Borneo Equator Expedition 09 – It’s a GO!!!!!!!!! – The First in a Series

Shannon Bushman | November 9, 2009 | 1 Comment

I’ve had my share of international travel. Corporate America can shove plenty of that down your throat. My non-work tourist adventures have let me spend several weeks each in Japan, France, Australia, Hong Kong, Thailand, New Zealand and Germany and a few sit on the beach trips to Hawaii and Mexico. All were great, but frankly they were pretty typical American tourist vacations. Plane, train, hotel, tour bus, rental car types of trips punctuated by way too many shrines and temples in Asia and the European counterpart of cathedrals and castles with view point hopping and trinket shopping separated by consternation over where to eat (when you can’t read a menu its fun) and where to get a decent cup of coffee.

So I sort of stopped. I haven’t been in a while and recently discovered my passport was expired. That was fine, my wanderlust has a domestic focus these days. Not that I didn’t love those trips and there are lots of temples and cathedrals I haven’t seen yet but something was missing. The thing that was missing was the sense of real adventure. The major tourist travel areas we all seem to gravitate towards are all starting to feel similar to me. I guess reminiscing over how I loved the roasted rabbit with juniper berry glaze I had in that really cool B&B on Lake Constance just isn’t cutting it for me anymore.

Maybe that’s why I always come home and head for the desert and thrash myself down some nasty dirty track like some sort of neveua self flagellating petroleum worshiping monk.

I’ve been plotting a 250 mile trip from the Paiute Trail in Marysvale, Utah to Moab. I thought that might be an adventure. That is until I see this article on UTVweekly.com. It’s about an off-road adventure in Borneo. “What?”, says I donning my long brown robe. Its 1500km across the equator, through the jungle from one coast to the other. “Really?”, tightening my sash and reaching for my helmet. I guess we wouldn’t be dining at McDonalds or hitting Starbucks. Suddenly I feel an all too familiar itch. The same one I get when I haven’t been to Moab in a while. Clearly this requires some investigation and the chanting begins. After a few phone calls to my friends and family where I float this idea to an audience which generally responds the same way you’d expect if I’d told them I’m joining a cult and moving to Liberia to heal the lepers, I know I’m on the right track.

I’ll admit like most Americans my geography skills are a bit limited and while I know about Borneo, I’ve seen Orangutans in National Geographic, its exact location was a bit fuzzy. I mean I know it’s over there sort of by Thailand but I am plenty ignorant of the details. Google to the rescue. I learned a lot. Like drug traffickers get the death penalty. Note to self. Make certain nobody gets near my luggage. Its 13 hours ahead of EST so if I call home at noon then it will be 1 am yesterday but that’s okay because they’ll have a day to rest up before they catch up to me, right? Not that it matters, I don’t think we’ll see many phones.

But, but, but…. there are plenty of buts to be addressed here. But my RZR-S is pretty much stock. But it’s going to be during monsoon season so its bound to be a mud fest. But what if I break a belt or two? But what if the tranny cracks? But what if flesh eating natives boil me in a pot? But… what the hell you only live once right?

There are some Butts I’m more concerned about. Mine in particular. I’ve never spent 10 hours a day in my RZR for 15 days. I wonder if my butt can take it. I dwell on things like that cool Monkey Butt Powder and wonder if it will help, probably not as much as a better seat right? How much food do you take to keep your butt from starving? I always take too much. It’s not like my butt needs to be any bigger. Are there any jungle diseases that can kill your butt? What if you get a hangnail and land in a crappy hospital and they suck and they kill your butt? How many pairs of shoes do you take to keep your butt from walking around barefoot?

But seriously, I do have some concerns about the stock RZR-S surviving this trip. Generally I don’t get too concerned about major failures here at home. It might take some effort and time to drag my rig back to civilization but it’s doable. In Borneo? I don’t know. If it throws a rod do we just bury it there? A little stick cross marking a deep mud hole? “Here lies my RZR-S, thought she’d make it, bad guess”. Is it worth dragging upwards of 500 miles through the jungle so we can put it back in a container and ship it on a slow boat to get it home? If we have to leave it for a few days will the natives turn it into a shrine and refuse to let me have her back? Hell maybe it’s tougher than I think and should just take it like it is, no mods, no fuss no muss. I call my buddy Dave and try to convince him to join me in my insanity. Nothing doing, his clutch is bad and this is worn and lalalala he wouldn’t do this sort of trip without a brand new rig. Hmm, I wonder what Mr. Polaris would think. I don’t know Mr. Polaris, but I do know Rick Wallace aka “Wally” at SideXSide Outfitterz. Wally is Mr. Adventure. He regularly takes 500 hundred mile trips to places like the Grand Canyon. He builds custom UTV’s just for this kind of expedition riding. I wonder if he’s ever done a jungle. I leave a message on his machine, “Hey Wally I’m taking the RZR to Borneo for a 1500 kilometers thrashing through the jungle. Do you think it will make it?”. He calls back but unlike my mother who’s incredulous shrill amounted to “What? Where? Why?”, Wally was grinning, I could tell. There’s nothing he’d love better than to hear all about how we almost didn’t get back alive.

Game on……………………..

Stay tuned for the next Episode.

For more info you can check out the Indonesian Off-road Federations website www.nusantarachallenge.com

They refer to this as BEE 2009 in shorthand.

Bookmark the adventure: https://utvweekly.com/index.php/category/utv-weekly-exclusive/