On my first evening in Sibu (out of two evenings I spent there) I decided to go for a dinner to a local place. One important remark at this point is that I haven’t seen many tourists there. Apart from a group which came with the same boat I took from Kuching; when I was going around in the afternoon I haven’t seen a single tourist. Maybe that’s because the place is not touristy at all...
There’s almost nothing to see, the river is muddy, has a yellowish color, people stop here for an hour or two on the way to Kapit but no one really comes here. Well, I decided to spend day and a half there. To get some rest, sleep off, and recover from the slight but quite inconvenient sunstroke (that I got after a long hike in the Bako National Park - this story will be featured in another post ;)
It was about 8 pm, I was walking down a street along the river looking for a restaurant. I saw one, there were plenty of local people there, one white face sitting there alone stood out. No free tables. I stopped for a moment, thought I should maybe join the ‘tourist’ (as I thought) but then again I thought it might look like I was hitting on him, so I decided to continue. There were no nice looking restaurants though (by nice looking, I mean street food, guests actually eating not only sitting there ;) etc.) and so I went back, asked him if the food was good, he said yes and asked if I wanted to join him. Perfect! I’ve noticed that he had a slight eastern accent, it wasn’t Russian though.
- Where are you from?
- From here.
- From here? How come?
- Well, after 12 years I think I can say I’m from here. I work here in a coal mine in the jungle.
He was tall, athletic, had an interesting face – well, he was handsome, but that’s not the point. It was a face of a man who has already been through a lot, who knows life, has seen things. I can’t really explain it but I admit – I was somewhat captivated. “A miner. Cool. I don’t know any miners. Will be an interesting talk. Simple I assume, but I bet interesting” – I thought. As the conversation developed I couldn’t help but notice that he was intelligent and very well read, he must have been educated, he knew a lot about history, philosophy, science. And in fact it turned out he wasn’t working as a miner, but was a geologist. When later on he gave me his card I fully understood my mistake. He had a doctor’s degree. And so, in the middle of nowhere in Borneo at a small Chinese street restaurant two doctors were sitting there discussing the problems of the modern world over a beer ;) Surreal.
Meeting him was my personal gold mine (to stick to the geological terms ;) of knowledge. Not only he gave me useful tips and information on Borneo, but also shared some rather amazing stories about the mines, explorations. And that from many different countries, as he’s been working also in Africa, many different Asian and European countries, as well as in the Middle East. It was a bit like meeting a character from an adventure movie (Indiana Jones style ;) In addition, he was writing, had his own philosophy of life and was happy living in the remote jungle without modern means of communication with the outside world nor civilization. I could see he loved nature.
Originally he was coming from one of Slavic countries neighboring Poland, so the language of our conversation was a mix of our mother tongues and English. We talked about pretty much everything – from politics, ecology (wild deforestation of Borneo and its impact), through culture, food, history, religions to music. About life. Well, we’ve been talking for long hours and I was soaking up every word, listening carefully to everything he said; it was so refreshing, I have never met someone with such an approach to life. And it’s not a matter of if I agree with his views (which I actually do), but the new perspective he gave me. He was like from another world and it was a truly eyes-opening experience. I don’t want it to sound too serious though nor to make you think the meeting was like a school lesson. Au contraire, we had a good dinner (me struggling with chopsticks again ;) and a few beers, he had a great sense of humor and it was really fun to hang out with him.
- It’s a shame we go in so different directions.
- I know. – I nodded.
This unexpected meeting brought me to the conclusion that there are some really amazing people out there. I feel lucky to have met a few of them.
Did I mention that I wrote a book actually? Well, I did. On travels. And in every chapter I write about another person I met on the way. He will definitely have a firm place in the sequel to my travel novel.
There’s almost nothing to see, the river is muddy, has a yellowish color, people stop here for an hour or two on the way to Kapit but no one really comes here. Well, I decided to spend day and a half there. To get some rest, sleep off, and recover from the slight but quite inconvenient sunstroke (that I got after a long hike in the Bako National Park - this story will be featured in another post ;)
It was about 8 pm, I was walking down a street along the river looking for a restaurant. I saw one, there were plenty of local people there, one white face sitting there alone stood out. No free tables. I stopped for a moment, thought I should maybe join the ‘tourist’ (as I thought) but then again I thought it might look like I was hitting on him, so I decided to continue. There were no nice looking restaurants though (by nice looking, I mean street food, guests actually eating not only sitting there ;) etc.) and so I went back, asked him if the food was good, he said yes and asked if I wanted to join him. Perfect! I’ve noticed that he had a slight eastern accent, it wasn’t Russian though.
- Where are you from?
- From here.
- From here? How come?
- Well, after 12 years I think I can say I’m from here. I work here in a coal mine in the jungle.
He was tall, athletic, had an interesting face – well, he was handsome, but that’s not the point. It was a face of a man who has already been through a lot, who knows life, has seen things. I can’t really explain it but I admit – I was somewhat captivated. “A miner. Cool. I don’t know any miners. Will be an interesting talk. Simple I assume, but I bet interesting” – I thought. As the conversation developed I couldn’t help but notice that he was intelligent and very well read, he must have been educated, he knew a lot about history, philosophy, science. And in fact it turned out he wasn’t working as a miner, but was a geologist. When later on he gave me his card I fully understood my mistake. He had a doctor’s degree. And so, in the middle of nowhere in Borneo at a small Chinese street restaurant two doctors were sitting there discussing the problems of the modern world over a beer ;) Surreal.
Meeting him was my personal gold mine (to stick to the geological terms ;) of knowledge. Not only he gave me useful tips and information on Borneo, but also shared some rather amazing stories about the mines, explorations. And that from many different countries, as he’s been working also in Africa, many different Asian and European countries, as well as in the Middle East. It was a bit like meeting a character from an adventure movie (Indiana Jones style ;) In addition, he was writing, had his own philosophy of life and was happy living in the remote jungle without modern means of communication with the outside world nor civilization. I could see he loved nature.
Originally he was coming from one of Slavic countries neighboring Poland, so the language of our conversation was a mix of our mother tongues and English. We talked about pretty much everything – from politics, ecology (wild deforestation of Borneo and its impact), through culture, food, history, religions to music. About life. Well, we’ve been talking for long hours and I was soaking up every word, listening carefully to everything he said; it was so refreshing, I have never met someone with such an approach to life. And it’s not a matter of if I agree with his views (which I actually do), but the new perspective he gave me. He was like from another world and it was a truly eyes-opening experience. I don’t want it to sound too serious though nor to make you think the meeting was like a school lesson. Au contraire, we had a good dinner (me struggling with chopsticks again ;) and a few beers, he had a great sense of humor and it was really fun to hang out with him.
- It’s a shame we go in so different directions.
- I know. – I nodded.
This unexpected meeting brought me to the conclusion that there are some really amazing people out there. I feel lucky to have met a few of them.
Did I mention that I wrote a book actually? Well, I did. On travels. And in every chapter I write about another person I met on the way. He will definitely have a firm place in the sequel to my travel novel.
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