” and “rational” were no longer words I would be associating with Peter.
Peter explained that he was up late studying the bible when said demons broke in to stop him from spreading the word of Jesus. Somehow he was able to shoo them out the door, but was unable to sleep for the rest of the night, choosing instead to stay vigilant lest they return to inconvenience him or steal his soul for all eternity. I tried to follow along with his tale, but got hung up on the fact that the demons had “broken in.” I’d always assumed that demons could float through walls. Who knew?
I was certainly not spreading any Christianity, but on the off chance that Peter wasn’t totally mad, I was troubled by what demons might do to an agnostic Jew who married a Christian, fathered two half-blood children and was travelling around a Muslim country. Still, as soon as I heard the word “demons,” I knew Peter would be of little help with my most pressing worry…Linda’s worsening illness. I didn’t recall any mention in Sepilok’s orientation briefing of there being an exorcist on staff, and Peter was so visibly shaken that he was having trouble speaking.
“Take care of yourself,” I said patting him gently on the back as I turned toward the bar to grab the ginger ale.
Linda stayed in bed the entire next day, getting up only for bathroom trips and brief stints sitting on the veranda to gaze at the jungle and rushing river. She was upset about missing our hikes, but her health continued to deteriorate. The morning of our fourth and final day, Linda mustered just enough strength to climb aboard the van that would take us back to town. She was in and out of consciousness for most of the drive, waking only to request stops to fertilize the roadside plants. At one point, eyes still closed, she held my hand and passed instructions to me in case she died.
“Make sure to bring my body home with you,” she whispered. I squeezed her hand and kissed her clammy forehead. She rested her head on my shoulder and fell out of consciousness.
Talk of death on a remote dirt road in a developing country thousands of miles from home was less than calming. I would have preferred an attack on a public toilet by flying purple monkeys. Although just north of total panic, I held it together for the sake of the kids.
“Dad, is mom going to be okay?”
“What? Oh, sure. She’s fine. Just a little stomach ache. No biggie. Keep your eyes peeled for flying monkeys, kids!”
We drove straight to a doctor’s office next to the restaurant where Linda had smiled over her p*rk b*n. The office was hot and dingy and the dusty waiting area was filled with people in various states of discomfort. Some perked up as we sat down, pointing furtively at Linda’s slumping form and murmuring. She was the center of interest for over an hour until the doctor finally called us into his cramped examining room. He spoke English well and seemed qualified. He diagnosed severe dehydration and an advanced case of Gastroenteritis (infection of the intestine). It was a relief to have Linda’s ailment narrowed down from 28 to one, especially since Gastroenteritis did not require emergency helicopter evacuation. Even so, the doctor wanted Linda admitted to the local hospital for at least three days. Our trip to the secluded island of Lankyan in the Sulu Sea would have to be scrapped, and our “vacation from the vacation” in Hong Kong to celebrate our wedding anniversary would likely be out of the question. At that point though, getting my family home safely was all that mattered. Of course, Linda wasn’t having any of it. As we climbed back into the van, she was adamant.
“There’s no way I’m staying in that hospital for even one night.” I knew the tone.
The van driver pulled to a stop in front of the large, white hospital, and our clan piled out. I blinked as I helped Linda through the hospital doors, not so much to adjust from what had been bright sunlight outside, but more to make sure I was seeing clearly. The hospital was beautiful. Clean lobby. Crisp white sheets. Nurses moving efficiently around modern equipment. I faked a yawn to hide the reason for my tears.
A smiling male nurse hooked Linda up to an intravenous drip, took her pulse, gave her water, took a blood sample and started an antibiotic treatment. His English was flawless, and he was happy to have someone with whom to speak it.
“Cipro? Zithromax? What are you giving her?” I asked.
“Oh, no. They don’t use this antibiotic in your country anymore,” replied the nurse.
By then, I was resigned to let fate take its course and simply shrugged. Within an hour Linda was more animated. She practiced counting to ten in Malay with the kids, helped them blow medical gloves into balloons and attempted a few words with the security guard who popped by every ten minutes to gawk. In this relatively strict Muslim country, a woman clad in shorts rather than a hijab was a thing of interest.
Soon, Linda began to fidget. Within a few hours, she claimed to feel well enough to be discharged. I eyed her suspiciously, certain that she was faking it in order to get on with the trip. But sure enough, she was bright-eyed and rejuvenated. The nurse was tentative, but he too could hear the tone and ultimately agreed. He packed us up with packets of rehydration salts, tablets for nausea, pills to complete the antibiotic treatment and a friendly goodbye.
