After 36+ hours of transit (including 14 hours in the Singapore’s lovely Changi Airport), I’m back in Squamish, BC and re-immersing myself in “traditional” education (not that Quest University is all that traditional). It’s hard to believe we were in Borneo for two months; that time seems like a sort of wormhole in my day-to-day [...]

For these last ten days of our expedition, we got on a boat and headed to paradise.  Literally.  The white sandy beaches, swaying palm trees and the warm turquoise waters of Maratua Island were much too picturesque to seem real.  As part of our stay here, we went in two groups to spend a night [...]

There is a page in Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” where the Onceler’s axe is depicted chopping down the last Truffula Tree. The scale of deforestation is immediately obvious – the background is a ghost forest of stumps, quietly bearing witness to the Onceler’s greed. I was reminded of this childhood classic when just days ago [...]

The last thing I expected to find riding in a three person dug out canoe up the Mahakam River was a sense of home.  But strangely enough, the first thing I thought of watching these small houseboat river communities go by was how much they reminded me of being back in Seattle in my [...]

After nearly a month here in Borneo, we’ve finally experienced what could easily be called the focal point of our trip: the untouched primary rainforest the world is so interested in saving. We spend the last week in the East Kutai region of East Kalimantan, first staying in the indigenous Dayak Wehea Village, then at [...]