And, although I would have emptied our bank account to save Linda, the final bill at the hospital was, get this, the equivalent of 15 U.S. dollars. At first, I was certain I had miscalculated the exchange rate, so I pressed the cashier. “Are you sure that’s right? How can that be?” I took out my calculator to double then triple check my calculations. Sure enough, 15 dollars. I leaned across the counter to kiss her, but thought better of it and offered a simple thank you instead. “Terima kasih,” I said as I watched Linda step out into the humid sunshine, kids bouncing alongside her, each holding a hand. I beamed.
A few weeks later, safe at home in California we reminisced about the crystal blue waters of Lankyan Island and the modern wonder of a city that is Hong Kong. Amazingly, we made it to both. Linda, of course, had not allowed any change of plans on her behalf. I gazed at my wife from across the dinner table. She had a redwood twig stuck in her hair, having marched the family through a forest near our house earlier in the day. There was an oak leaf stuck to her faded denim overalls, evidence that she had blown the neighborhood free of leaves before cooking our pork-free meal that night. Jacob and Amaya shoveled in five or six mouthfuls of organic vegetables before Linda took her first bite. She chewed slowly, gazed off for a moment then swallowed. Her eyes were lively. Her face had filled in and her fingers, adorned with nothing but a plain wedding band, were no longer as bony as they had been.
“You know, I haven’t seen the inside of a public restroom since Borneo,” she said, taking another bite. Jacob and Amaya looked disappointed. There would be little talk of poo for a while, and there would be no parasites to fish out of any toilets.
“Bet those mystery pills from the hospital cast out whatever demons you had,” I said smiling.
Linda stared at her plate for a moment then smiled back at me. “I’m thinking Nicaragua next year.And, although I would have emptied our bank account to save Linda, the final bill at the hospital was, get this, the equivalent of 15 U.S. dollars. At first, I was certain I had miscalculated the exchange rate, so I pressed the cashier. “Are you sure that’s right? How can that be?” I took out my calculator to double then triple check my calculations. Sure enough, 15 dollars. I leaned across the counter to kiss her, but thought better of it and offered a simple thank you instead. “Terima kasih,” I said as I watched Linda step out into the humid sunshine, kids bouncing alongside her, each holding a hand. I beamed.
A few weeks later, safe at home in California we reminisced about the crystal blue waters of Lankyan Island and the modern wonder of a city that is Hong Kong. Amazingly, we made it to both. Linda, of course, had not allowed any change of plans on her behalf. I gazed at my wife from across the dinner table. She had a redwood twig stuck in her hair, having marched the family through a forest near our house earlier in the day. There was an oak leaf stuck to her faded denim overalls, evidence that she had blown the neighborhood free of leaves before cooking our pork-free meal that night. Jacob and Amaya shoveled in five or six mouthfuls of organic vegetables before Linda took her first bite. She chewed slowly, gazed off for a moment ”
THE END
Traveler’s Tip: It is estimated that 40 to 60 percent of visitors to foreign countries have at least one bout of traveler’s diarrhea on their trip. A treatment of Imodium (generic: loperamide) and the antibiotic, Cipro (generic: ciprofloxacin) is generally recommended, but I knew from our Borneo experience that there were better options. When, in rural Nicaragua, Linda had a bout of TD that seemed headed in the direction of what had happened in Borneo, I searched online for alternative treatments. Turns out that a single, 500mg dose of Zithromax (generic: azithromycin) will often cure TD within 24 hours. Luckily I always travel with Azithromycin given my propensity for bronchial infections. (We’re quite a pair, I know.) Sure enough, less than 24 hours after taking the pill, Linda was cured.
We generally don’t worry about stocking up on prescription medicines before we leave home. Many countries, especially developing ones, let you buy anything you might need over-the-counter. And, the prices are much lower than in developed countries. Assuming the pills aren’t counterfeit, and in some countries it is estimated that up to 50% of the medicines are fake, you’ll be all set. We always carry azithromycin, loperamide and rehydration salts for treating TD.
Finally, brand name medicines in the U.S. generally don’t carry the same name in other countries. Make sure you know the generic name of any medication you might need. Even better is to use the web to research the various brand names and generic name spellings that are unique to your destination country. Write them down and take the cheat sheet with you. Trying to pronounce, say, pseudoephedrine, with a Brazilian Portuguese accent is difficult to say the least. Heck, I can’t even pronounce it in English.
David Dennis is a philanthropic photographer, co-founder of Ventana Surfboards & Supplies and a Director of Product Management at Microsoft. He lives on the Westside of Santa Cruz with his wife and two kids.
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